They Ruin It...

Prov. 13:18 “Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction: but he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured.”

They Ruin It…

They’ve [humans] ruined my relationship to church; it’s now relinquished to a place to show my face so I can come home and boast of how great the sermon and praise was. They’ve ruined what little trust I had in people by being more about the manipulative angle they can use to abuse me. They make drinking alcohol all about fun and games like it is just a second nature and fine to do without ramifications, they spread lies like mosquitoes spreading Lyme disease injecting their poisonous falsehoods for the world to see and STILL claim to be Christian. 

It is Christians, you know, the very good Christians that are destroying the religion, for ME. I have a faith in Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father but I have zero faith in humankind. I don’t have faith in the churches because they are imploding while touting their growth. Church is no longer about God, it is about an opinionated what-you’re-doing-wrong drama. 

I read the headlines and the stories are unending of a collapsing society. I should say societies because this is happening worldwide and if you just happily ignore the succession of downfall going on around you, then to me, you are part of the problem. We are perverting society by accepting sin like candy from a dirty old man, it’s become the norm.

Evil is stampeding across the globe knocking down pillars that have been in place for centuries. I’m saddened not celebratory at all. Everything is about race, sexism, politics, shoot or be shot, kill or be killed, blatant propaganda spoon-fed by the media to the masses and fed to innocent children who know nothing yet but are being programmed to follow in the footsteps of the hate in the world.

We as a human race are not coming together to solve problems, I see too often people sitting back and being PART of the problem and enjoying their placement in a world of fellow angry citizens who can’t even rise from bed without feeling hate in their veins.  And that makes you a good person?

What exactly constitutes a good Christian or a good person? I shouldn’t have to struggle to see them; they should be quite obvious among the crowd yet they’re not. They’re hidden among the booze drinkers, layered with, if not covered in, the hatemonger; splintered by the right and wrong in the world.

Actions are what separate the good, not color, religion, race or sex but that is what we’ve done to the world, divided man and thought, and has made information so liquid we bathe in the offering. It does not make us good people by agreeing to everything the hate spewers feed you.

Greed has ruined any form of celebration for me. People want and want but are not willing to give a little time and effort to the term ‘change’. They’d much rather be herded together like cattle and be tagged and counted among the crowd as one of the all.

I feel alone as I wade in the ocean of life. I’m out to sea and see no land in sight. Ruined is the joy in a day. Gone is the hope in tomorrow. I have but one thing to hold onto as a life preserver and that is my faith in God. 

While man has destroyed everything, burnt the promise of growth, singed the tide of deliverance, damaged the blossoms of love and buried the plateau of joy, I remain alone. I will count by single digits the good ones and remain skeptical of the boasting 'good' people; skeptical not judgmental because I hold no right in judging. We each have to judge for ourselves what is right and wrong and prayerfully I choose right.

Ten Things Money CAN’T buy?

Manners
Morals
Respect
Common sense
Character
Class
Integrity
Trust
Patience
LOVE!

Bonus: Faith, Hope and Charity

1 Cor. 13:13 KJV “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

Quotation Saturday ~ Ego, Vanity, Empathy, Truth

1 Sam. 12:24 “Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.”

EGO

“The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.” 
― Criss Jami

“The Ego is a veil between humans and God’.”
“In prayer all are equal.” 
― Rumi

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” 
― Bill Bullard

“Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentance and living with dignity will ever erase the past.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

VANITY

“The wise do not buy into other people’s perceptions of who they are and what they are capable of. Instead, they bypass a person’s public persona and see who they are in their highest expression. When you see actions taken with integrity, instead of words only, you will then know a soul’s worth.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” 
― Jane Austen

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.” 
― Dale Carnegie

“Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.” 
― Blaise Pascal

EMPATHY

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” 
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” 
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.” 
― Andrew Boyd

“Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.” 
― Daniel Goleman

TRUTH

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.” 
― Jim Morrison

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” 
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.” 
― Joss Whedon

“The truth doesn't always set you free; people prefer to believe prettier, neatley wrapped lies” 
― Jodi Picoult

Pss. 51:6 “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.”

Nurturing The Spirit

James 4:16-17 KJV “But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

Nurturing the Spirit

If an innocent child is abandoned and left on his own without guidance, he is bound to get into trouble. Whether making the wrong decisions because he/she knew no better like toddling out the unlocked front door right into on-coming traffic, or just making the wrong choice because he can, like setting the house on fire by playing with matches near the curtains. This is what happens to a wayward society without God leading them in the right direction. The people play with fire and get they burned, figuratively and literally.

God left us alone with a few instructions and we can’t even decide which ones to follow or which ones don’t need our attention, basically, we struggle with choosing right from wrong. That’s where nurturing the Spirit within you comes into play. God planted the Holy Spirit here on earth to dwell within us IF we’d have Him but so many have made the conscious decision of not wanting Him or His Spirit near us. People CHOOSE to not have Him or anyone for that matter, governing their lives.

