So in case you're new to my blog, or you're a regular reader but need things spelled out for you, I love missions.  Just because I'm no longer on staff with AIM doesn't mean that my desire to devote my life to global missions has diminished.  And so with that heart, I'm excited to share that I'll be leaving on March 29^th for Mexico City for a week.  Now this means two very important, and exciting, things.

1. This will be my 2^nd birthday I celebrate overseas.
   
2. I get to expand my Spanish vocabulary from 8 words to potentially 10!

But seriously, in our time down there we'll be splitting our time even amongst 3 ministry opportunities that I'd like to spotlight. 

For the first half of the trip we'll be living at a Salvation Army Orphanage and 2 of our days will be dedicated to playing with the kids, doing work around the orphanage and supporting the staff that have given their lives to this place and those kids.  For those of you who followed my first World Race in 2009, you know that I have lots of experience living in orphanages and loving kids for my ministry.  And you also know how important of a ministry it is to these kids. 

The second half of the trip we'll be leaving in a men's shelter in Tepito.  You can click on the link and read the Wikipedia article on Tepito but for the rest of you, Tepito is a lower class area in Mexico City where the drug cartels and mafia do their “business”.  Our other two days will be spent with a church run by a man and his wife who used to be corrupt cops in Tepito but when Jesus got a hold of them they quit and started a church in Tepito.  Because of who they are, even though they no longer work with the cartels or mafia, they're still respected and are left alone!  We'll be with them doing evangelism and possibly helping them in a venture to plant a second church in Tepito!

And finally two more days will be spent ministering to ladies in two women's homes.  In Mexico, if you ever get tired of your mother, wife, daughter or sister you can, by law, take them and drop them off at one of these government run facilities where they'll live out the rest of their lives.  The living conditions are pitiful but more than that, these women have been discarded and need love.

As the group has prayed about this trip, a common word that keeps coming up in conversation is hope.  That we are not only to bring hope, but that we should be hope.  Give them something to hope for.  Proverbs 13:12 says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” 

We were made to eat from the tree of life and there are tons of people who have hardened their hearts because the sickness has gone on too long.  We believe that tree's of life can spring up all over Mexico City.

Please pray for us as we leave.  As well if there is more you feel led to do, I still need another $500 to pay for this trip.  Now keep in mind that this trip is not through AIM, it's through my church.  So I setup a PayPal account that you can easily give through (just click the button at the bottom) or if you want a tax deductible receipt, you can send a check to:

Main Street Baptist Church: 126 North Main Street, Kernersville, NC, 27284

Just make sure you put somewhere on the check that it's for Tim Dixon.  My work and what God has done through me these last few years wouldn't be possible without your support and prayers.  Thank you again for helping spread hope.

I've always thought of myself as having mild ADD.  I mean I never did well in school.  Having to sit behind a desk for hours listening to someone talk or working on one thing is my idea of eternal punishment.  If you're having a coffee with me at Starbucks I have to sit with my back to the door, or else I'll be looking at and sizing up everyone who walks in the door.  In short, I get bored easily and I can't sit still for too long…especially if I'm alone. 

That's why routine and structure have been such good babysitters for me in the past.  Routine has done a pretty good job of creating soft boundaries in my life to keep me from getting lost in distractions.  But now, for the first time ever, I'm living in the continental United States without the structure of school or a 9 to 5 job to hold my life together.  It's scary really.

Because when I don't get paid this week, it's not because someone failed me.  It's because I failed myself.  It's because I played Wii when I should have been cold calling, or because I went into a job without all the facts and I wasn't able to deliver.  But even though the distractions haven't changed, something inside me has.  For the first time in my life, I have a purpose. 

Purpose is a precious thing.  It's what drives us and gives our lives color and meaning.      It's the compass that gives us direction in making decisions.  When I get bored or distracted in my day it's what keeps me focused and disciplined.  The funny thing about purpose is, it can't be given to you from an outside person or circumstance.  People and circumstances can definitely influence it, but your purpose has to come from inside you. 

