What does your heart beat for? Does it tell the story of the real you and where your identity lies? I'm finding myself oddly encouraged this morning by being falsely represented. I'm really understanding now first hand that if you've remained true to yourself, then what's falsely portrayed becomes comfortingly overemphasized as absolutely outlandish to those you've lived life with and know your heart.

This is what it means to be known: your heart has beat in such a rhythm - it's unique rhythm, one that it has always been about - that when someone misrepresents it, the beat is obviously out of rhythm. Analogy aside, almost everyone has had the occasional fluttering of their real heart. When this occurs for me, my whole body feels it and I catch my breath; something was different and wrong. Back to the analogy, the beat of my heart that has been portrayed is out of rhythm and the body of Christ who has been around my heart's rhythm knows something is different and wrong.

Live life like this! No words need to be said to prove myself. I've tried that before and failed. Tried a little last night and wasn't worth it. The proof is in the consistency of the rhythm of my heart. And this rhythm is who I am: The Real Phil Larson. This is the definition of integrity and my high school youth students have had a lot of messages on integrity. It's one of the easiest pits to fall into in high school - satan likes to create habits early on to carry into adulthood. I know it first hand. And from the mistakes, we learn the importance of a steadfast heart. Don't lose heart; keep it steadfast!

This morning, I woke up to this verse of the day thanks to my DailyBible app from Luke 4:18-19:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

This is what my heart beats for; the identity God has given me; the real me.

Do you live in Anderson, IN? Yes? Keep reading:

I've now been a resident of Anderson, IN for a little over 8 years. So I'm still pretty new to it, but in a year I will have lived in Anderson more than I've lived anywhere else. This is my home. I love my home. Weird.

Here's what I've found. The town is extremely needy. Have you found that? Good for you, but that's an easy find. The town is also very beautiful. This is a little more difficult to discover. It comes from immersing yourself in it. The hearts, the rawness, the real hurt and pain: that's what makes it bleed, and it's so obviously bleeding. BUT this is a good thing. Since the bleeding is so obvious, it doesn't take much to address the cuts. The hard part is already done: "Yeah, yeah, we're broken. We know that so well." It shouldn't take much to pull Anderson out of hiding, and to awake us from our numbness (numbness being adding to the hurt or remaining completely ignorant of it).

Oh, and that numbness is there:

- It's in the news: Anderson, Indiana is ranked the 12th highest city in the nation for divorce rate.

- Drug and alcohol dependency is so prevalent. You know it. If not, just try to listen to those hurting before avoiding them. That's adding to the numbness just as much.

- We own multiple strip clubs, plenty of bars we can hide at, a casino, and horse-track. Gamble away our savings? Wait... What savings?

- Homelessness is an obvious issue. But so is ignoring their faces.

I'm looking for storytellers, bloggers, filmmakers, musicians, aritsts, poets, students, community cultivators, mentors, pastors, politicians, big business owners, small business owners, general lovers of people...

I know some dreamers and so do you (maybe you are one): People with voices and resources that, if we can bring it all together, we can do something.

On my same page? Please do these things:

1. At the bottom is a place to tweet this or post on facebook. Utilize that to spread the word. Some are even throwing this link in an email and spreading it to their fellow dreamer-friends that way as well!

2. Comment below: talk about your dreams for this city, the people you know that would like to get involved. Do we need a community blog? More stories that need to be told? There are so many amazing organizations in this town, but who's telling the stories to the mass Anderson population? Let's work together!

3. Know people that want to get involved (maybe it's you)? Email me their contact information. And leave their names in the comment section below. We'll add to the list below.

Like-minded people that want beautiful things for this city (let's add to the list):

Mayor Kris Ockomon, Judge George Pancol, the Madinger family (Texas Roadhouse), Joe and Barb Clark, AU President James Edwards, The Christian Center, Ed Hyatt, Carma Wood, Braun Roosa, Natalie Campbell, Lisa Pay, Jay Rouse, Joe and Jenny Krietl, Galen Scott, Ed Fry, Brent and Allison Baker, Jack and Ronda Harter, Sam and Andrew Hanna, Ben and Amy Eades, Billy and Angi Kinser, Drew McGuire, Chad and Tiffany Dzerve, Mark Shaner, Daniel Wohlberg, Mike and Kelli Zard, Jon and Jeni Bell, Matt Conner, Chris Bratton, Brian and Tara Forster, Jared and Sherri Fields, Aaron and Sonya Hughes, Jeremy and Emma Johnson, Dawson Vosburg, Rick and Linda Hall, Landon and Sara Meyers, Phil and Kylee Larson, Bill and Marcia Ranahan, Dave and Dana Baker, Ben Burkhardt, Justin Farmer, Justine Scott, Nicole Parkhurst, Jael Tang, Scott and Amity Rees, Kirsten and Ethan Harting, Eric and Kristen Stayer, Michael Smith, Aaron Yocum, Xen Riggs, Cory DeMarco, Donna Light, Bryan Granger, Karri Barkdull, Karen Pettigrew, Randy Coppess, Tammy Dahlin-Rimer, Casey Grant, Jenni Desper, Levi Rinker (The Walking Man Project), Matt and Tamara Shelton, Judge Morton, Steve and Sharon Fleck, ...

