The Dogs Are Locked Up

It has been six months since God changed me. I know there is more to do, much more, but what God has done so far is so much more than I could have ever imagined. I stand in awe of Him and if you knew my heart you would too! 

My heart is so utterly and unreservedly wicked. But God is changing me, I am not the same anymore; LOVE lifted me, when nothing else could help, God’s love lifted me up and changed me for ever. How sweet is that? Too sweet to tell with words, such stories can only be told with tears and laughter. Words are too small. When I was lost in sin He was loving me. When I was angry with Him, He was still loving me. Oh the deep deep love of Jesus! 

Yes there is more to do; I need to surrender more. But I think about what an little old lady said, “I ain’t what I should be, I ain’t what I’m gonna be, but I thank God I ain’t what I was.”  How wonderfully true that is. How was I? Well tonight I was able to remember another way God is changing me.

I was with my dear wife sitting (do I sit too much I wonder?) as she was busy in the kitchen and we spoke about my old habit of verbally blasting people. You see if you had done me wrong and that could be anything... trust me here. If you didn’t say hello when I did. If you missed my birthday or did something that I felt violated my social standards I would be on you like paint on a wall. There were many folks that fell into this category and most were innocent. Didn’t matter. I saw things from my perspective and it was the way it was. I was always right.

The trouble with bitterness and anger is that it’s a like a two edged sword with no hilt: the harder we hold to it swinging it out to destroy others the deeper it cuts it's wielder; turning hands designed by Him to reach out with God's love into claws of hatred and despair. Since Jesus came into my life I have spoken with folks that I expended all sorts of emotional energy on. Most had no clue that I was mad. (I imagine they just thought I was weird.) Yet all the while my tongue wagging, filled with cruel and bitter criticism, poisoning me and all my relationships as well. I wasted so much time watching for offenses and naturally finding them. When a person is full of pride they will find plenty to be offended about. Ask me, I was an expert at it. So I spent many hours rehearsing offenses with smoldering thoughts. I meditated on them day and night; it smothered and polluted everything in me and each day it put me in bed exhausted and made the nights long.

So tonight I asked my wife about the day and told her I wanted to be more of the husband she needed. I mentioned this because I was challenging our family to do things as unto the Lord and it may have come across critical; I wanted to be sure it had not. She told me I had done OK. I had not been angry. How good is that? Not angry, that’s pretty wonderful. Then it hit me how the Lord had been working in me to leave folks alone. I asked her if it seemed like I spent less time raking others over the coals and she responded, “Oh yes!”

Have you ever seen the movie where the innocent man escapes from prison and he’s running head long stumbling through thorny thickets, wadding through black and dirty waters in the dark, branches grabbing at his face and cloths? Suddenly you hear the sound of dogs and your heart sinks for the fellow. They've released the dogs. He will be caught, beaten and punished even more severely than before. None of it, absolutely none of it justly; beaten by the cruel, sin-sick jailer.  Well that jailer was me. 

Life is hard enough without running into someone like me. Someone like me that would take some little thing personal. Then, when all anyone ever wanted to do was to just get away, the sound of the dogs would come. "Release the dogs!" Ever ready, barking, snapping, whining and miserable they would come.  I was that jailer; the thorns, the dirty water and snatching branches were my garden. The dogs were mine too.

God has been so good to me. You see, I had lost control of those blood hounds long ago. Crouching at my door they often turned on me, but God is able too control them! Now He has them penned up and on His watch no one will have to fear those dogs being released again!  You know what? That makes a lot of folks happy, it makes this old jailer a pretty happy man too. By the way, I'm not the jailer anymore, I got a new job! I'm an ambassador for Jesus. It's a joy and, like that little old lady said, I thank God I ain’t what I was.

Our Response to Suffering

Most often we consider suffering as something the apostles or someone else goes through. You know, like cancer or some BIG thing. But knowing that all things are relative and knowing my own life experiences has allowed me to consider things a little differently then I have in the past. 

Before I got saved I was a bear to live with. To be very honest I still have a great tendency to be a bear to live with and to be brutally honest we all have things that make living with us a pain in the neck. 

Now I would not assume that being thrown in prison, as the apostles were, or being stoned or beaten is the same as living with me and yet living with one another does give us plenty of chances to approach suffering with a Godly response. The secret to blessings in our suffering, big or small, is: do we suffer obediently?

The book of James tell us to “count it all joy” when we have trials. We act as if this means something other than the spouse we live with, the children we have, or the people we live in fellowship with. Yet that is not true. The “trouble” or “trials” we go through with others calls for a Godly response just as assuredly as things we might consider a greater suffering. Our response in obedience will give just as great a blessing too! Sometimes our responses to the small things are a bit overblown. Been there, done that!

God knows what living with me is like so He was sure to include Eph 4.2 and Col. 3.13 in His letter to my wife. He knows what your family is like too! Both these verses admonish us to “bear with one another”.  One tells us outright to forgive one another the other tells us to live at peace in unity which certainly requires forgiveness.  

The blessing for us comes as we obey in matters big or small. Each is an opportunity to forgive and to make allowance for one another. Just recently I walked into a class and was told bluntly by a brother that I had been “stinking ever since I got baptized”.  I assume he meant the cologne I was wearing, at least I hope it was that!

I struggle with pride, so to be greeted like this was really an opportunity to bear with him. It took me a moment and I had to refresh my resolve in the following days as I had a bit of history with the fellow but God wants us to move on; I am able to do so as I think of how God has forgiven me and to take the chance to obey Him in the matter. 