That's why when my parents told me to get good grades and graduate so I can get a good job one day, it never stuck.  But as I began to learn who God is, and who I am.  God birthed a purpose for my life from my identity in Him. 

“Where there is no vision, the people perish; But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”

 - Proverbs 29:18

If the people will perish without vision, and Christ came to give life then He's promising to give us a sense of purpose (vision) for our lives.  I think one of the most valuable things that the Lord promises to provide for us is a purpose for our lives.  That purpose maybe as specific or as vague as He decides, but it will rein us in and keep us on track. 

That's why I'm able to do what I'm doing, despite being plagued with mild ADD.  On the days I'm bored from doing accounting stuff, or when I really want to hop on a plane to some far off land that doesn't speak English or have traffic laws.  I remember that I'm starting this business, to create the freedom someday to be able to do that.

What about you?  Do you have a sense of purpose to your life?  If not, have you asked God for it?  If you do, what other observations have you made about the role of purpose in your life?

Well friends, I'm sorry for how long it's been since my last blog.  But obviously there has been a lot of change going on, so I hope you forgive me.  It's tempting to say that it's been another seasonal shift in my life.  But I don't think that word is appropriate. 

Webster's defines season as, “a time characterized by a particular circumstance or feature”.  No, I would say this move marks the start of a new era in my life.  Webster's defines era as, “a fixed point in time from which a series of years is reckoned”.  That sounds about right.  This move back to North Carolina marks the start of a new era in my life. 

An era marked by walking out the things I've been given in my last era.  Healing, identity, family, purpose, promises, etc…I'll be using all of these things in my endeavors to start my own business so that I can continue my ministry.  So I figured to catch you all up on the last month of transition I would go classic World race check in style with high's and low's.

Lows:

I would probably say that the most difficult thing about the move was leaving my community in Georgia.  Especially for the first 2 weeks, because I didn't have a lot going on and it was so new.  But a good friend told me before I even moved that I would probably be lonely, and to press into these times to be with the Lord. 

Honestly the only other difficult part about the move has been coming to a place that's familiar but different.  I grew up in Kernersville, North Carolina.  And after three years, it pretty much looks the same and has the same people in it.  But really nothing is the same.  All my friends are in different places in their lives and so am I.  So my challenge is to walk into the new while surrounded by reminders of the old.

Highs:

You know I'm always up for a new challenge.  And starting a new business is one of the biggest I've tried to run down.  I know nothing about starting my own business, but like usual, I wouldn't be where I am without the people that God has given me.  I have a group of people who are savvy business people and who also know the IT industry, and with their help I've learned so much in such a short time.  Granted a lot of that is through trial and error, but I guess that's the best way to learn.

It's good to reunite with old friends and be regularly in their lives again.  New friendships are great, but old friendships that have matured over time are irreplaceable and I look forward to reaching that place with some of my new friends in the future.

But most of all, I believe that this is an era of promises fulfilled.  I have a note file on my phone with promises that God has made to me.  And I believe I'm going to start seeing those promises over the coming years.  But of course that requires a lot of waiting in a posture ready to receive…but they're all worth waiting for.  And you can look forward to hearing about them when I receive them.

Thank you everyone for your support and love.  Like I said earlier, I am nothing without the people that God has surrounded me with.  Until next time, and hopefully next time will be less than a month!

I had the opportunity to go to the last day of the Passion conference in Atlanta on Thursday.  It was very nostalgic and brought back fond memories of past Passion conferences.  Especially Passion 2008, it was the encounter I had with the Lord in the Gwinnett Center that got me on the track that eventually led me to go on the World Race.  This Thursday was refreshing because in the Georgia Dome, God showed up and spoke to me more clearly than He had in weeks.

My mind began going to the past month, and how I had slowly degraded from being at peace with my transition to North Carolina and being at a place of trust where I didn't need all the answers.  To allowing my mind to plot, scheme and expect things out of my move that God never promised.  I had come into a place of anxiety and fear.  And in that realization God said,

“Your first responsibility is to let me love you.”

And the word of God did its thing.  It cut me, through my bone and marrow to my heart.  I stopped singing and stood there in a daze.

