Well, I am at the end of the SoCal recruiting trip. I am in a Starbucks in San Luis Obispo, where I interviewed a couple of alumni.

I got a call from my friend Scott Falk today while driving down here. A lot of who I am was carved out in conversations with him. Iron sharpens iron, Scott sharpens Tony. I wish everyone had a Scott in their lives. His life is ironic. It is like he is more of a pastor being a Bible teacher at a Christian High School in Fresno than others in a church. I think God is doing something new in his life. I have been amazed at the work in the past ten years, he doesn't see it, I do. Sometimes the other iron sees it best, which causes the sharpening process to be reciprocated.

I pulled over at Pismo Beach to read a paper that Christiane did on CommonFire. It was hard to read it. It was very critical in a good sense. It made me question how I do things, my insecurities kick up again. I sat on this bench looking out at the waves and talking to God about who He created when He was putting me together. Then these three people came by and one of them asked if they could ask me some questions for a survey. They asked if I believed in a god. I said yes. He asked if I thought the god was good. I asked him to define "good", he looked perplex. I told him that did he mean that God doesn't allow bad things to happen or that according to Jesus, "only God is good." I try to understand the latter. Again he had a complexion of perplexion. He then asked me how did I know that God was good. I told him that I had witnessed it first hand for thirty years. Gave him a few of my own gospel stories and came up with a "therefor" to the story. "You think a lot!" he said. I then told him I was a believer. The other two, who were trying to just hang out and look uninterested but I knew they were listening, came closer. I asked where they were from and they said a new YWAM house in SLO. We talked about the new concept of single house, small group, DTSs throughout the Central Coast. It sounded a lot like what we are doing at CommonFire. It was what I needed. God spoke through Val, the female leader of the group. God has a wicked sense of timing. I love Him.

He moved in Scott to call before I read this paper, then after I read it He brought the surveyors over. Then Cosby called. God was speaking to him as well. It is good to travel and see signs along desolate patches of highway. God is good.