Was it a small matter? Sure it was. But consider that the Bible says “it’s the small foxes that spoil the vine”.  (Song of Sol. 2.15) Small things do matter and our response to them matters even more. So the next time someone says something goofy to you or someone dear to you starts a tired refrain or behavior. Remember to count it all joy, bear with, make allowance and forgive them. God will bless your obedience!

Why Not Me?

I met Bernie about 24 years ago. He was a character! Bernie had retired from the Navy and was living in a large home up a driveway in the woods and he was always drunk. Carrie, his wife, lived with him and she was not a drunk. She was a Christian who prayed for Bernie every day that he might be saved and sober.

It was wonderful that, by the time I met Bernie, God had answered Carrie's prayers. Bernie was saved and sober and in charge of a ministry reaching out to others that were trapped as he had been. I was trapped when I met Bernie and it became a matter of envy and sometimes anger that God had delivered Bernie and that I remained unchanged. 

Bernie was not perfect BUT it did not take much time with him to know that Bernie was a new creature in Christ and I envied this. I had gone through all the same processes (I thought) and said the same prayers. I even got, what I believed was, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and yet I was not a new creature. 

So I found myself praying I John 1.9 over and over again and trusting that Proverbs 24.16 would someday be true for me. Yet I continued in my sin. How I longed to be free of the bondage of sin but I was powerless over it. I had only brief periods of victory divided by periods of the deepest and vilest sin. Bernie was a new creature but I most certainly was not. Why not me?

I was involved in what I wanted to believe was a walk of faith but it was actually a walk of fraud. I had come to even fool myself such was the deceit of my heart. All of this actually only confirmed what God has said about man. He knew long before I ever entered the scene of human history that this was the condition of the unsaved man and would be my condition unless He intervened.

If a man is to be a new creature it must be the work of God for most certainly it can never be, will never be, the work of man. All the works of man are reeking, filthy rags. I knew this and I found myself trapped in sin with no way out. Even God, I thought, had failed me. He had changed Bernie but I was not. God had rejected me just like I felt my earthly father had rejected me.

So I went through the motions. What else could I do? I was married, had one child and knew that I was responsible for these two others in life. So I hid my sin like Achan (Joshua 7) but it was not hidden from God. It affected my family and became a curse to us. It sucked any victory from my life and caused me to become a legalistic nut with  dictatorial relationships when I should have been loving and nurturing. 

My sin shut me off from real relationships and I was alone; without God and without any human help. Because I was not real I could have no real relationships. Those that I had were unsatisfactory because they could not meet the needs that I had, needs that only God could satisfy. I became unfair to others, demanding that they meet needs that God never intended and in doing so I drove many away. My dear, dear wonderful wife stayed faithful but it was not an easy journey for her. I do not blame those who jumped ship. Who would not?

I found myself dreading life but too self centered, too obsessed or “too something”, maybe too chicken, to end it. I had no choice but to go on as best as I could and each day and night followed one another with an endless smoldering anger and resentment towards others and towards God. How I longed to be free from myself but I could not be. Even if I left my family I would still have me and “me” was the problem. I knew it.

I took comfort in my wife and family, in the company of those saved and in the society of church but it was only the comfort of association not of real participation. At least it was some comfort in my sojourn. Looking back I am glad for that, it was God’s mercy to a lost man. Isn’t He good to even the lost? Yes, He is. He causes blessings even to the lost.

It was in March of 2012, right before I turned sixty, that a man who loved me, confronted me with my sin and then had the guts and the leading of the Holy Spirit to tell me that he loved me.

Here I was, finally real with someone, not by choice, not by any confession or even repentance on my part and he was saying he loved me. This I had to deny. It was not possible, no one could love me as I was, he was lying. He had to be. But then as the days past I was confronted by my God! My Heavenly Father who also told me He loved me, He said “I love you, I won’t leave you” 

When I accepted His love I found I could accept the love of everyone else and not only that but I had a love too. A love I never knew before. People I had hated suddenly I found myself loving! This was a shocker to me. Then I found that the old sin had no more power over me. I did not want to sin. This was incredible. 

It was during this time that I came to know with an absolute certainty that what had happened to me was what had happened to Bernie! I had gotten saved. I was a new creature in Christ Jesus, new things were coming to be true in my life and God was changing me! My sojourn was over.

Today I am still growing. I still struggle with sins. Gossip, anger and the such BUT I also know love, joy, peace, self control. Things only the Holy Spirit could give to a man. Things that God in His rich mercy now is portioning out to me with and through His generous Spirit. Oh I am free! Praise be to God, to Jesus and His Spirit, I am free. I am at rest in Him. There is hope for the hopeless and it is in Christ Jesus who made the way to Peace. Come join me.

THROWING STONES
Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, "Give us water, that we may drink." And Moses said to them, "Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the Lord?" And the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, "Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"  Exodus 17.1-3

I have some dear friends who are devote catholics. While we disagree on some really important issues, issues that may affect even matters of salvation, I know that at other times they are right on. When a pastor we knew came under attack our friends commented that it was wrong to attack the pastor and that people should be careful of how they treat those who serve in leadership to the body of Christ. 

I have to admit that I agree with them on that one! How easy is it to see the negative. I've got 20/20 vision for the negatives. And how quickly I neglect all the scriptural injunctions to live at peace with and to love one another. Specific commands to not divide the Church and to bear with one another, to not think more highly of others than ourselves are a real reminders from God Himself, to take it very, very slow when coming against church leadership.

