Hindsight is always 20/20. We can see perfectly in the past. But it doesn’t always help us in the future. Well what about the future? If we could see into the future we would never make a mistake with our lives. Then we would be perfect, almost. Even if we were perfect we would find a way to screw it up. I’d bet on man any day to mess up anything that was given to them. The reason being is man isn’t perfect. He is flawed in almost everything. Why do you think there is so much disease and misfortune in this world? It is because man still controls it. Nobody seems to remember 50 years ago or 100 years ago. How many wars have been fought in the last 100 years? How many times has one race of people tried to destroy another in the past 100 years? Yet can you tell me, did they solve any problems of mankind except stopping the war. I am not trying to be pessimistic, but man is just a poor example of anything. It is political season and we are going to elect a president who is the least objectionable. We aren’t going to elect the right person for the right job. Even God flooded the earth to destroy man and started over with Noah and his family. Man is a pain, and will continue to be until Jesus returns. Don’t get your hopes up yet. After a 1000 years of Jesus reigning and ruling in Jerusalem where it will be perfect, there is going to be a rebellion at the end of time. That is why God said when your brother sins against you, forgive. Forgiveness is the only thing that will keep the peace in your heart and mind and world. God says if you can’t forgive, how can God forgive you. God’s way is perfect and far above man in every way.
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All the victories, defeats and heartaches are in the past. We only like to talk about our victories. This is to prove to yourself and others that we are special. That we are worth paying attention too. And we hid all the mistakes and tragedies with as much deceptiveness as we can muster. We fool ourselves to the point that we forget all the bad things of the past. There are good things that have happened in the past and we can make them part of our lives. But the rest is just dead weight. Baggage that we can’t carry if we want to live a productive life. I have seen people destroyed by that dead weight. In some cultures of the past, if a man killed another, they would tie the dead person to their backs. They would carry the dead person until they died. If a person is a human being, then they carry baggage. It scars your heart and mind and sometimes your body. If only we could just dump this baggage and go on with our life. I have struggled with this for a long time and wanted a better way. I didn’t have the power to change my life. But one day I met the person who had the power to change my life. He showed me how I could dump the baggage and live a good life. He began to change my heart, my thinking, and all the bad habits. He showed me I had hope for a future. Even though I had screwed up a lot. I could become a different person. But it was not by my power that I could this. It was only by the power of God could this happen. God said, when I forgive your sins, and not remember them anymore. They are cast into the sea of forgetfulness. And it is as far as East is from West. God will forgive us and cleanse our hearts and minds to the point that we don’t even remember our past.
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How many times have you destroyed your future and didn’t know what to do? Unfortunately, I can count them on both hands. You know what is funny about all that is that I did it each time on purpose. The first time I was 12 years old. I had an old tire and a long rope. I tied the rope to a tall tree and the bottom of the rope to the tire. I got a 6 foot ladder and climb up on it with the tire. I jumped onto the tire and it swung out to about 10 or 12 feet above the ground. When I reached the highest point of the arc, the rope broke. I landed flat on my back. The fall knocked me out for about 10 to 20 minutes. I had a concussion. I didn’t tell my parents for obvious reasons. It was serious enough to cause dyslexia. How it manifested itself was in my reading ability. In the 10th grade I had a 6th grade reading level. Fortunately for me, my mother was a special education teacher. She knew who to do. I caught up to my reading level and passed it. One of the first things I did was read. All through high school I had terrible grades, so my chances of getting into a good university were almost nil. I went to a local university and was doing pretty good. Until I joined a fraternity and it all went downhill from there. Opportunity after opportunity was presented to me and I threw it away until I was 28 years old. That was when I met Jesus. He showed me how I could be someone special. I had to follow after Him and trust that He had my best interest at heart. I have seen so many things that God has done for me and others. The miracles, the healings, and the salvations that God let me be part of. And all I had to do was trust and believe in Jesus. All you have to do is ask for help and God will answer.