It makes sense.  We live our lives in response to a God that initiates everything with us. 

•          We love because He first loved us.

•          We're able to be generous because he was first generous with us.

•          We repent because we were forgiven before we even knew we sinned.

•          We comfort others with the comfort that's been given to us.

I could go on…

But why is it so hard to simply receive God's love?  I've spent some time processing this question.  And I want to share what I've found.  Because I'm pretty sure I might share some of the same struggles with some of you.

1.       I'm not at rest.

Have you ever seen two lovers in each others arms, being affectionate with each other, and one of them is stressed out?  Or a father, cuddling with his daughter, but she's so afraid that she's not even paying attention.  Maybe you have.  My point isn't that it doesn't happen my point is that it doesn't belong.  Stress and anxiety cause us to toil, and fear causes us to be in control of everything.  And none of those things allows us to rest.  And in my experience, we can only receive love when we're at a place of rest.

2.       I don't think I deserve it.

If I'm honest, the more I understand grace the less I like it.  Mostly because I hate the idea that I'm treated better then I deserve. In Danny Silk's book “Loving our Kids on Purpose” he talks about being a representation of God by being a safe place for your kids to fail.  He says the goal is when your child screws up or makes a mistake they should be able to say, “I want to get in your lap when I have sinned, because they are the safest place I have on earth.  There is no one who has demonstrated love like you have to me.”  As soon as I read that I realized that I don't do that.  And my immediate first question was, “Why don't I find God to be a safe place?”  Because there are definite times when I don't feel loved by God because I feel like I don't deserve love by God.

3.       God's character doesn't reflect love.

AW Tozer wrote in ‘The Knowledge of the Holy', “The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.”

In my last point I came to the conclusion that I didn't feel that God was a safe place.  In part because I didn't feel like I deserved love, also in part because my view of God is not of a loving father at times.  Mostly because I have taken things I've seen to be true in the world and reflected them on God…big mistake.  But also because I take what makes sense to me, like how I need to earn love, and force my view of God to fit into that.

So what am I doing about it?  Well so far, I'm waking up and thanking God for loving me.  I lay there and take stock of the proof in my life that God loves me.  Gratitude helps when you're trying to accept love.  What about you?  Do you have anything to add to my list that I didn't think of?  I'd like to hear it.

“I've been searching for words for awhile now for this blog.  And really the best way to describe my emotions right now is bittersweet.  You know what it means to be bittersweet, to feel sad or melancholy but underneath that is a glimmer of excitement or happiness.  That's me.”

This is from one of my blogs posted on 12/21/2008, a few weeks before I left for the World Race.  I started reading back because, once again, change is coming to my life.  For me, that may not be saying a lot.  After all, the last three years of my life have been nothing but transition after transition.  But this transition feels more similar to that huge step I took 3 years, that took me on this grand adventure and less familiar to every other transition that's taken place since then.

You see, at the end of January I'm going to be packing up my stuff and moving back to North Carolina.  Specifically to Greensboro, where God has graciously provided a place to live with a great friend and a job to help make ends meet.  I have some leads on what God has for me there but I don't feel released to truly pursue any of them, or even to look for another job until I actually get up there.

I'm excited to bring what has been given to me, to my home in North Carolina.  To truly return home as Tim the man and not Timmy the son, and to return in faith and hope that God is moving in great ways.  But returning in faith is difficult.  I can't see that God will take care of all my needs.  I can't see that God is going to move through me.  But that is the internal struggle that makes faith worthwhile and valuable. 

And I'm going to miss my family in Georgia.  I'm thankful that for the first 19 years of my life, loneliness was a common feeling for me, but 3 years ago I moved and haven't stopped and God has made sure that I haven't been lonely since.    I have brothers and sisters and moms and dads here, that will always make wherever they are home to me. 

So this next season may be hard and it may not look like what I expect, but I know what God has promised me.  He has promised me that it will be filled with wonder and adventure, humility and brokenness.  Because that's the same promise He made me 3 years ago, and a wise man once told me that God's last word is His current one until He speaks again.

