Happy Womens Day

“If it weren’t for the women, the men would all still be living in caves, throwing rocks at each other”.  Darrell Travis ( my brother)

They were all different, yet in many ways the same, some were girly girls, some were tomboys. But even the tomboys liked to make mud pies and bake them in imaginary ovens, and then feed them to imaginary families. Their little rooms had tiny tea sets, for having tea parties with their children to be, and their dollies were children, babies and little girls that they could feed, burp and change. As time would go on, and they would get older, even in this world that celebrates women and girls leaving their femininity behind, their heroes were always the strong women who weren’t afraid to be a girl, Mulan, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast.

Then they discovered make-up, and they lost an hour from their day, spending endless time in front of the mirror trying to look their best, trying to maximize what God had given them, for the boys.  They date, finish school, go to college, finish that and get married, and then hope to get settled, financially stable, and then fulfill what they have always expected to be able to do from the time they were first old enough to think about it, they want to have a baby.

It doesn’t always go in this order, many times it is completely in reverse, families are formed in many ways, and oftentimes families are only two people. One of the biggest heartbreaks a little girl can ever encounter is to not be able to fulfill that lifelong dream of having a child of her own. It is hard on a man if he cannot be a daddy, but it is completely different for a woman, a pain on a whole different level. This day is built around honoring the mothers in our world, and our mothers will truly always hold a special place in our heart, but there are many in our lives that are not mothers who hold places of great value as well. To the wife, daughter, niece, sister, or friend who happens to not be a mother, you hold no place of lesser value in our hearts because of that, you are loved equally.

A dear friend of mine is a pastor, and together he and his wife were not able to have children. They tried doctors and special treatments, but to no avail, they remained childless, and as this day approaches each year, it becomes yet another reminder to them of what they were not able to do, to have. So each year they would come to church and the greeters would be wishing all the assumed mothers a “happy mothers day” from the time they entered the parking lot, they were all well meaning, but with every well wish they were driving the dagger just a bit deeper. After a while, they decided it would be easier to take the day off and just stay home on mother’s day, as a golfer would say, they were “taking a mulligan”. Eventually, they were able to address that pain and meet it head on, returning to church and even embracing mothers day again, but it wasn’t easy.

One of the characteristics that makes a mom so great is the fact that they are such great nurturers, a boy can go to school and put up with all the roughness that comes with the territory of being a boy, playing football, whatever, yet come home and be loved and accepted unconditionally by mom. Mom is the one who could put her arm around your shoulders when that girl broke your heart and make you feel better. She was the one waiting at home when I went out and got banged up and came home bleeding, she would patch me up and make me feel better. But here’s the thing, that is not only a mom thing, because my mom has been gone for 18 years now, yet I still have a woman who makes me feel better when I go out and get banged up, she cleans off the blood, puts on a band-aid and I feel a whole lot better, but she is my wife.

So, if I had anything to say about it, today would not just be about motherhood, but rather would be about honoring women as a whole straight across the board. Today I am thankful for my wife, I am thankful that I have four daughters, I am thankful that I have 3 nieces and yes, I am thankful that I had a wonderful mother for thirty years of my life, I wish I still had her. But there are also many women out there who are great nurturers, strong leaders, women who are such hard workers in their own households, and I honor you, whether you are a mother or not.

I ask you to take some time to let that woman in your life who means a lot to you know just how much she means, tell her verbally, show her with your actions, love on her and let her know she is appreciated. Happy Women’s Day, God Bless-JFT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZLbUIa7exE

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The Real North Korea

Her hands had hurt as she had pulled bark from the trees, stuffing it into her pockets and looking around for anything else that might be edible. There was some grass in clumps beneath a tree, so she grabbed that too, and brought that home. Her children were starving to death, as was her mother and husband, to think of it, she was so weak she could barely walk herself, but they sat and ate the grass she had pulled up. It had come down to this; they were eating grass and bark, anything to keep alive.

