My goal is to share encouraging, uplifting and inspirational thought-generating media to help you walk along the path of destiny that God has for your life.
With that said, I want to take a moment and introduce myself – to let you know a bit about my journey and how I’ve come to this point.
To do that, I’ve split this “About Us” page into two sections:
In sharing this with you, I’m hoping it will give you some insight into some of the different experiences that have shaped my point of view and how I share them with you.
My Story
I grew up in a Christian home, and came to know the Lord at a very young age.
And this isn’t surprising as both sides of my family featured people who took their faith very seriously.
From planting Churches, pastoring, marriage counseling and writing Christian books, I saw the Christian faith modeled for me throughout my life.
We lived on acreage that’s about 20 minutes outside of the city of Mission, which is about 1 hour from Vancouver, BC in Canada. (Mission was was always looked down on by the surrounding cities as being a little town off in the backwoods.)
Growing up, I loved to read. I would devour books. And I read my Bible a lot. I think it really helped develop a foundation for my relationship with the Lord.
Because I could read so well, I ended up skipping Grade 2.
I went from being the oldest in my class to the youngest.
And in a lot of ways, I felt like I was behind and trying to catch up from that moment on.
Looking back, I’d have to say that I had to work hard at most things.
I wasn’t the smartest in my classes (especially having skipped a grade), but I managed to be near the top of my class through hard work and a general unwillingness to quit.
I think this determination showed up pretty early in my life.
One example was when I started playing hockey at age 8. The problem was, I’d never really skated before.
Now, if you start playing hockey at 8 in Canada, you’re waaay behind the curve. A lot of kids are already on skates by age 2 or 3.
I remember going to a week long skill development camp.
Everyone else knew what they were doing. But I took so long to do the drills, that they’d all be done and standing there watching me struggle to finish.
The only sound in the arena was the clumsy chatter of my skate blades and the clacking of my stick as it flopped back and forth on the ice as I tried to keep from falling.
My feet were raw and blistered by the end of that first day.
My dad felt sick. It was going so badly for me that he said I could quit if I wanted to.
But I stuck with it.
My first year playing, I was by far the worst on my team.
In my second year I was probably better than half the others.
By my third year I was good enough to try out and make a select team for my age group. Even though it was just in little old Mission. But hey, still counts.
Later on, from about 17 to 22 years old, I started powerlifting.
This meant I was trying to lift as heavy as I could for 3 lifts: the squat, bench press, and deadlift.
When I started, I couldn’t come close to lifting the weights my peers could.
But again, I stuck with it.
I would lift 3-4 times per week and by age 22 I hit max lifts of:
- Bench Press – 400 pounds x 1 rep
- Deadlift – 500 pounds x 15 reps
- Squat – 600 pounds x 3 reps
A couple of months before hitting my max lift for squats, I hurt my back.
I remember feeling a sharp pain in my lower back about 1.5″ off the right hand side of my spine as I started lifting the weight out of the bottom of a squat.
After that if my back moved a certain way, it sent a shooting pain like fiery electricity from my back down my leg, before ending just behind my right knee.
Oh, and when this happened, my back and legs would just give out.
But who knew working a 10 hour day in construction and then coming home to do heavy squats could end badly?
So after I made my max lifts, I decided to stop lifting that heavy so I wouldn’t get seriously hurt.
But this idea of having to work and struggle to overcome has been a reoccurring pattern in my life.
I’ve often found myself thrown into the deep end, where I’ve had little or no experience in something.
In a lot of cases, I’ve been left to figure it out and work like crazy to try and keep afloat.
This process of being stretched hasn’t been pretty, but the Lord’s been faithful through it all.
And when I look back over the process, it hasn’t been characterized by me doing anything perfectly.
It’s been more about my determination not to quit.
I’ve come to see how these experiences have come to shape my view of things.
It’s funny to see how things like being determined can be both a strength and a weakness, depending on the situation.
In some cases, I’ve seen how thinking that I need to work like crazy, can actually be a hindrance when it comes to the things of God.
Now, maybe you’re thinking that hard work and self-discipline would pay dividends when it comes to spiritual things.
And that would make sense wouldn’t it?
And in some cases, I’d say that it has.