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Growing up I was vulnerable because I believe in the good things in life. Those things were friendship, honesty, integrity and loyalty and love. As I began to grow and venture into the world, I found people who didn’t believe so. I was made fun of because I believe. It seemed to hurt more than I thought it would. By the time I got to college, I was a mean bastard. People didn’t want to be around me. I had been hurt so much I gave up on being vulnerable. No one was going to put me through that pain again. But I was alone. Loneliness is as hard and hurts as much as a beating. It can make people do strange things. I wouldn’t talk to people. That made me strange enough. Yet I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I had a girlfriend in college. She saw something in me and took a change. Unfortunately I wasn’t ready and she walked away. It seemed that no one wanted to have anything to do with me. Until these two businessmen saw something in me and asked me to join them in their business. I was 28 years old. They began to talk about Jesus to each other. They never directly preached at me. It took 3 months of listening before I was even willing to go to church. But when I did go, I met the one person who loved me for me, God Himself. God began to teach how that being vulnerable opens your heart. And when your heart is open you can see clearly. There will always be pain in this world. But if you open your heart you can see their pain. Then you can do something about their pain. Jesus said, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. And He also said, go ye into all the world and preaching the gospel to everyone.
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Or as it is called summer time. It is an effort to use daylight more efficiently. They do it on Sunday so people can more easily adjust to the time change. As the saying goes, you fall back or spring forward. We have to spring forward. That means we have loss an hour of sleep time until we adjust our schedule. That is why I am almost 3 hours late posting this blog. I slept in this morning. Do you know that Benjamin Franklin suggested a form of Daylight Savings Time? Many countries have used this at different times. Did you know that people live in the northern and southern part of the earth have trouble with the constant night time? When the earth is tilled on its axis for winter or summer, there is a period of total night or day. Image 24 hours of dark or sun. I have even experienced a little of that malady. During the winter months there is a time when I get up in the night to go to work. Then I come home in the night when I get off of work. It is due to the short days of winter. I don’t want to find out about 24 hours of night. Of course this is an effort of the government to keep people productive in their work, for obvious reasons. I still like gaining an hour of sleep and not losing the hour. But it is a beautiful day and the thunderstorms we have been experiencing have blown away. I feel sorry for the people in the northern and eastern United States. They are being deluged by rain. Some have seen tornados that have destroyed homes, but mostly flooding. I am an optimist. I have always tried to live my life with hope for the future. I don’t believe that we can’t do anything about our situation. This is why I believe what God said. He said, this is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it.
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On a sad note, it seems that people want to blame everyone else for their troubles. It is because my dad or my mom or my brother or sister. This is the best excuse or the worst one yet, the devil made me do it. Excuses are everywhere. Why be accountable when you can blame somebody else? I don’t need to take charge of my life when someone else is making me choose wrong things. It seems ludicrous. But this is the order of the day. How did a people come so far away from the truth? Life has never been fair. What you want to accomplish takes patience and work and setbacks. Nothing is ever perfect all the time. There will be trials in your life. But you don’t have to create trouble for yourself when there is enough to go around. A friend was injured in Iraq. His back was fractured in IED explosion. At first he couldn’t walk, then with treatment a miracle happening and he could walk with assistance. He was fussing and fretting over not walking. He had told me before that God had called him into the ministry. I told him that God didn’t need his legs for the ministry. God wanted him to go into the ministry. That was the real question, whether or not he would answer the call. No more excuses for him, he had to choose. He choose God. He went to bible school and guess what happened? He was healed and walks today, because he had to walk through to get to the other side. It is the same for all of us. We have to choose what we are going to do in this life. There are no excuses. And you can’t blame somebody else for your choices. As the bible says, in Psalms 23, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil for You, God, are with me. It is popular to fall into escapism, but it is not profitable for you in this life or in the one to come.
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The area I live in is mostly agriculture. There are more farmers then that. You can see tractors drive through town on any given day. The industry in our area is mostly tractor and combine sales and service. It is a nice little town. 5 o’clock traffic last for about 5 minutes. We live not too far from a larger city in which I work. But getting back to the farmers of our area, they work the land. They work the land all year long. Not only do they plow and sow crops, they harvest them also. But in the off season they work the land to prepare it for next year. It is a good life for many people. The land has been handed down through many generations. These farmers have to be concerned about what they put into the ground. If they want a certain crop, they just can’t plant anything. There is a state government experimental station located in our community. It help the farmer with many aspects of farming. People are grateful for this service. Sowing seed has become an art form. They find the right one and sow at a certain time of year. There is even a federal government service to chase away the migratory birds that come to eat the seed sown. Just think about the farmers from 200 years ago, what they had to go through to get a crop. There is a life lesson in the work that the farmer does. He sows seeds to produce a favorable result. If the farmer sows his seed on the side of the field, it will not produce a crop. Then there are the weeds to contend with. You see God’s word is the seed of life. And where the seed falls and grows is just as important as receiving God’s word. God says, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by ever word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What kind of crop are you producing?