Yet, driven by my own pride, I often neglect these commands and, wrapped in the pretentious garb of moral and spiritual integrity, I dismiss God's way and do what I want instead. The results are often immediate, devastating, and heart breaking. When faced with these sorts of conditions I need to be sure to seriously pray about the issue and seek council. 

Pray for your leaders. They are the shepherds and come under a more severe judgement for what they teach and how they manage their responsibilities. If someone comes with a complaint do not hear it; direct them to handle it in a scriptural manner.  Remember do not judge the folks personally, for we fight not against flesh and blood but against spiritual powers. Pray for one another. Also remember the old adage, "There but for the grace of God go I."

Do not tempt the Lord by attacking your leaders because God does not look on it favorably, guard against being driven by passions or a hobby horse. Wait upon the Lord, we often move faster than we ought when we are driven by our passions. I know this from personal experience. You, dear reader, can do better!

Why My Opinion Doesn’t Matter

Saturday I was at Costco pumping gas and noticed the price had dropped. I commented to the attendant and we had a short discussion about the gas crisis before he got called away to help another customer having trouble with a pump. Afterwards I reflected about this. What had I accomplished? What does sharing my opinion on social or political matters really accomplish? 

Later, that evening, I was sitting quiet and my wife asked me what I was thinking about. I was thinking about not wasting time with my opinion and the talk I’d had earlier. It was strange because I couldn’t remember what the conversation had even been about. In fact it took me some time to recall where it took place and what it was about. But I did know this one thing: I had wasted God’s opportunity to witness to a man who likely needed to know Jesus. 

Thankfully during the rest of the day I was able to tell 6 other people that Jesus had changed my life. We pulled into a car wash run by some marines and I was able to give out 5 tracks and invitations as different fellows came by with hose, squeegee, towels and the such. Then at a retail store I was able to talk with a lady manager. I don’t remember the names of all these folks but what really matters is that I took God’s opportunity and did something of eternal value with it. If the statement “For to me to live is Christ” is true then won’t I be telling others about Him? How dare I even imagine I am being obedient if I am not telling others about Him? And what a shame if I walk away leaving the person with my opinion on the price of gas (or some other subject) but nothing about my Jesus!  

My opinion matters so very little in the light of eternity. It is my pride that makes me think that my opinion matters. And it is crazy to think it's more important than God’s good news. The last instruction Jesus gave to his followers was spread the gospel and I stand guilty of seldom doing it. So I am committing to obey Him and to telling folks about him whenever I can. My greatest joy would be to see one of them come to church one day, accept Christ and start telling others about what Jesus did for them! I pray for this blessing and so I will continue to tell others about Jesus and leave my opinions for the very last thing because, really, after all, they don’t mean much.

Morning Prayer

This verse is one that I pray through in the mornings before I start the day. I thought I would write it out for myself and for anyone that might want a prayer verse too.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.   ~Galatians 5.22,23 

“God, Please give me love. Before I knew you I could not love at all. It was a shallow, emotional wavering thing that could not stand. But now your love is shed abroad in my heart by your Holy Spirit. This is the love I need for a lost and dying world, for myself, for family, for co-workers, and church brothers and sisters (all those whom you would use to help me grow).  Let me show more of your love to them all. I need the love, deep and abiding, that only your Spirit can give. 

God, Please give me joy! Oh Heavenly Father how joyless my life was before you came into my heart. Yes there was laughter; I worked at it, it was the closest thing to joy I could find. And sometimes I was  happy. But the happiness I had would crumble to the ground whenever circumstances did not support it. Often my laughter came at the expense of other's misery, tearing them down, how shallow is that? I need the joy, deep and abiding, that only your Spirit can give. 

God, Please give me peace. Lord God I had no peace and I have no peace without you. The only peace I knew before was an intellectual one that depended on the promises I knew from your word or from human agencies designed to help me. But I did not own the peace. Now, Oh Father, with your seal in my heart please let me not forget your peace. The stuff that goes beyond any human understanding. I need the peace, deep and abiding, that only your Spirit can give. 

God, Please give me patience. You know me Father, how brash and mean I can be. How immediately angry and frustrated I can be when things or people do not go my way. I took pride in not getting physical but I did worse, I would tear down with words and hammer folks into dust. The only real patience I have ever known and will ever know is the patience that your Holy Spirit has given to me. Oh do not stop, I pray, give me more of your patience, flood me with it and let it cover me like a tent! I need the patience that only your Spirit can give.

God, Please give me kindness. Oh Father you know how mean I can be. When someone does not return my greeting I turn on them.  Because of my total lack of real kindness I require strict pay back. If social proprieties are not followed my kindness runs dry. If I am offended the well of kindness is already empty. Please touch me and give me this kindness of yours. I need the kindness that only your Spirit can give.

God, Please give me goodness. You see all of me and know how short I am on goodness and how really very little I understand it. Even a rattle snake shows enough goodness to rattle before it strikes yet I even lack that amount of goodness.  Lord, I  want the goodness from you. I want to be good to all those around me and even to your creation. I need the goodness that only your Spirit can give.

God, Please give me faithfulness. I stand before you with a history bathed in un-faithfulness. I am marked with the graffiti of un-faithfulness. I have been faithless to you; all the years I lived out my own goodness in the flesh, not really knowing you at all. I have been faithless in my relationships with family, friends and others. How could I have been faithful? I was so corrupt. Please don’t withhold your forgiveness for this sin! I need the faithfulness, deep and abiding, that only your Spirit can give.

