Quotation Saturday

Eph. 4:18 “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:”

NEGATIVE

“Save your skin from the corrosive acids from the mouths of toxic people. Someone who just helped you to speak evil about another person can later help another person to speak evil about you.” 
― Israelmore Ayivor

“Bloodshed begets bloodshed. Hatred begits hatred.” 
― Hiromu Arakawa

“Thoughts are like an open ocean, they can either move you forward within its waves, or sink you under deep into its abyss.”
― Anthony Liccione

“Beware of those who are bitter, for they will never allow you to enjoy your fruit.” 
― Suzy Kassem

POSITIVE

“When you are joyful, when you say yes to life and have fun and project positivity all around you, you become a sun in the center of every constellation, and people want to be near you.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” 
― Ashley Smith

“Do not dilute the truth of your potential. We often convince ourselves that we cannot change, that we cannot overcome the circumstances of our lives. That is simply not true. You have been blessed with immeasurable power to make positive changes in your life. But you can't just wish it, you can't just hope it, you can't just want it... you have to LIVE it, BE it, DO it.” 
― Steve Maraboli,

“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.” 
― Roy Bennett

IGNORANCE

“Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know.” 
― Eoin Colfer

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” 
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” 
― Harlan Ellison

TOLERANCE

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.” 
― Lloyd Shearer

“It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” 
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.” 
― Albert Einstein

“Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.” 
― Malcolm X

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.

Content

Ex. 2:20-21 And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

You could see this post as content [kon-tent] significance or profundity; meaning:
a clever play that lacks content.
Or: substantive information or creative material viewed in contrast to its actual or potential manner of presentation:

Or content [kuh n-tent] satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else.

I was going for the being satisfied with what one is or has but it can also be seen as significance. I see a problem that has risen to record proportions in a nation of contentious people. They are not happy with what they have or with whom they are, causing an upheaval of indecisiveness.

Rom. 2:8 “But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,”

Not only do I see this in the (I never talk about) politics, but in people’s lives. They are never content with the blessings they have and always seeking out more, whether it is more clothes, a bigger house, more selection or more choices, then they’re left confused wanderers by not being content with what they have. 

Why can’t people be content? People are no longer impressed with integrity, kindness, humility and generosity; they’re too busy being overcome by anger and hate as if something has possessed them that they’ll never admit is happening.

“I still get very high and very low in life. Daily. But I finally accepted the fact that sensitive is just how I was made, that I don’t have to hide it and I don’t have to fix it. I’m not broken.” ~ Glennon Melton

We must be able to overcome the dark force that is waging war on our souls so much so that we act like a roaring lion filled with hate, not a gentle Lamb like Christ. It is much easier to come out and attack, lash out at anyone and everyone who doesn’t have the same perspective as we do and yet we find ourselves clinging to the ones who are also filled with the maliciousness.

One of the hardest things to do in my Child of God walk is to forgive, to love my enemy, to turn the other cheek. People see me as either naïve or blind to reality but do they ever see me as a Child of God? No, and yes, do you know why? They’d rather pick a negative connotation not knowing it is an evil dark force that is drawing them to the conclusion. 

You see, they are the ones blind. They are blind to the blood of Christ that they claim is seeping through their veins. Jesus knew the men who were killing Him. Did He choose to lash out and spew hate filled words to carry Him to heaven? Did He choose to separate himself from the prostitutes, the poor, the lame and the different?

I know what you’re going to say. He was a better man than you. Yes, this is true but He is the one whose words should be first out of your mouth, not the ones that satan chooses for you.

We’re human and we are weak but He is strong! He is the one who has the strength to overcome the evil in the world and instead of rallying around satan, without demeaning hate-filled words, whose end has been prophesied about and will come, Jesus’ end is just the beginning.

When you are filled with love and joy part of the time in your daily living then you are not filled with Jesus all of the time. Being human allows you that right to choose good and evil.

I choose to overcome the evil force playing tug of war in my soul. Do you think it is easy? Do you think Joni just wakes up with her head in the clouds? No, she has to work at being there like everyone else but again, it is her CHOICE to choose good over evil.

Being content with all that I am and all that I have, not wanting more and more keeps me grounded in the here and now.

Phil. 4:11 “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

Prophecy - End Times

Ezek. 12:2 “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.”