You see, reading the Bible and believing in the Word is all well and good but nurturing your spirit is the much-needed task and the difference between being raised by humans or being misled by a pack of wolves. While I love wolves, “they are considered one of the animal world's most fearsome natural villains.”

If you leave God out of the equation of humanity, we become like a pack of wolves, villains at our worse behavior imaginable, like killing and maiming the lower species because we as the human species can act in the most animalistic way we can think of and our packs are in record numbers dividing the majority and minority sector.

The minority of people clings to God and allows His spirit to rule our soul and we ACT like civil God loving human beings practicing our faith while the majority of the world follows the ravenous pack of wolves. Mind you we have tamed packs where they act civil but their teeth bearing, howling hate nature is ever visible. They’ve been allowed to roam too long in the wild, taking in and feeding off whatever the media throws them, absorbing the fecal matter into their spirits and allowing that to shape who they are and showing the world their sugar-coated dish to make it look more delectable to the unknowing and misguided mind.

The world does not nurture the spirit within them. Their egos are so big they think they can control their world around them never giving reins to a supreme more powerful Godhead. The ego is a masterful wolf ravaging your insides controlling every action or inaction you take. When we allow the ego to rule we are essentially tossing God to the ever-loving covetous wolves.

This is the world you see before you. THIS is the very reason everything seems to be going downhill. You wake and hear more and more bad news, mass killings, rape, incest, torture, and hatred among political human beings. The minority of God dwellers is not strong enough to overpower the majority of ego driven, voracious savages that now rule the streets, homes, countries and soul’s of what is left of the human species. 

My naïveté tells me that the power of prayer will help guide and protect us, the minority, in sync with the Spirit that we hold steadfast within our beings. It is only through prayer and meditation on the word DAILY not weekly, that we can save the damned, the ill, the misled, and the lost. God save us all.

James 4: 13-17 NIV "Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring!
"What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 
"So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."

A Pick-N-Choose World

Ps. 55: 16 “As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.”

If you believe what you like in the gospels,
and reject what you don't like,
it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
 ~ St. Augustine

I saw this quote and felt like giving St. Augustine a high-five! This is so true. People have a tendency to pick and choose what they believe and read in the Bible. 

Then I spotted this meme of the Mash TV series.  Hawkeye and Father Mulcahy are talking:

“War isn’t hell, war is war and hell is hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.

How you figure Hawkeye?

Easy Father. Tell me, who goes to hell?

Sinners, I believe.

Exactly, there are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them – little kids, cripples, old ladies, in fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.” 

This struck me: “Who goes to Hell? Sinners, I believe.”

If we are all sinners, does that mean we are all going to Hell?

Well wait, we’re not all going to hell, right? Because all we have to do is read, believe, sin, and ask for forgiveness over and over again? Right? I got it. I don’t believe it but that is my right also just as you have your right to pick and choose what you believe in the bible and what actions you take LIVING the word of God. 

It seems to me that all this country is wrapped up in is politics, lies, media’s supposed truths, and more sin drowning in their veins. They love riling people up as they sit and judge and point fingers demanding transparency from situations we have no business in knowing. I say that with respect to the DECEASED in the matter and families who are dealing with a horrible death. They don’t want the stories rehashed over and over. They don’t want killers faces again and again in the news. When does the media share the innocent victims lives and plaster their images for all of the world to see? They don’t because NO ONE would SHARE that and feed the click-bait world.

The world bathes in sin yet claim an allegiance to God, any God for that matter, they wrap their belief in sin, let sin seep through their veins and bleed falsehood all in the name of an allegiance to their God?

While everyone is enjoying hating the president of the U.S, I’ve heard him called everything from a liar to a Muslim, to being a part of Islam and it goes on and on. People of the world would so much rather HATE than look deeply in the mirror and see the true them that is reflected back. Lies have been going on since the beginning of time itself and we think we have rights to the truth? Just what truth do you seek? Do you seek truth from politicians? That’s funny. Presidents lied in the past and they’ll lie in the future. Man will lie in his own lie.

The further and further we push God out of our country, the more and more people need to hate. They’re addicted to it, it’s a NEED of theirs to feel in control.

John of the Yahoo comment section wrote: “I am so surprised that the anti-Christ [Trump] is going to use political correctness to take over, I always wondered how he would do it, the bible says he will be a great speaker spewing good things from his mouth, that he will preach peace. Years ago I thought all this religion was nonsense, that there was no way we would ever lose Christianity in this country, or that the teaching of Jesus would stop as Jesus said it would, but now as an old man I am a firm believer, because I see the things of Christianity coming to an end in the name of tolerance, and I am not just talking about the saying of have a merry Christmas or the taking down of the ten commandments, I see an assault by our own government and president, and I have to wonder where all the Christians are at.”