God, Please give me gentleness. Oh the deep deep love of Jesus! So gentle. My shepherd. So gentle too me. Help me to have this same gentle spirit, trusting you for any vengeance or justice that I would so very likely mis-handle. Help me to give the mercy to others that you have given to me and to be gentle with all. I need the gentleness that only your Spirit can give.

God, Please give me self-control. Father this one is so easy for me to misunderstand and yet such a joy once I do. The term would seem to lend itself to being misunderstood, it seems that it would come from self, from me, but I have never been up to this task. Your word tells me that self-control is a gift. A gift! Then I can attain even this! My life had no self-control and now I find that you are giving it to me as a gift. What a wonderful God you are to me! I need the self-control that only your Spirit can give.

God, all I have is from you. Every breath I take is a gift, every person I come across a chance to shower with the gifts that you have given me. Thank you Father for the gift of your Spirit. Let me not grieve or quench His work in me. Make me to shine for you, bear me up on eagles wings and hold me in the palm of your hand. Let me speak of you, for you, to others as lost and helpless as I and give the HOPE of the Living God to them! Amen

The Face of Satan

Note: I do not advise dreams being put on the level of scripture, they do not belong there and typically they do not have any power other than emotional but that is not to say God cannot use them. Use caution, care and prayer when applying dreams to the wakeful hours of your life!


I was doing some Bible studies that my pastor had given me and in one of them I became impressed to ask God to reveal any sin in my heart. Sin is so deceptive, it has been compared by some to a cancer and I think that is a pretty good comparison. We may walk around looking normal on the outside but be dying on the inside from cancer. I have a friend who has had cancer for years and it seems like it just keeps appearing randomly throughout his body. One Sunday as he was hurrying out the door I greeted him and he said to me, “I’ve got to get home, the whole side of my head is numb”.  He looked normal but the cancer was at work.

But sin is even more horrible than cancer. We will be healed from cancer but our sin has the potential to lead us into eternal separation from all that is lovely and decent. Right now we live in a world created by God and even though Satan is the prince of the world we can still see and sense the beauty of God’s creation. In fact Paul truly says creation itself testifies of God. Even the non believer enjoys the world we live in and the extreme beauty that surrounds us is immeasurable and shouts of a creator.

My sin and yours too, is a speciality of Satan. How so? Well most of us do not think our sin is so bad and there are millions of others who will chorus satan’s song lauding sin. The Bible tells of satan’s appearing like an angel of light and certainly he does this with sin. Whether it is drugs, sexual immorality,  or whatever, you only need look just a little to see satan’s work at making sin appear “OK”.

So I prayed and asked God to reveal sin in my heart and He did that for me and more, He showed me the face of Satan in my sin. Even though I had been delivered of my sin I still did not view it as God does. I still soft soaped it and, deceived by  myself and a society that hates God’s ways, I still looked upon it as a indulgent grandfather might view the little shortcomings of his grandchildren. What a mistake! Until we see our sin for what it is we are being fooled and are at risk. Confession is not enough, repentance must come along side it for any good effect. So I had prayed and asked God to reveal my sin.

Now I do not put a whole lot of store in dreams but after this prayer I had dreams where my old pet sin played a prominent role. For a series of days this happened and each time I woke I would pray, confess, and thank God for His deliverance. But I am writing this because of the last dream. In it I was confronted with the face of the author of my sin and its awfulness. In this dream all the visions of Satan’s propaganda were passing through my mind each one melting into a face of flames.

You know how it is to wake from a dream, it takes a second to know that you're OK. There was my wife sleeping peacefully beside me. It was only a dream. I began to pray as I lay in bed. God had allowed me to see Satan’s face in my sin. Lord willing I would never again accept the world’s view of my pet sin. I know I will continue to see it, as I walk along, presented with great sympathy and tolerance; embraced by the enlightened ones. I know the real face of my sin and it is abhorrently wicked and a chief among the lies of Satan in this lost world. Don't accept his lies about your sin. He has a world that will tell you it is OK. That is a lie.

That inexpressible and glorious joy the Bible talks about?  Well I know some of it. I am so glad that my Heavenly Father has taken this sin from me! And if He has done this for me He can do anything absolutely ANYTHING! for you. Just ask Him.

God Wants My Heart

For many years I gave God some of me. He had some of my time, some of my thoughts, some of my money, some of my talents, but He never had the sum total of me;  I withheld my heart. I was afraid to give my heart because I was afraid of God. As it turned out my heart was what He required. 

Remember the rich young man in Luke 18 who came to Jesus? He said he’d followed all the rules since he was young. He considered this as making him worthy. Jesus never argued with him about that, he just told him what was required, “sell all you have”, and the rich young man went away sad. The thing required he could not let go of. For him that thing was his wealth and possessions. These things owned his heart. They were his treasure. For each of us God requires our heart.

Jesus will not be second place to anything else in our life. He wants to be our treasure; to be first. He wants to be manifested in our life by the Holy Spirit but we can thwart His work and presence. In fact when God is second place in our life the Holy Spirit is quenched or grieved and is unable to communicate with us until we get things right. (Isa. 59.2) God must turn away from our sin.

If God has my heart, if I am walking in His will, I will sense His presence. Look at Mark 16.20, it tells of the disciples of Jesus doing His will and the Lord “working” with them yet Jesus had gone. How could the Lord be working with them since He was gone? Because they were obedient they enjoyed  fellowship with the Lord through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. They sensed his presence and his working in them.