I know quite a few people who see the prophecy of the Bible for them and not us. For them I mean the people ‘over there’ and not here, in America. Do you really think that one of the most powerful countries in the world was left out of biblical prophecy? Why, because it was written so long ago? In the book of Revelation God spoke of the ‘End Times’ and you think he was talking just about the people in ‘other’ countries? Israel alone?

Do you believe the God who breathed the world into existence, knew the beginning and the end, would leave a country, a nation so full of sin out of the end times? So you think the end is only going to come to the other countries and God will spare America? Because we’re all that? I’m not a realist and even I can think in realistic terms concerning the end. America is not exempt!

In all my years of reading, studying and trying to understand the vast amount of truth in the writings of the Bible, I never one time thought that America was going to be excluded from the End Times. God did not specifically say the word America but He alludes to it in many references.

Haggai 2:[6] “For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;
[7] And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.”

Isa. 66:18-20 [18] For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
[19] And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. [20] And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.

Zech. 12:[2] “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
[3] And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.”

Just as when he said “an eye for an eye” did NOT mean to pluck out the eye of another, the use of metaphors are rampant in the written word of thousands of years ago. To understand prophecy in the Bible you must understand metaphors and their meaning. Maybe this is why I’ve been a poet since as young as I can remember, I understand the difference in a metaphor and literal meaning.

Ezekiel 38 is full of end time prophecy and understanding this book with eyes wide open, not sleeping, you might see what God is trying to tell you. After some digging and research, I found that my thoughts are not mine alone. Now that I have the internet, my thoughts have reached a reality shared by other men and women who see.

Again, while granted I may be thought a strange one, these thoughts were in my mind before I could ever understand what they meant. My heart knew America was not exempt from End Times, my soul knew where I’d be in the End Times, and the momentum of my thoughts finally caught up with other people who see the same thing. Praise be to God!

While man is distracted with satans willpower by having them enmeshed in the here and now, worrying about idle chit-chat, engaging in senseless banter, he sweeps the shores and you’re caught unaware. He has you not believing in angels because he has unleashed a legion to thrive here on earth with you and you drink from the bath of his deceit.

There’s a reason I don’t tie myself up in prophecy and it’s because I’m awake, I see and am not blind to the truth right under my nose. Do you think our ‘nation’ is covered in evil because that is just the way humans evolved not ape to man but from good to evil? No, it’s because satan veiled our eyesight so we see only what he wants us to see. Is it a coincidence that veil is an anagram of evil? I don’t believe in coincidence.

Ecc.3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
[2] A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
[3] A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
[4] A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
[5] A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
[6] A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
[7] A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
[8] A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

May the Light of the Lord shine on you all and give every one of you a reason, a season, a lifetime.

God Bless you!

1 Pet. 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

Quotation Saturday ~ Humanity

Pss.10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.

HUMANITY

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.”
~ Rick Riordan

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
~ Leo Tolstoy

“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
~ Oscar Wilde

EQUALITY

“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?"
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“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

“Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.”
~ Dorothy L. Sayers

“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”
~ Douglas Adams

TOLERANCE

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.”
~ Lloyd Shearer

“It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
~ Hermann Hesse

“It's a universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged”
~ Rumi

“Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.”
~ Albert Einstein

PREJUDICE

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”
~ Charlotte Brontë

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”
~ Marcus Aurelius

Prov. 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.”

Daily Slaughter

Pss. 62:1-2 Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.

Daily Slaughter

I see it; it is happening all around me and far from me but it still has fingers to touch me; the persecution of Christian believers. Death and slaughter is on the banks of every shore reaching in and finding the ones who believe in God, in Christ, in anything but the distorted Islamic religion.

I won’t justify the terrorists by giving them a name, which is too good for them. I just like to refer to them as slaughtering beasts. By the reading of morning headlines, I see that the terror isn’t restricted to one part of the world. I see men and women losing their mind over here in the good old U.S of A. also.

We live in a world where sanity is laughed at, insanity is a way of life, so much so that even the sane people are left to feel somewhat insane. Slaughter takes on many shapes and forms and insanity is driven by an evil force although no one wants to call it what it is for fear of being thought insane.