All the Christians are too busy picking and choosing what they believe in. They’re rolling around in a mud bath slinging hate to the world, getting caught up in sin and calling their anger justified by the word of Christ. Allow me to tell you, there is no in between. You can’t be against the Lord one day (full of hate, rage and rants) and be a good looking upstanding Christian the next. It just doesn’t work that way. 

Pick and choose right or wrong, there is no justifiable middle.

Goodness Makes The Badness Go Away

John 14:21 (NIV) "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

“Goodness makes the badness go away”

This song was a part of the Smurfs Christmas special one year. They sang the song to dispel an evil curse that was poured over them by mysterious dark man. Even Gargamel was under the curse and only the Smurfs could save them.

The lyrics go like this:

Goodness makes the badness go away.
Goodness makes you happy every day.
Badness cannot start if there's goodness in your heart.
Goodness makes the badness go away.

This song came to mind as I posted my blog. Yesterday I tried to post a blog about the evil taking over the world but wouldn’t you know it, a force kept me from logging in as our internet went out completely in the morning and didn’t return until bedtime 10 pm. So I posted my blog, The Legion Puzzle, on 6 16 16. Ironic isn’t it, that 666 is in the date?

The earth is being swallowed up by the evil permeating the souls of humans. In the news, images, lies, deceit, corruption all smother the mind and keep it away from the goodness that might be had in a day. Yes, there is goodness in the world but when you wake in the morning, is that the first thing you think about? Is all the good in the world the first thing you read about or fill your mind with? 

The newspaper, online or offline, never focus’ on the good happening in the world, they have to target all the bad and ill will that is suffocating humans in every part of the world. People find pleasure in reading about a botched facelift, they cheer on broken marriages, they post and repost about all that is wrong in the world and rarely posts about the good going on in the world. 

There has to be more than the rescue of animals that makes the good news rounds. While I’m all for the saving of animals lives, isn’t there ANY good happening out there in the human form? Are people so consumed with sharing all that is wrong in the world isn’t there anything going right?

Is it possible for goodness to make the badness go away? Am I just a dreamer who wants nothing but good things for this world? Am I alone in my quest to see a turnaround? If every single human alive today took one day out of their lives to consciously become aware of the hate they’re spreading and instead traded it in for something positive, I DO believe the world could be changed.

But such as it is, we don’t want a universal good in the world. We’ll justify our anger by saying, “Well he’s not spreading love and good thoughts, why should I?” That is the problem, you see? You are so worried about what the other person is doing and not caring about what YOU are putting out into the world. 

We live in a click-bait world where you see something interesting on facebook, click it and share because someone said you are heartless if you don’t share. You then have opened the door for advertisers and prey to follow you around posting what they KNOW you’ll click and as a bait, you snag it up and are ensnared and are also blindly walking into a web of deceit.

We live in a self-serving world; ‘if it doesn’t benefit ME than I’m not interested’ attitude. So I’ll ask, doesn’t goodness interest you? Does sharing good positive thoughts hurt you? No? Then why cling to anger and hatred as a daily sport?

I know that this is a political year, and I know everyone has their opinions of who is the best choice but the way I see it, the darkness has taken over the world so much so we are left with two bad choices. This is the way that evil works. You don’t get to choose the best man/woman for the job, you have to choose what is offered universally and there is nothing good left in the world; no light at the end of the tunnel.

Control the input that seeps through your veins and into your mind demeaning your brain. I’m so tired of the ‘If you’re a true friend, you’ll repost this’ as a way of GUILTING me into action. I cannot be made to do anything I don’t want to do but I see so many committing the action because I guess they ARE a true friend? All of us who don’t repost are just normal, non-caring, insensitive souls.  I see fewer people on facebook because it has become a mission of some to destroy the many people and their joyous being.

Why is the world wrapped in badness and sadness? Why do people choose pain over joy? Why is evil over saturating the innocent? Why has darkness swallowed the Light? You can’t blame religion, politics, the Muslim, Islam, radical Islam on this alone. No, EVERY single person who chooses hatred over love is a part of the problem. Your anger and rage should be targeted at YOU! 

A friend’s friend C. Amsden wrote: “Hate is so much easier and less painful than love. Hate allows us to feel superior and righteous. Love tears at our guts and emotions. It leaves us vulnerable and weak. Hate builds an altar to our own egos and lets us worship our own perfection. Hate is never really about the person it is directed toward, it is always about the person it stems from. Love is always about the person receiving it, not the one giving it. Hate is the ultimate selfishness.”

We now accept sin as a way of life. There is only one defense and that is love and forgiveness. Here are the words from a man who just lost his daughter in the Orlando, Florida brutal carnage. 

