How Phil Wickham Changed my Life..

Well almost..but I wanted to take some time to reflect on one of my favorite songs off the new album, !CANNONS!

The song is called “Home” and for the first song in my life, a song has made me cry. I never get emotional about anything, but after listening to this song, it got to me. The song itself is not even one of the epic masterpieces that you find in the first few tracks of this album or most of the tracks on the previous two albums, but the final verse of this song gave me hope about life and all the times we screw up in it.

The final verse is sung as follows,

“When I saw you I was ashamed..You were pure and I was stained..But You ran to me and You called my name..There were tears of joy upon Your face..”

I don’t know what it was about that verse, but the picture of me living my life my way, doing things for myself and running it the way I want to colliding with the Almighty God and his vision for my life just got to me. To know I have not walked as close with him as I should, that I’ve done things I shouldn’t have, all of those things subliminally pushes me away from him..thinking why would he want me now? I have heard from the begining of time that that way of thinking is not true and there are so many examples in the scripture that contradict that theory, but it is so hard to realize that in the moment of sinful living. Maybe I just connect to things through music, but hearing those lyrics expressed by my Worship Leader just painted the clearest picture in my mind. Seeing myself walking down a path, looking up at the Lord thinking how he could want or use me now, and seeing him just crying saying “it doesn’t matter, I love you,” that just got to me. It’s a situation any Christian has heard a gazillion times, but it finally clicked for me.

If you haven’t bought and listened to Cannons, you really should, but who am I kidding, anyone who reads this blog is an avid Philler, so carry on!

What better to leave you than with Phil telling you about the song from his own heart!

Last Week in Review

I had a terrific week, let me tell you why.

It all started off last saturday when I went home and we celebrated my birthday with my high school friends and parents, no not their parents, but rather my parents. It was good to spend time at home and celebrate things. We went to the original sals in selma and it was delicious!!

Then Monday I had a birthday lunch with my work, in which I got chipotle and a chocolate creme pie from Marie Callendars for free! It was sooo good. I have them in the palm of my hands at work, I can always set myself up to be the punching bag for the jokes and everything, but in the end, my dorkiness is what they really need..or at least that’s what I keep telling my self. They had me cut the pies, and it took about only 15 minutes for me to servc the 10 other people at the table. They said I was really pathetic, whatever, they like it. Then after that day, I went to doghouse with Randy and Sean, and it was great! We talked condo’s, yardwork and wall street..or maybe other things.

Tuesday brought my actual birthday, in which I turned 23. It was a good day, although I had to spend it auditing a client iun Hanford. The location of this office is just north of the Juvenile hall and just east of the Kings County Jail..so if you know where either of those things are..I feel sorry for you. It was alright, I got to go out to eat again (a recurring theme of the week), this time to “black bear diner” which was..good. I then came home, and met Jessica at my apt, and then we went to Japanese Kitchen and Cheesecake Factory for dinner and dessert. So in case you are still reading this, it will now be clear to you that I consumed about 10,000 calories in 2 days!!

Wednesday and Thursday were non-birthday celebrating days, which after 3 days this week, I was actually glad to eat at home and not on the road. However Friday, I worked 9 1/2 hours and after it was over, I immediately went to Visalia with Jessica to meet with Kimmy Kim Kim, and we had a great time with her at fugazzi’s.

So as you can see, it was terrific, but now i’ve been going to gym a lot to work off my month’s worth of food.

This has sadly become my life story over the last 2 years.

my absolute favorite band (from the heart of Gene as told me by Gene)

Man I love these guys. They are such visionaries you know? Every time I pick up my guitar I think of how much I like Chad, Mike, Ryan and Brandon.

Their songs are better than any I’ve heard, and their musical technique is what I aspire to have.

If you want to know what true music is then you need to listen to Nickelback. They are the single greatest cultural import in American history.

I hope you all share in the listening and the love that I have for Nickelback. They touch a place in my heart that can not be reached by conventional methods.

I want to share with you one of the most powerful pieces of art that has ever been created. I don’t have words strong enough to describe my utmost thankfulness of this band’s existence.

Beautiful. Simply Beautiful.

I’d like to start a Nickelback cover band. If you are interested and you’re a musician, I’d love for you to email me as soon as possible.

Thank you Chad Kroeger, thank you.

Gosh the times have been great.

I spent time in Reedley this weekend with some old homeboys. Now when I say old you might be thinking that it was time spent with my old high school friends, and it was, but seriously, i’m the oldest one at 23 (almost, in 3 days) but we’re all like 22 going on 58. We act like old men! We all have like careers or businesses that we own, one of us got married, and half of them live in Reedley..it’s just crazy how old we’ve become in the four short years we’ve been out of high school. I really enjoyed just kickin back last night and spending time with them.

Today i’m home celebrating my birthday, and it really hit me that I was getting older because:
a. I slept in my room on an air mattress, only that since I moved out my parents completely redid the whole entire house and thus, my room is not the same at all..but it’s cool..I understand it actually really needed to be remodeled.

b. Most importantly, putting twenty-three candles on a cake is just ridiculous.

So here we go with this blog. I hope to put more insightful posts on, instead of just talking about my day. However this will take time so bear with. I hope a regular feature of this blog will be signing off with a video that really will rock your world. We got a good start with the Eddie Murphy/Michael Jackson extravaganza. A really good start. Sean Munoz of “Best Blog Ever” told me about this one. Enjoy!

Life gets real.

I’ve just had a blast in life recently..for example.
On madden 2008 I created myself and got drafted by the NY Jets..J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!..and it was amazing, I can’t believe I still have a girlfriend.

Speaking of her, she’s great! We enjoyed times with Pensiero’s and Munoz and Penner last weekend. They are fun and they have ridiculous challenges such as trivial pursuit that has a dvd portion where the question they ask couldn’t even be answered by those people who talk on the I love the “insert year here”, and those people know everything. It was like..”who was the third cousin of the guy who drummed with Bing Crosby in middle school?” Of course..mr. knowledge box himself Sean was playing so he would pipe with answers such as “oh that’s easy..Bing Crosby’s third cousin drummer guy was obviously Dave Thomas, who ironically the guy who started the Wendy’s chain that was ironically named after Bing’s second girlfriend who eventually dumped him and dated Dave, which led to the break up of the band, which was ironically named..Burger King.” That’s exactly how it was..exactly.

Also I joined a gym. That’s right. gb3. Palm. and. Nees. Since I don’t see a lot of you, next time you see me I’ll be a regular David Hasselhoff.

I leave with you a video that Gene sent me a while back, it will make you laugh, and if it doesn’t, please let me know.