Are You Ready?

I35 Bridge Collapse, 3/26/2015

     Some time ago, I began writing a book. Actually, I started on two books. Through a technical glitch, I lost what would have been about three-quarters of one of those books, and this sent me into a major writer's block. Since then, I have slowly been catching up and writing more on the other book I had started. I wish I had been more diligent in my efforts at the time, because what I was writing about back then is now happening right before our eyes! I was at the very place shown in this picture only one week ago!

     The following is an excerpt from the Forward of that book, which will be entitled "Duct Tape for Wobbly Knees." The topic is of utmost importance, so I hope that you will take the time to read it through and digest it's words and meaning. And so it goes ...

        Do you believe in eternity?  If so, where do you think you will spend it? Do you believe that Jesus is coming back for His bride … us, the church?  Do you believe that it will be soon? If you lay claim to being a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, doesn’t it bother you that some of your brothers and sisters in Christ are unsure of their eternal destination?  Doesn’t it trouble you that some will be “spewed out of God’s mouth” because they are “luke-warm?” The older I get, the stronger the urgency seems to be.

      One night I turned on the History Channel.  They had a program on called, “The Crumbling of America.”  This was a two-hour show about how weak the American infrastructure system has become.  The narrator explained that all great nations, the United States of America included, became so through and because of their magnificent and complex infrastructure systems.  He went on to say that the majority of the bridges in this country are, or soon will be, forty to fifty years old.  Most are deteriorating rapidly, and tragedy is imminent.  We have neglected maintenance, overlooked normal wear and tear, and ignored the fact that our bridges and road systems are carrying loads that they were never meant to carry.  What is beyond our immediate range of sight has been basically disregarded.  All this is causing our infrastructure to crumble … slowly, but ever so surely.  

As I watched this program, I began to think about the deterioration of our infrastructure system in terms of the deterioration of our spiritual lives and the corrosion of our values and morals. I know that things have been deteriorating ever since the Garden of Eden. But in my lifetime, once we eliminated prayer from school, everything seemed to go downhill from there.  When I was young, you got detention for chewing gum in school.  My second grade teacher once smacked me on the hand with a ruler for carrying a paper plate on my head.  Back then, the only thing to fear was the punishment that was meted out for misbehaving.  Now, school grounds are places for some very appalling, not to mention frightful, activities.  Some large-city schools actually have metal detectors at their entrances so that youth can no longer bring guns and knives inside!  Rapes and beatings in school lavatories are not unheard of any more. Hazing has actually become popular! Massacres have occurred on college campuses, movie theaters, elementary schools, and in other public places.          And why not?  What else can we expect?  What else should we expect?  Children see violence, sexual encounters, drugs, drunkenness, murders, and the use of obscene language right in their own living rooms on TV every day!  Some stations show these things explicitly and without boundaries, even during prime-time. Some children grow up with it in their neighborhoods, apartment houses, and even in their own dwelling! It’s “hard-wired” into the very fibers of their being from a very early age.  

Our country had more than just its great infrastructure system to make it powerful.  Before that system was developed, we had another great cornerstone to our foundation … our country was founded on Christian, Biblical principles.  Now we have taken prayer out of school, the Ten Commandments out of public buildings, Christ out of Christmas, and in recent years, public outcry has even been against putting up a nativity scene on your own private property!  We have spent great effort on trying to take “in God we trust” off our money, and Christian programs off the air waves.  Separation of church and state is now legal.  It’s a concept I just can’t wrap my mind around … how do you separate a part of who you are from another part? 
 Corruption and greed are evident in almost every walk of life, including Christianity.  Anger is obvious.  I don’t know whether it’s worse that “road rage” exists, or that it’s actually so predominant that we have a name for it! Abuse … sexual, physical, mental and emotional … is carried out routinely against children, women, and now even men.  Honor and respect for one another has faded into the background, or deteriorated altogether … along with truth.  Little white lies and vulgar language are commonplace.  Trust is not.  Hatred, jealousy, and revenge are three of the main motivating factors behind the rising crime rate.  Respect for authority is dwindling.  In our quest not to offend, we have gone to the opposite end of the spectrum and have gotten lethargic and lazy in our battle against evil and wrongdoing.

