The “Twilight Zone” featuring Rod Serling’s “from another world” commentary, peaked TV interest in a forgotten childhood. The Twilight Zone is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy suspense, science fiction, horror, and psychological thriller and fantasy tropes. The original series, shot entirely in black and white, on CBS for five seasons from 1959 to 1964. Wikipedia Dun dun dun da — dun dun dun da — dun dun dun da — the mysterious and unique-sounding background music, set the tone for suspense. The series sparked fear in me — many times. Why did we keep watching? Forbes offers this, “A handful of theories offer explanations why. One is what I’ll call the controlled-environment theory, which says that when we watch scary movies, we’re intentionally triggering our fight-or-flight response in an environment where we control the variables. This theory is similar to the thinking…
Category: <span>God’s Psychology</span>
Self-Esteem, a much overused designation, finds its roots in cultural thinking. Earnest Becker, in his book, “The Birth and Death of Meaning,” addresses the subject: He says, “…when people do not have self-esteem, they cannot act, they break down.” “When the inner-newsreel begins to run consistently negative images of one’s worth, the person gives up.” “When the child poses the question, ‘who am I,’ he is really asking…that he be recognized as an object of primary value in the universe. Or, “where do I rank as a hero?” Becker says that sibling rivalry is common and also ‘competitiveness’ due to the drive for self-esteem. But, here comes an exposing, glaring, fact based on all said so far, “Cultural-heros have to have available to them some kind of heroic action system in which to realize their ambitions, and this symbolic system is what we call ‘culture.’” “Culture is a structure of…
John was beckoned to “come up hither” as he saw a door. The voice was like a trumpet. Immediately, in the spirit, John saw the throne. He saw a person, Jasper and Sardius stone emanated from the person, red, justice and pure white, holiness. A rainbow of emerald encompassed all, mercy. Green surrounded the throne, a lifting to new beginnings. All things are made new! Justice, our understanding and ability to differentiate; Purity, our foundation for wisdom, both rest in a brand new existence, to which we are birthed as mercy upholds it all. John discovered the above life. Free from Law’s judgement, one of condemnation, we find our discernment of fleshly deeds, leads now to “no condemnation,” through mercy. Yes the Law brought a sting, but sin died, so went the sting. Justice now guards the soul from all inhibitors preventing practical mercy’s life giving. Holiness, freedom from the…
Any man, redeemed or other, can recognize the following possibilities: Knowing that I am different — I can isolate myself from others. Recognizing that others are different — I am suspicious of others, I can deceive others. I can meet my own needs, Free will — I can resist the devil, but, I can resist God. I can choose what will influence me — spirit or sense. Oswald Chambers expounds in his book, “Biblical Psychology,” these soul powers. Expansion, contraction, and rotation are three. From these headings we have seven subtitles, “self-comprehending, (discerning where I leave off and the other person begins). stretching beyond self, (imagination). self-living (will),” spirit penetrated, (a soul has this capability). stirred sensually (soulishly) or spiritually, speaking spirit thoughts, sum total of unity.” Fundamental abilities, these, of course, require further explanation; they function one way in the unredeemed person, as above describes, but differently in the redeemed.…
Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God…” Proverbs 20:28, “Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upholden by mercy.” Romans 14:4, “…to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.” A person stands, is upheld, and his rational service is founded, in something he does not deserve. Paul the Apostle beseeches men, by the mercies of God… William Newell comments, “We must believe that these divine mercies have persuasive powers over our wills.” “It is not that we can move our own wills; but that faith in God’s…
So, not worthy, so unworthy, we are made worthy (…God the Father, who has enlightened us and made us worthy partakers of the inheritance of the saints…). Colossians 1:12. Lamsa translation. Unworthiness is defined, “ lacking in excellence or value, not meritorious, not deserved, inappropriate to one’s condition or station” – merriam-webster The problem of unworthiness has been tackled by many a well-meaning therapist, who offer a re-teaching, chipping away at, working through approach. However, even in visiting childhood’s ‘unfortunate but nonetheless forming events and words,’ presupposed in this visit is something not Biblical: that somehow we were seeing ourselves as worthy, but lost it, and not of our own fault, most of the time. Precious souls, our unworthiness is entrenched in the depths of an old sin nature, which has not just stigmatized us, falsely identified us, or named us wrongly, but has called us correctly; unworthy, unworthy, unworthy! Unworthy cannot morph into…
Job 5:7 …man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. KJV — (As sure as the wild birds fly, Aramaic; and even so the vulture’s young seek the high places, Septuagint.) As sure as the laws of nature; as birds of prey scavenge from on high or fire flickers upward, so men will see trouble. Psalm 119:67-75 teaches, ” Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.” …”It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”… “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.” It seems that trouble should not surprise us, but must come. A word from Jeremiah: ” …the Lord will not reject for ever.” ” But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.” “For he doth not…
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, as it was the substance of things which have come to pass; and it is the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1 Lamsa’s translation “The apostles said to our Lord, increase our faith.” The Lord’s reply: “If ye have faith even as a grain of mustard seed, ye could say unto this mulberry tree, be uprooted, and planted in the sea; and it would obey you.” Jesus tells a story then: Now, which of you has a servant who plows or feeds sheep, and if he should come from the field, would say to him, ‘enter in and sit down?’ But he would rather say to him, ‘prepare something that I may have my supper, and gird yourself and serve me until I eat and drink; and then you also can eat and drink. What! Will the servant receive…
South Africa has the deepest hard rock gold mine up to 12800 feet underground. At such depths the heat is unbearable for humans, and air conditioning is required for the safety of the workers. Wikipedia On average it takes 10-20 years before a gold mine is even ready to produce material that can be refined. Long before any gold can be extracted, significant exploration and development needs to take place, both to determine as accurately as possible, the size of the deposit as well as how to extract and process the ore efficiently, safely and responsibly. www.gold.org.n.d. What can we learn? “It may be hard, dark or hot, but we clever humans have ciphered grabbing and stacking gold and gems. Grabbing wisdom tells a different story and we faint while getting it, because wisdom shows itself a “different animal.” We fail wisdom mining even though time money and great sacrifice…
“Survival of the fittest” is a mantra of the extremely observant. But, is empirical evidence the same as truth? On two levels, no. First, it contradicts the Bible, “The kingdom of God comes without observation. (ocular evidence) Luke 17:20 But secondly, even the best observationist can only find seeming truth. Why? Because our observations are only as true as we abide in The Truth. In this inner abiding is where I can be aware of the world at a level outside of myself, or, unfortunately, I actually create my own world, unknowingly. Charles Darwin (biologist and evolution’s greatest contributor), saw a problem: ” if…men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that their unmarried females would, like the worker bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill your fertile daughters, and no one would…