The Hardest, Most Tedious Things

Do you know what this is?  This is one of the

hardest, most tedious things I have undertaken

in a long time.  It’s diced, fresh Arkansas grown

tomato. It was to garnish the shredded chicken

tacos that I fixed my wife for supper a couple of days ago.  

Isn’t it funny, and I don’t mean ha-ha funny, how sometimes it is the simplest of things that drive us the craziest?  I mean, we take on “hard” things regularly like dealing with problems at work or balancing the budget when the end of the money gets there before the end of the month or even the everyday grind of getting the kids up and dressed and fed and out the door in time for school (which will be back on us in just a few more days)!  

But then something little, insignificant comes up, like not knowing a quick, safe, good way to dice a tomato, and all of a sudden it’s like our world explodes. “There’s no way I can get everything done that I have to do!”  “Why do these things always happen to me!” “I’ll never have my wife’s supper ready when she gets home from work!” It’s like because our schedule is messed up, or we have been inconvenienced our world is going to crumble.

Did you know that Jesus had days like that, too?  In Mark (3rd book, New Testament), chapter 5, we learn how Jesus responded when He faced a similar situation.  The story starts in verse 22.

Jesus had just gotten out of a boat that brought Him from one side of the Sea of Galilee (a large lake in Northern Israel) to the other side and He was approached by a man named Jarius that Mark describes as “one of the rulers of the Synagogue”.  That would have been a man of considerable importance in their community, basically a teacher or elder at the local Jewish church. He told Jesus that his daughter lay “at the point of death” and he begged Jesus to come and heal her. Of course, Jesus agreed to.  As they traveled toward the house of Jarius the crowd that had been following Jesus began to grow larger and press in all the more tightly.

In the crowd was a woman who had a discharge of blood and had suffered from this affliction for 12 years already.  Like most of us would, she had sought out doctors and spent everything she owned trying to find a cure. The problem had only gotten worse.  Having heard about Jesus and where to find Him she worked her way through the crowds trying to just get close to Jesus. As she got close to Him she reached out and just touched the robes of Jesus because she believed that if she could just touch the hem of His garments she would be healed AND SHE WAS IMMEDIATELY HEALED.

Jesus, knowing that power had gone out of Him turned to this crowd, this mass of people and said, “Who touched my garments?”  I’m sure that as His disciples looked out across this teeming mass of people they thought what an impossible question that is to answer, but the woman knew (and Jesus knew).  She fell to her knees before Jesus and told the whole story. Jesus called her “Daughter” and told her to go in peace because her faith had made her well!

But we were talking about the way little interruptions messed our days so thoroughly.  While Jesus was still talking to the woman, someone came from Jarius’ house and said not to trouble the Master (or Teacher or Rabbi, depending on your translation) any longer.  “Your daughter is dead!” As Jesus heard the report He turned to Jarius and said, “Do not fear, only believe.”  

Jesus sent everyone away except Peter and James and John and the travelled on to the home of Jarius.  As they arrived they saw the commotion and crying and Jesus asked them why they were weeping. “The child is not dead,but sleeping.”  They actually laughed at Jesus because they had all seen dead before and that child was dead!

Jesus put everyone out of the house and took Jarius and his wife and Peter, James, and John into this 12 year old little girl’s room.  Jesus stepped to the side of her bed, took her by the hand and said, “Little girl, arise!” and immediately she got up.

Now, the reason we went through this story is to show you something about the little things that add chaos to our lives.  Now I don’t know if the woman who touched Jesus’ garments was on His agenda for the day or not, but I can pretty well guarantee you that she wasn’t Jarius’ agenda.  Even though Jesus was delayed by the woman, He wasn’t prevented from doing what He was going to do. Lesson 1: Our timetable and God’s timetable aren’t always the same (but His is always the right one).  Lesson 2: It ain’t over until God says it’s over. Lesson 3: God often has little things to teach us (like “Trust” and “Obedience” and “Proper Priorities”) that He has to make time in our schedule for us to learn.

By the way, supper came out fine.  And the easy way to shred your cooked, boneless chicken breasts is with your portable mixer at slow speed.  If you have a secret for dicing tomatoes, let me know.

