The Power of Knowing God review

This book is part of a series from Kay Arthur, founder of PRECEPT Ministries and inductive Bible study methodology. The study is topical, involving six lessons covering 5-8 sections of Scripture. Kay Arthur is well-known for her method of Bible study that incorporates marking, drawing, rectangles and lines, “squiggles”, colors and highlights. These lessons are an attempt to compact what would take a week of work and preparation into a 40 minute session that does not require preparation work. Although advertised as 40 minutes, it is a lot of information to cover and an individual or group may need more of an hour to do the lesson. They also may want to take more time to discuss the questions and applications as well. One drawback may be that a person does not want to mark up his personal Bible. Despite these concerns, the lessons are well-designed for individual or small group studies. There are good leadership points and interpreting/application questions.

This book was provided to me at no cost for the purpose of review by Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing. I was not required to write a positive review.

Relentless by John Bevere

This is a good book. It's very deep though (at least for me) and I would suggest you read it slowly.
John Bevere does a good job with this book. It includes a lot of Scripture (which I love) and brings about a reminder to believe ALL of God's Word and not just the parts that we deem ourselves "worthy" to believe.



If you want to go deeper in your faith then this book is a good start. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to stop half-way believing God's promises and wants to cling to all of them whole-heartedly.


I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah in exchange of an honest review. I read this book in it's entirety and did not have to post a positive review.

Fearless : The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown

I recently had gotten this book via water brook multnomah's blogging for books for free...it shipped in about 8 days and I have been reading it since. It immediately gripped me and I instantly loved it.

Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown was on the famed SEAL Team Six -- the Team that took down Osama bin Laden. Adam was born in Arkansas and had unbelievable pride for his homestate. He had this bubble theory where if we were to completely cut off Arkansas from EVERYTHING - they would survive and prosper. That's just one of his many thoughts.

http://fearlessnavyseal.com/book-preview/

It follows Adam Brown's life story from when he was born to when he was a player on the Lake Hamilton Wolves football team -- to crushing defeat and an addiction to drugs which wound him up in jail. His story of redemption is a great, great one and I would strongly suggest this book to anyone.

 I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah in exchange of an honest review. I read this book in it's entirety and did not have to post a positive review.

Daily Blog

Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus is one of my favorite videos. I'm not going to get into the whole discussion because of the controversy and anger that have been spread out from it, but I will say I agree with most of his points.


Every day here has been a battle, but it's slowly getting better and better. I'm much more glad that we're dealing with this over here than over in Louisiana, because it might be much worse there. I do miss seeing my uncle almost daily, but it'll all work out. I'm just glad that we are here so we can deal with this on our own
instead of having to lean onto a lot of people.

Everything's okay over here today. Bella's still off the charts and growing like a weed. She's now four, her birthday was January Twenty Second, and she was really happy about it.

It's been three years since I last posted, so I never posted about the youngest sister. Her name is Elayna Mae as just about everyone, if any, read this know. She's eighteen months and a really good little girl. She was laid back at first, like I was as a baby, but she's turning into a little Bella.

Annalee's now eleven and does several things. She's made some good friends here with S.E.LA.H. and with her dance company. Which I like a lot more than the one we went to in Louisiana, but that's just my opinion. It seems nicer, but then again, I don't dance...thank God.

Like I said, I'm thirteen now, and I'm about 5'7" or 5'8" so I'm growing, which is nice..I'm just a big guy. It's been a long time since I've posted so hey, might as well just tell people about me. I'm not the small guy I used to be.

Anyways, I've been in Sachse, right in between Wylie and Garland for almost seven months now. Really nice area, honestly. We've found some really good BBQ and chicken places, Big Daddy's and Babe's Chicken Dinner House. Talk about fat boy's heaven! I'm hungry now!

We go to Gateway Community Church, which is one of the best places for us right now. We have no family here to help us, so it's making us lean more on friends and church family and it's helped us dramatically, because we are talking so much more here.

I used to be a super quiet guy, but ever since I've moved here, I've kinda gone off the deep end. Thanks Sydney and Patrick! *Cough* *Cough* Sarcasm *Cough* *Cough* Anyways, my best friends are here. I actually have several of them right now..which is surprising especially for me. Patrick, Sydney, Jordan, and Katey are amazing. They're making me be myself, which I'm not sure is a good thing at the moment, because I am kinda crazy here.