...list still being added to...make yourself known! I can't come up with everyone.

Who's out there?? Make some noise!

_________

*1/19/12 Update:

- In addition to comments being left below, I'm also getting several emails and facebook messages from people, including Madison County Sheriff and Elwood Chief of Police Sam Hanna and son, reps from The Christian Center, Connect! Madison County's Shawn Neal, and several other dreamers like you! People are throwing this link in an email and passing it on. It's very encouraged and I'm getting a chance to meet with new people and people I haven't met with in a long time. High School author Dawson Vosburg is heading up spreading the word to other like-minded students. I'm getting pledges from musicians, artists, and filmmakers. These are today's storytellers.

- Seeking endorsement from former Mayor (have personal connection) and current Mayor (have no connection but interested to).

- To clear things up: Spreading love through simple and beautiful acts of service is of far greater importance than recruiting to a particular church, religion, organization or drumming up more business. Affiliation with any 1 entity would more likely hurt than help the cause by limiting potential reach (it's a dog-eat-dog world out there and everyone is partial to their own).

- Most important: I don't want anything I've said here to stifle anyone's dreams. It's not a me-thing, it's a community-thing. Share your concerns and let's begin discussion!

*2/1/12 Update:

- Have you begun the dreaming process? Take your neighbor out to coffee, come up with 3 ideas, bring it to the table. At some point we'll gather the dreaming masses and we'll wake this town.

- I've talked with some peeps over coffee. Yes, there are a lot of good organizations here in this town. They are dispersed throughout Anderson, reaching out and touching the community that's within their arm's length. However, the general consensus of the majority of Anderson's population is that "it's boring, lame, and depressing." This is NOT truth. This is a lie and several hundreds of people can testify to the truth as their lives have been changed by the people and organizations in this aged town. The lacking is in the telling. I know that just by hearing how excited people are by this one blog post. There are people who believe in this town, just not enough proclaiming it! And so we easily get caught up in all of those bringing about the self-fullfilling prophecy of "boring...lame...depressing..."

So...

- Where I'm at: We begin telling our stories, why Anderson is our "Dream Home." We begin taking submissions (you can submit at my email address below). We raise awareness that Anderson has believers and dreamers. In fact, there are a lot of us! We volunteer, we experience, we help these organizations... then we report. We make known the names of the faces we encounter. We tell their stories. We encourage one another. We post them around and share them with the entire community. This is our home. This is why we have grown to love our home.

What do you think??

*2/8/12 (and the following week)

A group of 25 or so of us met in a very tiny (and crowded) living room off Cottage to dream about doing more than dreaming for the city of Anderson. Justin Farmer tossed out the name "Spare Change" and we liked it. Our first group community service project is Thursday 2/16/12. Call location and time will be at 4:30 pm at Justin Farmer and Justine Scott's house on Cottage. Leave a comment below if in need of address or directions.

"Spare Change" has a Facebook group page and so far 89 people have been added to it. We're gearing up for Thursday.

Following the service project, we will have a time of worship and prayer back at Justin Farmer and Justine Scott's house on Cottage.

More updates to come...

The following is how I spent my morning today. It's a great call to wake up to the life God has intended for us all. Step 1 will take some time and may be one to come back to when you find more time. But well worth the investment.

Step 1.

Go to DerekMadinger.com. Meet my mentor, my sponsor, my friend. Over the last two weeks, he has been visiting Israel and having some incredible experiences and thoughts from his trip. He posted 11 blog posts. They are all incredible and entertaining to read. Again, well worth your time.

Step 2.

Read this blog post from my wife. It's convictng and good. Asking us to wake up.

Step 3.

Watch this. If it makes you uneasy. Good. It's meant to.

