Clark Withers

Ok so where do I start… First of all, this weekend was painfully frustrating. I don’t want to go into details on here, but between not being able to see someone that I care about very much, and my car breaking down on the way back from Va Beach it was a stressful weekend to say the least. That being said I want to take a few days off of here to regroup as well as hopefully take some time doing what needs to be done to figure out where I stand in a few situations in life… I’ve got some good stuff coming but I need to regroup a bit mentally… Catch you guys soon! I might post little stuff but don’t expect anything too in-depth.

Alright, I’m sure some of you guys have seen this video but seriously… It’s P.I.M.P!!! One day… You just wait…And seriously, one of the best uses of YouTube to grow a brand…

Sooo readers… Where do I begin… God’s been throwing so much at my life over the past couple of months it’s been hard to keep up, much less try to share it with you. So I’ve come to a conclusion… As much as I love blogging every day, I just can’t keep up. Keeping the schedule I’ve been doing has been rewarding because it has gotten me back to writing and trying to make some sense of what I want to say and share, but it has also made me get sloppy on my delivery to you guys. So for this reason alone I think I’m going to back off JUST A BIT, and try to do fewer but more substancial posts. I also want to be able to dedicate myself more to some other pursuits that I have in my life right now and I’m attempting to put myself in a place of surrender to God that His hand might move in some of these situations and allow me to quickly yet correctly do what He would have me do. Big changes are on the forefront for me, and for my life. The second half of this blog post might as well be a seperate post but what ever…enjoy!

God has been beating me over the head over the past few weeks with some constant disappointment in one particular situation  in my life, but at the same time has taught me more than ever that I need to TRUST HIM! Do you ever have those moments in your life that you are trying your hardest to make happen but God seems to be saying “No”? Those moments that you feel are so right if they would just materialize and happen, but somehow God keeps them just out of grasp? Sometimes I think God does say no, but more often I think God calls us to surrender the situation to Him before he will allow us to reach that point within our lives. Right now I honestly don’t know whether he’s saying “No” or “Not yet”… That’s the tricky part, deciphering between the no’s and the not yet’s of life… How do you? If I knew I wouldn’t be waiting around praying that my answer’s not a no… I don’t think it is, I pray that it isn’t, but I also pray that God would move swiftly to bring me to surrender with him so that His will would be done.

When life is coming at you at 100 miles an hour, and you have no place to go but to stare it straight in the face and let it come at you… Are you patient? You see the rumble in the distance of a new world… You know it’s coming, but not yet… Still patient? Do you try to run after it or do you wait for it to show? I usually run after it, but I’ve learned that sometimes you just have to let it come at you. You have to stand there and let it wash over you like a thunderstorm moving in over you. What’s your storm? Are you ready for the excitement of the waters to wash over your life? Bring on the rain!

So I don’t honestly know how many different parts this particular series of posts might contain, but here’s the first part… This weekend I’ve had 2 very real Sun Stand Still moments, but before I go into explaining those I need to explain what I mean by that. At my church, Lifepoint, we use the term “Sun Stand Still” to explain a prayer where we know God CAN do an amazing work, and we trust in Him that if it’s his will he can make the sun stand still. This comes from the story of Joshua when he prayed that the sun would stand still. I don’t want to get into the historical rhetoric but I do want you to understand what I mean. So here are my 2 sun stand still moments…

This weekend a couple of close friends of mine gave birth to a baby boy. Very soon after he was born however he had some trauma that ended up making the hospital that he was born at transfer him from the Fredericksburg area down to a hospital about 50 mi. south of here in Richmond. Many people in my church were praying sun stand still prayers for this child and as time went on all we could do was lean into God and trust that He would put his hands of healing over this boy. Well, sunday morning, as we were doing our run through a mutual friend of ours came up to me while i was running sound with tears streaming down her face to tell me that he was healed. Now I had seen just the evening before that he had some potentially MAJOR issues, but he was healed. God had seen fit to take his body, and in a way that only he can do, He healed it.