How do I know if Jesus has my heart or not? This can be tricky as our hearts are pretty adept at fooling us. (Jeremiah 17.9) We need to pray and ask God to reveal it to us. (Psalm 139.1) Another test is to ask yourself if you’re obeying God. Please don’t confuse this with church attendance, Bible study, singing in the choir or teaching a Bible class.  Satan won’t mind if you do all these things; he doesn’t mind that you know all about the Bible because he knows knowledge alone brings pride. (I Cor. 8.1) He hates it, though, when people repent and obey.

At a bakery where I worked the boss was leaving for vacation and he left instructions that, along with what needed to be done regularly, I was to make a batch of cherry pies.  So I made the pies. No big deal right? What if I had not done it? Most of us would never deliberately disobey our boss. My obedience to him in the matter of the pies became the measure of my obedience.

When Jesus left he gave some specific instructions that are as clear as my boss’s instructions were. He commanded us to preach the gospel.  So we need to ask ourselves: are we doing what he asked? When was the last time that I told someone about Jesus? This is a certain measure of my obedience to him. It is hard to side step this issue. 

Sure you’re in the choir, a hard worker at church but these are like the regular things I did at the bakery. The pies were the priority and measure of my true obedience to my boss. What if, when he returned and asked about the pies I told him I’d decided to make sugar cookies instead?  It is wrong to be involved in good things and neglect to do the best thing. Jesus told us to spread the gospel. How are we doing?

If God seems distant it might be because we are living our busy “christian” lives in disobedience to him. So what can we do? We need to move from being hearers of the word, to doers of the word. We need to repent. We need to change what we are doing and start doing what Jesus commanded us to do: preach the gospel. The gospel is the good news. It is  the Bible for sure but it is also your testimony. We do not have to be a preacher or theologian to share the gospel. Just tell the truth about what God the Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit have done and are doing in your life. And if nothing is happening then go to Him and ask Him to start a work in your life. 

God wanted my heart and once I’d given him than he was able to start a work in me. He made a new creation of me, now I need to continue to make myself available to him in order to grow and be more like Jesus. He is wanting to make me new each day. I need to listen and submit. When he has my heart I will desire to obey him, I will feel his presence and he will work in me just as he did in the lives of his disciples.

Someone turned the tapes off!

I used to be one angry man. Yea, so Sunday is supposed to be the Lord’s day right? Well for me it was MY DAY. In fact every day was MY DAY. I was in charge, in control and most definitely really out of control. I was screwed up. So when God did a work in my life the most amazing things started to happen. 

First of all when I accepted the love of God I stopped being mad just in general. Normally I’d have some issue simmering on the back burner. You know something to complain about, more often someone to complain about whose case I’d been working on. Rehearsing all the ways they’d done me wrong! How they spoke badly or even worse not spoken at all, how they acted unfairly, didn't return my call, my text, my e-mail, making me suffer. You get the picture; it was all about me. I spent way too much time obsessing over some slight, real or imagined. You know just a little something to do in my spare time. When I wasn’t really mad about something.

And you gotta know that a good telemarketer was OK for a little break: how rude they were, or how they shouldn’t have called at dinner time, or that late or that early or at ALL!! My list of what's wrong with the schools, the court system, the welfare program, the country, most families, these were nice in a pinch; for a little side action. But telemarketers, customer service folks, or my list were just appetizers for the main course, the real meal deal was nearly always with family or church members. Now you’re talking! 

These were the ones who “should know better”, “what kind of Christian are they!”, “so what makes them qualified to be a deacon?”, “why are they leading worship, saying prayers, singing solos?”, “why are they so special?”, “who does she think she is?”, “you know what I heard?”, “mom always liked him better.”, “I remember when . . .”  The list just went on and on. It was never ending, it was crazy and would bleed the life from everyone around and from me too. Plus it was in direct violation of what God says to think on and to do. But that wasn’t my priority. I was in control.

When I finally came to the end of myself God did a job on me. How do I know? Let me tell you! Like I said I initially found my anger wasn’t so omnipresent. That was weird but very nice. Then I found that the folks I really disliked were not on my hit list anymore. In fact I'd lost my hit list. What gives, I thought? But, hey it was nice too.

Then one of my big annual anger events came along. The Ladies Retreat. How could that make you angry you ask? Oh I found a way. I normally did. That's crazy you say? I know but that was the way I did it; that's the way I ran the show. Anyway the unsuspecting ladies at church had just come back from a retreat without my wife. The fact that she did not want to go made no difference to me; after all they should have begged her to go! So I stood in the back of the church looking over the situation and suddenly realized that my thinking wasn’t working. I wasn’t hearing something I should have been hearing. What was it? Ahhhh! The soundtrack of accusations against the ladies wasn't playing: “huh! some spiritual giants they are! So they had a good time did they?, well why aren’t they over ministering to my wife who didn’t get to go?!!” But I wasn’t hearing any of that, I twiddled with the volume, but still the tapes weren’t playing! WOW! Extremely nice!

Then the perfect storm hit. A deacon, who I really didn’t like and who I knew should “never have been made a deacon”  went by without showing the proper respect due me and I had no reaction. Nothing. That poor deacon got by unscathed. On the way home it was peaceful in the car.  We had dinner without me roasting anyone, without the sarcastic and biting seasonings of my distain. Now just what is going on here I thought. I still wasn’t getting it but I knew something was wrong. Very wrong.

