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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Where It All Started...

I woke up in the San Francisco Bay Area today. Here are a few of my tweets as I started the day...

Good morning from Fremont, California (where I grew up) :) #Jesus #aheartforgod

— aheartforgod (@aheartforgod) April 14, 2012

Fill my heart today, Lord Jesus. I want You! \o/ #Jesus #Tworship #mkbiblechat

— aheartforgod (@aheartforgod) April 14, 2012

Y does the SF Bay Area mean so much 2 me? 1st:I grew up here. 2nd (&most important):I received Jesus into my heart in 1983 here :) #Tworship

— aheartforgod (@aheartforgod) April 14, 2012

I don't want 2 go through the motions, I don't want 2 go 1 more day, Without Your all consuming passion inside of me \o/ #Jesus #Tworship

— aheartforgod (@aheartforgod) April 14, 2012

RT @berean_gal: Psa 30:11Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;

— aheartforgod (@aheartforgod) April 14, 2012

You can tell by my tweets I am a believer in Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:16)

This is where it all happened (the San Francisco Bay Area).

This is where I got in a car accident on the 880 Freeway near Scott Creek Road in Fremont in pouring rain and was hit by a truck.

This is where I looked up to heaven in the pouring rain standing there in ankle deep mud and knew where I would have gone if I had died. (It was not to heaven.)

This is where after I got saved I signed up (at a Petra concert) to sponsor a child overseas through Compassion International. (Our family is on our third sponsored child now in 29 years.)

This is where I used to go out street-witnessing on Broadway in San Francisco with an on fire group of believers handing out Gospel tracts to cars passing by (you should have seen me as a new believer ~ I just teared up writing that).

This is where I was attending the Catholic Church (which I'd grown up in) and was asked to oversee my first Bible study (look at me now ~ I just teared up again).

This is where some friends said to me, "Mike, come on over to the Pentecostal church where you'll get fed." (I cherish my Catholic upbringing ~ I got saved as a Catholic after all!)

This is where I went to that Pentecostal church (First Assembly of God, Fremont) and discovered there was a Bible school there and I decided to attend.

This is where I put up an ad at Guitar Center in San Jose seeking to play in a Christian band and I got a call from two guys that loved the Lord (God would do incredible things through us ~ I am tearing up a third time ~ I miss them).

This is where (I'm back at the Bible school part again) I prayed for a wife, but she needed to (I'm crying again) ~ she needed to love the Lord like I did. (Little did I know God had her hidden right under my nose and from my ability to perceive at the very Bible school at the Pentecostal church. She'd come from Minnesota.)

This is where I (we) got married (Shinn Park, Fremont) and had our second child, Michael (Kaiser Hospital, Hayward), who was a miracle boy. "This never happens," the doctor said. He shouldn't have lived with his umbilical cord wrapped so tightly in a knot (yes, more tears).

This is where I served in my first professional ministry position as a Children's and Junior High Pastor. (It was a total miracle in itself that we got that position. I don't have time to tell you.)

And this is where I (we) decided to leave to pastor a church in the Sierra foothills towards Yosemite and left in December 1996. (We've been gone ever since.)

The Bay Area story isn't over as I'm with my daughter, Kelly @warriorwoman91, going to a Welcome day at the University of California East Bay this morning (where she'll be attending in the Fall).

I am full of joy, gratitude, happiness, teary-eyed as I wake up in the Bay Area today.

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10)

"'For I know the plans that I have for you,'" declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.'" (Jeremiah 29:11)

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