Getting Ready

     It was bedtime at my house and my wife had already nodded off, but I wasn't quite ready to go to sleep yet, so I opened my  Bible.  I was reading in a book called 1 Chronicles.  Now if you're not familiar with it, it's in the Old Testament past 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings but if you get to Job and Psalms and Proverbs, you missed it.  Now in all fairness, 1 Chronicles is one of those books that have a bunch of crazy (to us) names that we would rather skip over.  But often times, in the middle of the crazy names, God will show you an absolute gem that he picks out just for you.
     That's just what He did for me tonight.  I was reading about as King David (the same guy who killed the giant when he was a teenager) as he was wrapping up his affairs and turning over his kingdom to his son, Solomon, when all of a sudden  in
1 Chronicles 29:28 (ESV) said:  "Then he died at a good age, full of days, riches, and honor. And Solomon his son reigned in his place."
      Can anything more or greater be said of a man and his life than "he died at a good age, full of days, riches, and honor."  The age that my Heavenly Father decides I have finished my task, my purpose, my mission for Him, my life will have been "full of days", days that matter, that count for the purpose of eternity.  Because of the presence of the LORD, when you see LORD in all caps understand that that was Hebrew code for crying out the name of our God, Yaweh.
     (If you are not in a personal relationship with God the Father through faith in Jesus Christ, please don't call Him that.  It would be like you, as a stranger, came up to my wife and addressed her as "my precious Verna."  That would be very rude, and, trust me, I would be offended.  Addressing her that way is reserved for family and loved ones.  If you don't know Jesus as your personal savior through His sacrificial death, burial and resurrection you ARE NOT part of the family.) 
      Because of the presence of Yaweh in my life, even though there may have been times in my life that I couldn't find two dimes to rub together,  my life has been so rich in so many ways.        And filled with honor?  Every little thing that I have had the opportunity to do or even take part in for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords has been such a wonderful blessing and honor my heart is filled with joy.   Whether it has been standing on a muddy levy in India and watching crowds of hands fly up when you ask them "Who would like to give their heart and life to Jesus now?"  Or praying one on one with people lined up waiting to pray and/or give their heart to Jesus.  Or even that precious youth you ministered to years ago and they are all grown up now, but when they see you, they go to the effort to come over and hug your neck and say "Thank you for the time and prayers you invested in my life.  You can't imagine what God is doing in my life now!" 
      You talk about honor?  How honored it makes me feel that in ANY small way my  Father and my King would allow me to do even a small part of His kingdom's work. 
      Billy Graham used to have a featured singer by the name of Cliff Barrows and Cliff used to sing a song that as it runs through my mind, all I can say is, "Amen."  It was called The Longer I Serve Him, The Sweeter It Grows.

Do you ever do any of the online devotions?

    Do you ever do any of the online devotions?  If you've given your heart to Jesus you really need to find a way to keep in touch with Him, kinda like a friend you really care about but they live across the country.  I suggest you start by praying.  Now praying is just a church word that means "Talk to Him!"  And stop occasionally to listen to what He might be telling your heart (don't pay any attention to Joy Behar, talking with God is one of the things He created us for).

    The next is read His word.  That would be the Bible!  I'm not overly concerned about which translation, there are many good ones out there.  I'm old enough to have started with the Authorized King James Version (which I only recommend if you are a fan of Shakespeare and speak the king's English flawlessly), but right now my personal preference  is the ESV (English Standard Version, but if you walk into a Bible book store and ask for an ESV they will know what you are talking about).  There are several good choices depending on your need, but getting into Bible translations is an entire blog feature on it's own.

    There is another thing on this "You Really Ought toDo" list.  That's meditate.  I don't mean sit with your legs crossed in a way that hurts me just thinking about it and contemplating your belly button.  You do, though, need to think about what you have read and how it applies to your life.  It really is amazing the way you can apply things when you stop...get quiet (physically and mentally)...and think about how God means this set of verses or concept to my life.

Ok, that brings us to what prompted me to do this blog today.  I am in the process of doing an online devotion by Franklin Graham and it is very good (you know, "Gee, that's a great thought, I never thought of it that way" stuff).  The venue that I'm doing it on is the "Bible" app by YouVersion (I'll try to add a link for it at the end.).  They asked three, actually 4, questions and I don't know exactly how much space they allow to respond but when my response ended the little counter at the bottom said (-1035).  I figure that means I said too much.  So I'm going to answer them to you.  Now this is my personal stuff but you might as well learn now that I'm a real person who has lived a real life.  Here it comes...

Who in your life has been a mentor or role model for how to follow Jesus? What are some lessons you have learned from this person?

