Happy?

Why is it that we say, "Happy Halloween," yet we post images of the most UNhappy things I have ever seen? Severed appendages, limbs, zombies with brains and intestines hanging out, demons and imps from Hell. Yeah, THAT's happy.

OK - you in the front two rows - let's get out there and raise our voices. Let's take this holiday back.

Charge

2 Timothy 4

1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

This call was specific to Timothy.


Or was it?

The potter

Jeremiah 18

1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD : 2 "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." 3 So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

5 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. "


I have so often thanked God for the growth and development in my life. I have very rough social skills, to say the least. My Mom was a 'difficult' person, and I was close to eighteen years old before I realized that I was becoming one too. In fact I had pretty much turned away every friend I had at that point.

But with the lessons learned from the word of God, and the example set before me by Jesus Christ, I turned that around and began to enjoy having friends and even relatives who seemed to enjoy having me around. It was an amazing transformation - but it came with a perilous cost:

I have to keep in mind - daily - that if I let any part of my old nature creep in I can quite easily become that person I used to be, and I would most definitely die alone.

So I get up every day, and pray first for myself. Does that sound selfish? Not when you understand that I pray, "Once again Lord, let Charles die and Christ Jesus live in his place. Heavenly Potter, mold me into your shape once again." Only then can I begin to see those around me through His eyes, and immediately begin to pray for them, serve them, even care about them.

Soldier on

2 Peter 2:3 Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer. 5 Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules.

Amazingly, just as I began to blog this, my wife came over and began talking to me about a potential sale we are working on. It is down in Malibu, and in my experience, the farther a sale is away from our shop the smaller the chance is that we will retain any profit on it. There are a combination of things at work here:

Spas which are far away always seem to fail more, so more long trips are needed to do warranty work after the sale.
Tradesmen who we rely upon to do electrical or concrete work will not go to these jobs, so we have to depend upon new people, or the customer's buddies.
People who have shopped our store from far away are generally trying to get a real low price, and will do amazing things to get it.
People who demand a low price always demand an extra high level of service, and
Those same people also expect us to include expensive items at no additional cost.

So what am I saying - only this: in one split second, my mind jumped from a study of God's word to all of the above, just because Hope came over and showed me an email from a customer while I was trying to blog.

Oh how easily my mind can get OFF of things above! OK - I'm back. But, of course, I now have eaten up my time and have to get out there and walk, then all the normal cleanup stuff - to make myself presentable to the world.

So - how does this tie in to the verse above? I need to set aside the things that so easily side-track me when it comes time to do the work of the Kingdom. Fear, pressures from business, money in general, material possessions, success and failure from man's perspective.

I'll let you know when I get there!!

Man of few words

Out walking this morning, breathing hard, listening to a sermon, trying to hear from God.
I guess I had better take Him into my day!
Let's do that!!

2Timothy 1:7For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

Slog Blog

Sometimes I have these amazing moments early in the morning when I open God's word and stuff just jumps off the page. Not so much today. I read Jeremiah 9, 10 and 11. It has a bunch of doom and gloom, but it does have this cool passage:

23 This is what the LORD says:
"Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches,

24 but let him who boasts boast about this:
that he understands and knows me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,"
declares the LORD.

That's a promise that even when things are bleak, even when God himself allows our lives to swallow us up, He will still exercise kindness, justice and righteousness. No, it doesn't say that He will immediately rescue us, but He will be with us, and ultimately His ways will win out.

Good enough!

It has been a tough road

Well, it's been a while since I have blogged. I have posted dozens of pictures on FaceBook, and put very vulnerable updates in which I bared my soul. I have tried to do what I think pleases God in these other ways, but for some reason He has called me back to blog. I have no idea if this is for anybody's good besides my own, but I'm going to do it anyway. There's nothing wrong with responding to God - even if I AM the only one who get's anything out of it. If I draw closer to God, those people around me will eventually get some of the overflow no matter what.

So - here I am. Sitting at the computer. For those of you who care, I'm a bit sweaty - I just returned from a one mile walk. I pushed it, but I didn't time it, so I don't know what pace I held, but I am so out of shape that it was hard work to keep any kind of pace at all. It is amazing how fast time can slip by when you stop working out or exercising. I have a friend who goes to the gym all the time. I was going to say 'every day,' but I think he has a pattern which involves some days off. It's part of a good regimen to have some breaks, of course, so you don't exhaust or damage your muscles, but even he has noted that if he skips more than a few DAYS it is noticeably harder once he gets back to his program.

And any of us can vouch that it takes about three weeks - roughly - to get a new habit in place. But for me, at least, it only takes about three days to lose it.

And gain weight? Yes I have. I have a plan: I want to get back on my program using the mobile app on my phone, logging my eating and reading all the little newsletters and other support items available from WW to get to the point that when I walk back through the door and begin again, I will be somewhat close to where I was when I last attended.

In other words, I have been so used to being held up as a 'success' by the teachers, who regularly point me out as having lost 80 pounds (even though I only got close to that amount) that I have been set up: I don't want to walk back in there and admit I have fallen off the wagon.

Ah, wretched man that I am. Ah the humanity that is me.

OK - a cup of coffee and a very low-point breakfast is waiting. Keep me accountable - let me know if you read this. Perhaps we can buddy up and help each other.