It took me some time before I realized that God had changed me! When I accepted Him He changed me. It was unbelievable! After 60 years my standard operating procedures were suddenly set aside. It was flat out shocking. Someone had turned off the tapes. The old programs had been preempted, cancelled. I tell others I am vacation from myself. But now, even better still, I know that the old man has been buried and that I am risen with Christ! He changed me. This isn’t just a vacation it is the new day and the new way. 


Oh, and you know that poor deacon? Well I saw him tonight and I hugged him and said, “I love you man!” And you know what? I do. Can you imagine a God that good! Can you imagine what’s ahead?! God knows, He says in Jeremiah 29.11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Now, tell me, how good is that?! I’m so glad God turned destroyed the tapes.

The woman at the well and me

I was at a rest home for folks with Alzheimer's and had permission to give my testimony. I was excited. I’d written some notes down, and as I looked them over I knew they were all wrong. (My notes, not the people.) How could I tell these folks what God had done for me in a simple way? One that might touch them at the heart level? Then I recalled the story about the woman at the well. It is a familiar story to many folks and it also represents me really well. Actually, it represents many of us really well.

Imagine with me: Jesus is traveling through Samaria. At a town called Sychar he sits down by a well. It’s about noon; by this time it’s probably hot.  The account says Jesus was tired; weary.  So he sat down and his friends went on into town to get some food. No one is around, all the town’s women have come earlier, in the cool of the morning, to get the days supply of water for their households. Then a woman appears with her jug to collect water. It is not recorded, but it seems that she comes silently and would have likely left silently except that Jesus spoke. He spoke to a woman; a Samaritan woman. He asks her for a drink and this was how the little lady’s spiritual journey began.

It is often in the mundane activities of life that God will find us. Certainly I was not involved in any great thing when God found me. Like the woman at the well I was just “doing life”. Why was she coming at noon time, in the heat of the day, alone? Was it because she was a late riser, or was it because she was being shunned by the rest of the town’s ladies that came in the morning? Some have written that it was shame that was in charge of her schedule. Maybe that was true for her. I know for me it was true; shame was in charge of much of my life. Shame is a hard task master, it does not care if you must labor in the heat of the day. In fact, it takes pleasure in smashing you down.

As the woman began to talk with Jesus, I wonder if she knew what God would do that day? Then Jesus revealed that he knew her personal situation; he asked her to go get her husband; when she told him she had no husband, he revealed that he intimately knew her current circumstances. Like most of us she quickly changed the subject to something more comfortable. So she asked a question about religious customs. Jesus answered, but quickly brought it back to something closer to home.

Whenever I found myself talking with one of Jesus’s ambassadors, I would talk religion because it took the focus off of me. Yet none of this talk ever satisfied my thirst for something more. I knew a deep uneasy feeling that no religious talk, no intellectual discussion, could quench. I was in church. I was religious and like the woman at the well, my life was empty. I drank from the wells, the puddles of the world. I was lost.

Then Jesus got down to business. He told her about the water that He had. Living water! Even as I write it I start to cry because I know the end of the story for the lady. You see, she got that living water. Oh yes, she had come for water that would only satisfy her body, but she left with the water that would satisfy her very soul! Water that would flow up in her, spilling over onto those she met. She left Jesus, and her jug, there at the well and went to tell others about this man who gave her living water. She was compelled by what had happened to her.

Imagine her situation. Even by today’s standards being married 5 times is pretty unusual, and now she’s living with a man. You can bet the locals knew all about her. No wonder she came at noon, by herself, to the well; she had no desire to get harassed or snubbed by the other ladies. She was likely the talk of the town. Her transformation was all the more spectacular because of her history, and when she went into town that day people definitely knew something was up! Because of her testimony many believed on Jesus. He stayed two more days in the town ministering to the folks there; all because of the woman at the well.

I was just like that lady at the well: immoral, lost, and religious. That day Jesus changed her. She did not go to the local bookstore and get a book on self- improvement or schedule the first of her weekly appointments with the local psychiatrist. She met Jesus and He did the rest. I had done my fair share of books and appointments before I met Jesus and got the Living Water. Once God gives a person that Living Water, they cannot shut up. They must share what has happened to them. 

That is why I write this. You see, I can't shut up. Jesus made the way for the Heavenly Father God to touch me through the Holy Spirit, and I’ve been changed! When I met God, He got down to business and I found the Living Water just like the woman at the well did. One day I’m going to meet that woman, and I bet she’ll still be telling the story of her day at the well and what my Jesus did for her. Then I’ll tell her what He did for me and we’ll praise Him together. Hey, I’ve got a wild idea; why don’t you join us? The Living Water is still living; Jesus is still offering His living water to all who will drink. Maybe you’re like I was: lost, immoral and religious. My friend Jesus is calling you. Come to the well!

NGZ: No Gossip Zone

No man I know wants to admit to the gossip habit. I mean we all consider gossip something the ladies do. Not the men.  (Sorry ladies!) Yet if you do a quick search on the internet you will find out different. Bob Burg, an author and speaker admits, “I was, for many years, very much a gossip”. Now that takes guts. To admit to being a gossip in a public place takes guts. So, deep breath, I am a gossip. There, I’ve said it.

We can have a long discussion on what gossip is and isn’t but essentially it’s information of a personal nature, about someone else,  being shared for ulterior motives. Like the gossip being “important” enough to have the inside scoop. Or the gossiper getting “one up” on someone who is obviously weaker or not as “with it” as the reporter. Often the gossiper will use others as stepping stones to make themselves feel worthy or comfortable with themselves. To feel secure. I think I used my gossip as a power tool and to make me feel more secure about my own self. 