I could go on and on.  But having said even that much, why in the world do we wonder where God is when tragedy strikes?  How can we question His existence through and after horrendous, destructive weather patterns?  During wars and rumors of wars?  After all, it is we who have eliminated Him from all we hold dear in the first place!  Do we actually believe that we can remove Him from our lives, but then expect His mighty hand to protect us when tragedy is looming? Do we expect that He is a magic genie who will appear on command when we need Him, and remain in the shadows at all other times?  Are we actually embarrassed to say that we know Him?  The narrator on the History Channel program went on to say, “America’s roads are headed for a crash.”  How much more so are we, if we don’t get our values, morals, and especially our spiritual identities out of the gutter.

        A serious lack of accountability grew out of this confusion and untruth. It's about the Bible’s inerrancy … “I’ll believe what I believe, and you believe what you believe.”  Allowing such circumstantial freedom of belief has driven us so far away from seeking truth.  Its roots are in rebellion and pride, and that’s exactly what caused God to spew Satan out of Heaven. Freedom minus responsibility equals chaos!

     Similarly, the Christian community is lacking in structure and discipline.  I once asked someone why she doesn’t go to church.  She said it’s because she knows who those people are on Monday.  Many have made similar comments.  People … we are failing in our duties as Christians!  We have become lethargic.  We have become apathetic.  We speak mainly about God’s love … and I do thank Him for it.  But have we forgotten that God is also righteous? And just?  For the Christian, self has to be removed from the throne.  This will happen … with or without our help or consent.  God will have no other gods before Him, including self. 

      We need to wake up! God is a wonderful, magnificent, all-knowing, all-loving, almighty God.  There aren’t enough adjectives known to man to describe His goodness and love.  But this book is not about that.  It’s a come-to-life cry to those of us who carry Jesus’ name and His authority … Christians.  It’s a wake-up call for a sleeping giant … Christianity.  If we don’t come to realize, believe and accept just who Jesus really is, and all He has done for us, there will be some of us left behind! 

      Thus ends the excerpt from the Foreword of "Duct Tape for Wobbly Knees."  I hope it has given you food for thought, as well as a thirst to read what follows. You see from the picture posted in this article that what was written about is already happening. How much time do we have? Are you ready?

Those are my thoughts. What are yours?

 

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The Miracle of Forgiveness

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Why do we struggle so much to forgive someone when we are hurt by them? Why do we struggle to receive forgiveness for our own wrong doings? We have a hard enough time receiving God's forgiveness, yet it seems even harder to forgive ourselves for what we do wrong. Forgiveness seems to be a major issue in our world today. Why is this so?

Well, here are a couple of reasons. The first takes us all the way back to the Garden of Eden. When Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and Adam followed in kind, their first reaction was shame, as is evidenced by the fact that they tried to cover their nakedness (their sin) with fig leaves. Their second reaction was fear, as is evidenced by the fact that they hid themselves from God when He came into the Garden for their daily walk and talk. Shame and fear ... that's what sin produces!

We humans were never designed to carry that load! It's hard to come out from under such a weight. To give you a picture of why this is so, take a look at your body. When your body is hurt, bruised, cut or injured in some way, its natural reaction is to tense up, in a subconscious effort to resist the pain. The same thing happens in our emotions. When we are hurt, either by the actions of others or by our own wrong doings, our emotions "tense up" to resist the negative impact. We balk! And we respond not with fig leaves, but with "walls" (of anger, fear, shame etc.) because we don't want to be hurt again. This "resistance," whether conscious or subconscious, actually keeps our physical bodies and/or our emotions in bondage to that pain for an even longer period of time!

The second reason why it's so hard to forgive and accept forgiveness, is because we really don't understand what forgiveness means. In order to gain some insight, let me first explain what forgiveness is not:

Forgiving does not mean ignoring the offense. If the offense is ignored, it's basically the same thing as saying that it never happened. How can you give or receive forgiveness for an event that never occurred? Forgiveness does not mean there is no penalty. There is a consequence for every action, good or bad (or lack of action).  Remember, Jesus had to pay the ultimate price so that we could be forgiven!

Also, forgiving someone does not mean that you automatically forget, although forgiving someone in the true sense of the word does bring a release and peace to your mind, and perhaps even enough healing that you would not focus on the trauma as much. But some events are impossible to forget (like the untimely death of a loved one). But you can still forgive. Forgiving someone is also not an acceptance that what was done is ok. It's not ok!! And you do not have to "like it" in order to forgive. Forgiving someone does not mean that you automatically trust that person again, or that things will be ok now, OR that you have to remain in a hurtful situation. Forgiving someone is not an open door for continued mistreatment!

