We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell

Speaking of a soul nudging, I had an intense desire to worship on a week night in March.  I was just being pulled to the computer so I got some things done, logged into Pandora, clicked on the worship station and let it rip.  By the second song, I knew this was not going to be an ordinary worship experience.  God had made this appointment because He had something to reveal to me.  I have previously shared that I have issues grasping and believing God’s love for me.  I can fully believe it for everyone else and often encourage others in His love, but I have always had a hard time accepting it for myself.  Alcoholics are known for being hard on themselves and I can say with all certainty that I have this trait.  Becoming more and more aware of my lack of joy, I have been praying that God would help me to open up to His love, that He would help me receive it on a daily basis so that I can have the joy that so many other Believers seem to radiate.  I don’t feel that I can ever become a light in this world until I am fully able to receive this love and so I have asked Jesus to help me receive it, that His love would become real to me, that it would impact me daily. 

This week night worship experience ended up being a dialogue of love from my Heavenly Father to me.  Through the songs that played He told me how He already knew every mistake, slip up, wrong turn, absurd plan, stupid word and every disappointment I could ever cause Him and He still deems me worth taking on the worst death in history so that we can walk together through this life and escort me into an eternal life that is beyond what any imagination can fathom – supreme happiness – everything this world started out to be until we intervened.

I am proud to say that since this worship experience, I have noticed a difference in my attitude at work, in the car and during my personal outings.  I am nowhere near perfect, but I can tell that God is transforming me into that radiate light I so want to be and it is awesome.  If you are reading this and think you are too far-gone to ever make a change like I am making – then by all means read through my earlier posts.  I am not a saint and that is exactly why I am thankful for my Savior.

This worship experience has also redefined my goals for this year.  First and foremost, I am striving to love Jesus by living my life in such a way that it leads others to Him.  A second goal is to stay sober, which has not really been an issue as of late.  This, however, is due to the fact that I tend to only hang out with people who either do not partake in alcoholic beverages or I only accept invitations where it is unlikely that alcohol will be a focal point.  I know that I will have to branch out at some point, but until then I am happy to just be enjoying the sober life.  Lastly, God has reminded me of something He told me a few years back:  My job is to write; His job is everything else.  Insert eye roll or dumb face or whatever you would like because these are the ways I usually respond to this comment from my Creator.  It just does not compute in my brain.  How can I only carry the writing and God carry everything else?   It seems like a deal anybody with even a quarter of a brain would jump on but, I am one of those beings who seems compelled to make everything more complicated.  Nevertheless, I am complying and what I am finding is that as I make my writing a priority, interesting things start to happen around me.  For instance, the more energy I put into my writing, the clearer I become on what I want out of my daytime career.  I also have some doors opening in terms or new writing groups, critique groups and info-panels that directly correlate to my own business plan. Hmm, maybe I should listen to my Creator more often!  It’s a horrible statement, but it is true.  So often in life, we earnestly seek God’s advice, but as soon as He gives it, we tend to shrug and go make another mistake that makes more sense to us.  Somehow, He still loves us through it all and even patiently holds our hand while trying to keep us from walking directly into and/or climbing over the bumper rails He’s so kindly placed on our paths.

The winds of change are still blowing through my life at this moment and I know I am headed for a major career change, but I also know that this change will usher in a new era in my life.  I feel a resurrection of sorts is on its way – Whoever said it is not about the destination; it is about the journey was right.  Destinations change and often times you find that once you arrive, it is not at all what you had in mind so you might as well savor every moment and let the destination find you.  Besides, if it weren’t for the journey, how would you ever know where you belong?

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.
Joseph Campbell

I have to be honest that these first two months in Los Angeles have not been easy.  For one, I am up in the valley and apparently “no one hires people from up there”.  Second, I happen to live with six female college students who don’t speak a lick of English as they are all from the great land that owns us, China.  Being from China you would think they would be at least a little tidy, but they are just like American college students in that they are filthy and apparently under the impression that a fairy is going to clean up after them.  My biggest problem as of right now is parking in that I am not use to having to have cash on hand 24/7 to park and I happen to be out of cash at the moment.  Dear State Farm Bank: Please send me my debit card, as it is of utmost importance that I receive it.  I am also not use to pedestrians being everywhere so if you, a pedestrian, see a silver Impala please look before crossing because I am probably not even aware that you exist.  On the bright side, I am finally starting to get a handle on navigating this giant city and as a result only make one wrong turn per trip, which is an improvement of gigantic proportions.

Boredom and lack of human interaction has also been a major problem in these first two months.  As is being stuck in a hot, un-air conditioned house in the valley that could use some serious TLC.  Moreover, I am facing the fact that I need income as medical bills keep arriving that I cannot pay.  Adding to the boredom and impending financial doom is the fact that I am getting sober for the umpteenth time.  Needless to say, I need something to give and I need it to give now.  Unfortunately, I seem to be sending out resumes left and right and nobody seems to be interested.  Moreover, those that are “interested” only seem to be interested in telling me that I need to “move to the city” or better yet “you need some experience before you can intern here”.  Um, really?  I thought internships were for experience and as a matter of fact, I am in the city!  And for the love of God, the 405 is not that bad!  Suck it up Lalians, Suck it up!