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There are many sounds in this world. In fact if there is no sound at all people will stop to see what is wrong. Everyone and everything needs to express themselves to be heard. Why do you think this is so? And what we actually hear is an echo. Sometimes the sounds around us get to be so much that we hunt for a place that is quiet. When I write the blog I need the least amount of distractions as possible. Usually my cat needs attention when I start to write. And she will rub against me until I pet her or push her away. Recently I have felt an unction or a calling out to me personally. I know that I am not the only one who has heard this calling out. It is like hearing your name called but no one is talking. It is because it is not audible. It is in your heart. Most people don’t understand that you heart can hear. And for the most part it hears better than you ears. Your ears hear the echo, but your heart hears the message. What is the message that is being sent out to the world? It is not hard to understand the message. Most people have heard it and are responding. The message is this world is ending and if we don’t do something it will end faster. Then we as a people will no longer have a place to live. That is only half the message. The other half is that Jesus is returning. That is the part that most people don’t want to hear. But it is true. And when He returns the old world will be destroyed and the new will arrive. And that leaves no place to go for the people who don’t know Jesus. Because when it happens the world we know is over. The only real solution to the problem is to get to know Jesus. And it is very simple to do that. Call unto me and I will answer and show you great and mighty things which you do not know. This is what Jesus is saying as He calls to you.
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Every year families gather together for the Christmas season. All wanting to be with their family and share the food and fellowship. My family, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and my mother and father would gather at one of the three sister’s home for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. As we got older, wives, sweethearts and children were added to the occasion. It filled our homes with laughter, loud talking, and the smell of food. We are nine first cousins, all guys, and we played baseball outside. Mom and her two sisters planned these events every year without fail. When they started it included their aunts and uncles and my grandparents. Our celebration has dwindled to just my immediate family. Our lives went in different directions. We are scattered across the country. My whole family can be hard to take sometimes but they are my family. I love them very much. The only sister left is my aunt who is ninety-five years old. She doesn’t recognize a lot these days. I went to visit her in the hospital and began to laugh and she said I know that is Crain. Jesus came to earth to give us hope and joy to live this life. We remember once a year the birth of our savior, but look around and see the people. They need for the joy and hope brought to us by that little baby. Jesus came for people. It is the only thing that will leave this earth and go to heaven. Stop looking at this world and see the signs of the times.
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It seems that my emotions change with the weather. I show a brave face all the time, but my emotions don’t. I can be a calm as the sea, and someone will aggravate me and then boom. I don’t show very many sides to my emotions. I want to present a united front in this world, but Lord have mercy. It is almost like a war that rages in my heart, good versus evil. I was raised by good people who that me to be kind and generous to people. And there are people who I would do anything for. And then there are people who need object lessons almost all the time. Because they don’t understand who they are and where they belong in this world. Then there are people who are hostile to me and what I believe no matter what. What do you do about all of this? Before I met the Lord, I was a wreak. My emotions were all over the place. It seemed that anyone could get a rise out of me. All they had to do was poke me with a stick. I had to learn to control my emotions if I ever was going to accomplish something in my life. God began to teach how to be patient with myself and others. It was a hard object lesson. But I had to forgive stupidity and go on with my life. Many people were affected by my actions. They saw something they rarely see. God had touched their lives. I was thankful for those people. But then there were the people it seems that no one can reach. Those I had to pray for and God began to help them. The longest I ever prayed for a person to get an answer from God was 22 years. The shortest time I had to pray for an answer for a blink of an eye. Use your emotions in the right way and if you need help all you have to do is ask God. It is amazing how it works in my life.
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