The Confession

I remember Michael Hindes once said something along the lines of “I don't know why people are surprised when life gets messy. Dogs poop, alive things make a mess...life gets messy.” Well in the weeks leading up to this past weekend, life got messy. So when I got the offer to house sit for my boss over Labor Day weekend, I jumped at the chance. And in light of how things had been going I felt the best use of my time would be to spend that weekend in isolation with God.

As I emerged out of the weekend and started making contact with people, their big question was “What big revelations did God speak to you?” And my response was always, “Well, I had lost my peace but I got it back.” At first I didn't see the value in that response and felt a little disappointed that I hadn't come back like Moses off the mountain all shining from God's presence.

The Revelation

But then I remembered what I had read in 2 Kings chapter 3 during my weekend of solitude. In this chapter the kings of Israel and Edom decide to go to war with Moab and invite King Jehoshaphat, of Judah, to join them. On their way out Jehoshaphat suggests that they go to a prophet and get a word from the Lord before they go to battle, so they stop in and see Elisha. Now like most kings of Israel and Edom, in 1^st and 2^nd Kings, these two were evil and Elisha made it pretty obvious that he didn't like these two at all,

“...were it not that I have regard for Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you...”.

But nonetheless they're kings and they've come to him as a prophet of the Lord looking for a word. So he calls for a musician to come and it's not until the musician begins playing that the hand of the Lord comes on Elisha and he can discern what God is saying.

When I read that, I remembered what a wise man once said to me.

“Peace is the potting soil of revelation.”

And that's when I realized, that in those previous couple of weeks, I hadn't heard God's voice or felt His presence that whole time. Because when our spirits are in turmoil then there's no way we can quiet ourselves enough to hear the whisper of God. That's why Elisha called for the musician, he knew he couldn't hear God's voice while his head was shouting obscenities at the evil kings sitting in front of him wanting God's blessing.

The Challenge

I was reminded last weekend that Elisha's challenge is also my own. If I subscribe to the belief that God still talks today, and at any given moment might have something to say to me, then how am I going to react when a roomful of people need peace? Am I going to be able to quiet myself to find the peace that lies underneath? What about when I'm face to face with someone who is in the midst of brokenness and sorrow. Will I be able to step outside of my own brokenness long enough to hear the words that God might be giving me for that person? That is the challenge and the responsibility any son or daughter of God has the honor of bearing.

So maybe I should start carrying my Ipod around with me. Because I'm sure if Elisha was around today, he'd keep one in his pocket.

“...as he(Jesus) is so also are we in this world.”

1 John 4:17b, paranthesis added by me

For most of my life I lived through a cycle. That cycle would be...life is going well, things are working in my favor....and then a few weeks go by and I'm gripped in fear because things are going TOO well. Something must be right over the hill because things can't go too well for too long. I started following Jesus and THAT cycle looked like...Jesus and I are having great time together, I miss one day, I miss two days and then WHAP! I get a speeding ticket, or I catch a cold. God must be putting me back in line for not spending time with him.

That was my perception of who God was. And that perception was my reality. Now since then, I've been corrected a little in my perception of God and have been freed from a lot of that fear and religion. But I tell that story to give you a visual that our perception of God dictates our identity, behavior and beliefs and there are usually gaps between our perception and the truth.

And that's what started happening to me.  I began to notice those gaps and had to make a choice.  Would I choose to continue to picture God as the punisher with His rod?  Or would I choose to believe in the God of the Bible, who's "kindness leads us to repentance."  I wanted to believe in a kind God, but to do so forced me to answer some serious questions.  Why was I afraid of blessing?  Why didn't I feel like I deserved good gifts?  And this time I couldn't use God as a cop-out.

If you read all of 1 John chapter 4, Paul explains in detail that God is love. And that God proved His love through the sacrifice His son made for us on the cross. And if we truly knew God then we would love each other. Because our perception of who God is determines who we are, whether its true or not.