Step 4.

Read scripture tweeted by Louie Giglio:

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Eph. 5:14

Step 5.

Watch this. Jesus>Religion.

Step 6.

Wake up.

(Viewing this in an email and can't see the videos? Go here)

Hey guys, Phil here. Found something incredibly relevant to what my wife and I are going through right now! This is a beautiful reminder! Read away:

This post has been excerpted from Pursuing Christ. Creating Art. and adapted for Echo Hub by author Gary Molander and reposted from EchoHub.

When I pastored in a church, I made the mistake of making my ministry and my identity the same thing. I allowed my job to become my heart. I suffered through this mistake until the day I resigned. Because when I stopped being a pastor, the false identity I had created was also stripped away.

Seventeen years of living with a false identity blew up in a heartbeat.

The next morning I woke up and cried uncontrollably on the living room floor. It was that gross, snot-streaming, please-help-me-because-I-can’t-breathe crying – the kind where my wife wondered if she should call 911. My cry sounded something like this: “If I’m no longer a pastor, then who am I?”

Finally God had me right where He wanted me, because the rebuilding process could begin.

____________

I know some things about you:

I know that you are not your art.

I know that you are not your church.

You are not your technical expertise, or lack thereof.

You are not your voice, even though people love it when you’re on stage.

You are not what your authority figures believe about you.

You are not your blog posts, or your readers’ insane responses.

You are not your Twitter count, or your Facebook friend total.

You are not your impact.

You are not your successes, and you are not your failures.

You are not that thing in your life that didn’t work out.

You are not that thing in your life that worked perfectly.

But I also know this about you:

I know that in Christ, you are a child of God.

My friends, there will come a day when you no longer create art. There will come a day when the software you use is no longer in existence. There will come a day when you no longer serve in that church, in that ministry. There will come a day when he’s no longer your boss, and they’re no longer your Elder Board. There will come a day when you quit blogging, and when people put Twitter and eight-track tapes in the same category. There will even come a day when your impact wains.

But there will never, ever come a day when you stop being a child of God.

Ever.

Gary Molander is the co-founder of Floodgate Productions and the author of Pursuing Christ. Creating Art. Find out more about the book here or buy it in the Echo Hub Store.

I'm praising God that His plans are greater.

This week has been one of the hardest weeks of my life. It's pushing for the #1 position, my friends. Things will be stunted. But the good news? God's plans are greater.

Sure, there is brokeness. There will be more to come. But I'm confident that His plans go beyond our own.

Do I feel there was some wrong done? Sure. But more importantly, do I feel that the enemy is having a hey-day? Absolutely. I feel this is especially tragic not from a selfish standpoint but from a body standpoint. For the hurt church to hurt the church is one of the greatest successes of the enemy. It has the most potential to perputually spiral out of control, giving the enemy success not only for the present but for the future as well. Direct your anger at him, not the church. Not ourselves.

For now, hold on, for this is true: God is greater.

Greater than any let-down.

Greater than any fail of communication.

Greater than any empty promise. His are secure. His should be the definition of us.

The greatest periods of reformation come from the greatest periods of depravation. This I know to be true. The most difficult part is that during depravation, everything is so blind. But rest assured, our daily bread is all we need. And so far, so good...

"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."

This quote is one I've held on to. It provokes hope.

It's not the end. Why?

We know the end: God wins. God is Love: Love wins. Evil loses. If God is in you, you are on the winning side. There's the wronged and the wrong-doers. The beauty? I can confidently say that in this situation, God is in both those wronged and those doers of wrong. We win.

No amount of ability to harm can we project to cause detour of God's plan, for "the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). It will come to pass, for his plans are greater. He is greater than the enemy; He is greater than us. Hallelujah.

And know this, we are praying for you as we pray for ourselves. ;)

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:3-6

Amen.

In thinking about the Book of Jonah, I am floored with the message of God's pursuit of us. With Jonah, it isn't perfect. 

In the next few paragraphs, I will give a quick recap of the entire book:

Jonah totally decides to go his own way by hopping a boat to somewhere else. God totally calls him out, causes a great storm and Jonah to be thrown overboard. Jonah totally gets devoured.

Jonah seems to have learned his lesson. He prays from the belly of a fish, giving God thanks and praise. And God spares his life.

Finally Jonah does what God asks but does it reluctantly. God has compassion on Nineveh for they asked for forgiveness and turned from their evil ways. God decides not to destroy Nineveh and Jonah is angry. Jonah is angry at God because they didn't get what he thought they deserved. Now, Jonah gives an excuse to why he didn't listen in the first place: "He prayed to the LORD and said, 'O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster" (Jonah 4:2).

