Over the past 5 years I’ve heard Perry Noble say countless times,

God will NOT reveal what is NEXT until we are obedient in what He is revealing NOW!

In early 2012, God revealed to me that I needed to quit my job and move to Anderson, SC to take a internship with NewSpring Church. I detailed that process out, through a post that you can read here.

I fought and argued with God about the decision, through my selfishness and personal desires. In the end, as God always does – he won and I moved to Anderson, SC. I can say that as hard as it was, it was one of the most revealing and amazing 5 months of my life. I will forever be grateful for the staff and people that I had the opportunity to interact with on a daily basis. They have shape the future of my life, in ways they will never know.

At the end of the internship, God showed me that I was not supposed to stay at the church, with little clarity on what was next. I was very uncertain as to why he would have my quit my job, if he didn’t want me staying there. I then accepted a job in Knoxville, TN, back in the radio industry but at a much lower position level than I had left. I chalked this up as basically having to start over. Still, I was uncertain as to what my future was going to look like, and really where God was directing my life.

Then out of the blue, an opportunity came available, in a place that I had never considered moving, in a market size I never thought I would get to work in, and doing a job that I feel like is made for me. I basically thought there is no way I would ever get this job. Well, I am happy to announce that on May 1st, I start as the Digital Program Director for Clear Channel Phoenix. I will be packing my bags and headed west to the land of In-n-Out Burger.

God’s faithfulness in this situation blows my mind more and more as I think about it. I was able to get all of my vacation back based on my previous 6 1/2 years with the company .. it’s going to be like I never left. Basically, God took my life on this crazy 9 month journey only to bring me back to not the place I was, but a much greater place than I was, and make it almost like I never left. Please try and wrap your mind around that. People that think that God will ask them to do crazy things and then not bless it – have lost their dang mind! God truly wants the absolute best for your life and mine, he is the one that can see what the future holds not us.

Please try and see this .. no matter how crazy of a situation God has you in now, trust him with it. He has a plan, he has a way, and both of those are ALWAYS better than the decisions you or I can make on our own. So many times we want to take control, but God isn’t asking us to take control – he wants us to give up control. If we are able to control the situation what need do we have for him, and we’ve all made that mistake before. Trust him, and I promise you that he will bless you beyond your wildest desires. I can say that from experience.

Here’s to not getting pricked by a cactus and not stepping on a scorpion!

1. It’s the only March 13th 2013 you’ll ever have, why not make it the best?
2. No one ever did anything significant with their life by procrastinating.
3. You are not guaranteed tomorrow.
4. You have more influence on the people around you than you realize. Your extra effort could motivate someone else to go for it, and make today the best for themselves as well.
5. Laziness always leads to regret later.

Bonus: A focused effort actually makes the day go by faster.

Buy on iTunes: here

I was very fortunate to have a low reservation number in the line of over 700,000 people that are patiently waiting for their MailBox number to be called. It is a line that is almost worse than visiting a DMV in any state, but is the wait really worth it?

What is it?

You first might be asking what exactly is Mailbox? Mailbox is a new GMail email app for the iPhone that looks at email differently. A few years back this whole idea of Inbox Zero started. Email can be something that makes you incredibly productive or unproductive. If your a slave to your email, then its holding you back. If you take control of your email, and do not feel like you have to check it every 5 minutes, then you can turn it into a productive tool. The idea behind Inbox Zero is each time you check your email, you deal with everything thats there, and put it in a defined place. Typically those things fall into one of three buckets – archive, follow-up, or trash. Now that we have the idea of what Inbox Zero is, let’s look at how this works with Mailbox.

How do I get it?

The team at Mailbox has decided to grant access via a first come first serve basis. They started with pre-reservations back in January, and hit the app store last Thursday. One really cool thing they are doing is allowing you to see exactly what your number in line is, and how many people are behind you. The line is moving incredibly slow, and at this point over 700,000 people have reserved a spot. Mailbox is assuring that they will start giving out mailboxes faster, and will eventually get to the point where it’ll be open to everyone.

You can download Mailbox from the app store.

How does it work?

You’ve got a lot of options options for checking your GMail on the iPhone, but what makes this different? The first thing you are going to realize about Mailbox is the beautiful interface. It’s clean, simple, and only has buttons there that are needed. They truly thought through the entire workflow process of how email should work.

I’m going to walk you through the entire process, just so you can see how it really does change your mindset on working with your email.

When you receive a email, you have a few options you can delete it, archive it, set a follow up later time, leave it in your inbox, or add it to a list.

Delete: To delete something, you just swipe to the right until you see the red x, and it is deleted.

Archive: To archive, you half swipe to the right, until you see the green check, and it is moved to your archive.

Later: Later is one of the best features of this app. When you see a email come in your inbox that you know needs a action, but you don’t have either the answers or time to deal with it at that moment – you set a time to address it later. When you swipe to the left, you see the yellow later label. Then, a box pops up with the option for you to define when later is.

Lists: Look at lists as a way that you might have typically used folders in the past. By default they have 3 lists setup, but you can delete and add many more yourself. If you have something come in that you might want to buy, ready, or do at a later date you can put it in those lists. This is a feature that I think will organically form to your personal workflow as you start to use it.

Leaving In The Inbox: This is the least desired option in the Mailbox world. The ultimate goal is to get your inbox to zero. They have setup a different daily photo back the background of their logo when you successfully get your inbox to zero. You can even share on social media that you got your inbox to zero, along with viewing the actual photo on Instagram to learn more.

Other key features ..

Composing: The window to compose a new message, looks like one stolen strait from twitter. As you can see in the gallery below, it is extremely simple to add a image, the smaller box is there to encourage you to write shorter emails, and it interacts with your current contact list beautifully.

Move All: There are two small lines at the bottom left and right of the inbox view. These are here to allow you to archive all your current messages, delete all messages, or set all your messages for later. This is an exceptionally great way to get started with the app. If you find that you have thousands of email in your inbox when you first start the app, just archive all of them and you can start with a clean slate.

Badge Number: If you find yourself as someone that has to check a application as soon as you see a 1 pop up on it, then there is a setting just for you. You can actually turn the badge notification completely off. This will allow you to keep your calm, and only check email when you are ready for it.

There are various other different configuration settings that you have at your disposal to increase your experience with the app. From setting snooze times, you can drag and drop emails in a specific order, change the way everything syncs, and setup how you want your notifications to work. Everything is here to make your productivity the best it possibly can be.

Conclusion

With so much hype surrounding this app, does it live up to the expectations? In my opinion, yes. What they are doing isn’t revolutionary. You can do all of these things yourself with your current mail apps, but what makes Mailbox different is they are giving you a workflow and configuration that makes dealing with your email – simple, painless, and quick. It’s going to make you realize that you shouldn’t be a slave to your email, if your intentional about how you interact with it while your there – you’ll gain more time back because of it. Your wait in line might be long, but if you use a Gmail based account as a primary email in your daily life, it’s going to be worth the wait and I really think that your going to become overall more productive because of it.

This past Sunday Dr. James Merritt from Cross Pointe Church, in Duluth Georgia – addressed it the best way I’ve heard anyone yet. Please listen.