I continue to get astounded by God’s lead and the way I continue to see Him working my life.  I had worried about falling back to “life as usual” in the months following Wild At Heart, where God pierced my heart to heal me and bring me to life like I’d never known.  With each passing day I seem to learn something new.  Something that just magnifies the glory of God in my life and the life and freedom that is now my through Jesus Christ.  One of these ways has been my Round Table.

When I was alone with God in Colorado, one of the things he put on my heart is the identity of King Arthur and the knights of the round table.  It was rather amazing to feel that on my heart.  In the weeks, prior, I was in our men’s Bible Study and it first hit me there.  I was a lone ranger.  I did life alone or with just my wife.  Didn’t lean to other men for counsel and to really do life with.  I wrote about this in late February in my post “The Round Table.”  Since then, God has shown it to be of great significance to my life as it should be for all of us.

I believe the circles we keep are very vital to our own growth with God.  Having people in our lives that we can trust to be honest with us, not just blow smoke with what we want to hear, and will be there to support and love you through your circumstances.  I think this is huge.  I’m finding those people each day.  Guys I go to worship with, my pastor(s), the guys from Colorado that I now connect with regularly.  Huge part of life and so thankful God has placed these guys here as a part of my round table.

It’s ironic we started a series at church on circles in our life, starting with God and then spreading outward to our family/marriage, friends, etc.  I believe these circles are vital and I believe this is part of the reason God put the round table on my heart, to show me this shortfall and trust that He was placing men in my life I could now trust and turn to.

Here is another example of how vital the round table has been.  In the last couple of months, I made the decision to return to school as I feel that God is calling me into christian counseling and even ministry.  Not sure of what would be the right program, I just chose one to get in the door.  Since then, my pastor/friend/mentor Tim, connected me with a good friend, who is also a christian counselor who sat with me to talk with me about this road and advise me on it.  HUGE!  He helped me to hone in on where I should go, based on my desires and how God is leading.  So now, I am pursuing a Masters in Professional Counseling with the goal of becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor over the next few years.  This will open up great opportunities for reaching peoples and counseling them from the Biblical perspective of trust and in the 4 Streams of Walking with God, Receiving God’s Counsel, Deep Restoration and Healing, and Spiritual Warfare.  I am truly excited about what God is doing and how he has used the round table to counsel me and steer me.

You see, 5 years ago, I started working on a Doctorate in Business.  With no real direction here, I just did it.  People would cheer me on through it, but in reality, I was doing it for wrong reasons after I lost my Dad in an effort to gain focus in my life again, but never received real solid counsel on this.  I didn’t have round table.  There have been other things I done in life in the same manner.  Just doing, but not seeking advice on anything from people or from God.

Again, I look at Scripture in this category too.  All throughout, we see people who have their circles to go through life with.  Most notably, look at Jesus.  He had his inner circle, those closes to Him, His 12, and then other disciples further out from the circle who were sent out.  These people were a significant part of Jesus.  Jesus taught them along the way through His earthly ministry to prepare them for the mission of spreading the Good News to the world after His death to defeat sin, His resurrection to defeat death and give new life, and ascension to the throne with all authority over heaven and earth now His.  His circles very significant, which leads me to believe it’s significant for us as well to as we are now alive in Christ.

I share all this because I believe my testimony here and in other circumstances are significant for all our lives.  God puts the round table in our lives because we are not meant to go through life as lone rangers.  I know there are many of you out there.  When you trust God and put that aside, the way He works in this is so amazing.  You’ll never figure it all out, known of us will, but when you let go and trust Him, He can use you in so many ways for His glory and the freedom we can gain from loving God enough to choose Him first is amazing.  We need people to guide us in this and there are people that need each of us too.  Trust in it and let God use your round table.   I have found, that when you go through life with others, we’ll be amazed at just how closely related we are in our brokenness and sin in the fact that we’re all jacked in someway but can walk through it all together to allow the healing of Christ to enter each of us.  We don’t have to do any of it alone.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”   C.S. Lewis