I think people of today are finally waking up and seeing with their own eyes that there is something going on that cannot merely be explained as insanity. Just as light is a force of growth (sunlight causes trees and flowers to grow) darkness is a force that causes people to be driven from the light. Even the definition of darkness is ‘absence of light’.

While we stand in awe of the tangerine orb hanging in the sky, we know that it will settle off on the horizon only to give light of the cratered cantaloupe light hanging from the sky with its beads of pearls strung all through the infinite realm of darkness.

Daylight and moonlight are our sources of light in a darkened world but as humans we have not come to worship the sun and moon, we worship the Creator of such gifts. The insanity of life is formed when we are consumed with the worship of the physical and material aspects of life.

I often think of the time when the world was being formed and the angels were in discussion. Lucifer wanted control of the earth and God wanted man to be at the helm of its glory and thus the unraveling of the conscious mind began.

Gen. 1: 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

We can be told by scientist of the Big Bang theory and possibly believe it, but honestly, could an astronomical event create the human mind, body and soul? Did the Bang have the power to separate the Light from the Dark? Yes, you say? Well how did it divide the atoms to make up the spirit residing in the human mind called a soul?

Since the beginning of time the light and dark forces have been at war. These same elements are in us. IN US! Running through our veins in a rampant force just waiting to surface. Obviously, the dark forces causing us to do evil shadowy things in the land that we were to make prosperous and not destroy causes the insanity of man.

We’re taken back to the control of the situation. When I see men/women being beheaded I think of the control freaks doing the injustice and I see the demon gloom hanging from a sword. When I see beasts killing men and women in MY land with a gun or knife, I see that person who is dying for control, losing his mind to darkness that has blurred his vision stealing the light from within him/her.

No gender or age is immune from this cloudburst. No profession is off limits to the unruly behavior that the force seeks out to destroy. The dark force is upon us, hanging over in an impulsive manner almost forcibly shaking us to do what we normally would never do in a thousand years. Our only sense of self-control is to cling to our sanity.

I feel as if I’m in the midst of a Zombie apocalypse just waiting for the guillotine to wrap around my neck. I observe the seemingly sane give into insane behavior lapping up all the darkness that is there to feed off of.

How is man to ward off the evil taking over the world? Just as he did in the beginning of time, giving up control. Man is to give up control of his material possessions, his physical world and be bathed in the Light that God so freely gives to all.

Luke 18: 22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

I think of the entire fleet of atheist wandering around groping in the dark. If just once they gave control over to the Light, I can bet God would see them and they’d see Him, whether they want it or not. But it looks to me like they’re accepting living in a dark world of pessimism giving control over to the wind that carries them to and fro.

When I think of Israel and the land where my Savior was born, I also think of the persecution that went on there. I think of the first man and woman who were led out of the Garden of Eden with the promise of life. I think of the Eternal life that we are given when we choose, quite simply, light over dark.

While the world is succumbing to the evil darkness washing over us like a summer rainfall, we become parched and depleted in a world without light. The sleeves of armor are wearing thin as we watch the takeover. Our only saving grace is not out here in the physical world, it is in the moisture of our insides drinking the fresh, ripe fruit juice of the Spirit living within us.

Pss. 63:1-4 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.
Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.

The Lesser of Two Evils

Eph. 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

I find it quite funny these days when people use Social Media to promote Christ and the Word of God. A lot of these people are the same folk who smoke, drink, lie, cheat and anything else you can name, but in the name of the Lord, they promote Him?

Yeah, that used to be my mode of operation but then I realized, shoving the bible down people’s throat is a turn-off not a turn-to way of operating. Now if you have a plethora of Christian friends and you post a bible verse that is touching you that day that you want to share, your friends high five in agreement. But suppose you’re just a casual believer along with many of your friends? Will the Word of God be accepted the same way?

Sure they’ll like it, sure they’ll read it, sometimes laugh with you about it, but then the next day your so-called Christian actions prove you to be a believer not an active participant. That’s acceptable because it is the path you choose. It is okay for you, not ME.

When a Jehovah’s Witness knocks on your door, do you like the intrusion? How about when you’re unloading groceries from your shopping cart? How about if a man is standing on the street corner belting out Bible verses telling you to become a born again Christian because the end is near? I think facebook and twitter have become that form of platform for spreading the Word.

