The Story of How I Got My Gibson Explorer (guitar)

I had the following conversation on Twitter recently with Big Shane Slade (@shaneawesome). It's just such a great story about how I got my Gibson Explorer (pictured).

And yet it's about so much more than that...

The Story of How I Got My Gibson Explorer (guitar):

(Each of these are the original tweets. I just randomly posted the first one and the conversation began)
 
Some days u just feel like pulling out the electric guitar. Did u know I have a purple Gibson Explorer? Might Instagram it this afternoon :)

@shaneawesome: @aheartforgod seriously? That's awesome! < There's a whole spiritual story behind it, too (only with me) :)

@shaneawesome: [Can you share?]

@shaneawesome Well...I was in a Christian band in the late 80s. I felt like God asked me 2 lay it down. So I left the band... #testimonytime

@shaneawesome My fellow band members were brokenhearted. I hated that. They agreed I had 2 do what God wanted me 2 do...

@shaneawesome We had a great ministry going, but God wanted 2 have all of me. Music could not be an idol... #testimonytime

@shaneawesome Anyway, I was gone for a while. That's when something interesting happened. (I so miss those guys)...

@shaneawesome God spoke to me. He said, Mike, you're going back to the band :) #testimonytime

@shaneawesome I thought, Naaaw. But I called up the bass player (&leader)&he confirmed it. He told me God spoke to him, 2

@shaneawesome Furthermore, he (the bass player) told me God had told him he was to give me his Les Paul #testimonytime

@shaneawesome We scheduled a meeting at a restaurant in San Jose 2
surprise the rest of the band (4 other guys&a gal singer) #testimonytime

@shaneawesome I hope I'm not boring you :) #testimonytime

@shaneawesome: [No, please go on]

@shaneawesome They were so surprised (&jazzed) when I said, God wants me to come back to the band (as u might imagine) #testimonytime

@shaneawesome Anyway, that's how I got my purple Gibson Explorer (&still have it 20 yrs later).I traded the Les Paul 4 it :) #testimonytime

@shaneawesome I miss that band so much. God used us in incredible ways to preach the Gospel #Jesus #testimonytime #tears

RT @shaneawesome: @aheartforgod why not start another? < It's past my time (though God might speak to me again?) :)

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Bad Neighbor Bye Bye

I was depressed. I was at my whit's end. (It happens to pastors, too.) I couldn't take it any more. Here's why.

It wasn't that my next door neighbor played his music. It was that he played it so loud, so often, so selfishly (in disregard for the neighborhood). And he had this "box" thing ~ a "tube" is what my kids and I called it. It was off the back of a long bed truck ~ without the truck. It sat there in my neighbor's yard ~ about 40 feet long by 15 feet wide. He had a monster stereo system in it. It pointed at my house. It was like a bullhorn. (That's what it was!)

And that bass beat ~ I shudder just thinking about it. Thump, thump ~ thump, thump, thump. I couldn't drown it out. I couldn't shut it up. At 11 p.m. one night the police came to tell him to turn his music down. When they left, he turned it louder. There was a point where I dreaded even coming home.

One afternoon I prayed, "Lord, please have them move." And I'm not kidding. At the very moment I finished saying that last word, through my window I could hear my neighbor on his cell phone saying, "I can't believe my landlord is asking me to leave." When I told this story to a co-worker she said she had shivers go up and down her spine.

My neighbor's been gone for five years now. :)

(What demonic noise do you need have quieted in your life?)

"In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears." (Psalm 18:6)

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