I have been fortunate to have had many good mentors over the course of my life.  Surprisingly enough, a couple of them were young people from the youth I have worked with down through the years who came back into my life to teach me lessons or help me through difficult decisions.  But if I have to pick a single best mentor, the most important, the one who had the most lasting impact on my life, it would be my father.  He went home to be with the Lord while I was still a youth but in that short time he was with me he lived a life that showed what it really means to "be in the world but not of the world".  Every day I hope that I can live up to the example he showed me.

What does it mean to surrender your will to God?

What are some ways you have made Jesus the anchor of your life?
I am a very good person to ask about surrendering one's will to God.  The reason is that I have spent so much of my life bargaining my will against God's will.  He would impress His will on my heart then I would explain to Him how He could work so much more effectively by letting me make my modifications or corrections to His understanding of what I should be doing.  You could have no idea how many times that I told young people that "deferred or delayed obedience was disobedience", and yet it was working alright in my life, I thought.  Finally, in the last few years, I am learning what it means to, not just surrender, but totally surrender my life to him.  As I learn more and more about surrender I have first, the opportunity to do to do things that I never imagined I would do, and second, live in a world more and more filled with "peace that passes understanding".

What does God do when you surrender your life to Him? 

I have retired with no retirement plans.  I do not stress when money gets short or occasional meds go unpurchased.  As long as God has a purpose for me He will keep me here.



https://www.bible.com/app



https://www.bible.com/kids

By the way,  this blog does conform to all that new EU stuff.  And if it doesn't somewhere, blame Google who owns all this stuff.

We've Forgotten More Than We Know

My wife is a TV nut!  She loves it. Can’t get enough of it.  I confess I love it, too.  More than anything else, I love the way it gives us something we can do together that we both enjoy.  She loves murder mysteries and forensic who-done-its but I draw the line at gore for the sake of gore.  Like, for example, (and I’m going to get hate mail on this one!) I quit watching CSI after the second season when it began to seem like a competition between writers to  see who could come up with the most grizzly and grotesque programs.  And I also confess more than a little concern when I came home and found her watching shows about women who murdered their husbands (but that’s a topic for

another blog).  

We’ve found our home on  Netflix rather than network or cable TV and there are several shows that we share.  There are a couple of good detective shows (I absolutely love “Sherlock” with Benedict Cumberbatch), and a couple of police shows (like “Bones”).  There is one, though, that we can always agree on, and this is going to surprise those of you who know how truly conservative I am, that liberal, pro-democratic show, “West Wing”.  

In one episode Sam Seaborn, played by Rob Lowe, is asked by a friend of a friend to get a pardon for her grandfather, a long dead man from the Roosevelt days who was accused of treason.  The charges were dropped but he still died in prison while serving for some minor crime.  Sam initially considers it a justifiable request for an obvious miscarriage of justice.  Near the end of the show he is shown a still classified file showing that the man truly was a spy, but the charges were dropped to protect other espionage assets still in the field.  When the secretary who got him  into this asks him how it is going he turns to her and says that the man was guilty, that he was a spy.  The secretary says it doesn’t matter, they are all dead now.  Sam turns to her and in the course of a beautiful soliloquy that to lie about it just to make one family feel better would be a slap in the faces of not just the brave Americans of World War II but in the faces of all Americans down through the years who have given their “full measure of devotion.”

That speech stirred me so, knowing that I had heard the phrase before, I ran to the  authority of all things in our world today, Google, and looked it up.   The phrase, it seems, was used in a speech that I was supposed to have memorized in the fourth grade, The Gettysburg Address!  I had to go back and reread it.  

Now I’m a moderately renowned scholar of American Military History (being the only student in the history of my university at that point to ever have made 100% for the entire course in American Military History) and so I could tell you all about Seminary Ridge and Little Round Top and Picketts charge, but as I reread the words of Abraham Lincoln on November 19th of 1863, knowing of the tremendous bravery on both sides and the tremendous price paid in human life by both sides, tears rolled down my cheeks as I read it!  The words stirred my heart and I thought as I read it what great power is there in true words crafted well.  

Then I thought of one of the few things dearer to me than my love for this great nation of ours and that is my love for my Savior because of His love for me and I wondered why our pastors weren’t standing in their pulpits and on the street corners and in the mission fields proclaiming equally stirring oratory of our Savior’s love for all of mankind.

