Sunset Cliffs

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So this week I am house sitting for a friend of mine at Sunset Cliffs. If you have ever been to San Diego, you know the place. The place I am staying is literally a block off of the main cliffs and you can see the water from the house. See the pictures above. The more and more the days go by, the more I realized how much of a blessing it is to live in San Diego. I'm just blown away by how amazingly gorgeous it is here. It is sad to say that I haven't enjoyed it as much as I could over the past year. I got home tonight just after sunset and realized that I haven't spent hardly any nights hanging out and watching sunsets as girly as that sounds. When I first moved here, I had lots of plans for all the things I wanted to do, it's amazing how quickly life can crowd out the good stuff. Seeing beautiful things just isn't the same when you aren't with someone to enjoy it. It's the same way when I ride motorcycles, I'm good for the first 30 minutes, then I'm bored. Life is meant to be shared. Dang gina.

I realized today when I was at my own place a few additions I want in my house if I ever build one.

• Urinal - I am a man and why waste all the water when you just gotta pee.
  
• Bidet - I am just being honest. It would make me so happy.
  
• hide away pooper (some call this a "water closet") This is perfect for when you get married, you can both be "in the bathroom" but not really. My goal is to never see my wife do that. Okay I said it. I'm sure there are many more that feel that way. I feel that is a private matter and I just don't want to be part of it.
  
• Two switches for the bathroom, one for the light, one for the fan. I don't like when the fan comes on automatically when you turn on the switch.
  
• A very large granite counter in the bathroom with two sinks. You know, because I like to use at the same time :)

I just realized that all of these items are in the bathroom, I will just stop there and continue more later. I check out the bathroom first in almost every hotel I go into.

Okay, I'm going to play with the dog I am dog sitting this week, Bailey, a boxer that brings me red toys to play with.

money aint a thing

I like that Jesus talked a WHOLE lot about money.  I like that the Bible emphasized Godly men who struggled with women and had really rough times.  This should all point us to a place that makes us totally focus on the Lord and doing things in His strength.  Sometimes it's easy to focus on the things that are wrong in our lives, and it is really during those times that we should try to love Him more. 

He has blessed me more in the past year than any other year in my life, but I find myself just wanting to know that the things I do on a daily basis are in His steps and the choices I make are guided by Him.  He is teaching me that it is okay to rely on people and I don't have to try and do everything myself. 

I can't help but to think about how Christians make decisions and compare it to how the world makes decisions.  I can't imagine just going into a big question mark without guidance from above.  He's good. 

Friday Thoughts

After a really crazy past few weeks, I've come to conclude that God's hands hold our lives a lot better than ours.  I am at that point where I'm realizing more and more how much I want to know that my steps are in His. 

I was driving home yesterday and I saw this guy pull up beside me.  He had a business look and probably had a job just like mine.  He was rubbing his eyes and I could just tell that he was beat down from the week and had probably been working his butt off.  I wanted to just roll down my window and tell him how familiar I was with being beat down by a job and wanting to just veg on the couch!  It made me think of how Jesus is that to us.  He came as God in the flesh, lived just like you and me, and was literally beat down with this life and the people in it.  The Bible says that "He was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering".  It was written about Him in Isaiah like 800 years before crucifixion was even invented.  I love how He is our advocate and that He knows everything we can or could go through because He ultimately went through it all.  After a crazy week, it's been assuring to know that I can rest in Him knowing that the chastisement that brought Him pain, brings us peace. 