But most of the time, I’ve seen the Lord move more in my weaknesses – and by His grace – rather than in my strength and determination.
In those cases, I’ve seen Him move only after I’ve loosened my grip and given Him control.
And the trick has been figuring out whether the right move is to take hold with a death grip or let the Lord handle it.
From about 17 to 25 – outside of lifting weights and playing Premier League mens hockey – I was also involved in different aspects of Church ministry. And I gained a lot of ministry experience in the process.
I was a leader and helped run the prayer team for a young adults ministry in my Church, ran a couple Bible studies, and helped disciple a few guys.
It was during this time that God miraculously healed my back.
Every morning I woke up after having my injury, my back was seized up and it hurt like crazy.
I remember that I had to sit on the side of the bed and bend straight over to put my socks on. I couldn’t move to the right side. And if I tried to put my socks on standing up, my back would give out and I’d end up on the floor.
I remember saying, “God, I’m only 22. It’s too early to have a bad back.”
A few months later, my Church had a weekend conference that I went to.
During one of the sessions, the pastor said, “I think God’s healing someone’s back.”
At the time, I didn’t feel ANYTHING different. Nothing at all.
But when he said that, it was like a light bulb went on in my head. And in that moment of clarity, the thought came to mind, “My back.”
Ever since he gave that word of knowledge, I’ve never had that back pain.
Needless to say, that got my attention.
I pressed into my relationship with God even more.
I remember attending a Christian music concert and praying silently, “Lord, I want to be involved where You’re moving.”
Not long after that, I had the chance to enroll in a 6 month evangelistic school.
I jumped at the chance, attending the school and going on a missions trip to Mexico where they held some evangelistic crusades.
When my six months ended, I volunteered to help students the following year. I discipled a few guys and helped lead a team that went on another missions trip to Mexico.
During this time, I wrote my first book called, “The Destiny of an Overcomer”. I was 25. It took me about 6 months to write and another 6 months to have it edited, printed and in my hands.
I’d spend HOURS writing every day.
It was an incredible amount of work.
But I experienced some amazing things through it all.
There were times when I’d sit down, turn my brain off, and just write.
At times, I wasn’t consciously thinking about anything. I’d just write whatever popped into my head.
And it blew me away.
I found myself writing stuff that I’d NEVER thought of before.
In some cases, it was so new to me that I had to grab my Bible to see if what I’d written was correct.
After all, nobody wants to write heresy.
But you know what? I found that it was correct!
So in the middle of grinding it out, writing page after page, there were some moments where I felt the Lord might really be working through me.
I was sure that this was going to be my launching point into full-time Christian ministry.
Up until now, the trajectory of my life had been pointing straight up and I was sure that this was it.
I remember thinking that how well the book sold would show me whether I should keep pursuing ministry or if I should do something else.
And you know what happened? Not a lot.
Now, realistically as a 25 year old first time author, the odds are stacked against you.
But as far as I was concerned if God was in it, the fact that I was young and a new author would make no difference.
I mean, there are certainly a lot of verses like Jeremiah 32:27 in the Bible that say nothing is too hard for God.
But as far as the book went, I sold some.
Probably enough to cover the costs of printing it. But it certainly wasn’t the grand unveiling I’d hoped for.
Now, the Lord did use the book.
I had a number of people say that what I’d written had made a difference in their lives.
And that is valuable. It really is.
But for me, the outcome wasn’t what I was hoping and praying for.
So where did I go from there?
Well, to be honest I felt pretty hurt by it all.
I felt that I’d stepped out in what God had asked me to do, worked hard, did all I knew to do… but that ultimately I’d been abandoned.
He didn’t show up when and how I thought He would. And I was left to pick up the pieces and try to figure out what I should do next.
I had to move on with my life.
I ended up going back to work at the same hockey store where I got my first job when I was 16.
My boss was great. He was great to work for and as generous as he could be. And given the circumstance, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.
But it was difficult for me. I felt that rather than going forward and moving on in life, I was falling further behind.
Rather than being propelled into ministry, I was shuffled off into a corner.
And while I was going through this, everyone seemed to be moving on and achieving their dreams.