During the summer, they had been able to catch rats, frogs, and even snakes, but still barely enough to stay alive. There had once been corn to eat, how wonderful that had been, but now that was just a distant memory. Before it was over, they had ground the cobs and husks down and made tasteless cakes out of even that. She still remembered when she had found the handful of baby mice under a rock, she brought them back home, one of her daughters was near death and needed to eat. She had boiled them, but no matter how long, they stayed together and doughy. Even her husband Jo asked her if she would eat that, but her daughter had been brave and eaten it anyway, and it had saved her life.

Jo had a nephew across the river in China, and there was food there, they knew it was a huge risk, but they had to try, or the whole family would die. They set out and snuck across the border, fording the Tumen River to China. They made it and were stunned at the abundance of food, they had never before seen a rice steamer, and there was so much food they didn’t know what to do. One week later they returned home with many bags of bulging rice for their family, they would make two more trips for provisions.

A few days after returning from their third trip, Jo was arrested, she suspects a neighbor informant told the authorities on them. The following day Han was arrested also, she never saw her husband Jo again. They kicked and beat Han with wooden rods and crushed part of her skull, then placed her hands on the hard concrete floor and stomped on them. Then, without further explanation she was released, she was three months pregnant.

She would later be told Jo died on a train after having his wrists tied above his head without food or water for ten days. She returned home to find all of the rice they had hidden had been taken by the police. The kids were hungry, and her mom had been watching them.

Han gave birth to a boy, but he starved to death two months after he was born. In desperation, her oldest daughter left to find food and never returned, they believe she was caught up in human trafficking and taken to China, and then her mother died. In less than a year, her family of eight was reduced to four. In North Korea, if someone has been arrested then the neighbors no longer trust you and they suspect you of something. One night in July 1998, two policemen came to their door, and told them to leave, and if they didn’t they would burn the house down.

On July 18^th, Han, with her two daughters JinHye, then 11, EunHye, 7, and  son BoKum, 5 set out on a 100 mile walk for the Chinese border. Weak from malnutrition, Han could barely walk, and the first night they stopped at a friend’s house to lodge for the evening. She looked at Han with wide eyes, how can you do it, two high mountain crossings and the river still lay ahead? Everyone was too weak to carry BoKum and he was too small and malnourished to walk. But how could a mother leave her son behind? But if they stayed, they would all be caught. She took a night to think things over, she didn’t know what to do. The next morning, her friend said “leave him, I will take care of him”. Han agreed, and planned to return for him in five days after getting the girls safely into China, she promised to bring back food for her friend. “Why aren’t you taking me too” BoKum asked, and she explained that she was going to go get some food and bring it back, and then she would take him, then she gave him a ground corn cake, she wishes she had given him more. They walked for two nights, then crossed into china, hid in fields and stole squash to eat. Then heavy rains came and they could not cross back over, Han didn’t know how to swim, and the river was at flood stage.

Then Han heard Kim Jong Il was executing anyone who hadn’t voted for him in the election, Han hadn’t because she had been in China at the time. She got jobs in China, and earned money to get BoKum back, but it took her two months before she earned enough to hire a man to go get him. Sadly, he returned empty handed. The woman had abandoned the boy, and he was seen wandering aimlessly in a field singing “when is my mother coming”. A neighbor gave him a bowl of porridge out of pity, he died immediately afterward, common when people who are malnourished eat too fast. When she heard about BoKum, her heart was ripping out of her chest.

They spent 10 years in China, and were deported several times back to North Korea, but were always able to bribe their way back into China. The last time a Korean-American pastor paid $10,000.00 to North Korean guards to sneak them back. They went to the United Nations in Beijing and asked to live in the U.S.

After 16 months, they were given a home of freedom in the U.S., one that came at a very high cost. There are only 130 refugees from North Korea who have settled in the United States, but you never hear from them because they have families. If a defector speaks out, it will be taken out on the family they left behind, Han has no one left, they are all dead. That is why they are speaking.