"We forgive the shooter. We talked about it," said Deonka's father, a pastor who runs a nonprofit that helps the poor and elderly. "Hatred will find a way to destroy you, so we forgive the shooter. It wasn't very hard to do. Anger was in me and there was no place to release it. Forgiveness was the way to release it." 

Can goodness make the badness go away? I fear I’ll never find out. I fear it is too late. So continue what you’re doing and never change. We’re right on the path that was set at the beginning of time.

The Legion Puzzle

James 1:21 (NIV) “Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”

This past weekend we the people saw what the people of this world are capable of these days. A young up and coming singer/active YouTuber became a victim of violence and her vicious death was overshadowed on Sunday when a mad man went into a nightclub and opened fire killing and maiming as the bullets swept the floor. 

The pieces of the puzzle are falling into place and I, out here in my own little world, am not oblivious to what is going on in the world, I’m saddened by it. I remember a time when we safely walked the darkened streets, listened and respected our parents, and enjoyed life as we knew it to be. Today, we walk the streets with hidden weapons in our purse, mace attached to our hip and extra locks on our door because of fear and hate.

Fear and hate rule the world and don’t you for one minute think politicians in any country rule. Religion does not rule, love knows not where to live, and a legion of darkness is swelling across the world in record heights ready to make this world an afterthought.

Mark 5:9 “And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.”

Are you a piece of the Legion puzzle? Do you wake finding yourself so full of rage and hate that the only way to release the hatred is to go and share asinine posts with others so they can mount their hate also?

The media throws fresh animosity on the fire by fanning the flames with whichever political party they’re affiliated with and those from the opposite side eat smores around the flame just waiting to spew new fire among the masses. A vicious cycle that can be annihilated through the power of love and prayer but people are too smothered with the Social Media scene, lies and hate that they can’t get out of the stronghold that their addiction to media-spew holds on them.

I sometimes fear that people are addicted to hate. They wake in the morning and just like their coffee they need to drink in the hate to see what mean hurtful things are out there that they can put their spin on and feed their fellow [virtual] friends. They thrive on hostile illusions with clenched fist. The world is consumed with filling themselves to the brim with hate so much so the days are darkened in every part of the world. 

I know exactly what Jesus felt like when he tried to spread love and the people laughed and scoffed, mocking Him at every turn, willingly hanging Him on the cross to die. I am the outcast that everyone laughs at because I want to share love. I’m the one not liked for not being a part of the Legion of evil hate-mongers of the world. I will not swim with the fish that are so full of bitterness that it’s getting very difficult swimming against the malignant flow.

Not many are willing to stand up for love and positivity because they’re too busy swimming in venom. They are the cancer of our society and are a part of what is destroying the world. It’s kind of ironic that people are willing to ‘share’ the scripture and follow it up with the evil angst that has a grip on them through their malicious rants. Don’t they see that THEY are part of the problem?

The more and more people that feed off what the media spoon-feeds you, you are then becoming filled with their agenda filled animosity. You are not your own person, you’re a sheep being led into slaughter and you don’t try and fight, you just join in and sling mud with them [the media] hoping you look good but you look as demented as them, you have willingly become a part of the Legion Puzzle! 

You are the darkness that hides the Light. You are the evil that permeates the soul of the human species spreading like a wildfire out of control and all that is left is the singed embers that once were known as love.

God is gone. God is dead. He isn’t alive in the many, He is alive in a few and that is why the world will come to an abrupt ending because you didn’t care. Your anger and hatred was more important than your salvation. Millions share your ill will and like lava, the moving flow will destroy all it comes in contact with.

I’m alone. I sit and watch the flames of demons lick the faces of people I once loved and devour them. I watch as the world is pulled into the sweaty palm of satan and squeezed for their very last breath of pure air that they can no longer taste. I look and see people being chewed and spit out of the black teeth that have bit them and left a mark on their soul. Ravaged is the human race that has become victims of the beast. You are now a piece of the Legion Puzzle fitting in nicely where satan would have you placed.

Awake you sleeping nation!

Rev. 6: [1] And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
[2] And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
[3] And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
[4] And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
[5] And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
[6] And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
[7] And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
[8] And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
[9] And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
[10] And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

Are You Addicted to Technology?

Ps. 26:2-3 “Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart. For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth.

Are You Addicted to Technology?

I wasn’t expecting a sermon on the Power of Prayer to start off with, are you addicted to technology, but it did. After speaking about Ecclesiastes Pastor went on to speak about the selfie-driven world, then listed astronomical statistics. He said there are 93 million selfies taken EVERY DAY! He went on to say that the younger generation will take 25,000 pictures of themselves by the end of their lives.

This was not against technology this was about the self-driven nation. We are so absorbed with ourselves that we then forget about God. We may fool ourselves into believing we’re all about God but seriously when you’re so absorbed in a technological gadget, posting on facebook and twitter, hanging out on Instagram and Pinterest, where is God in your life then?