Another situation that I stand in I am still in that pause, knowing that God might be keeping the sun still for me in this situation to potentially teach me things I never felt possible. Some of my friends know that I’ve been talking to someone for a bit now. This has led to multiple attempts to see her, as well as trying to make something tangible happen. This has not happened. Over 2 months have passed, and I have yet to be able to see her beautiful face in person. It’s been frustrating. It’s been painful. It’s been downright ridiculous feeling at times. But at the same time I can honestly say that God’s had his hand on the situation the entire time. I’ve gotten to know her better than many people that I’ve known for years. I’ve learned how she thinks, how she feels, and not only about her, but I feel as though I’ve learned her as a person unlike anyone I’ve met to this day. This situation at the moment however is still seeking a resolution. Will it happen? I truly believe that God can make the sun stand still in my life, and in this situation. But I must trust him and lean hard into him to allow this to happen.

So what’s your sun stand still moment? Give the comments a shout.

Business building is an artform. From laying out the vision of a project to seeing it through completion and beyond, building a business is more or less the same as painting a work of art. An artist has to see the completed work long before they ever put brush to canvas. They have to interpret the minute details of the work before the rest of the world can even imagine them. In building a business you are many times looked at as uncreative but I dare say that building a business might be the most creative occupation possible… Where else do you literally invent your own living and way of life?

You are more than the choices that you’ve made
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes
You are more than the problems you create
You’ve been remade…

I’ve listened to this song over and over since it came out and every time I listen to it I pick up more that I love about it. I recently saw an interview with Michael, talking about this song and how we can’t begin to live FOR God until we learn to live BECAUSE of Him. Not to say we won’t struggle, or that our mistakes don’t have ramifications, but more to say that those ramifications and those struggles aren’t who we are. We are His, and we are free because of what He did for us.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord . “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jer. 29:11

This pretty much sums up my thought process over the past few months. It also happens to be my life verse so I tend to meditate on it pretty constantly. God’s thrown me some curveballs through life but each one has taught me more about Him as well as more about myself. I’m beginning to see how one trial or tribulation opens the door for the next opportunity, and so on and so forth as I make my way through this little maze of life. Where I’ll end up? Who knows?! What I do know is this, God loves us, and wants us to do 2 things… Love Him, and love people. It’s that simple, unless you subscribe to the feed, you see that statement on my blog every single day, but it really is just that simple. God wants love, and wants us to have love for others. He’s written the book, he knows the plans, we just have to TRUST! I don’t know who out there needed to hear this today but I’ve had it sitting on my heart all night and had to get it out there for you guys… For those of you who do need it, please, trust His plans, and if you need someone to pray for you hit the contact button at the top and send me a message. I would love to pray for you and connect with you!

How often do you give compliments?
How often to do you get compliments?
Now the hard part… What is a compliment? In my experience people are 1000 times more likely to give you a compliment that’s in direct relation to something that you do well that they want to take advantage of, or that they are in some way jealous of… Not always, but at times. Today I challenge you, go out and compliment people on things that have nothing to do with you or with what you can get out of it. Let that girl at the grocery store know that her smile brightens your day, or that guy at the gas pump know that his car looks great. Even better yet, do something totally wild and compliment someone that’s very close to you in a way they would never expect it… See how it turns the tables and brings your relationship to a whole new level!

I’m a guy, we fix things. Well… sometimes we break things, but then we try to fix them… So what do we as men do when we can’t fix something? Or when there’s nothing we can do to make it work the way we would like? If you’re anything like me you get flustered, anxious, and probably start to freak a bit… That’s life, it gives us the chance to step back, look at the unknown and decide if it’s worth it… If God’s best for you is on the other side of that horizon… Sometimes that horizon isn’t somewhere we can get to on our own… We have to wait on the shore, and hope that that ship comes in. I can feel the presence right now of that ship, and I can’t help but think that it might soon be cresting the horizon in my life. All I have to do is wait, and have faith that I’m headed in the right direction. God’s got his plan already worked out, we just have to let it come to fruition. So what’s your great unknown? Let’s share some stories!!!