But how do you break out of your own wrong perception of God? I wish I knew. In the place where I'm at in my journey, the most beneficial things for me have simply been the awareness that my perception of God could be skewed. That leaves me open to correction from the Holy Spirit. On top of that is also having a relationship with God and hearing His voice. How better to get to know someone then to spend time with them. Alright I'm starting to sound cliché. But before I go, let me end on a question. What do you tend to focus on? Who you are and what you do for God? Or who God is and what He's done for you?

Little boys grow up watching movies and reading books about men who live epic lives. The stories of these men articulate the desires in all little boys hearts for adventure, battle and conquest. And as most of you know, little boys grow into men. And either those desires die, or those godly desires are corrupted into recklessness, immaturity and laziness.

I'm sorry, there's a third option there.

Or God redeems those desires and takes you on a pilgrimage. The last two years for me have been exactly that. I've had a grand adventure and seen countries and lands I never thought possible. I've climbed mountains and waterfalls, killed my own dinner, swam through a river cave and had a machete pulled on me.

Then my adventure turned into a quest when I accepted responsibility for the things I saw in these places. Thirteen year old girls shouldn't have to service 8 men in a day just to eat, little boys shouldn't have to go begging with their baby sister in the streets. A syringe shouldn't be a mans only solice. Women shouldn't have to walk 5 miles one way just to get arguably clean water for the day.

And those were just the people I met along the way.

The people who traveled along side me had their own internal battles, as did I. Would I be a man of reproof and honor so that my brothers and sisters would have a safe place to land? Would I be a safe place in an unsafe world? Would I love my brothers and sisters through their mess even when I wasn't completely sure they would love me through mine?

And then I came home and rested...and rested...and rested.

Now I am living in Gainesville and working for AIM. I live in a phenominal and loving community, and have a very rewarding job. But all this rest is making me restless. Regardless that I am still playing a role in mobilizing a generation to bring kingdom to the world, I'm ready for the next challenge. I want another adventure with battles and difficulty.

But for now, God says no.

But if I'm not an adventurer, or a warrior or a peacemaker then who am I?

I am all of those things, and none of those things. I am a Son of God, a royal prince in His court, an adopted heir to the throne. That is why I take responsibility for the injustice in front of me, and the same reason why I can sit in peace when there is no battle to fight. But what does that look like? Yeah, I pray for my squad still out on the field, and I pray for things that God puts on my heart, but honestly my time with Him looks a lot like sitting in my hammock in awkward silence.

And Dad couldn't be prouder.

Sometimes He talks over me my identity and how much He loves me and how proud of me He is. I like those times. But a lot of times its quiet. But I sit there because I know that God is sitting there too, and He won't get up until I get up.

So now I live in this divine tension. Where I am content with being a son and nothing else, but my desire is for more. More authority, more influence, more light, more love...

And I believe that my Dad wants all those things for me...and for the world. But a man who knows himself as a warrior and nothing else, is all he will ever know of himself. But a man who knows himself as a Son to the God of All Things will know himself as...all things.

I was sitting in my apartment Sunday night with my roommates watching TV when the news report came on, triumphantly announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden. We all knew we were watching history and we all knew that it was probably a good thing that this terrorist cell leader was dead so that he couldn't hurt anyone else. But for the last few days I've been processing how I've felt on a personal level at the death of a man that changed our country forever.

In the midst of these thoughts and questions I was reminded of Ephesians 6:12:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

I love this passage because during my time on the World Race it really helped me through some of the hard things I had to see. With all the hardship I was exposed to, this passage helped me in my search for what “the problem” is with this world.

The truth is we are the ones that bring the kingdom of hell onto earth with the things that we choose to say and the things that we choose to do...and even the things we choose not to say and choose not to do. And God never justifies that, that's why Christ had to die. But he also never saw us as "the problem", that's also why Christ chose to die.

Ephesians 6:12 tells us that our true foe is not physical but spiritual, which can be very confusing. But everything in the spiritual shows itself in the natural. Kill the embodiment of evil and evil will find another body. I support our governments decision, but we need to take stock of our “victory”. Is this really a victory? Or are we fighting the wrong battle?