He asked:
Do you take your cell phone to bed and keep it close to you?
Do your friends and spouse complain about it? (the time spent cradling it?)
Do you check your phone first thing in the morning and the last thing before bed?
Do you feel bummed when you forget to bring your phone into the bathroom with you?

Then you’re addicted.

He said, “We think of our phone serving us but we wind up serving them, and that is really the definition of an idol, isn’t it?” He went on to tell us he was not anti-technology he was just pointing out the fact that the more we are absorbed by the techno gadgets, the more our prayer life will be hindered. Connecting with God is an afterthought after we’ve connected with the media world.

Pss.139:1 “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
[2] Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
[3] Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
[4] For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

[23] Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
[24] And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

You may say, “I’ve got my friends, I’ve got facebook.” But how many friends do you have right now that you could call and they’d come to your assistance? Your thousands of friends that LIKE your posts release a dopamine high and you get the rush of feeling loved and that’s all well and good, but do they KNOW you? Really?

Burger King had an offer for a free Whopper meal if you unfriend ten friends on facebook. They had to pull the plug on THAT little promotion because over 230,000 people had been unfriended and were angry! They did find out how much a facebook friend is worth, .37 cent!

People like the appearance of having over one thousand friends, people thrive on being liked but in reality, the average person has four friends, some have less. Four true friends that they physically see on a regular basis and are actual friends, but for appearances sake, they have thousands of friends in the social world, each of which they have no idea who they are they just feel important adding people to the list.

Ecc. 4:9-11 “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.
Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?”

“We are drawn to our technology, that provides the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship.” Terry Sherkel says, “Technology seems to address all the greatest needs we have, the need for attention everywhere, to be heard and to never be alone.” 

Ecc. 5:1  “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.”

Yeah, these days’ people even take their media gadgets to church with them. I hear many say it keeps the bible at their fingertips but I wonder, is that in between a selfie? A picture of their breakfast/lunch/dinner? I’m only asking because I have no idea what the excitement is by taking a picture of yourself. I’ve never taken a selfie. My phone is for phone calls and I don’t text so it is used just for phone calls. Enlighten me on why people need to let the world know what they’re doing every minute of the day, even when they’re sitting in church?

My only techno-gadget is my laptop and I use that for my blog/writing or playing a game of chess or solitaire. I read mail, and sometimes go to facebook to say hi to friends and see all of the prayer requests needed for each day but that is the gist of my techno use and knowledge. I’m happily old-fashioned and I like myself that way, not tainted by the media and all the baloney people post to sling hate to their thousands of friends. Yup, attention seekers survive via their social media outlets. Poor things, they need all the prayer I can give.

My prayer isn’t only for the attention seekers and media addicted folk, my prayer is for the awakening of the world that they may see how they are all a piece of the puzzle that is forming the world-wide web of hate. I can now see how a sermon on the Power of Prayer turned into an enlightening piece of the technology addicts of the world. By tuning into our gadgets that is one less minute we are spending with God. Wonder no more why the world is the way it is today. 

The Sin of Lying

Prov. 12:17 “He that speaketh truth sheweth forth righteousness: but a false witness deceit.”

“A minister told his congregation, “Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon I’d like you all to read Mark 17.”
The following Sunday the minister asked to see a show of hands. “How many of you read Mark 17?” Every hand went up. The minister smiled and said “Mark only has sixteen chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon, the Sin of Lying.” 

This was a meme on my facebook wall. Yeah, my facebook wall is now filled with many prayer requests, scripture memes, flowers and little tidbits like this. I rarely post on facebook these days and only two people visit my wall so I really see no purpose in facebook anymore except for praying for people in need. That’s a great purpose in my eyes. 

The above meme caught my eye and gave me a little chuckle and reading the comments was interesting too. One woman said, “Everyone tells a little white lie at some point in time.” And another one said, “Now that says a lot.” One woman said, “Wow, they so want to lie.” I’m assuming she meant Christians when she said ‘they’? This is the image people have of Christians. 

I remember Pastor Mike pulling something like this on us when he asked (a trick question) “How many here sin?” My hand went up (too eagerly I might add) while only a couple more hands were raised out of two hundred people. I remembered the scripture all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23) That is the only reason my hand went up so quickly, I know firsthand I’m a sinner. But others were not too quick to admit that because what, they are perfect and never sin? I don’t know. 

Lev. 6:3 “Or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein:”

To me, the question isn’t about the sin per se, it’s more about the reason why people lie about the sin in their lives. Shame, ego, pride? I don’t know that one either, I’m not the one judging you. 

While the term lie is found often in the KJV bible, it is usually meant as ‘to lie down’, bearing false witness is used as ‘to not tell the truth’. I believe one of my biggest faults is that I’m too honest. Many hear my words and think, she has to be lying but let me tell you, I would rather give you the blunt, honest truth than to lie.

