My Foggy Morning, God's Glorious Dawn

Dear Prayer Team,

I awoke a couple of weeks ago to a day that was dark and dreary. I was sick and tired, and I didn't really feel like getting up. But I pressed on and got ready for work and my mood began to change a bit, and I could see that it wasn't going to be that bad of a day. I went out into the fog, got into my car and drove into the gray morning.

On my way to work I began to pray, as I often do, and found myself bringing my various requests to the Lord. There were many weighty subjects to bring before Him. In recent days I was fending off little negative thoughts in certain situations that we are going through, deciding to remember, instead, the incredible faithfulness that the Lord had demonstrated to us in the past.

As my car climbed the back roads into the hills to bypass the suburban traffic I realized that the fog was starting to thin and I began to see glimpses of the morning sun. By the time I got to the top of the hill the morning was in full bloom! The sun shone with some of the most beautiful golden light I had ever experienced and as I looked far, down the other side of the ridge, into the next valley I could see the fog as it clung in soft white billows to the still shadowed, wooded lowlands. I looked at the houses around me as I drove and saw the familiar sight of a wealthy gated community with its perfectly trimmed lawns and brilliantly colored flowers as they lined ornate brick walls. All of the dazzling colors of this world seemed to vie for my attention as I drank the warmth of this glorious morning into my soul. I wished I had my camera! I wanted to call my wife and tell her that she shouldn't get too worried about it being a dreary day because the fog would no doubt clear to reveal a beautiful, crisp fall day. I decided against calling her since she was, no doubt, getting the children ready for school, and busily preparing for another day of job hunting. She may have appreciated it, but it just wasn't the right time.

As I descended into the next valley and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving to God for his glorious creation, I felt the glow of what I had just witnessed keeping me company even as the fog began to envelop my car. I wondered why God had specifically pressed the beauty of his design into THIS page of my life. What was He showing me?

It was later that morning, as I reached out with my heart to encourage a friend who is going through some difficult situations, that I realized what God was showing me. I told this Christian friend that God was showing me that instead of getting too caught up in the individual problems and struggles of the situations that face us, it would be better to peacefully deal with the issues at hand without striving, and allow God the opportunity to show us His greater plan. Through faith we should hold onto His higher perspective. That's when it hit me. I told about what I had witnessed on that hill and that my faith that the fog would part was based on my very real experience of a vibrant dawn. That dawn was happening, in fact, at the very same time as the dreary one that I had awoken to. The only difference was perspective. I was glad I could share that with my friend, but really, the Lord had me preaching to myself!

God has shown himself to be faithful in his Word. It has also been very powerfully demonstrated to me many times in my own life. Gone are the days when I would wonder if God knew that I was still here, or if I was somehow unable to hear His guidance and direction. God has seen me through the fog many times and shown his perfect plan. It's now a given! But even with the comforting experiences that I hold dear, I periodically need a jolt from God to realize that my eyes have drifted and I am instead staring wide-eyed into self-doubt, discouragement, and unbelief.

Our perspective can be so limited by our five senses. Without God the best wisdom we can offer is a guess, based on our feeble logic and reasoning. But God sees the end from the beginning. He comforts us in our day-to-day lives, while keeping us on our course to completion. We cry about the rain and the fog of disappointment and he's there beside us with insight and understanding to lift our head. We leap like deer through the golden sunshine of personal victories and fulfilled promises and he leaps with us while he smiles knowingly.

"Child," he whispers, "save a little of that for the rain."

Banquet For The Battleground, WA PRC

Dear Prayer Team,

God is so very faithful and his provision is something that can be counted upon! We had a radio spot, three benefit concerts and a full concert on a Sunday morning this week. The amazing thing about it is, I don’t quite know how I was able to make it through all of it vocally. Physically, there’s no way that I should have been able to sing all of that, but God provided!!!! Don’t ya just LOVE IT when he does that?

Thursday night we sang at the Battleground Washington Pregnancy Resource Center’s (PRC) Banquet. We were privileged to hear the amazing testimony of a young woman who went against the pressure to terminate her pregnancy and with the loving support of the ladies of the PRC carried the baby to full term and allowed “the perfect couple” to adopt the baby.

After she spoke, the keynote speaker Pastor Hutcherson spoke. He is a former Dallas Cowboy and Seattle Seahawk who pastors a very large congregation in Washington state. 2005 was an amazing year for him, as he found himself meeting with Condoleezza Rice and President Bush at various times and organizing large rallies in various cities under a ministry called Mayday For Marriage which supports the sanctity of marriage. He has also labored to make the adoptive process less inhibitive for couples seeking children, “…so that they don’t have to take out a second mortgage to adopt a child!”

But as he tells of the amazing life he has led, he points back to the decision of his single mother to carry him to full term, and the support of his strong grandmother. “The amazing things that have happened to our ministry in 2005 would have no chance of happening unless my mother made that decision back then!”

Before we sang our last song of the evening “Over”, told the audience of volunteers and supporters, “Every day that you get up and do what you do, you are making a difference!”