So Jonah goes outside the town, sits in the heat, and pleads for God to take his life. God has a plant grow over him to give him some shade. This was comforting to Jonah. Then in the middle of the night, God appoints a worm to attack the plant and by morning there is no shade as it gets hotter. Jonah gets even more angry because God allowed a poor, helpless plant to be destroyed. Jonah had compassion for the plant. God says, "Should I not have compassion on a city of 120,000 poor, helpless people?"

**********************

It's easy for me to write Jonah off as childish. I mean, I feel like if I were to hear God tell me to do something, I would do it. I wouldn't run away or ignore his voice, would I?

Then I think about the person I love the most, my wife. So many times I know exactly what would make her happy: flowers. I absolutely hate buying flowers because they are a waste of money. You pay $20 for something that'll last for maybe a week and then you throw them away. But that is exactly why Kylee loves them. She says that, because flowers are such a ridiculous gift, that is exactly the reason she loves them. She says, "You truly have to love someone to spend money of flowers."

So, if I know that this will please her and still find it hard to do it, would I run away from something that God would tell me to do; something that would please Him? It turns out that I think I would.

How many times do I feel God's voice saying to give that guy with the cardboard sign on the side of the road some money, or help that lady who dropped her paper on the other side of the table by picking it up for her? How many times do I continue to look straight ahead pretending that I didn't notice that guy on the road or the lady who dropped that piece of paper? What about the non-threatening-looking lady that is walking home from work in the pouring rain? We give excuses like, "That lady in the rain has a knife in her coat and is just waiting to murder or abduct me!" We wouldn't even dare to let the thought flutter in that if she really wanted to kill me, she wouldn't be walking in the rain...

Okay, okay, so I've run from God and made excuses for running from him, just like Jonah. So am I hurting my relationship with God when I do this. Am I making God angry when I do this?

We see Jonah getting angry over and over again. Yet, the encouraging thing is that no where in the book of Jonah does it ever say that God was angry with Jonah. This could only mean that God welcomes our anger. Why would God welcome our anger?

I think of the person that I am closest with, Kylee, is also the person that I've gotten angry with the most. I know for a fact that I am also the person that she has gotten angry the most as well.

For some of you, the spouse is a good analogy. I work a lot with teenagers. We know the ones that are best friends. And we also know when they are in fights. And we see them go back in forth on Facebook, or we hear about it when they confide in us. Sometimes these best friends go on "breaks." What I do know is that most best friends have been in big fights before and they become friends again. We see it over and over again with the teens in our youth ministry. What has made them so close is that they always find their way back to each other.

What has made it work so well for Kylee and me is that we always find our way back to each other. And in Jonah 4:1-2, it says "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the LORD..." For Jonah, his anger allowed him to find his way back to God.

Just like relationship between best friends aren't perfect, and my relationship with my wife isn't perfect, Jonah's relationship with God wasn't perfect. And to God, this is what made it perfect, because this is what made it personal.

You've seen in the movies, or maybe you've said it yourself, when someone makes someone else mad enough to want to fight them, it's often said, "Oh, now it's personal!" The walls come down, and now you get down to the nitty-gritty.

The fact is that God is after an imperfect, personal relationship with you. He wants your walls to come down. He wants to get to the nitty-gritty. He wants your questions, your anger, to be brought before Him. "God, why did you let my dad die." "God, why didn't you let them get what they deserved." "God, why did you let my uncle have cancer." "God, why can't I pass my classes." "God, why does everyone want to fight me." "God, why is my little brother so annoying." "God, why is my mom such an uncontrollable drunk?" "God, why do I hate the way I am." "God, why am I never enough for my wife?" God says, "Yes. Bring me your anger, your questions, your doubts, and let me show you who I am."

He wants you to wrestle in anger, question his love, because He knows that if you truly seek after those questions, He will answer you in the way He answered Jonah. He will show you that He truly is a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

You will grow deeper in your imperfect but personal relationship with Him in every question you bring to Him, because He will answer you. His answers will be perfectly imperfect by your standards but perfectly personal by His.

My life is a medium to help bring about a bigger purpose; a purpose bigger than my own understanding, but a purpose worth living and dying for. 
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Last week, I told of a situation in a blog post about a friend who was mysteriously paralyzed and the need for deeper prayers.