I see more and more people using the word of God for an agenda. Using God? That rolls over well doesn’t it? Since God knows all and sees all, maybe He’ll see you posting and trying to bring people closer to Him, maybe that will earn you brownie points with God.

James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

I laugh because very early on I learned you CANNOT earn your way into heaven! The show you put on for others is for you and you alone so you look good and righteous-like. It’s a total turn-off to me and saddens me to see people using God like an old bath towel; tossing Him around here and there but never really utilizing His word and works in your life.

When I used to post bible verses, I chose them from my morning bible reading that touched me and I thought maybe my fellow Christian friends would be touched also. To choose the lesser of two evils (figure of speech?) I would post biblical memes that meant nothing to anyone in particular but I was bombarding the walls thinking it was the right thing to do. In hindsight I see that it touched only me and that only I knew what they meant, to ME.

The show is over. I will not give up on God and I will not sugarcoat the Word but I will also not use God for an agenda, I use the Word to set my moral compass by and hope that in a dry stale world people will actually seek out all this ‘jargon’ that people are talking about.

I will not rely on the media, social networks, or the so-called Christians to fool me into something. That’s what it feels like, they’re trying to fool me and turn me AWAY from God instead of into His arms. I have fallen off the ‘hey-look-at-me-I’m-a-Christian’ wagon. I now turn to the regularly scheduled program, the BIBLE!

Never in my life have I been so discouraged. The way I see it is evil is using some pretty creative ways to taint the Word of God and His children. It’s his mission and one he’s succeeding at and one I won’t be a part of. Again… I’ll remain ME. I cannot buy, sell or work my way into heaven and more than likely I won’t even get to knock on the doors of heaven but when God sees Me, He’ll see the genuine SPIRIT of me that He created.


 Pss. 1: 1-6 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

You Tube Junkie (mild language)

Rom. 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

You Tube Junkie

I’m a You Tube junkie I’m a man

Clicking all the booty that I can

There are dogs and kitties

And big fat titties

I’m a You Tube junkie; I’m a man.

I’m a You Tube junkie with a plan

Clicking all the thumbnails that I can

With boobies and butts

And possibly some sluts

I’m a You Tube junkie; I’m a man!

I’m a You Tube junkie yes I scan

Every single video I can

With the safety off

Don’t you dare scoff

I’m a You Tube junkie; I’m a man.

I’m a You Tube junkie ladies man

Wasting fifteen hours in a span

I wake up in the morning

I give nobody warning

I’m a You Tube junkie, yes I am!

Now before I get hate mail and offended people giving me feedback, this is in no way targeted to the casual life living people who actually use You Tube for some of the beauty it holds in Christian feeds.

I myself have found some terrific posts on Bible history and Christian music and I’ve even ventured off and found some funny dogs or cat videos. Good Mythical Morning with Rhett and Link are pretty funny and often clean. (They actually have wives and kids so they understand the need for pure innocent fun.)

This is targeted at the (mainly) men who feel that taking the SAFETY OFF is an innocent way to search. Sorry, but nothing good comes from SAFETY OFF. Can you imagine driving without a seatbelt just because it is ‘hindering’ your driving? Answer me this, how is the SAFETY ON hindering your You Tube viewing? I know how… you don’t get the enjoyment of hugging Satan and all he has for you? You miss out on promiscuity and sin? You do know the thumbnails are just lures right? Yeah, have fun with that.

Mark 4: 19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

Are You There God?

James 2: 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Are you there God?

I put a call out to God. Does He hear me? Does He know what’s going on down here? With all of the overused technology today, you’d think God would just answer his cell phone when I call on Him.

We’re in an era of overuse of technological gadgets. Our food cooks quicker, our phones need no land lines, our TV is much clearer and rarely do you ever get a rolling screen, we wash and dry clothes in machines and we sit on computers to spend hours of our precious time. It isn’t only the insane who have turned their back on God we sane folk are just as guilty.

Did you ever wonder why with all this technology God doesn’t use a cell phone? Like when I pray, why can’t I just dial Him up and have Him answer? Why? Because as much as WE’VE changed, God has NOT changed. He doesn’t need YouTube to reach you, He doesn’t need mechanical skills to wave His hand to have you prosper, all He needs is YOU, to turn your attention on Him. That’s it.