Gossip, as a habit, does not just go away because we are saved just as smoking does not normally just go away. God can do it but it isn't typical. Rather God allows these behaviors to be points of trust and growth as we turn to Him in our helplessness to overcome these habits. Some readers might consider the comparison of smoking with gossip as “unfair”. After all smoking is a stinking, nasty habit that affects everyone who has to be around it! Right. And so does gossip. I liked my gossip filtered. Some like their gossip non-filtered. Either way it’s a nasty habit. 

BUT God can help us overcome the habit of gossip.  Gossip is easy to slip into during the course of a safe conversation so pray and ask God help you to know when you start gossiping. Also take note of the places and people with whom you engage in gossip with or around. And don’t assume the folks you gossip with want to gossip. Perhaps God has convicted them as well. Talk with them about how God is touching your heart but remember not to be critical or accusatory with them. Admit to your own fault and ask for their help. If they love you they will want to help. If they’re honest they will know that they, too, struggle with gossip. With God’s help these folks can become your best allies in the war against gossip. 

Don’t be discouraged if you fail, keep giving it to the Lord and asking his help. If you have the misfortune of knowing someone that is more judgmental than helpful remember that others carry baggage too. Take their criticism with a grain of salt, admit the fault and take it to the Lord. Don’t let it make you bitter towards them!

Make yourself a “No Gossip Zone” and remember the NGZ when you’re in a place where gossip might be an issue. I have some dear friends and I can almost guarantee that I will get involved in gossip if I sit at the kitchen table with some of the household members. I don’t think any of us mean to, it just happens! So I made a pact with myself to stay away from the table. Unfortunately the household has one who is quick to point out faults too, so it is a set up all the way around! Look out! Don’t expect the fault finders to be very helpful; they are into their own game. Someone has said it is easier to point out faults than solutions.

Thinking of solutions, here are some: always have some subjects thought of ahead of time to change the subject too if the conversation starts going off course. If all else fails just kindly mention that you feel uncomfortable with the direction the conversation is going as you have a struggle with gossip. This fits for anyone and puts the blame on no one. Remember the key is to be kind hearted and not critical! As a last resort retreat to the bathroom.

Gossip is like smoking, it is a hard habit to break but it can be done! Keep taking it to the Lord and He will give you the victory as it is His promise and desire to make you into the image of Christ Jesus! God Bless!

PATTERNS

"Hi, my name is Brian and I'm a pattern alignment addict."

Today I finished some food and as I went to put the plate into the dishwater I noticed that the pattern was upside down and I put it in anyway. Yes, that's right folks, FREE in Christ Jesus to put dishes in the dishwasher with the pattern UPSIDE DOWN! 

I told my precious bride what I'd just done, "Honey I'm free in Christ!, I just put a plate in with the pattern upside down!"  

"Me too", she said calmly, "I did it the other day cause I knew it didn't matter anymore."

OK, so it was funny and seems like a small thing really but in my depths of sinfulness I was the GCF (Great Control Freak). Since I had no control over my own self I was bound to control something... anything! So my own dear family found themselves involved in my bondage. The restrictive behaviors were ludicrous going as far as how dishes were set in the dishwasher based on the pattern. Crazy you say? Yep, crazy. But the man outside of Christ is just that: Crazy.

You see we were meant for service, but we want to be in charge. And it starts early! Ever heard a two year old snatch at something crying loudly, "Me do it!" We all want control. Yet we will all serve someone and it is the one we serve that is our master. Anyone who serves self is actually in bondage to the flesh, to the world and to the powers of darkness. The man who serves self has been tricked into thinking he is free, that he is in control.

When we look at the “meth-head” the drunk or the man addicted to porn or immoral behavior we absolutely know that they are out of control but we often over look ourselves. If you are not serving Christ, if He is not your Savior, then you are just as much a slave as the others. Your slavery is just more fashionable or acceptable. But it may not have always been so. 

Consider that in our society, a few years ago,  it was considered unacceptable for two men or women to be involved with each other in the same way that married couples are; yet today... well just look around. Look at the TV shows. Look at your news paper, the movies, the schools. Today the slavery of homosexuality has becoming fashionable. Yet they think they're free and in control.

In order to fool myself into thinking I was free and in control I made up my own rules. (You know: "Me do it!") My sin required me being Lord over someone, something, anything; demanding that things be done a certain way. Yet in the middle of this control I had no control over myself. I was in bondage to the flesh and had no more freedom than the meth-head, the drunk or anyone else on the list.

Now I laugh at the absurdity of having to have the dish’s pattern all alike and yet that was a rule at my house. This was important to me because it was something I could control.

But God. Then God moved in my heart and changed me. He made me into a new creation (II Cor. 5.17). I did not take a 12 step program. Been there, done that. I took the One Step Program offered by God. The “IF any man be in Christ”  program. It worked for me and it will work for you too! Believe me the dishes being stacked alike was the VERY least of my problems. My issues went back years and were a very present struggle each day. But God moved in my heart and by His sovereign grace He touched me and made me a new man. A man whose completeness is in Christ Jesus instead of himself and it has made many, many differences in my life and in my family’s life even down to the dishes!

Living with a Maniac

The dictionary defines maniac as one having an excessive level of energy  or enthusiasm over something, like a sports maniac. Or a person who is wildly irresponsible, as driving like a maniac.