Any who, things got to the point that I felt like I was suppose to receive some sort of key in order to actually live here and without that key I would be doomed to wander the streets as a beggar.  No matter how much I prayed or cried, nothing seemed to be changing.  I felt locked out and I had no one to seek advice from and I didn’t know what to do so I did the only thing I could do… I unloaded all of this on the poor messianic pastor at the messianic synagogue I have been visiting and I did this unloading during the service. He, obviously having dealt with a bunch of crazy people in his life, asked if I had ever tried fasting and prayer.  He said that whenever he needs a breakthrough in life, whether it is financial, relational, emotional or physical, he sets aside a day or a weekend to fast and pray.  He told me that Yeshua, himself, in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew, told His disciples that some problems require fasting and prayer.  As luck would have it, the congregation was having a day of breakthrough prayer and fasting the very next day.  I assume you think I went.  You would be wrong.  I got scared at everyone trying to get me to go so I left the service as quickly as possible.  I must have resembled a dear caught in headlights.  Note to self: flight response is alive and kicking; fight response – not so much.

After I got home, I looked up Matthew chapter seventeen and found in verse twenty-one that Yeshua did indeed say that some things can only be conquered through prayer and fasting so I decided to do my own little version in the solitude and safety of my little rented room in the hot, sticky valley that everyone pretends doesn’t exist.  Being that I have never done this before and being that I always have a bit of method to my madness, I decided to plan out my six hours of prayer and fasting… I’ve never done this before and thought a whole day was a little presumptive of myself. 

Hour 1 (12-1pm) – Praise
Hour 2 (1-2pm) – Prayer
Hour 3 (2-3pm) – Praise
Bathroom Break
Hour 4 (3-4pm) – Scripture
Hour 5 (4-5pm) – Prayer
Hour 6 (5-6pm) – Praise

Okay, so maybe I did a lot more praising than I did praying, but due to a recent realization, I actually connect to God through praise much more than I connect through prayer. While, I could probably do a whole post on all that thought encompasses, it will not be done today.

I do have to say that the experience did not disappoint.  I thought I was going to be bored.  I thought I would not be able to concentrate or run out of things to say, but let me tell you that when the God of the Universe wants to talk, He has a way of commanding your attention beyond all of your human capabilities.  I used the Praise & Worship channel on Pandora for my praise hours and actually found some songs and artists that I really enjoyed.  As for the first hour of prayer… I began by telling my God and King my purpose for this time and explained in detail what I was feeling and what I felt I needed from Him.  After that, I opened up the floor for Him to speak and well, let’s just say He relayed what He needed from me before He could give me what I claimed to so desperately want!  I had recently taken a class entitled Actualizing Your Soul’s Goals with Mastin Kipp from The Daily Love, an online blog and community.  In this class Mastin taught us the difference between goals and intentions and lead us through a series of exercises designed to bring out our own individual purposes for this life.  By the end of the class everyone had a list of intentions, goals and grounded action steps to help them reach the goals that would bring true fulfillment.  I have to say the class was awesome and I was immediately hit between the eyes with the realization of what was keeping me in a very unhealthy cyclical holding pattern from which I was desperate to break free.  I thought the work from that class was done, but during the first hour of prayer God took all of my class work and went much, much deeper.  I ended up spending the last thirty minutes of prayer completely re-writing my intentions, my purpose and something Mastin calls my Major Definite Purpose.  I had gotten ahead of myself in the class and while the majority of what I wrote was and is true, I have work to do before I actually get there.  AMAZING! 

After the initial prayer hour, I continued with my itinerary until I came to the scripture hour.  I actually didn’t have a clue as to what I was going to do with that hour.   I suppose I was planning on looking up some verses on some particular topics I am struggling with but I ended up just asking God to guide me as I opened His book and He did.  It seems He has some things to tell me about life and how one is to live life.  He directed me to several scriptures, one of them being 1 Thessalonians where Paul talks to the new Christians regarding how they are to live their lives and why.  He also led me to look over the Ten Commandments again.  It seems as though God wanted to remind me that He has some advice on this thing called life and that it would be good for me to familiarize myself with such advice both on a physically practical level and on a mentally practical level.

And don’t think the hours of praise were a vacation either.  I strained to really listen to and contemplate the meaning of the words I was singing and in those words I found God speaking loud and clear regarding many aspects of my life.  It is interesting to note that I now feel that my own personal life purpose is to… “Be a blessing to everyone I meet by empowering myself so that I can empower others to live out their own individual purposes thereby sharing their own unique gifts with the world and making the world a better place by having done so.” … When I am so far from being a blessing in any sense of the word to any other human being on this planet.  In simplest terms, I have a lot of transforming to do in terms of what I say and what I do blending into a recognizable harmony.

All in all, I am very happy with the outcome of my first ever day of prayer and fasting and feel it is a great way to reconnect with God, empower yourself when feeling vulnerable or need divine insight into a person or situation.  It is especially useful for times when a breakthrough is needed.  If the door is locked, go to the Person with the key… You know, the Person who created the door and the lock or at least allowed the lock to exist.  Of course, the challenge is to keep your focus on God and His love and NOT on the end result because God will only give you that which you are ready to receive.  Though you can be sure that He will reveal exactly what you need to cultivate in your life in order to be ready for that which you want.

As for me, I guess I was ready.  Let’s just say that the giant door on the entertainment industry appears to now be unlocked.  I have received a multitude of internship opportunities and am in the midst of the selection process as I type this post.  On an even more pleasing note, I am beginning to receive interviews for paid positions within the industry too.  Hopefully, I will land an offer soon and be well on my way to obtaining a place of my own in this land known as La la.