Whether it was starting a business that was succeeding or getting into full-time ministry with incredible stories of how God promoted them and put everything together… everyone else seemed to be moving forward.
And I was moving backwards.
The door had closed with a certain degree of finality, and I was stuck.
I had to try and figure things as best I could and move forward.
But no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, nothing worked out.
During this time I worked for a couple different bosses and I saw the Lord bless them in amazing financial ways.
But anything I tried to do on my own seemed to just crumble.
I couldn’t understand it.
I felt like the Lord had decidedly closed the door to ministry, new opportunities weren’t opening for me, and everything I tried to do as far as starting a side business fell apart.
Didn’t matter what I did. That was it.
I has to sit and watch as other people experienced the success of their hard work.
And it was really tough to deal with.
I was hurt and angry with God.
I remember sitting in Church just livid.
The pastor hadn’t even had a chance to speak yet and I was already mad.
I didn’t want to hear about how good God was. Or how He loves us and has a plan for each of us.
I didn’t want to hear how all things work together for good for those who love God. (Romans 8:28)
It felt like every time I heard those things it just re-opened a wound.
I couldn’t understand how those things could be true and yet my experience was so different.
And there I sat.
For YEARS.
Now, all that being said, the Lord was good to me in the middle of this.
I met and married my incredible wife. We both got good jobs. The Lord even helped us find a beat up old house that we could buy and fix up.
So there were a lot of good things that happened during that time.
And He would still speak to me through the Bible.
Well, when I felt like reading it. Which wasn’t terribly often.
It was hard to keep Him as a priority in my life.
Life was busy, and there were so many other things that would come up.
Between work, family, or fixing up our house (which was four hours away from where we were living), there was always something that needed to be done.
I justified this in my mind by thinking that if I wasn’t called to ministry (which seemed painfully obvious)… was there really that big a need for me to put a lot of time and effort into my relationship with God?
Shouldn’t I focus my efforts on work or something else to try and make a future for my wife and I?
I would second guess the choices I’d made constantly.
I’d wish that rather than having chased after God and ministry or writing a book, that I should’ve just focused on my career or finishing my degree.
That I should have put my efforts towards something that would’ve helped me more in the situation I found myself in.
So with time, that became a part of life that I slowly closed the door to.
And every time the Lord might drop the thought of ministry or writing in my head, I’d pull away.
Because it was too much to revisit. It was too much to try and open the door to all of that hurt and disappointment again.
And time went by.
Until the Lord began to change things.
When the change started, it found me in the middle of renovating the house we bought while working full-time.
The house needed everything to be replaced. Roof, windows, doors, bathrooms, plumbing, drywall – you name it and we had to do it.
After we bought the place, my brother spoke to a realtor who said they thought the place would just be torn down because of its terrible state.
As I mentioned earlier, the house was 4 hours from where we were living.
This meant that every Friday after work, we would have to load up the truck and drive up there so we could work on it for the weekend.
We’d end up driving 8 hours just to do 8-12 hours of work.
And my wife and I were doing all of the work ourselves.
So I’d have to figure out how to do the project, source and buy materials, drive them up to the house and then try to install them.
I had some basic construction experience, but most of that experience involved moving heavy things because of how big I was from lifting weights.
My “construction experience” mostly consisted of the job site’s foreman trying to put me in my place.
He wanted to see if I really was strong, or if I was just all show.
So when a cement slab had to be lifted, I’d be on one side while two other guys were on the other side.
Or when we were moving wheelbarrows of cement, they’d fill everyone else’s half full but would load mine up until it overflowed.
I still remember feeling the wooden handles flex until I thought they would break every time I lifted the wheelbarrow.
But I’d just put it in low gear and get after it until the job was done.
So, while I can say I had “construction experience” it didn’t amount to much beyond using brute strength.
The house renovation was another situation where I was thrown into the deep end.
But I kept going.
At this point, we were about 3.5 years into the renovation.
About 1.5 years before that, my boss bought another business and my workload increased exponentially as a result.
But rather than quit, I felt like I should stick with it.
I didn’t want to let anyone down. I wanted the company to succeed and do well. And I always worked and made decisions as if it was my own company.
So I’d offer suggestions and advice to help improve things, support my co-workers by doing what I could to make their jobs easier, and I continued to take on additional responsibilities and work when things weren’t getting done.