I think these two definitions and the descriptions are pretty accurate for me. It is pretty sad to live in a sort of fantasy world but sadder still when other people around you are made to live in it too. I had an older daughter who escaped but her two younger siblings and my wife were being held hostage by a maniac in a fantasy world.

The fantasy was that every thing could be controlled. A perfect picture would would be presented to ourselves and others by meeting my unrealistically high level of standards.  Then we would all pretend it was real. And that’s an order!  If anyone broke the picture, well woe to them! The head guard would come down like a ton of bricks until things got better. The family, left behind after the escape of my daughter, was under strict lock down. No more escapes!

I had to keep up appearances. If I could keep up the appearance of everything being perfect it made it almost possible to imagine it was; even though it wasn’t. Looking back on it I have no wonder that folks would visit but never stay. I mean, a trip to a Madam Tussauds wax museum, while interesting, is a bit eery. Now imagine living there. 

All peace was conditional. If the house was just right, it was OK. If the yard was just right, it was OK. If the plates were all set with the pattern facing right, it was OK. Absolutely every thing was a labor. The only spontaneity was from my mouth with it’s sarcasm and often biting humor. So you can see how the term maniac is not so far off... pretty accurate really. 

My kooky recipe for success was sort of like the one my engineer father had for cooking a hot dog in the microwave: Wrap hot dog in saran wrap, cook on high until saran wrap disappears. Pretty scary huh? That was my “christian” life. Scary. The more I see myself and who I was the more I understand the relational problems that I had. When a person is not real  they can’t have real friends. I had no real  friends because I was not  real  myself. 

But when God touched me I was changed. I am not sure just how this was accomplished but He did it! Our family’s home, once dark with laws and requirements, is ablaze with freedom in Christ. The people here are allowed to be real now.  The house and yard may not be just right, but it’ll be OK. The pattern of the plates might not be properly aligned but now that my spirit is the plates don’t matter as much. It’s OK. The maniac has been healed!  You see God lives here now. We're under new management, open 24 hours a day, feel free to drop by! 

It’s all about Pride!

Being in the church most of my life and always being around other church attenders offers some special  challenges to getting saved. You see we all assume that we are saved if we’re at the church. I mean it’s OK when someone obviously in sin gets saved but when those getting saved are regular attenders, workers, deacons or deacon’s wives, maybe even the pastor’s wife >gasp<  then some very real and very nagging questions naturally come up.

Many people I know always assumed that I was saved. I said I was so why would they believe otherwise?  Maybe, sometimes, I even believed I was; such is my capacity for deceit. At the church I attend I have seen folks who actually served there get up and testify that they had only recently gotten saved. What... I thought they were saved?! Some of them were in choir, one played the piano, one was working the sound equipment. They were around for years. How could they not be saved? And more importantly the question would always come to me: What about me? Was I saved? 

I would pull out the old tried and true verses to assure myself that I was indeed saved. This in spite of the fact that there was no REAL fruit of the spirit. Oh I would behave myself nicely at church or at social activities that demanded a “godly” behavior but in the privacy of my heart I was wicked in all caps and bold. I could shut God off with out any qualms. I was not a new creature. But I had that covered too. I would reason that my problems were besetting sins. I reasoned that I’d prayed the prayer of salvation (several times!) and, since I was still in church, that I was persevering. Wasn’t this evidence of salvation? But the nagging reality of it was that II Cor. 5:17 was just not true for me. This was painfully obvious. 

I was also hesitant to pursue the question of salvation because it would mean I would have to admit I was wrong. That I was not saved. I didn’t want to do that in front of folks.  Pride. Which was  really silly since those most likely offended were also most likely in the same boat with me. They would just blow off my salvation as emotionalism or a "new plateau of understanding". So when some old timer or charter member got saved we were quietly and politely accommodating. Ultimately my pride kept me trapped. As it turned out the life of “faith” for me was actually a life of fraud. I was trusting in a salvation I saw no evidence of and I knew it! It was all the work of the flesh. So I kept on hoping for the best and playing with sin. 

Finally I found myself sitting in my pastor’s office called out for sin and confronted  face to face with it. I was truly at a dead end or as they say, busted big time. Yet it was this very event (one that I had secretly feared would happen someday) that brought me to an end of myself. No talking would have gotten me out of the situation, no explanation would work. It was the end of the road. I sat, finally quiet. Nothing I could possibly do would have, could have, redeemed me. I was a shame to my self, to my God (I still didn’t know He did not have me) to my family and to my friends.  As I left his office that day I felt like someone after a car wreck, sort of stunned, wobbly and weak feeling. I was over.

From that day, I came to know the real lostness and sin-filledness of myself. I was a hollow empty shell filled with dead promises, broken resolutions and an anger that swelled up and down like waves on a dark putrid sea of shame. I don’t think I knew it but in the middle of what had happened I was coming to an end of myself. I was abased but not by any choice I had made or even could have made. My pride would never have allowed it. I was a mess and I knew it.

Andrew Murray wrote, “Just as water always seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds men abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless.”   That was me. Abased, empty. It was in this state that I was finally able to receive from God that which I needed most. Salvation! I do not yet fully understand my total and complete neediness but when I began to know who I was, then God was willing to touch me. He will not touch a life that is a total lie. I began just a small knowing that I was and am a tremendous sinner and that He is indeed a Tremendous God and then He saved me. God saved me and I was bathed in peace, surprised by joy!

It is a great thing to know a God who is willing to pick up the crippled one and that is who I am.