Sunday I sat in my church service and the reason slapped me in the face as I listened to my pastor talk about the power of God and our faith in God.  He related to us the story of the Roman Centurion, a leader of less than 100 and more than 80 men, in Matthew chapter 8.  If I may, let me refresh you on it:

5 When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, 6 “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” 7 And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

(Let me interject a little cultural history at this point. The Jewish people at this point in their history, even though they were a people living under Roman rule, were a very proud race and would have considered it improper to go into the home of a Gentile [non-Jewish peoples] because it would have made them ritually unclean [unfit to partake in Jewish religious rituals].  Undoubtedly, having been stationed in Palestine, we can assume that the centurion was aware of that and probably a little shocked that Jesus had even suggested it.)

8 But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.

If I may, let me put this into a perspective that many of you may have already grasped and certainly anyone with military experience should have.  This Roman Captain, or Centurion if you would rather, has not just been polite, he has just declared himself to be subordinate or of lesser rank than an itinerant Jewish teacher and at the same time respectfully recognized the customs of Jesus’ people.  He goes on to explain that he knows exactly what he is doing because he is both a man under authority and in authority over others.  He does not hesitate to demonstrate his understanding by saying that when he tells one of the men under his authority to do something, he expects it to be done without question or hesitation.  By saying all of this he also says that he understands that Jesus has authority over things way beyond mere men’s authority.  That’s why Jesus says that  no where in Israel, even among His own disciples at this time, has He seen this kind of faith.  The story ends with this remarkably simple and direct ending:

13 And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.

It was at that moment that I realized the problem, our problem.

We magnify the name of Jesus, we honor the name of Jesus, we glorify the name of Jesus, we even proclaim the name of Jesus truly as our Savior, but we no longer live in the name of Jesus!  Oh, don’t get me wrong, we aren’t slow to speak the name of Jesus, or to give thanks in the name of Jesus or to even pray for our needs or the needs of the sick in the name of Jesus.  But we have forgotten, I have forgotten, the authority in the person and in the name of Jesus.  In Matthew 28, as Jesus was preparing to go back to the Father, Yahweh, in victory over sin and death and hell and the grave He stated in the verse before the verses we call the Great Commission: “18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  And before this occasion in John 14 He tells His disciples:

8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. 12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

and He gives the disciples proof on the day of Pentecost in a mighty wind and tongues of flame and 3,000 souls are saved and we see it again in Acts chapter 3 when Peter and John (Peter, the one who betrayed Christ at His crucifixion and John, the baby of the twelve being the youngest) were going into the temple to pray:

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. 3 Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. 4 And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” 7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.  

The miracle wasn’t in the “magical” phrase “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth”, the miracle was in the knowledge that the authority of the One who calmed the storm and the One who healed the sick and the authority of the One who raised the dead and the authority of the One who conquered death had been entrusted in them to use to magnify and to bring honor to the Christ, the Worthy Lamb who was slain and who lives now as the coming King of Glory.  I recognize that none of us ever saw Jesus walk on water or heal a blind man with some mud made from spit and clay but I’ve seen Him take a life that was filled  with despair and thoughts of suicide and change it into a life filled with joy and purpose.  I’ve seen Him take a man who was absolutely burdened down with sin and failure and remove that burden with just a touch of forgiveness and I’ve seen Him take a teenage girl who the doctors said would be dead by morning and when she was prayed over and anointed her with oil as James tells us to do, with faith in His ultimate power, cleanse her body from disease and give her health and life.  When we remember that Jesus has not just goodness and righteousness and victory but authority over our entire world and that He has entrusted that authority to us to use for His glory, from the pulpit to the pew to the pavement we each walk on, then and only then will we, as “the Church”, be a force for satan to fear again.

Be Encouraged, Be an Encourager

Ok, my last blog was kind of heavy, all true, all important for your life, but still a little heavy.  Let's talk about something a little less intense this time.  I had something happen in my store last week that almost blew my mind.

As I was checking out a gentleman, a rather large and somewhat imposing gentleman (of course, when one considers my size, a great number of people could fall into the category of imposing) something happened that I  considered out of the norm.   In the middle of the small chit-chat that happens during checkout, right as he was speaking to me, he stopped and turned to a couple that had come up next to him.  

As he looked at the couple he instantly said "You don't know me and I don't know you, but the Holy Spirit has just told me to tell you that the Lord knows the burden you have been carrying and He wants you to know that He will lift your burden.  You will see His blessings, His mercy and His love."