When you forgive someone, you excuse them. You pardon them. You release them, meaning that you no longer hold them accountable for their actions. That's a blessing for the one forgiven, but it's even more of a blessing for you! When you forgive, it releases you from the horrible bondage of pain, anger, bitterness ... and all those other negative emotions that profoundly affect your physical well being. It releases you to have room in your mind and heart for peace, joy and love.

Forgiveness is not based on our "feelings." It is based on a conscious choice made by the power of our will. What if we don't "feel" like forgiving? That's when choice comes into play. Even though we can't control all situations or circumstances in life, we can control how we respond to them! What if we forgive, but we don't "feel" any better? What if we feel that what we or they have done is just too awful? This is a classic case of the condemnation that God's enemy and ours, Satan, would have us fall prey to. But once again, we do have the power to choose ... will we believe and respond to truth? Or to our roller-coaster feelings?

Forgiveness given or received is a true miracle. There are no "keys" to fixing every wrong done to us or by us, in our lifetimes. But in terms of healing and restoration, forgiving comes as close as is humanly possible!

As always, you are invited and encouraged to join this blog, and share it with family, friends & associates.

Grieving Through the Holidays

It's that time of year again. Time for joy, holiday parties, gift giving and receiving. Time to worship the One whose birth we celebrate. It's also the time you feel grief so strongly, because the one you love has passed on. Or you lost your job. Or that fire or tornado or hurricane has destroyed all your worldly goods. Or maybe you have recently been diagnosed with a deadly disease. This is the time of year when everyone's happy, right? But you're not. You're in pain.

So, what is it that you can do? How can you get through these holiday celebrations without losing your mind, or having a breakdown ... or worse yet, becoming a hermit? Well, the very first thing you need to do is suck in that next breath of air!  Force it out, and then do it all over again!

The purpose of this blog is not to go through all the causes, symptoms and stages of the grieving process. You already know those, because you're experiencing them as we speak.  The purpose of this blog is to bring encouragement and hope to you through this holiday season.  To share some information with you that could help you get past the pain, and onto healing ... despite those emotions that make you want to hide from the world.

I read a book once called "A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss," by Gerald Sitser. Mr. Sitser had experienced his own grievous trauma, and, therefore, was knowledgeable about what he wrote. On page 138, Mr. Sitser made this comment: "Sorrow itself needs the existence of God to validate it as a healthy and legitimate emotion. If there is no God, it makes no difference how we respond. It becomes entirely subjective, like individual tastes in ice cream. If sorrow is subjective, and it doesn't matter how we respond, then why not laugh at tragedy, loss and depression? How do we establish the absoluteness of good vs. bad, anyway? And where did we get the idea of "good" and "bad" in the first place? People feel pain in suffering because suffering is bad. We know this because we have knowledge of what is good. Such knowledge can only come from God."

Following Mr. Sitser's logic leads us to another point: denial of our negative emotions will only keep us in bondage to them for a longer period of time. We must acknowledge their existence. And then we must make a conscious choice to put them in their proper place.  In other words, throw those negative, painful emotions out like yesterday's trash. How? How is that possible? By making a conscious choice to acknowledge and grasp hold of the fact that even through the painful emotions, hope exists. Hope for healing. Tragedy is designed to defeat and destroy us. So, is healing possible? It depends on what you believe! And on what you do about hope! Grieve ... but never without hope.

Grief will destroy us, or it will transform us ... but it will never leave us the same. Our lives will never be the same as they were before the tragic event. But we can move on. And it can be a healthy, positive, productive, and most of all Godly, growth and change. Here are some practical suggestions that will help you overcome grief, especially as you progress through this holiday season:

1)  Prepare yourself. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 4: 23 to "guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."
2) Get a moderate amount of exercise. Exercise has been known to reduce stress.
3) Pay attention to your diet. Stick to the good stuff. Cut down on refined sugar, white flour products, caffeine, nicotine and anything else that is harmful to your body.
4) Get proper rest, as well as a good amount of sleep.
5) Talk to someone. There's healing power in sharing your burdens with someone.
6) Keep a journal of your thoughts, feelings, prayers and answers to prayer. Later, you'll be able to look back and see how much progress you have made.

Make a conscious choice to grab onto the hope of healing. Then take some positive steps in that direction. And don't forget to pat yourself on the back ... because even the smallest of steps is a major accomplishment!