Crosses adorn the walls of their home, they carry bibles with them everywhere, they are on a mission to educate the world about what goes on in North Korea. You see the polished military parades, but you don’t see the people disappearing, the Christians dying. Please take a moment to pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ, for all those suffering in that poor country. And tell Han’s story over and over to everyone you know. God Bless-Jim

This Story is True

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Our World is A Miracle

I drove into the city in the late afternoon the day before New Years Eve. A thick layer of smog covered the bottom of the mountains, leaving only the peaks exposed. This happens sometimes here in the winter, today it is worse than I have seen in many years, you can smell it. Traffic is crawling up the freeway as I begin to get a headache, thinking about the twelve-hour shift that I am about to work. As I look out at the six lanes of traffic packed wall to wall on my side, heading into the city and the six lanes of traffic packed wall to wall of cars trying to leave, I am baffled by a thought for a moment.

Earlier in the week, I was bored and was watching a show on TV, the 40 greatest one hit wonders of the 90’s. Not really my genre, more late 70’s and 80’s for me, but I still knew quite a few of them. There was a particular song that was featured that I remembered I thought was taboo back then, and still do not care for today although it was very popular. It was titled “what if God was one of us”, and the thought is basically what if He were a slob like one of us trying to make his way home. I always thought the song was disrespectful of God, and is not even a novel idea, seeing as how God did in fact lower Himself down to our level and make Himself “one of us” trying to make his way home.

As I sat in my truck and looked out at all of these people preoccupied with their lives, trying to get from here to there, it reminded me briefly of an ant city and all of the worker ants moving about. As I continued to drive on, I could not help but wonder though, how could God possibly care about each and every one of these people on a personal level, how could God know their hurts and their triumphs? How is it possible for Jesus Christ to have a personal relationship with each and every one of them? Now I know, you are probably saying, Jesus “doesn’t” have a personal relationship with all of them, and I agree with you on that, but that is not Jesus fault, it is the fault of the person. Jesus “does” know their heart. I believe that God knows everyone’s heart too, whether they choose to give it to Him or not.

So, back to the traffic jam, I am looking at all of these people going about their lives and doing as they wish. That alone is staggering, knowing that I live in the fifth largest city in the nation, there are literally hundreds of traffic jams worldwide, thousands of malls and marketplaces where people scurry about preoccupied with life and trying to make ends meet. When you stop and think about how many people we have on this earth, “the last time I checked it was seven billion and change” I am baffled by the sheer immensity of it all and left to wonder, how does God do it? How does He care about each and every one of us as he does? Our minds are clearly not designed to understand math like that.

As I looked out the windshield and continued my deep thought, something came to mind. The other day as I was preparing my blog on Jonah, In Jonah 4:11, When God was speaking to Jonah for the last recorded time, He said  “ And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

120,000 + animals. That is a large number by anyone’s standard, even back then, God was personally involved in the lives of that many folks. Now you may say 120K cannot be compared to the large numbers of which I am speaking, and I will gladly concur. But 120K is still a big number, what if I said you made 120k in a year, maybe many of you do and so you would smile and say “still not that big of a number”. So let’s put it this way, what if I said you owed the IRS 120K in back income taxes, how’s that, oh wait, now the number seems a bit bigger huh, I see 😉

God cared deeply about each and every one of them, and he knew how terribly lost they were and it ached His heart to think about laying waste to them for their wickedness, He just knew there was a better way, even if it lie in a hard headed angry old coot named Jonah. Another thing to pay close attention to here “us animal lovers”, God took the time to include them in His explanation to Jonah. While I know He placed some of them here to serve as sustenance for us, He also gifted them with the personalities to be “man’s best friend”. Nothing in creation was an accident, God crafted the plume on the quail’s head with care, He made the antlers on a bull elk’s head majestic, He gave the timber wolf beautiful yet penetrating eyes for a reason, and He made the Grizzly bear the baddest dude in the forest indisputably. Everything God made has His personal touch. There is a reason we look different from any other living thing on the planet, we were set apart, we were made in His image. He took more time with us, He crafted our brain different, and He gave us something that He gave no other living creation, the ability to reason. When I stop being consumed with myself for a few minutes and actually start considering all that God has already done, I know it isn’t really that unbelievable to think he’s capable of knowing the heart of 7 billion people, after all, He constructed them.