I went with Abby to a little music venue the other night called Lestats.  It is quite the interesting place.  It's right beside a coffee house and has shows to promote local music artists and she sings there sometimes.  We've been praying through where we are in our relationship and where we are headed.  We took some time apart to just pray and seek the Lord and during that time, she wrote me a song.  She has actually written me two songs that are quite amazing.  Well, she ended up surprising me and singing both of them at the show.  She was the last person to go on and closed out the night.  The first song was written for my Christmas present and just described our relationship and how much we both just want to grow in Jesus.  The craziest thing happen afterwards.  This guy with a really shaved head and lip ring walks up just in awe of what he heard.  He couldn't even really describe what he was feeling.  He just looked at her and knew that something was happening in his heart through the words he heard.  The background was this guy showed up to what he thought was an AA meeting.  He happened to sit in and listen to her songs.  He probably was about 21 or 22 years old it looked and just began sharing his struggle with alcohol, lying, and stealing.  He knew he didn't want to continue walking down this path.  God used her words to strike a chord literally in his heart.  I was able to share a verse 1 Cor. 10:13 with him that goes through temptation and how we can overcome it.  We said bye to him and met a few other people and had some really neat conversations.  It's neat that neat things can happen when Christians are just out in the world doing their thing.  Crazy cool.

One Day at a Time
by Abigail Reimer

Just the other day
I was tellin' a good friend
That I did not want the Lord
To send a man cuz I was content
And I was serious, oh so serious

But it was not long before
We were playing Connect Four
Had a long talk and you said
That you were quite interested
And you were serious, oh so serious
(Let's take it)

One day at a time
One day at a time
I think we'll be fine
if we just take it
One day at a time
One day at a time

For the first time in my life
Sharing my heart feels so right
And I do look forward to
How my future might unfold with you
And I am serious, oh so serious

If this isn't for forever
I want you to know
That more than anything
I want you to grow
in Jesus

Baby, forgive me if this feels too slow
I'm just scared of where this could go
One day at a time

If you read this, please just pray that I would follow Him closely and He would guide me in major and minor decisions.  I want to know that everything I do, He is all up in my business. 

I'm 29 and still don't like organizing

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.  Dang gina. 

I'm sorry blog, I have missed you too

Some of the stress of my job has subsided and it feels good to have a little more breathing room.  We started installing the entire city of San Diego a few weeks ago.  We will have 30,000 devices in the ground in a few months and my job will get crazy again.  It seems vague what I do and people ask a lot, so I will sum it up. 

The company I work for makes electricity measurement systems.  They start from big computer systems in an office and spread all the way down to the electric meter that will soon be installed on your house.  All of the electric meters talk to each other like a big family.  So in a city like San Diego, we will install over 2 million devices and they all talk to each other like a big 2 million person family.  I am responsible for running the system and making sure the family talks well and consistently.  We are providing a green technology and the environment I work in is very fast paced and can be stressful.  The first few months we will install 30,000 to ease everyone into the system, then we will ramp up and install the remaining few million over the next two years.  These devices can remotely disconnect someone from the electric grid, provide real-time measurement of power for the utility, and soon provide you the homeowner real time access to the energy you are using through a home thermostat.  Doesn't all this sound fun?

In other late breaking news, some pigeons made love on my balcony and have produced a few eggs.  I am happy to report that the baby daddy brought in some aide and helped build out the nest.  The baby mama sat on the eggs and the babies are finally here. 

Lately I realized that despite an unreal amount of hours I spend in a job, I have to do something in ministry.  The first year here I really wasn't able to get involved like I wanted to, I barely made it keeping up with a job.  Being on the outside of some type of ministry has made me stale.  I was made to create disciples and honor Him.  I miss speaking at random places.  I haven't spoken anywhere in almost a year.  Some opportunities in San Diego might open in the future and I pray that they do. 

In other news, I moved into a new place.  It is an unbelievable blessing.  God has blessed me more in the past year than any other time in my life.  I confess that I have struggled to give back to Him and have not been giving my first fruits to Him.  It's neat how He works, I wanted to change this and start giving, literally the day I started, my friends surprised me with a surprise party.  My birthday was a few weeks ago but we didn't do anything special as a group, well I came home and there were a ton of people!  We had a nice cookout and it was pretty stinkin cool.  Not only that, but my girlfriend asked me to hold up while everyone walked downstairs to my condo (we were grilling up on a deck upstairs).  Well when I got down and we walked into my place, there was a PLAYSTATION 3 sitting on my entertainment center.  They pulled all their money together and wanted to get my a blu ray player, well a PS3 is that, so they got it!  How awesome is that and how neat is God to show me Himself through people that love Him.