Can you guess which song we sang? :-)

Chapel Time : Snake River Correctional Facility

Here we are at Tri-Cities Baptist in Ontario, Oregon

Dear Prayer Team,

Friday morning it started with a tickle. The kind of scratchy tickle that you feel in your throat that tends to make vocalists go into panic. I was up before dawn, getting ready, and racing off to catch our bus, "Ginger". We were going to Eastern Oregon and I absolutely NEEDED my voice to be there with me. The scratch began to feel like a tightness, but I'd be fine that evening. We had a really fun concert and as far as I could tell, my voice was feeling only minor effects. By the time I got to bed that night the tightness had become a big lump in my throat. When I woke up at 5:30 AM to get ready for the ordeal of packing up, driving 45 minutes to the prison, inventorying all of our equipment for security and dragging it all to the chapel for setup, the lump started to feel like a fist. Not good! Two concerts that day and one the next. That would be a tough schedule even on a day when I felt vocally healthy. I just put it out of my mind and gave it to God.

It wasn't hard to forget about it as we made our way into the chapel and met all of the smiling Christian inmates who were so happy to see us. They made sure that we had everything that we needed and they asked us many times if they could help in any way. We got all set up and started sound check. I carefully sang through a couple of songs.

"How are you feeling Brian?"

"Umm, not very good, 'Over', but I think I'll be able to figure out a way to sing the songs today."

"Well," said, Jason reassuringly, "just give everything you've got for this concert and we'll take the next one as it comes!"

The men filed in. The chaplain got up and began to lead praise and worship at the keyboard with a full band of inmates. They had a drummer, rhythm guitarist, a top-notch lead guitarist, a wailin' harmonica player, and another vocalist. It was 9:00 AM and the capacity crowd of 250 - 300 inmates was ready to worship! We sat in the front row (stood mostly) as the name of Jesus Christ was lifted up unapologetically. Every fiber of the inmate vocalist on stage was given to praise and worship. They sang songs of God's love, dedication to Him, His protection, and most enthusiastically about the freedom that they have found in Christ even while in prison. A native American Christian sitting near us began to dance to the Lord using banners. He told me that there were some who wanted him to stop acting so silly during worship, "But my dance IS worship, so the chaplain says I should do it unto God and not worry about those who laugh."

After about 30 minutes of worship it was our time to sing. My little vocal problems didn't seem nearly as important as the act of worship, and I knew that even if my voice didn't quite do what I wanted it to do, the Word of God would still minister even through my weakness. We did skip, "For You", one of the harder songs for me to sing and the program went well. We also had a nice break in the middle when they had a prayer time. I started out the concert fairly gingerly, but by the end I was singing out pretty strong. There were a few glitches, but overall I was pretty happy with how it turned out, mostly because I could see that God was speaking to so many of the guys.

We finished our last song and they stood to their feet. An encore? "Over" leaned in and asked me if we could do "For You", I told him that I could probably make it through the song if I sang it lightly. We sang the song, and by the end I was in full voice and singing strong. They all stood to their feet again and we pulled aside to chat with the guys and shake their hands. We heard many testimonies, and stories of heartache, and we shed some tears. Then they were all commanded to head out the door. As they were leaving one inmate told me that we had three or four officers standing out by the back door listening in. He said, "You know you are doing good when you get them to come in and listen!"

We took a long lunch break in the officers' lunch facility and chatted with the prison ministry workers there. It was then that we shared the fact that I was sick and my voice was not doing well. "Well," said one of the chaplains, "We'll just have to get the intercessors to pray for you before the 2:00 service!"

We made our way back to the chapel and the inmates who help run the services came in and made preparations for the next service. Then they all circled up with the chaplains and RESCUE. We all joined hands and prayed for the service. Several people prayed for my voice and I definitely felt that God was going to do something special.

He did! I was able to sing the entire program full voice, not that there weren't any problems, but I really think that my vocal issues were not a factor during that time. It seemed to me that the rest of the guys were sounding even better than normal and our spoken introductions and prayers seemed very directed and powerful. It also didn't hurt that we received a standing ovation for every song we sang! That's testament to the anticipation and the great need for encouragement that was in the chapel that day.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing RESCUE to minister to souls so very aware of their need for you, and thank you for using us in our feeble flesh to demonstrate your great power and strength!

Of Music And Ministry : Come As You Are

Dear Prayer Team,

"A little child kneels before God's throne, to his left is a man bound in chains, and to his right knelt a socialite. Neither one did God turn away..."

I have been blessed to have sung those words to a song that means a wholelot to me called, Come As You Are. If you listen to the music of RESCUE very much I am sure that at one time or another this song has ministered to you.Well it wasn't God's throne but the little children were definitely crowding very close to the platform of the sanctuary at Pleasant Valley Seventh Day Adventist in Boring, Oregon. In fact they were so close that some children were on the platform with us and a couple of them were between us and the monitor speaker playing with our dry erase board. My silent prayer was,"Lord you know how my memory lapses work. If they erase the song list offthe board please allow me the supernatural ability to remember the next song! It worked out just fine, they chatted about where it might best be placed and eventually it came to rest, set-list intact, right back where it was supposed to be. Two of my own children were sitting on the floor by the stage along with the other children there. My two precious bundles of energy sat quietly in rapt attention as we sang our hearts out to those in attendance. We sang of the redemption of Christ, His intense love for us, our responsibility to seek, serve, and listen to His quiet but very present voice. Seemingly high concepts for such little children still forming their cognitive abilities. Surely, they would be unable to relate to the philosophical ramifications of belief in a supernatural God. Surely, relating to the ideas of the substitutional sacrifice of a perfect Christ would not be concrete enough for them. They should not be expected to be able to sit through such a program.

But there they sat...and sat...and sat. Eyes wide, mouths agape, attention focused...why?

Why does the prisoner, steeped in sin and selfishness, allow