I get to update you on how God used us to heal this man. Truly God has the power to make the lame walk. I posted an update on that story on our church's storyline site. Go and read it. 

Be encouraged. God is active and moves mightily.

Several people I have run into lately and I have talked about faith healing a lot recently. About the power that the holy spirit - God in us - possesses to do great things through us; our ability we have to command the spiritual realm through faithful prayer. Granted there are some cooks and TV evangelists that distort our view of God in this way, but I think this stuff is true.

There is a guy that has been brought into my life in a way that only God can. He had been having some heart issues, and then got a flu shot and became paralyzed. He can't get his surgery (which he has no health insurance for) until he comes out of this paralysis. 

We are going tomorrow to pray over him. Please be praying for him. His name is Mark.

My devotional today was very relevant to me, as I find happens to me often... Perhaps it will be to you. I have underlined, bolded and italicized parts that stuck out to me:

November 2, Streams In The Desert by L.B. Cowman

"Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him" (Acts 12:5).

Prayer is the link that connects us with God. It is the bridge that spans every gulf and carries us safely over every chasm of danger or need.

Think of the significance of this story of the first-century church: Everything seemed to be coming against it, for Peter was in prison, the Jews appeared triumphant, Herod still reigned supreme, and the arena of martyrdom was eagerly awaiting the next morning so it could drink the apostle's blood. "But the church was earnestly praying to God for him." So what was the outcome? The prison was miraculously opened, the apostle freed, the Jews bewildered, and as a display of God's punishment, wicked King Herod "was eaten by worms and died." And rolling on to even greater victory, "the word of God continued to increase and spread" (vv. 23-24).

Do we truly know the power of our supernatural weapon of prayer? Do we dare to use it with the authority of a faith that not only asks but also commands? God baptizes us with holy boldness and divine confidence, for He is looking not for great people but for people who will dare to proved the greatness of their God!

In your prayers, above everything else, beware of limiting God, not only through unbelief but also by thinking you know exactly what He can do. Learn to expect the unexpected, beyond all that you ask or think.

So each time you intercede through prayer, first be quiet and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, how He delights in Christ His Son, and of your place in Him -- then expect great things.

Our prayers are God's opportunities.

Are you experiencing sorrow? Prayer can make your time of affliction one of strength and sweetness. Are you experiencing happiness? Prayer can add a heavenly fragrance to your time of joy. Are you in grave danger from some outward or inward enemy? Prayer can place an angel by your side whose very touch could shatter a millstone into smaller grains of dust than the flour it grinds, and whose glance could destroy an entire army.

What will prayer do for you? My answer is this: Everything that God can do for you. "Ask for whatever you want me to give you" (2 Chron. 1:7).

---

I want this sort of prayer life. Today I find myself praying for deeper prayers.

My life is a medium to help bring about a bigger purpose; a purpose bigger than my own understanding, but a purpose worth living and dying for. 
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Jeremy Gilley is the driving force behind Peace One Day. Go to their site and sign up along with thousands of others to observe the Global Truce on September 21, 2012. Lots of stuff happened for Peace Day 2011 this year and people took some pictures of the events. 

I got an email that is below from Jeremy giving you the ability to offer your thoughts on creating a manifesto for peace. The goal is to get everyone to agree to not fire unless fired upon. And there's video below the email for additional inspiration!

We're off to a flying start, Philip - thank you! Over 15,000 people have signed up to the call for a Global Truce on Peace Day 2012 already - that's almost 5,000 new people since I emailed you last Wednesday! With your help, Global Truce 2012 will be the biggest call for peace the world has ever seen. But how do we turn this from a concept into a reality? We need to inspire action. To do that, we're creating a manifesto for peace - and we want you to help us. http://action.peaceoneday.org/your-manifesto One of my hopes is that Global Truce 2012 will be a day where parties in conflict around the world commit to not firing unless they are fired upon. That's a massive aim, but if we're strategic and work together as a global community, then we can achieve great things. Let's start with our manifesto - a plan that sets out our vision, our mission, and the actions that will make it a reality. This manifesto will be a set of values that can be shared with individuals everywhere, including the world's leaders. It should explain why Global Truce is important and why everyone needs to be involved - to be a part of the process. The legacy will belong to everyone! So what are the values that we all need to hold true, to achieve something as far reaching and historic as a Global Truce in 2012 or beyond? Add your thoughts to the manifesto here: http://action.peaceoneday.org/your-manifesto Jeremy Founder, Peace One Day