The Hotel Upgrade

Being a bonafied world traveler, I have stayed in some amazing places. I have traveled much doing ministry, business, conferences, and vacations, so my motto of “Blessed are the Flexible” gets a lot of mileage when on the road.

I traveled throughout the USA in the late eighties with a band called Destiny and we stayed in every kind of motel you can imagine. We even slept in the back of our trucks at a state park near Nashville. Since then, I have slept in hammocks in southern Mexico. I battled spiders by candlelight in a hotel in Rwanda. Stayed in a room at a motel in East Africa where they guy behind the desk promised a room with a view. When I got there, I found it had no door-hence, the view. I have also stayed in grass huts in India and one time, my friends literally ran a cobra out of the room just before I got there.

Where Fashion sits…
Now before you go to thinking I am Indiana Jones, let me tell you I have also stayed in some truly swanky joints. I love nice hotels. Ten years ago Leanna and I spent four days at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco. We were even on the club level and had to have a James Bond key to get to the tenth floor.

Do you know they have a bath menu there? Sure -would you like rose pedals and oil in your water, M’am? As my Grandfather used to say, “well woop-te-doo”. He also said “la-te-da” but I don’t really know what that means.

I embarrassed poor Leanna on that same trip when a surgeon asked me what kind of business I was in. I told him I was a mule for the Columbian drug cartel and he left me alone after that.

I have also stayed at the Luxor in Vegas, the Sheridan in Jerusalem, and the Crown Plaza in New Deli. The Hilton in San Antonio was awesome with a view of the Alamo from my bed. The Horse Shoe or Herra Dura Hotel in San Jose ,Costa Rica, used to be a frequent stop for me because a friend of mine worked there and all we had to pay was taxes. It had a nice Jacuzzi in the room and I wore it out every chance I got.

A company I used to work for sent me to the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street and the PGA resort in Florida. I didn’t drink or golf so I toured New Orleans and went to the Jai-alai games. A super nice room and one which was probably bugged by the communists, was the Hotel Miramar in Havana Cuba. It overlooks the Gulf of Mexico and the Russian Embassy. Of course the commies at the Russian Embassy help overlook the good people of Cuba too.

The Austonian Hotel is going up in the states capital and I’v got plans to spend the night there some day. So suffice it to say, I love a good hotel.

Local Flavor
Today I stopped to eat at the Caddo Grill in downtown Cleburne. We had a nice lunch and when I stepped out, I saw the newly refurbished Liberty Hotel sharing the same parking lot. I know that Hotel because 12 years ago I hosted a food outreach right there when it was the parking lot of Piggly Wiggly. At that time, the historic Liberty had fallen to a decimated shooting gallery occupied with drug dealers, transients and prostitutes.

We went into that building taking groceries from door to door and inviting people outside to the things we were doing. I could not believe anything that bad was in Johnson County. It looked like something from Queens, New York.

The message I preached out there in that parking lot was that God makes all things brand new. There were more than a thousand people who came for help that day and about 80 of them were from the Liberty Hotel.

Twelve years later that message proved to be prophetic. That whole area has been reborn and the Liberty Hotel is one of the finest in the county. I took a tour of the rooms today and was blown away at what they have done with the place. The quality and attention to detail was just wonderful. It is really something to see and is not even recognizable from the mess it once was.

I close this week’s Fresh from the Brewer by saying, I hope the same can be said of all of us. May each of us upgrade and be transformed from ruined wrecks into shining examples. May Jesus Christ change us and present us the way whoever paid the price for the Liberty Hotel did. He has a way of making that happen like nobody else.

Even the name Liberty speaks of Jesus I think. The bible says where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty.

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” Revelation 21:5

You can read more about the Brewer at www.troybrewer.com. He pastors Open Door Ministries church near Joshua. www.opendoorministries.org