Prov. 14:5 “A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies.”

The Christian life is not about happy joyful stories where everything goes right in our lives, sometimes our lives mimic the stories in the bible which can be pretty ugly at times. We as humans are no different than the biblical men and women. We color our world to look happy go lucky when deep down inside we suffer daily in pain and we strive on a daily basis to be a better person who doesn’t lie and hate, for what? For me, it is heaven. I long to see heaven and meet Jesus face to face.

Now I know quite a few people who don’t believe that heaven exists and I’m okay with that. I’m not okay with it, for ME but we’re all here to find something to believe in, strive to become something we see in others that we too can mirror. I think of all the people who boldly tell lies in a church to their minister what struggles they must be going through that no one will ever know because they hid so well amongst the righteous of the world. 

“All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” That statement was in a bible study email that we were reading. I don’t know who to attribute it to or I surely would but it really hit me upside the head. We can do good until we’re blue in the face, it doesn’t pave the road into heaven. We can appear to everyone to be the do-gooders of society but that doesn’t mean we’ll make it to heaven.

We can continue to sin up until the day we die and beg God for forgiveness five seconds before we die. We know he’ll forgive us but does THAT ensure us an entry into heaven? I don’t know, I haven’t died yet; I’ll let you know when I get there. 

THAT my friends is NOT what He wants from us. He wants us now in our day-to-day living to be better people than all that have gone before us. He wants us to know that there is a penalty for sin when we do it knowingly. He wants us to be like His son and work toward being with Him. Yes, we all sin. Yes, we will all fall short. No, we will not all make it to heaven. That’s a scary thought to me. 

My Own Little World

My Own Blessed Little World

1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

Out here in the middle of nowhere, I sit in my own little world. People expect me to be absorbed in the virtual world but no, it serves no purpose in my life so I sit in my own little world tapping on keys writing to my hearts content. 

The mornings here in this springtime world are bathed in sunshine, after almost a month of gray clouds and rain. The crisp cool mornings are still upon us where a light jacket is needed in the morning but by afternoon, no jacket is required, just sun, grass, and endless fields.

The pivots are making their morning stroll releasing a mist to the newly planted fields. Big-wheeled tractors are making their morning rounds discharging a fertilizer to protect the greenery from insects. Then there are the cottonwood trees freeing the clumps of cotton-like substance landing on the ground looking like a newly fallen snow.

Then there is the insect world. The spiders have been awakened from their winter slumber, the flies are mounting an army to attack any living creature in their way, and the hummingbird moths have made their appearance on my Salvia bush. Butterflies flit off in the distance inspecting the newly bloomed Marigolds that resurface every year. Note that marigolds are not perennials but the mild winters have been protecting the seeds as they fell from last year and so I am blessed with hundreds of marigolds each season.

I was in a bit of depression a few weeks ago and my one friend asked me what was wrong. I didn’t really give him any clear answer but sure enough, a week later he prodded further and I told him I was healing. I had been down for who knows what reason but I was now working on myself and finding healing. That’s a friend, who senses when you’re down and actually cares enough to poke in your business to see what the problem is and checks up on you to make sure you’re doing okay. 

He assured me that I am blessed and it hit home. I began counting the blessings in my life instead of focusing on what I can’t do. You see, I’m not an idle person; I always like to be moving whether planting in my garden, digging up weeds, mowing, cleaning, and doing laundry or whatever. I type/write in the few minutes of rest that my disabled body needs, then I’m back up moving around. 

My disability gets me down a lot of the times. I don’t even know what the disability is but I do know if I was pulled over and asked to take a sobriety test I’d fail for my inability to walk a straight line and not from alcohol either. My vision isn’t too good either so I stopped driving for my safety and the other drivers, too. I was diagnosed with arthritis in my back but after reading the M.S. symptoms, I’m not going to rule that out.

After I throw myself a pity party, I find a healing place in counting my blessings. I know this doesn’t sound like a blessing but my neighbor finally mowed down her waist high grass. Her riding mower needed blade repair and a push mower that she bought (so that she could lose weight, she told me) was too hard for her so she had her riding mower repaired and spent four hours for three days out there in the sun, stirring up my allergies, but I was feeling blessed by not having to see the eyesore any longer.

On the cooler days, I take advantage of getting outside, in my own little world. Sometimes I mow (carefully, knowing my limits) sometimes I just sit out there watching trucks roll by, other times I’m out there, counting my blessings.

While many people are consumed with what they don’t have, what they HAVE to have, what they WANT and what they’ll spend their money on, I’m here in my own little world counting my blessings of all that I HAVE! Cherishing the fact that I have all that I NEED and want for nothing but cool nights so I can continue sleeping with my windows open and the breeze chilling me so much that the quilt is pulled up to my neck!

