Hope: The Light at the End of the Tunnel

My wife and my daughter went to see my son Sunday (he is in prison), my son and daughter had a blowup at each other about three quarters of the way through the visit. It was very emotional for my wife. The worst part was going home and my daughter saying that her brother will never change. When they got home my wife told me everything and we both broke down and cried a while. You see society as a whole has given up on my son. Laws have been passed that will make it even harder for him when he gets out. Because of those laws I doubt that he has much of a chance staying out. He has been sentenced for a crime, that he did, given a sentence, but when he finishes that sentence he will continue to be punished whether he has changed or not. Society is not the only ones that have given up on him, people we know and family have given up on him.
They still care about him but they see no chance for change. Statistics say that after five years of incarceration most people have no more contact with the outside world. All of this got me to thinking, if it hurts me so bad when someone gives up hope for my son how much does it hurt God when we as Christians give up on one of His children. How does He feel when we turn away from one of His. How often I have hurt and continue to hurt my Father.

Sin???

Sin is an interesting subject don't ya think? I've always found it interesting, wondering what it is, wondering why it is and wondering why I continue to do it. When I was young I thought it was a list of things you couldn't do and if you did do them you were going to Hell, no passing go, no collecting $200. As a result when I was old enough to realize I had sinned and could not seem to keep from sinning, I lost all hope. I decided that if I was going to hell anyway I might as well dive in and enjoy myself while I was here. I did and I still pay the consequence of those sins at times. As I grew older and God sneaked up on me and introduced me to the Holy Spirit a new light was cast upon sin and why it was sin. I think growing up I thought that sin was just a list of things I was not suppose to like or enjoy. What I realize now is that sins are thinks that are bad for my health, both my physical health and my spiritual health. They are things that actually take away from my life and my joy because they do harm. Much like poison the bigger the dose the more the harm and the longer the results last. I also have been thinking about Exodus 20:5 where God says he will punish the children for the sins of their Father to the third and fourth generation.I have always had trouble with this verse and I guess it sometimes haunts me. It seems totally out of place for the God that I know. It seems like there is the God of the Old Testament and the God I grew up knowing, the God of anger and destruction. And the God of the New Testament, the God I now know, the God of love and beauty and wonder. I've come to the conclusion that something is amiss. The two Gods are one in the same and should be the same in both testaments.Not being a scholar and not being able to speak or read the languages of the Bible I don't really know but I suspect something has been lost in the translation. I think the consequences of a father or mothers sin can last through several generations. I say this because I have discovered that depression in its simplest form is negative thinking. This is something that I learned from my parents and they learned from my parents. Now is this sin? It does harm to ones psyche so I tend to think it may be. Look at HIV, it starts with sex out of marriage and can be transferred to the next generation and the next.I really believe that all disease, physical and mental is a result of sin. All this may be far fetched to some but to me it makes sense and explains the reason for life spans to shorten from the early biblical times.None of this may actually make sense but occasionally I like to wander around the attics of my mind and ruminate over some of my far out there thoughts.So comment if you like or tear me a new one if you would rather but maybe it will give you something to chew on.

Change of Script?

A group of us went to lunch together Sunday and were talking about different things and one of the group mentioned something along the lines that teachers in each country had their own script. He went on to explain that different cultures have different scripts that they go by when teaching their young. From that we went to the fact that each church has it's own script that it goes by. I'm not sure what the conversation was about after that because my mind started racing through so many things because the idea that we live our lives through scripts that are layed out by society, our upbringing and other such factors. Take work for instance, there is a certain script there, the company I work for has been through several mergers and several things have been done to change things to "Best Practice" what really happened is maybe a slight shift in the way we do things at the upper levels but on a local basis the script remains the same with slight adjustments for changes in people. New people adjust to the script and the script continues with only very slight changes. I find this to be true at church and also in Sunday school class.
Class has gotten to the point, for me; not everyone, that I know who is going to say what to any given situation. I've grown very tired of this because class for me is a constant rehash of the same things with no changes. The lack of changes extends to me too by the way. I'm not sure yet what to do about this but I really want a change of script.The script issue also raises it's ugly head in me personally. I act and react to the same script all the time and I've found that I am tired of my personal script too! As I explore my depression and the reasons for it I realize I really dislike some of the things about me. These things have written my script and I am finding that it is really not a very good script and I need to have it redone with some major changes. I know that these changes can only come through self discovery and Gods help and I really seek both although at times they are very disturbing and extremely overwhelming. I also wonder about the script we use to do church and I wonder if it leaves any room for God. I seriously doubt that it leaves room for the Holy Spirit. I'm not sure what to do about these scripts but I do know that my pesonal script has to be the first to change. But I really, really want a change of script in several areas of my life.