There was a long time where I kinda steered clear of books, but I am rediscovering my love for them. I got a Nook Tablet for Christmas from family, and it is pretty great. But right now I'm reading The Circle series by Ted Dekker. (Black, Red, White, and Green) which I would really give 4 stars.

There are so many things I want to do when I grow up. It's not certain for me right now, but there are a lot of things I've thought about. I've thought about joining the military when I turn 18. I've thought about becoming a missionary. Being a worship minister, which would probably not be very good, because i'm not a great singer...at all. Like nails on a chalkboard basically. I've thought about going to a theological seminary and becoming a pastor, which I feel led to do, but I'm not sure. I really want to become a writer and live in New York. Cheesy, I know.

I'm trying to get back into guitar because I have a passion for music, but I'm not finding a guitar teacher anywhere...Oh well.

I feel like I'm a robot here today. Everything I said last night in my blog post came out so eloquently, and it doesn't feel like it is on this post...so I'm sorry about that.

Anyways, this is it!

Starting out fresh

I haven't posted in almost three years now. A lot of things have changed in those short years, so I'm starting fresh, and deciding to blog. I'm a bit rusty at this, so, please excuse whatever problems there are.

I guess I'll start off from where I last dropped off. My last post was a bit dumb, being about facebook, and I have half a mind to delete all my old posts, but hey, might as well keep them. Might bring someone a bit of laughter later on.  

I'm now thirteen years old, and I've moved from small West Monroe, in Louisiana, to Sachse, Texas, a part of the Dallas - Fort Worth - Arlington metroplex. It's a small town of about 19,000, but in Texas everything's large, and it doesn't seem small due to being in the metroplex.

My uncle, Raymond, has gotten out of jail. He was in there for three and a half years, constantly changing penitentiaries due to medical problems. He was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at eighteen months and it has been with him since. Well, he got out of jail in June, and in August-September was diagnosed with epilepsy and  stage four pancreatic cancer. That's not the worst part! Not only does he have pancreatic cancer, but it has spread to his brain. Nice, right?

They're all kind've feeding off of each other. With diabetes he has to eat, but with pancreatic cancer it makes him not hungry. When he does get to eat, there's a chance he could have a seizure, which, there's always a chance he could have one. But when he does he may lose his lunch. I think that the brain cancer triggers his epilepsy some too, but you can't take my word on that because I'm not positive. 

We moved to Texas in July of 2011, so about six months ago, I believe. My dad needed to find another job to support us so he put his resume online and shortly received several responses from all across the country. He had responses from Beverly Hills, CA, all the way to Albany, NY. He had several other ones that I'm not too sure of, but the one that stuck out was Dallas. Only five hours in a car from home, it was easily the closest and quickest without flying. 

Well, things kinda whirlwinded after that. Only a month later, or so it seemed, dad had left to work his job in Dallas while we stayed in Louisiana. I remember that distinctly because it was around the time that the Dallas Mavericks beat the Miami Heat in a seven game NBA Finals. 

After several failed attempts to find a house in Dallas for us to move into, we finally found one that we all loved. My mom found it on Craigslist only hours after it had been posted. It was a nice three bedroom two bath house in Sachse, Texas in the lovely and large neighborhood called Woodbridge. We visited it, and we all fell in love with it. 

Two days later, on the way home to Louisiana, we were driving through Shreveport when mom got the call from dad that we had been approved to rent the house. We started packing almost immediately it seemed, being able to move in July 3rd. 

July the Third came and went in a very fast flash. It seemed like only the week before we had started packing, and then we were there on a sunday morning, wishing everybody goodbye. That trip there was full of mixed feelings, for several reasons. 

1. We were finally leaving West Monroe, Louisiana for what maybe for good. The house we have lived in for the past eight years was full of good days and bad days, sad memories and happy memories.
2. We were leaving family. Some of them we were glad to be away from, others we would miss dearly. 
3. We were leaving the BEST church we had found in a long time, Christ Church. It helped us all in so many different ways. Shockwave was simply amazing for me. I have not completely filled that gap, but I am getting close to it.
4. We were headed for an unknown territory for our family. 

There was a long time where we sat in what seemed like Church Limbo. We drifted from church to church, unable to find one that correctly fit the puzzle pieces of our family. Our first church we tried we sticked to for a few months, believing that was the one. The children's ministry was nothing short of great, the pastor was well spoken and a man of God, and the youth group was alright. 