As the man at the register continued to speak I watched the man he was speaking to.  His eyes went from questioning suspicion to amazement to understanding to appreciation to joy with little tears in the corners of his eyes.  

As I stood there listening, my mind was racing, too.  My first thought was "what in the world is this guy doing!"  Then I realized that he was actually speaking from the Holy Spirit.  I was amazed at the effect it was having on this man and his wife.   Then I was amazed that the man at the counter had the chutzpah (sorry, that was the best word I could think of because the words like daring and courage and audacity and bravery just aren't enough to describe his actions) to speak this way to people he had never seen nor met.  I admired his courage and envied his ability to speak a message from God with such obvious ease.   

I thought, man, if I could just speak a message of encouragement in the  power of the Holy Spirit like that wouldn't it be great.  Then I realized that maybe the Holy Spirit had tried to use me like that as I  grew up and I just didn't have the faith and the courage do what the Holy Spirit wanted to me to do.  

I remember, as a young man, sitting by the bed of my aunt, one of the most precious people in my mother's life, as she lay dying of bone cancer.   I remember the the voice in my head that said, "You have the power to heal her if you will just touch her and declare her healed in the name of Jesus Christ!"  Well, of course I was too afraid that people would think that I was crazy and sat there and watched my dear aunt die.

I've never escaped the feeling that I  could have changed that  if I had just had the courage to trust a God that I told people I trusted. A God who says that He is the Great Physician.  A God who tells us that if we have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed we could move mountains.  Did He lie or am I just not as trusting in Him as I should be.

God didn't call each of us to exercise the spiritual gift healing and He didn't call each of us to exercise the spiritual gift of prophecy but He does call each of us to trust Him.  And he gives this promise for each of us:  "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord , “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)

God has encouragement of all sorts in His Word for you if you have made the decision to make Him Lord of your life.  And if He is Lord of your life you can so easily make a difference in the lives of others by just giving a word of encouragement.   You don't have to have a spiritual gift of encouragement to bless the life of those you come in contact with.  Just share a word of encouragement, not lies, not flattery, just honest encouragement.  

Danger: Lost Opportunities

I have to tell you that I really love my Sunday School class.  We have two marvelous men of God who trade out the teaching responsibilities and they are both great but I think I'm seeing a  pattern going on.  

We are studying the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, arguably one of the most difficult books in the Bible, and when we get to a particularly hard passage neither one of them is available to teach that day so they ask me to teach it.  No, seriously, all of Hebrews is a difficult book to glean out all of God's Truth, and they both do an excellent job.  I am grateful and honored when they give me the opportunity to lead their class.

Before I tell you about the Sunday School class, let me tell you about being raised in a small country church in the South.  You had a preacher who loved God and loved his church and he knew everybody by name.  On any given Sunday morning he could be preaching along and even get a little loud if he got excited or needed to make a point.  And on any given Sunday you might be sitting on the back pew with a couple of your friends, writing notes or whispering and all of a sudden, right in the middle of his sermon, the preacher, who knew all of you and all of your parents, would stop and call your name and tell you to be quiet or pay attention.  You were mortified to be called down by the preacher but you also knew that you were going to get it when you got home! (Please don't ask me how I know this.)

This past Sunday the verses we looked at were Hebrews 6:1-8 but since the passage starts with the word "Therefore" you really need to go back to chapter 5, verses 11-15 first.  In the first part of Hebrews Paul (we're actually not sure who wrote Hebrews but I'm going to say Paul to keep it simple right now) tells about how superior Christ is to Moses as a prophet and a leader and then how Christ is superior to any high priest, including Melchizadek (I'll explain him later) when suddenly this preacher realizes that no one is following what he is talking about.  He tells them that they should be able to "eat spiritual meat" but they are having trouble understanding spiritual "milk".  They just aren't following all he's talking about.  In Hebrews chapter 6 he tells them, not so subtly, (kinda like my preacher when I was a kid) what kind of life to prepare for if they choose to play at being a Christian instead of really trying to become a better Christian, or worse, if they've never really turned their heart over to God through faith in Christ and they are just playing the church game because they think it makes them look more acceptable.  

Let me try to make 8 short verses even shorter. If you invited Jesus into your heart or "gave your heart to Jesus" and continue to make the same bad choices that "the worldly" people (people who admittedly could care less about Jesus or His sacrificial death) make, He will, first, let you experience the consequences of your bad life decisions (which should be bad enough to encourage most of us to want to change the way we are living).  And if that isn't sufficient to encourage you to seek a life that demonstrates Godly choices and a God honoring lifestyle, second, He might actually be forced to resort to punishment, much as a parent is forced to chastise a petulant and disobedient child.