I know spring will end and summer will arrive, and in my own little world, that will be fine by me! I’ll just continue to count my blessings!

Deut. 28:2 “And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.”

They're all IDIOTS!

Prov. 15:1 “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

How does that feel? Don’t you just love it when a ‘so called’ Christian stands out in plain site calling people idiots? That speaks volumes to the kind of person he/she is, I mean seriously isn’t there another way to hate people or nations, provinces, races, colors, ideologies? To disagree is one thing but to name-call, that is just harsh words to stir up anger. 

What I see when people name call are people who are racist, prejudice, ignorant slanderers that would not hesitate in calling a handicapped person a derogatory name either, or someone overweight belittling names or a mentally challenged person a demeaning name. It is the nature of haters to hate everything they possibly can and love only, what, their own mother?

This is a sad world when all you can do is register hate to begin your day. Are you telling me that your life is so boring that you have nothing better to do in life but spread hate, hate-filled posts, ignorance, lies and disgusts? I thought I had a sad life because of all the love I have for nature but surely the hate-mongers are desperate for attention. Oh don’t worry, they are not alone because they rally the numbers behind them and have the innocent victims falling in line to agree and cheer on their hate rant. I guess it is justified but the vicious cycle actually makes me want to puke. Just as my posts anger people for whatever reason because I don’t share in the hate? 

Prov. 19:1 “Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.”

A couple of months ago the singer Prince died. The social media lit up in condolences and sympathy while the haters did nothing but add the dislike for the man. Was it because he was black man? Or his religion wasn’t the same as theirs? This weekend Muhammad Ali died after a long battle with an illness but he died happy and content. That made the jealous ones sit up and fill to the brim their hatred of the man who didn’t do one thing wrong to them, but oh wait, he was Muslim. 

You see, in this country, you cannot be any other religion. You can only be one political party and you MUST agree with the masses or you are up the creek without a paddle. If you do not conform to one way of thinking you are the one shunned for being different among the crowd. 

I wonder if this is what the Native Americans felt like when the Polish, German, Irish, British, Jews came over and put them in their own little private corner of the world and tried to force their religious and political beliefs on them.

In America, you can be Jewish and you’re accepted and praised, you can be Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Baptist, Jehovah Witness, Lutheran, Methodist, Buddhist and any other religion except Muslim. God forbid should you be a practicing Muslim in America because that is SO un-American and no person will accept you. Yes, that IS what the Native Americans feel like. 

The hate-filled people will say that the Muslim are killers. Muhammed Ali was a practicing Muslim, was he a killer? Aaron Hernandez is a killer, OJ Simpson is a killer but they were probably of the right religion and that is why they are idolized.

I don’t even think America is divided by religion in my eyes, we’re divided as the people who love, and the people who hate. You either fit in or you don’t. Get over yourself people, America does NOT own the world and does not own religion. You so-called Christians need to learn how love, practice what you preach and stop all the hating any one or thing that doesn’t conform to YOUR expectations.

What to do? Well, what I do is I bask in the glory of the trees, the earth, the fields coming alive, the colorful birds singing and chirping, the sun rising and lending shadows to the earth. I rejoice in my Father who is in heaven and gave this beauty for me to behold, love and appreciate. Am I wrong for loving the human species the way Jesus loved all men? Am I so naïve to cherish all that I have in my life and not want for more?

I am content, I am alive and I LOVE. Alleluia, Amen!

Invisiible

This is a self-portrait

(sarcasm)

Invisible

Ephesians 4:25 ESV “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”

Sometimes you can feel totally invisible standing amid the crowd but when you look around, maybe they are enjoying all the beauty out in the world that they don’t see you standing right in their face.

From a June 3rd, 2014 post of mine on facebook – “A Grackle Tale – Sure they’re just annoying blackbirds but I love all birds and animals and communicate with them in some weird ways. Yesterday when one seemed distressed, I immediately went out to see what was wrong. She was looking down in the garden and just being so noisy; I assumed her baby fell from a nest or something. But she was just cawing and cawing and not going down to the garden where she had her eyes fixated on.
Many of her Grackle friends had joined her in a show of support but she was the only one cawing out. They sat in the tree in numbers watching her and ready to respond.
I noticed an empty black flowerpot had been blown into a divot in the garden and just lay there, unable to get out of the hole. 
I looked at her she at me and I said, “What, is this what you’re so excited about?” All the birds stirred as I moved toward the pot; her hanging close by watching me intently cawing and cawing. 
I picked up the pot, set it away on the nearby table so she could see it. The cawing stopped…she and her friends flew away. She thought the black pot was an injured grackle!
Moral of the story? When one person suspects their friend is in trouble, she makes a loud noise so her surrounding friends can support her and help if any danger ensues. Danger gone, the birds (friends) fly away, relieved.
Surround yourself with friends and prayer – all danger and fear will subside.”