At one point, when a key employee was about to quit, I started an early shift so he would stay with the company. This resulted in me getting up around 4am every morning to go to work.
With all the life experience I had up until this point, I had the outlook that if I just worked a little harder for a little longer, things would turn around.
But I was burnt out and my stress level was off the charts.
I had gone to see my doctor and when he took my blood pressure the look on his face said, “What in the world is going on?”
I had a resting heart rate of almost 160 when he checked it. It’d been a lot higher before, as I’d been even more worked up. I remember one day I had constricting pain run across the front of my chest and I felt like I was going to stop breathing for a moment.
My doctor thought my high blood pressure was related to anxiety from being in a doctor’s office.
I told him this was the calmest I’d felt in months.
My stomach was in knots and I had weird stabbing pains in my side.
If it wasn’t for God’s grace things would’ve ended badly.
Try as I might, I couldn’t push through it like I had before.
Not this time.
I was at the end of myself. And I was out of options in terms of trying to make things better.
I needed God’s help.
Not long after that, I was let go from my job.
Unfortunately, I didn’t leave my job on the best of terms. I certainly had my part to play in all of it, and I was not above reproach.
So in leaving I apologized for my part, and thanked my boss for the opportunity. I didn’t try to justify myself in the end. I felt I’d rather leave with an apology and thank him for giving me a chance.
And after having been with that company for about 7 years, that was the end of that chapter.
But as crazy as it sounds, I felt like this was the Lord’s intervention.
I had time to recover.
Immediately, the stress of what I’d gone through began to melt off and I could relax a bit.
And the Lord started to work on me.
He started changing how I thought and began showing me things in my life that needed correcting.
He also gave me a lot more clarity on everything I’d gone through.
About 1 week after, I got a phone call from a company I had worked with at my old job.
When the owner heard I wasn’t there anymore, he called and asked for my resume, and we said we’d touch base a couple weeks later.
I figured I had two weeks before I’d be back working again.
So with that being the case, I had two weeks to do whatever I wanted.
And that’s when I had the thought that I should write.
So I decided to use this time as an opportunity to write another book.
But this time, my focus was different.
It wasn’t about book sales, becoming successful, or anything like that.
The Lord got me writing again with a simple thought: that it might help someone. (See the section below.)
So I started writing about some of the things that He’d been showing me.
And this was when I wrote, “This Is Why Your Christianity Doesn’t Work Today.”
During this time, God miraculously healed me two more times.
The first time, He healed what felt to be a stabbing pain in my upper stomach on the right hand side. It wasn’t a constant pain, but would come and go depending on how I moved.
I was sitting on my computer listening to some worship music, praising Him.
All of a sudden, my whole core went into a slow, deliberate, and hard contraction. It was like if you did a sit up and contracted your abs at the top of it, except the contraction went out to the far sides of both obliques.
I remember thinking that this was going to make that stabbing pain worse. But as I moved around a little, the pain seemed like it was gone.
And I haven’t felt that pain since.
About a week after that, I was listening to some preaching on my computer.
The message had just started and for some reason, I wasn’t feeling it. The mannerisms of the lady giving the message just didn’t do it for me.
I was about to find something else when I had the sudden thought that I should chill out and keep listening. After all, what she was saying was good… so what did it matter whether or not I liked her mannerisms?
She started talking about how people can sometimes feel electricity or warmth when God’s healing them. As she was saying that, I had the thought that maybe my side was feeling a bit warmer.
Now, a few years earlier, I’d gotten a little too excited about doing sit ups and ended up doing way too many.
And in the process, I think I put a slight tear in part of the abdominal wall or connecting tissue on my right hand side.
Again, this wasn’t a constant pain, but if I tried to do anything in a sit-up type motion (like sitting up in bed) it would light me up pretty good. (I’m sure lifting heavy things during the house renovation didn’t help the situation either.)
But when this lady was speaking, I thought there might be the slightest bit of warmth there.
But I couldn’t be sure, so I kept checking.
Either way, it was nothing definite.
But over the next week or so, the pain gradually went away. And I haven’t had that pain since then.
