Prayer Requests

vulcanbob · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 4:23 am Post subject: Prayer Requests

I would like to request that everyone keep Mr. Dan Brown and his Family in their prayers, he just got out of the hospital with the flu and his wife has it now. He has been a great inspiration for me. And a good friend.
Thanks

J Dan Brown · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 5:24 am Post subject:

Thanks Bob, eagerly accepted and appreciated. It has indeed been a week of testing for me. I wonder if perhaps we should add a "Prayer Requests" section somewhere, somehow. It couldn't hurt and maybe those that won't speak up would pray for others. This is a fellowship after all, like a church or a bible study and works best with participation.

Please remember guys that I am not any kind of hero and am only a pile of rubbish without Christ, Who is the real hero here and everywhere. And I am sure that you could not possibly be blessed more by me than I have been by you.
Blessed, even giving his wife influenza for Valentines Day Sad

, Dan

music wasn't part of me · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:29 am Post subject:

A WEEK OF TESTING

It has surely been a week of testing, i myself have been struggling with many things lately. one that concerns me the most is my past addiction of pornography, I always try to gather enough strength to admit this. I encourage young people esp teenagers that i know to stay away from the subtle but deadly grip of pornography. I encourage them while always keeping myself in check

It is really like the "Youth who lacked judgment" in Psalm7:7-27, that was me long time ago. I trashed every dirty thing that i owned, physically and spiritually. I struggled to fight the evil that resided in me.

i even did a personal research on the subject and came out with a shocking discovery that pornography&all the activities that usually follow creates something of a hormonal conspiracy in our brain, these hormones are like "MAFIA", they hijack your brain, killing every good sense you got and take their seats by force. You kick them out once, they'll come back with more thugs. just like what Jesus said about what happens when you kick a devil out, it goes to arid places and tries to come back bringing 7 bigger thugs. the chemical chain reaction, if continued, according to some researchers, produces an addiction 10 times more powerful than heroin!

I have always managed to keep myself clean for the past 4 years, lots of ups and downs but i keep my heart clean, i never give up, i never surrender the most precious thing in me to the devil, that is my Heart. Everytime i go down, the devil says that it's useless to fight this, it's ok to have just one bad thing in life, no one would know, you could still serve God. But i say to myself i serve my God completely or not at all, then Jesus whispered to me, Pick Yourself Up, just like I did when I fell because of the heavy cross, Get up and try again. so i got up and I kept my heart with me, not giving it to the devil. Oh How you really understand my suffering my Jesus......

markm2553 · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 4:29 am Post subject:

Music, that is a great testimony and took a lot of guts to admit.

I to had/have the same struggles, and more.

Jesus is the only "cure" to any addiction.

Praise God.

Dan a prayer request section is a great idea. But I'm not sure we can do it at this time. (Admin is in China) Maybe we can make it a "sticky". I'm a pretty new mod and don't know how all the controls work. But Punk Star is a wis at such things, maybe he can help us out.
I also pray you and your wife are feeling better.

J Dan Brown · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 6:00 am Post subject:

Mark, I don't know about all that and prayer should be requested anywhere, anytime. But I thought it would draw quicker attention to it to have a section and those who never enter much would pray. I know I would not probably be alive today if not for all the prayer that went up for me so fast from my church, family and friends here and locally. Of course I don't think the Father was through with me yet, as I need to bring some more with me when I go home.

Music, I too admire your boldness in speaking up about his. I have struggled with this a bit in the past and you are so right when you say people tend to hold on to one secret sin, thinking either they deserve it, God's not paying attention or He will allow it to make Christianity tolerable to them. My main one was an addiction to Cannabis (marijuana) for about 30 years. I never liked drinking, mostly the next day and the helplessness while under it's influence. My older brother always was embarrassing me and he ended up with a broken neck, mowing down several pine trees on a Sportster, in '71 after his wife had left him, drunk. Some my early band members couldn't gather the nerve to play without a few beers and by 17 I was playing in clubs (I was a big kid and the sherrif owned the nightclub) and saw things that turned me against it.

But when one of those early band members got drafted and joined the Navy and brought home on leave in '69 a penny match box full of buds, I was on my way. For the next thirty years it had it's grip on me, the first few including tripping and stimulants. I married in '74 and informed my new wife to treat pot like the electric bill and to make sure there was room in our budget for some of it. It got me through work, sex and music and my 2 children grew up both breathing it's fumes and watching their Daddy smoke his little pipe. My 33 yr old son, Christopher, still struggles with it. Even after I was called to play only Christian music in '82, I continued believing this lie of Satan. Even after I was Praise and Worship leader in small churches in the early '90s, I held on to this secret sin, and no one had any idea, except my precious wife and kids (God forgive me!). This continued until 1999, about the time I made that first CD. I quit cold turkey then, and a couple of doctors told me after '02 that I may not have seizures if I would have stopped slowly and others said that I may have had epilepsy from late teens and cannabis was holding it off as an anti-seizure drug.

I still dream about it sometimes and wasted much of my life because of it. You young people, please don't let Satan tell you that it's harmless and not as bad as drinking and all that. Anything that you can't do without to feel normal is wrong, and especially the supposed secret sin. God misses nothing and placed this temptaion in our paths like pornography. I am your witness to it and don't let it get it's hold on you like it did me. It was the hardest thing I have ever done to quit and it has more than likely messed my brain up forever, unless God chooses to deliver me from it's after-effects, even after nine years.
Blessed, to be free at last, Mr. Dan

sharring · Tiger Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Posts: 812 Location: Texas

Brave posts J Dan and Music. Y'all are an inspiration. scott

PunkStar · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 4:51 pm Post subject:

Just a brief technical note, it looks like we will need an admin to make this a sticky or to set up a prayer request forum if that's what you would like. I checked and it doesn't look like we mods can set that kind of thing up. But really, if we keep it near the top of the forum, it will be fine. The thing about stickies is you really do need to keep them updated anyway.

J Dan and Music, I too appreciate and applaud your courage for posting about difficult issues that you have learned from. I think the lesson we can all take from it is never to start something you don't want to have to finish, because it's a long and painful road.