How, you might ask, can we know what is a Godly choice or a God honoring lifestyle?   The best way is to read God's word, the Bible, a portion every day.  The old excuse about, "I just don't understand all those 'thees' and 'thous' really doesn't work.  There are many excellent translations available now, some even in conversational English (contact me in comments if you would like some suggestions).  And to start getting you interested, I suggest you try reading the book of John first (the third book in the New Testament).  You just can't make Godly choices until you begin to know a little about God.  His Word is a great place to start.

Well, what can I do to learn faster?  Start attending a good Bible teaching church!  OK, there are so many churches how can I know which is the right one?  Three things go into that decision.  First, attend several near you and see how you feel about them.  You will be surprised at how they might impress you, and that has to do with the second thing in finding the right church, listen to the Holy Spirit.  When you gave your heart to Jesus you immediately received a very important companion called the Holy Spirit.  The Bible describes Him as our counselor, our guide, our comforter, and our companion.  What He is is the part of God who stays with us all the time.  He lives in our heart.  Not necessarily the muscle that pumps blood, but the part of us that is really us, where all of our secret desires lie and where our important decisions are made.  Where the real "us" is.  He's the part of God that stays with us all the time, so, I guess, that makes Him a Who, not a What!  And as we search for a Bible believing and teaching  church the Holy Spirit will help us in our decision if we let Him.  Third, pray!  Praying is not a lot of fancy words that old men impress you with at the close of church, prayer is just talking to God.  Talking about what is important to you and asking what is important to Him.  Oh, and some times that means prayer means allowing a little time to be still and to be quiet and listen.  Yes, God will talk to you, too, by impressing your heart.

God doesn't want your life to be a meaningless, purposeless life of corporate ladders and social status and fighting and failures and frustrations.  He wants it to be meaningful, and joyful and filled with satisfying purpose.  It will be only when we seek to walk with Him and learn more about Him and what He has for us everyday.

Hebrews chapter 6 tells us the other option:  to ignore God and seek self-satisfaction and self-social distinction and to gain the envy of man leads to despair and a purposeless life and failure and depression.  Because remember, without God, he who dies with the most toys, still dies, but he who lives for Christ never dies.

They Thought The Had More Time

I have to apologize to you for seemingly deserting this blog.  I have been dealing with some time consuming and moderately debilitating health issues.  It has been something of a struggle trying to balance doctor's appointments, treatments, and a 50 hour a week job plus still be part of my family and church.  Quite honestly, I'm not sure that I've done any of them well but that's not what I want to talk to you about.

I want to talk to you today about why I'm back.  First off, (that's one of those phrases we use down South) because if there are only five of you out there who read this blog or if there are 5,000 of you, you're each one important to me.

Second, I'm reading a book called "They Thought They Had More Time".  Now it's about the second coming of Christ, but, as much as I love to talk about Christ’s second coming, that's not what we'll talk either. No, it's the book title that struck me about the way I'm spending the days of my life. I could let this health problem control the  way I spend the days of my life or I can control them and continue to do the things that are important.

The name of this blog is Southern Comfort, and the idea was to give you comfort and the assurance God's willingness to stay with you in the middle of your problems and the first thing I did when problems came into my life was to be "too busy" focusing on the things going on in my life.  Sorry!

Don't get me wrong.  Your health is important and it needs your attention as long as your attention can have positive effect on the health issues of your life. There comes a point though, in every issue where what can be done has been done and the constant attention to the issue becomes a distraction to the living of our life.

I recognize that every issue, every distraction, is not the same and the immediate time they claim is not the same but we must not let them become time vampires of our lives.  

Another marvelous little booklet I read in college was called "The Tyranny of the Urgent".  The premise of the book was that we tend to let our lives become dominated by tending to the urgent things in our lives instead of doing the truly important things.

As the days of my life pass (and all of us are watching the days of our lives pass) I don't want my legacy, the things my children and my friends and even you remember about me, to be my problems or my health issues or the TV shows I watched or the video games that I played or that I wasted my life on frivolous distractions.  I want my legacy to be how much I loved my God and my family and helping people find their way in our crazy world and I have to get back at that now because I don't want to find myself in the group that "They Thought They Had More Time".