Since mass shootings are occurring more frequently, we tend to get the feeling God has turned His back on us and left us to dangle here without any help. It’s not true. God is here. The only way we hear Him is through SHOCK to our technological nation. You see, we’re so wrapped up in instant gratification, having everything here and now, we don’t have the patience NEEDED to wait on God, we don’t HEAR God’s calling out to us.

I asked God, “Are you here?” Ironically, He didn’t take days to answer just mere seconds. I HEARD even through all the humming coming from behind me through the computer, even with all the *dings* of notifications, the beep of the microwave, the churning of the washer; I HEARD!

I have an innate way of turning off the world. I didn’t have techno gadgets distracting me all my life so I knew what I was listening for. I had a phone with a cord that didn’t reach very far. I had a TV with a few stations, not hundreds, I hung clothes on the line and we used the stove to actually cook. Things like that is what keeps one focused on the here and now. I didn’t get my first computer and cell phone until eleven years ago, so really I have NOT allowed technology to taint me like it has so many millions of people.

There’s a video on YouTube (another idol distraction to the world). It shows kids seeing a corded phone for the first time. They only know texting and cells so this phone was so foreign they didn’t know what it was. When told, they laughed, “No way! You had to PAY to make a long distance call? No way!” They were kind of shocked. They couldn’t imagine living life this way.

Kids are so spoiled by technology they didn’t even know what dial-up was. When they were showed, they became confused. But when given their iPad, iPod, cell, laptop; they knew right away how to text and use the silly gadgets and how to easily get to the instantaneous internet.

Steven texted me one day and I didn’t even know that the odd ring on my phone MEANT a text call. What do I do? Respond? HOW? I see letters next to the numbers so I hit “k”. REPLY, wow, I did it. And suddenly I felt like throwing my phone out the window!

While Steven has been a techno freak for twenty-five years or so, I myself to this day can not fathom the fascination. I wrapped myself up so much with God, I didn’t see technology rising around me. I saw it as a distraction FROM God not a way to get CLOSER to God.

Now people can hand me the malarkey that technology, or better yet, the internet has a lot of GOOD in it, I tend to agree, to an extent. But within a good thing, there dwells evil always one step ahead ready to sway you away from the good. You CAN become addicted to the net no different than being addicted to alcohol. It will eat you alive, trust me I know, I’m still waiting for it to spit a few people I know back out.

So again, I ask, “Are you there God?” And quite quickly He responds,

“Yes, I kiss the earth every morning with the rising of the sun. I tuck it into bed with the setting of the sun. I sing to you daily in the chiming of the birds. I whisper to you softly with the breath of winds words. I wrap my arms tightly around you in your time of need. I fill you with abundance when it’s time to feed. I’m there right beside you in the simplest of tasks. I’m waiting for your response to everything I ask. Am I there in devastation, when no one thinks to care? I’m with you always, if you look, I’M RIGHT THERE!”

Wow! Who knew God was a poet? Me. How did I know? Because I use all six of my God given senses: I SEE Him. I HEAR Him. I TASTE Him. I SMELL Him. I TOUCH Him. And most importantly, I FEEL Him, because He’s been here inside, ALL ALONG!

Luke 2: 40And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.

I Did It...

Romans 12:1 says, " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

Well I went and did it. As you all know, I am in a health crisis at this time and the only thing I look forward to is writing, and coming here to share what I wrote with all of you. I started the new year with a full steam ahead mode, and was enjoying the days of writing until... it happened again. I was let down by the very people I trusted. I was again the victim of bullying by mere acquaintance, and I felt that the leaders (that follow) have no control, or they allow it to happen because they see nothing wrong with the inane behavior, and I’m left standing in the rain with sopping hair and drips of water cascading down my face.


As I always do, I took it to God and asked Him what I need to do to get focused on my writing and helping writers (you my followers), to get these vicious people out of my way. You won’t believe what he said! Well ,He told me to do away with facebook for awhile and the writing sites where I assist, and move on. If those people are really my friends, they know where I am, they know how to contact me. If they care at all, they’ll support me in my task.


