Josh on Sunday School bus, 1984 As a Christian, how can I have a good self image? Well, “what a person believes other people think about them,” is how the world looks at a self-image. So, lets start there. When a person has a poor self-image, it hints to me they are still a bit on the subjective side. In other words, they may unconsciously care about what others think because they must have a good evaluation next time they do a check. Fine! God’s response to these types, (maybe all of us), expresses how He thinks about us, and that is His answer. He can’t, however, impress us with His evaluation till we come to our end of self-evaluation. See, we are so full of other standards of measurement, God’s gauge can’t find it’s way in there. I know we can say all the big words, but honestly, our…
Healing at the Cross Posts
Wagon Wheels at Jerome Arizona 1989 What is important to us? Again, what is important to you? You might say, “Why do you ask?” and I would reply, “Because, if we know this kind of info about a person, we basically know them. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he,” so says the Bible. “Heart” thinking contrasts with “mind” thinking as “heart” displays a habit of thinking. Heart involves thoughts which have been focused upon often, believed on; enough to create a pattern in the heart/processor. Like a depository, they become our fixed and steady stuff. They got this way because they have importance to us, or otherwise they would not have stuck. So, again the question, what is important to you? Sooner or later all could find this out to a degree, if they hang out with you long enough. See, this kind of info records…
Grand Canyon 1990 Easter, the most glorious, and main event, came 33 years after Christmas. It showed up also many years after the flood of Noah, the call of Abraham, and the giving of the Law to Moses. All prior events in the Bible account, and those featured in this short book, however, aim us in the direction of Resurrection Day and the few days preceding. Easter spells it all out for us. Easter answers all questions about healing. It underpins all applications of life principle, supersedes my fallen principle, and elevates me even further above all natural principle, into God’s principle. What is this principle? “Mercy and Truth have met together and Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other,” Psalm 85, prophetically speaks it out. First, if truth founds life as God knows it, the verse teaches then that mercy easily exists right along side. A convergence of…
“Beverly 79” Part 3 must now follow. We can’t dismiss the need for discipline, focus, enduring in times when things seem to be quite impossible. We will have many moments overwhelmed, many occasions of pain and disgust. We will not be spared the heartache. We will not find easy fixes for these times. I must qualify my convictions—they were built in times of war, in times of battle, in times of defeat, in times of despair. “Disillusionment, O my faithful companion; disheartening, my enduring guide.”. Failure has been a friend, and mine has been tears. I lost my face, I lost my son, I lost my dignity and even my hope. My gain? Christ. O undeservingly yes— but nevertheless Him. An easier message for you I have not in my bag. I weep to think I would trade anything of my trouble; I would not. In helplessness we discover Helps…
Healing is all of this and more. Well, you might say, I was wounded when my husband left me 4 years into the marriage and I have never recovered. I had received Christ as a child and my spouse and I served Him for most of our youth years. I will never be the same. Can I say this in a kind way; this problem, and also the problem of multitudes, is not that you were hurt at age 25. The deeper issue is that all of mankind since Adam are built out of wound-able stock. Even if reunited to the correct power source as a child, and graced with the re-gene of Jane Smith at that time, you still had a critical piercing that found and did damage to a vulnerable area of your soul. I must by honest, and sensitive, but the part of you that was wounded…
God spoke to me this way: “I heal men in the same way I healed the whole human race.” Forces oppose our cure: The first tries to blockade the unfolding truth revelation, including both; God’s true nature and God’s true redemption. Second, targets the human faculty for digesting, understanding and adopting the unfolding disclosure. Third, inhibits focus continuity so the healing can’t continue a constant. God heals mankind this way: one, purchases them out of the slave market of sin and self. Two, He sets their feet on a rock. Three, He establishes their going. All can be viewed from the unfolding revelation of what a man exists as, stays as, and proceeds as. Man is made for stability. Before the fall we see man always in the light of God’s overshadowing countenance. We see relationship, we see fellowship, love. In the departure from these, we see man alone and…
Dedicated runner (me) in Belle Vernon cemetery, late 70’s We practiced examining our conscience before going to confession when fourth and fifth grades came. Basically, assigned a copy of the Ten Commandments, we mulled over them one by one. My hardest of all was: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. I certainly didn’t, but the Catholics listed sub-points under the big point. “Impure thoughts” logically followed as a major sub-heading, and this complicated a lot of things. Outspokenly, a million things could have comprised an “impure thought,” and since self-examination was a subjective exercise, I ended up confessing these 9 or 10 times per, and even more. Somehow, this variety of sin extracted more guilt than other sins. As we moved to 6th and 7th grades, it became impractical to repeatedly confess these kinds of sins; we had reached pure evil now, I guess. Moses delivered, to the children…
Mike, Tammy, Matt, Amy, and Josh I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free, Michelangelo Much has been said about the little boy inside the big man. Little boy emerges when big man is whittled down. Whittling is a fine hobby for some down-home folks. You know, taking a stick and making a point on it or a chunk of wood and carving out a dog or horse or automobile. Some folks get real fine knives, and some get a whittling set for their Birthday. What is the point? God whittles human sticks as a hobby; and I bet He whistles as He whittles. God uses an Exacto knife! He chips away at the big-serious-man-imitating dude; the one desperately trying to appear again alongside the true work of God. The rare-bird-breed shakes the old, leaving it behind forever. This breed also embraces the new,…
Two boys and a cow, Strawberry Arizona 1989 Another example goes this way: some people arrived at church lamenting their lack of fuel meant for their home’s heat. Hearing this, the Pastor offered to buy them a tank of fuel out of his own pocket money. The answer came back, ”I think were OK, it’s not that cold.” Now, these persons desperately need fuel, but they cannot take the personal charity. Why? Repayment-threat pressures them? The idea of repayment could have become the loathsome hang-up, though reimbursement remained unasked for. But, more than mere repayment possibilities, we discern the much-too-personal part of this deal as the real issue. Folks maybe don’t mind so much receiving money from an institution, as it remains impersonal. In contrast, the demonstration of love, caring, and sacrifice from a real person, burdens them too much. What is the point? Well, a will, healed and emancipated,…
When I was starting out in the religious way as a mere sprig, I had a few harrowing moments. New beliefs and practices tutored us (my sister and I). We never doubted their veracity. In the Catholic Church you ‘go’ to confession, every second or third Friday evening. Church was usually empty, with the exception of the few confessors, and dim looking, especially when dark outside. It had the feel of a museum, with echoes resounding at a door closing, or, drop of a missal. (Yes, I meant “missal”; the Catholics called a prayer book a “missal”). So; high cathedral ceilings dropped huge chandeliers from long long cable wires, but tonight only a little light shone on the many pictures in the auditorium-sized building, Michelangelo’s brush-strokes emanating. Life-sized statues of saints and Mary and Jesus with a golden heart were also visible without spot-lights, from secondary illuminations, and the…