Wandering in the Desert

As you can see it has been a while. I'm having trouble remembering how to do it.
It's been a while since God and I have been on a first name basis. That's not His choice I just kind of wandered of into the desert. I've been there for several years now and I'm not sure I want to leave yet. I can get a glimpse of the oasis that God has for me and the cool water that awaits me when I finally come in from the sun, but I've still got some things to discover about myself and work out with myself before I'm ready for a reprieve. I know this may seem silly, actually I guess stupid would be the better word, but for some reason I feel like I need to wrestle with myself and who I am and to really discover who I am so that I may become the person that God has in mind for me to be. I recently started having counseling and I'm amazed about the things that I have discovered about myself. I think the biggest discovery and probably the discovery that is going to help me the most is the discovery that I have an overwhelming fear of being abandoned. The reasons for this feeling is deep rooted and of no real interest to anyone but myself. But like most fears really have very little basis. The crazy thing to me is that I've actually realized this for a long time but it took verbalizing it and hearing someone else tell me that this is a problem for everything to start falling like dominoes for me to realize how much this fear colors everything in my life.I realize now why I get so angry about some things when there is really no need to. Fear of abandonment causes you to be very possessive, jealous, angry and so many other feelings that are very draining and especially counterproductive. I'm sure this realization is just a start. It is going to take a while to change my thought process. And healing will take a while. But I need this time of wandering and dryness to to strip back the pretences so that when I do go back to the oasis I'll be ready to drink deeply and truly enjoy the taste of the living water.

Wandering in the Desert

Stumbling over the presence of God

There was a time in my life when I read a lot. I would read up to four books a week.
When I started reading Christian literature I found a book mention several times by different authors, it was called "Practicing the presence of God". Just the title interested me so I finally bought a copy. I still have that copy and as yet I have not made it through it. I've made several attempts but I just can't make it. I have discovered that I just can't get through several books that people consider Christian classics. I'm not sure why that is but it doesn't really matter. the title of the book "Practicing the presence of God" was what got me thinking and going. I found that when I practice the presence of God, really acting and believing that He is right beside me and that I have His full attention at all times that my life is truly peaceful and joyful. I found the Bibles admonition to pray continuously to just be a natural part of my life because I was talking to God about anything and everything. I wish I had continued to practice His presence but some how I let that practice fall into disuse. But God is always faithful (Semper Fi), He continues to trip me up and whisper in my ear so that I will notice His presence. I continually stumble over the presence of God.

HeyGuy

For New Years we had our prayer group over to our house for a year end get together. We ate together then played are you smarter than a fifth grader. It took us a whole five minutes to figure out we weren't, so we quit and went on to discussion and prayer. Elaine read a part of a book called "Eat this book" which described some passages from the Bible and how we should really chew on the words in the Bible and taste them and really enjoy them. Then Iman read a passage from Haggai and we ended up reading the whole book and discussing it. The book brought a lot of visuals to my mind as it was read aloud and started my brain to thinking about a lot of things. One of the visuals I got was how much time, energy and money I spend on how I look and how I appear to others and how little time I actually spend devouring, tasting and enjoying the Word. Another thought that occurred to me was that Haggai was a really good book for me because it fir my attention span. I looked in my Bible and discovered that close to half the books of the Bible are designed for those of us with short attention spans. They are less than ten pages long in my large print Bible including notes. Books for those with attention deficit. I think I will start with the books for ADD and devour those and taste them and maybe by the time I finish those I'll be ready for those that are wordier. I hope and pray that I can keep my attention on track to start and continue doing that this year. I also realised that there is a lot more to the scripture that says hear the word because, at least for me there is something to listening to the word being read out loud. It seems to add more to it than just silently reading it to myself. I know that in the Jewish religion they they read through the old testament each year and in Catholic masses they read through the Bible every three years. I guess they know something I never paid attention to before, something I'm going to try more often this year.