In looking back over the 3 times God has healed me, I think it was pretty unique that each time He did nobody ever prayed and laid hands on me (Mark 16:17-18). He just did it on His own.
And in each case, I was at fault for the injury. I couldn’t blame anyone other than myself for the pain I had.
But even though I deserved the injuries and pain, God healed me in His grace.
He stepped in and did something that I could never do on my own, no matter how hard I worked or what I did.
He did something that I didn’t deserve.
I think my experience of being healed is similar to how He offers us Salvation. I feel that He extends His grace to us by offering us something we could never do or achieve on our own.
And, well, that brings us up to my waiting for the first edit of, “This Is Why Your Christianity Doesn’t Work Today.”
More to follow.
So You’re Saying There’s a Chance?
I’m sure it isn’t typical but what made me start writing again came through a strange way that I felt the Lord spoke to me.
At the time, I found myself with time on my hands so I was praying and reading my Bible a bit.
Then, all of a sudden I had a phrase pop into my head.
It was a line similar to one from the Jim Carrey movie, “Dumb and Dumber.”
Yeah, probably not the typical way that most Christians feel like God spoke to them. It certainly isn’t the super spiritual, deeply religious experience others have had.
But, hey, that’s just me 🙂
Anyways, the line that came to mind was: “So you’re saying there’s a chance.”
It was in reference to the line in the movie that said, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”
For any of you who don’t remember (or have never seen the movie) here’s the build up to the line in the movie as told by Jim Carrey’s character, Lloyd Christmas.
Lloyd: I like you Mary… I like you a lot.
I want to ask you a question.
Straight out, flat out and I want you to give me an honest answer.
What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me… ending up together?
Mary: Well, Lloyd that’s difficult to say. We really don’t…
Lloyd: Just hit me with it! Just give it to me straight!
I came a long way just to see you Mary. The least you can do is level with me.
What are my chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: You mean not good like… one out of one hundred?
Mary: I’d say more like one out of a million.
Lloyd: So you’re telling me there’s a chance!
Basically this guy was being told that the odds were completely stacked against him and that it was never going to work out.
And yet, somehow, what he got out of the conversation was that there was still a chance.
That’s what I felt like the Lord was saying to me in that moment.
I felt like He was acknowledging that I felt like there was no chance of anything succeeding if I started writing again.
But in that moment, I felt my focus shift from whether I would succeed or fail – to where I had the chance to try to help others.
That, yeah, my efforts might not amount to anything.
And, yeah, maybe I would make mistakes.
Or maybe nobody would care or listen.
But that in spite of all of those very real options – that there was STILL a chance that what I did might help someone else.
That even though the odds didn’t look great…. that there’s still the chance that what I do could help someone in some way.
So I felt it was worth it.
Because there’s a chance.
I know on my own, I can’t make a difference or help anyone.
And I know that I don’t have the skill, talent, or resources to do it.
But if there’s even the slightest chance that the Lord could take what I can offer and make a difference – then it’s worth it.
What if what I can offer is like the 2 fish and 5 loaves the boy offered that Jesus in John 6:9?
It was what [he] had to offer and he gave it – and Jesus used it to perform a miracle and feet over 5,000 people.
What if there’s still a chance?
So that’s why I started again.
And for me, it’s not about trying to get famous or build some big following or some huge ministry.
I just want to see the Lord move in people’s lives in a REAL and permanent way.
So that when people come in contact with Him, they’re forever changed.
Not changed for a second. Not some brief emotional experience.
But changed forever.
The kind of change where when the Lord moves on us, it shows up in how we act.
In how we live. In the things we do and say.
To where it changes us as individuals to such a degree that it positively affects our family and those around us.
To where people will be able to look back and see a definitive change from how we were before…. to how our lives were after we REALLY met with God.
Is that an impossible thing to ask to see?
Are the odds pretty low?
Sure.
But with God….with God I’ve got to stand here and say that there’s still a chance.
Lord, you know my heart. You know what part I can play. But regardless of the details, I want to see you move in our lives again.
I ask in Jesus name, that You begin to move on anyone listening or reading this. That you would begin to meet them right where they are now.
That you would show yourself REAL to them.
That you would begin to move in their life and draw them closer to you.
Amen.