Well wouldn’t you know, I deactivated my account on Saturday. And it is now Wednesday and not one person has wrote to me to see if I’m okay or to see what happened. Well my dear friends Sue and June sent me Valentine’s Day cards and made me feel special, as they always do, and Jess wrote me last night asking if I was okay, but the rest of my friends, silence. Friends?


I’ve abandoned the writing sites and figure I’ll leave it to the bullies who manipulate and think they own the site, can do what they want on the site, and are welcomed with open arms into the fold of some sort of deviant behavior. I watch as what I thought were dear friends get sucked into their grasp and support the bullies in every way, shape and form, looking at me as if I have cockroaches for brains.


You see, I’m not easily mislead, and I have no need to appear to be the most popular and friendly person in the world. When I sense EVIL, I don’t play with it, toy around with it, enjoy the company of it; I DELETE it from my life. And if this is what it takes for all the GOOD and promising things to continue to happen in my life, good riddance to the negative that is trying to take me down. I’ll leave them to play and wallow in the bad things happening in their own lives and hopefully they will one day take the blinders off and see it for what it is. But for now, they’re enjoying the ego boost and enjoying the wolves in sheep clothing.


Here it is, Wednesday and already I feel a sense of promise washing over me and lifting me to new heights. I have the innate ability, unlike many, to actually hear God, and I have the strength to listen to Him even if it means giving up many things in my life. He died for me, it is the very least I can do for Him.


I apologize to all those who wanted me to play in the playground, just so you can beat me up. God won’t allow it. Too much has happened in my life to think that life is all about fun and games. I’ll remain Happy-Go-Lucky, chin-up, but it will be with friends whom God himself has chosen to be in my life.


now...onto my WRITING blog...

" and if I had the chance, I'd ask the world to dance. And I'd be dancing with myself." ~ Billy Idol

Chess anyone?

It is impossible to win gracefully at chess. No man has yet said "Mate!" in a voice which failed to sound to his opponent bitter, boastful and malicious. ~A.A. Milne
***

So you were anticipating a blog post about the correlation between writing and chess? Well let me tell you, I can give a really good analogy of a chess/life scenario but I’ve really got to work on the writing/chess scenario.

Okay where do I begin? I’ll start with the white side. This is the team I always go for in playing chess. It reminds me of purity and all that that entails. Strength,wisdom, knowledge,etc.

In writing, the white team can be visualized as the protagonist, or the good guy. The dudley-do-right, the main character of the story. Then we have the black team and they are the antagonist, the bad guys, the dark force, the one or ones that will be causing all kinds of trouble in the story.

We have pawns on both sides, correct? The same powerful pieces standing behind the pawns on both sides too. The pawns can be seen as the disposable characters, if you will. Now you have all of these characters standing behind you vying for a place so lets give them a place.

The rook will be the homestead or the solid foundation of your story, the dark side has an ominous looking castle which probably houses Count Dracula or some other dark figure.

The knight will be the character in your story that does all the fighting for you. They don’t call it the Knight in shining armor for no reason at all. He just might save, your damsel in distress. The dark fights for the light, the light normally wins IN THE END, hopefully, with fingers crossed, the Light will win. (emphasis on WILL win)

Then we have the bishops. They can be your moral compass. The bishop can stand for our values, beliefs, hope, faith and promise. The good seed buried in all of us that sometimes we call a conscious. Now the dark bishop is who in your story? Well it’s the dark force or the bad seed that will not and can not take root because you’ve given him/it no fertile soil in which to grow. He is going to be the turmoil around every corner in your story.

Ah, now we have the king and queen. This will be the strong lead characters in your story who eventually are left standing with the dark side (king and queen) all alone on that big checkered board, or white paged palette we call a storyboard.

What do we do in this position? We do what any good writer would do and that is knock the pants off of the Dark Force and we have our main characters all full of light left standing in a triumphant glow of completion. Check Mate!

Does any of this make sense? Well to my demented writers brain it does. Look out Stephen King, I figured you out! Now lets see if I can see what gardening and writing have in common. Okay, I’m kidding! (not really)

Now we know what makes a story so what are you waiting for? Why are you sitting here reading, shouldn’t you be writing? 

***

'Tis all a chequer board of nights and days,
Where destiny with men for pieces plays;
Hither and thither, and mates, and slays.
~Edward Fitzgerald