There is another moral to the story but not as good as the first one. Sometimes when a friend puts a call out for help, many turn a blind eye and ignore. Humans are not like birds, I do believe we’re the lesser of the species. I’ve never met an animal with an ego as big as humans. Sure this makes people keep their control of not wanting to help but it is also an insult to the injured party.

It’s a harsh reality when you’re invisible. Sometimes I cause my own invisibility because people don’t like what I write. I hit a guilt nerve that resonates through people. Their ego has them thinking I am talking about them in specific when what I write is off the top of my head and is aimed at NO ONE. 

But you see, it is okay because the Lord never said it would be easy, or that you’d be liked for loving Him, no this road isn’t full of ‘everyone likes me’. This road is full of people who have the ‘run-and-flee’ mechanism built into them because what I say is holding a hidden truth that sends people into a guilt phase.

I’m not qualified to preach and preachiness is a big turn off for me. Some of my posts might come off as me being preachy but let me tell you, I speak from my heart, not from a scholarly know-it-all level. Usually, when I post, it comes from something I’m experiencing and I seek out answers as I write and more often than not, my only solace is the words in the bible.

Rom. 3: 9 “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
[10] As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
[11] There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
[12] They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
[13] Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
[14] Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
[15] Their feet are swift to shed blood:
[16] Destruction and misery are in their ways:
[17] And the way of peace have they not known:
[18] There is no fear of God before their eyes.
[19] Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
[20] Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
[21] But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
[22] Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”

That’s it my fellow man, we are all sinners! I throw my sin out there in the open for all of the world to read while many choose to hide behind their sin, so they can commit the sin over and over again and feel no guilt. 

1 Corinthians 6:20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

This is what I try and offer to people. To glorify God. It hurts me to see so many who claim to love God but do nothing to glorify Him. This is all I live for, to aid the weak birds fluttering around. I try to offer my assistance to help them stand and walk on their own. I fear my invisibility cloak will not allow those who NEED the help, to see me offering an extended hand. 

1 John 4:20 “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”

May God bless each and every person reading this.

They killed him... to save a child

Concordia, Kansas

Matt. 10:38 “And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.”

I’m sure you’ve all heard by now about the seventeen-year-old gorilla Harambe.

Defending what they [officials] did because of the uproar of an innocent gorilla being shot to death, "That child's life was in danger. People who question that don't understand you can't take a risk with a silverback gorilla - this is a dangerous animal," Cincinnati Zoo Director Thane Maynard said.

The unattended child climbed through a protective barrier then fell fifteen feet and the fall didn’t kill him my guess is because he landed in the water below. That was the water of the endangered gorilla’s home. Harambe saw the child and ran over and the humongous gorilla looked like he was petting the boy, then he dragged him around the exhibit as the much watched video shows. He wasn’t aggressively shaking the boy and showed no signs of hurting him but quick action called for this almost extinct gorilla to be killed.

This is just another uproar since the demise of Cecil the Lion was inhumanely killed, by yet another Doctor, of a different field, but a doctor nonetheless. What has me bewildered is the reason for this post. Why did they kill the gorilla when he was not showing aggression? They couldn’t distract him? They couldn’t steer the screaming people above AWAY from the exhibit? I do understand that the child’s life matters but is this any different than the police officer who shoots first, explains later?

Anyway, the media spinmasters are doing their turn on the wheels of the matter. I see people posting memes about abortions? That people care more about some gorilla than the hundreds of babies killed everyday in abortion clinics? I’d like to put my spin on the matter: People care more about pointing fingers at others than they do pointing a finger at their own self?

I don’t know why this issue called to my mind a time where a man was being hung on a cross. Some cried out in disbelief, some were shedding tears of sorrow, and some were just standing around gawking waiting for the man to die. We claim to have come so far in thousands of years but essentially we are right there in the crowd, pointing, gawking or crying. 

I’m the one shedding tears of sorrow that human beings have not learned how to be civil to one another and we are still to this day hanging people on a cross when they’re right or wrong. Children die, people are careless, men are trigger happy all in the name of justice? Whose justice?

While you are all busy pointing fingers and gawking, allow me to ask you this, if you believe in heaven and that you have a slight chance of making it there, who do you think will be there with you? You think you’ll have a seat next to Mother Teresa? Saint Patrick? Peter, Paul, Mary? Let me enlighten you a bit, that person you’re laughing at, making fun of, taunting and lashing out at will be there right beside you. You might have to look him/her straight in the face and explain why you hated them so much before you enter heaven. That will be justice; the sweet smell of justice in the umpth degree!

THIS is the very reason we are to love our enemy as we love ourselves. It’s not to make ME feel better it is to make Him know and understand the reason He died on the cross for you. If you don’t practice what He preached, then He died in vain. 

1 Cor. 1:17 “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.”