Things went well there until I started to get bullied. Maybe I was overreacting, but I wasn't in a good place there. Who wants to get bullied at a youth group, a place called a safe haven? Not me, that's for sure. We left shortly after.

We tried a few different churches, Northplace Church, Gateway Community Church (I will talk more of this later) and Watermark Church. Everyone loved Gateway, except for me. At first. So we went to Watermark, where we all liked. We went there for about a month, and then we felt led to try Gateway again.

We did, and I fell in love with the church. It feels like home. The youth group is amazing. The church feels more like home to me than home itself does. The head pastor, Pastor Blake, is a great man. Gateway has a great children's ministry that Annalee is involved in and loving. It was just a perfect piece for us.

My mom is in counseling and it seems to be helping us all. She's slowly getting better day by day, and sure she has some bad days, but I can tell she is happier now. I think this move to Dallas was the best decision that they have ever made.

I went to a youth event called Refuel, with FourTwelve (Gateway's youth) that was held at the first church we tried. I was severely anxious because of this, hoping I wouldn't see anyone that had intended to hurt me, but my nervousness was wrongly placed. I had an amazing time, being able to open up to some friends one night, and talking to the college student leaders.

I've made a lot of friends over here. We're still homeschooling, even though I had a short stint at Wylie Preparatory Academy, which wasn't a good fit for the family. We're now in a homeschool group called S.E.L.A.H. that has been wonderful. I've met some good friends there, and I've enjoyed it. I've met my  best friends at FourTwelve, which are Patrick and Katey. I haven't known Katey for as long as I've known Patrick, but our friendship is actually really good right now.

Anyways, I've talked a lot so I'm sure I'll continue this post later. Thanks for actually paying attention..that is you didn't fall asleep after the first paragraph.

Michael doesn't enjoy...

I don't enjoy it when I can't log onto Facebook do to Page Load Errors, Network Timeouts, etc. And when it lets me and doesn't even let me do anything, =P.

Fun with Friends.

A couple weeks ago, we went to a relative's B-Day Party at the Jungle Gym. Annalee really liked it, but I did not. I enjoyed visiting and stuff like that, but I guess The Jungle Gym just isn't as much fun as it used to be, =P.
Mrs. Sherri, who does http://ourplaceourplace.blogspot.com/ was very nice and invited me to come over that day to play after the party. Her three kids, (2 boys, and a girl), are VERY nice. Patrick, who is 11, is definetly my BEST FRIEND!! Carter comes up as the same. They're both tied for 1st place Best friends. They have a pool and a platform in their backyard, which is extremely cool, so Patrick and Carter and I swam for most of the day. We came back inside and played Yu-Gi-Oh, ( a fun card-game ) and then went over with Mrs. Sherri, Madison, a friend of Madison's, Patrick, Carter, and then one of their neighbors out to their grandparents' house. We got to ride on a Go-Cart and then go jump on the trampoline. It started raining pretty soon, so we had to go back inside. We were inside right before it started raining. Mrs. Sherri ordered some pizza, and we played Yu-Gi-Oh some more, traded Yu-Gi-Oh Cards, played Spiderman: Web of Shadows, ate Johnny's Pizza and watched T.V. After we ate pizza, we played some more and then got some sleeping bags and watched Spiderwick Chronicles before we went to sleep.
The next day, we got up pretty early and started getting ready for church at 9:00. They go to Swartz First Baptist Church. Their church is really cool. We go to the big church for an hour, then go to Sunday School for another hour. I was with Patrick in his 5th grade class. Carter was in his 4th grade class.

After church, we went to O'Charley's by the mall in Monroe. O'Charley's was VERY GOOD, as it always is. I showed Patrick what I usually get, ( Kids' Chicken, and a bowl of potatoe soup). He got the same thing and LOVED it!
Soon, we were heading over to my house, and let Patrick and Carter come back over for a while.
We went to the park around 3:00 for mr. Timmy and Jimmy's Birthday Bash. It was really fun. I think Patrick and Carter really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed knowing I have two new best friends :). Happy Birthday, Mr. Timmy and Jimmy!!

We went back to the house, and played for awhile longer. Their mom came to get them around 7. We ended up spending the whole weekend together. Like my mom said, I can see us spending more days together during the summer. Again, Thanks for letting them come, Mrs. Sherri! And thank you for letting me go over there and stay the night Saturday night, and for taking me with you guys to O'Charleys!!!!