And besides, 120k is small potatoes, God sent Moses on a similar rescue mission sans large fish way back in Exodus, except there were only 600k fighting age men and women (sorry ladies, they didn’t count everyone then), but estimates have the Hebrew/Israelite exodus at 2.5-4 million give or take a few. One thing to note also, God was way more involved “daily” with these folks than He was with those Ninevites. They were actually pretty low maintenance when compared with the Israelites.

Looking out through my windshield, I don’t see such chaos as I did before, I see a bunch of preoccupied folks, but I know they have someone who cares deeply for them, on a personal basis. I know that God doesn’t only care for them and their families, their struggles and hurts, their egos and insecurities, He even thinks about their pets. Here I was, wondering how God could logistically keep juggling all these balls, and I am surprised to find that He even has their dogs and , wait, ahem cough . Okay, here goes, even their “cats” in mind (I know, silly huh) JK, really!!! All kidding aside, our God is amazing, the scope and depth of His wonder cannot EVER be measured, and I for one am really glad!

God Bless-Jim

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Wherever The Wind Blows

My wife takes great pleasure in telling everyone that my in my driver’s license picture I have a mullet. Which is rather funny, considering I have been getting a buzz cut for close to fifteen years, and nearing baldness on top for ten. Now it was never an exaggerated mullet, I never wore denim shirts with the sleeves cut off at the shoulder and unbuttoned down the front, with a confederate flag stitched on the back. It was just a simple haircut where my hair was kind of long in back and short on top. I figured if Huey Lewis could pull it off, so could I. So, I decided to go and get my license updated last Friday, along with my employee ID card, it was a day of new pictures.

So there I sat, in my least favorite places of all, the DMV, (department of motor vehicle). There must be a sign on the door that says if your children are not screaming, you need to whup on em’ until they are, and if your babies diapers aren’t fouled, you need to feed them prunes puree until they go, because the place was packed and tense. I would not have been surprised to have seen a grandmother brandish an Uzi and demand to have a handicap placard immediately, or people were going to start dying. I finally got to the front counter, and waited quietly, as the woman turned and looked threateningly at me and said “don’t move”. I knew only one thing, I wasn’t moving. When she returned, I smiled big and asked her how she was doing; she asked me how I thought she was doing? So I said that since it was 3:30, I figured she was going to be pretty great in an hour and a half. Then it happened, the hard face broke, and she smiled, and she became human again. What can I do for you sweety, she asked? I told her, she gave me a form, and told me to come back and see her when it was filled out, so I did, and she was sweet again, her whole demeanor seemed to be different. She gave me the number A-93

I sat down, and whipped out a Nook to study scripture for my class in school, but there were these three obnoxious preteen boys that came down and asked what it was, so I tried to explain it to them. Their mom seemed to have lost control of them as they began calling it a Nookie and telling her they needed one. They then ran off, and she looked sadly at me, desperation on her face. She told me that she had just been laid off from her well paying job, and that she didn’t know what they were going to do, she hadn’t told the boys yet, but it looked like they were going to lose their house. I asked her if she had God in her life, and she said yes, but they had fallen away, she knew they needed to go back. I felt so compelled to continue speaking to this woman, but my number was called, I said goodbye, and she smiled and waved.

I found my window, and looked for the name of the woman who manned it, her name was Nancy C.. Hello Nancy C., how are you today, I asked the nice woman on the other side of the booth. Okay I suppose, she said. She processed my paperwork as I asked her if she had any grand plans for the weekend. She then said she didn’t, her mother had Alzheimer’s disease, and still recognized her, so she was trying to get in as much time with her as she possibly could before her mother lost all recognition. There was a sadness to her voice. I then asked her if she was a Christ follower, and she said yes, although she hadn’t been going to church that regularly. I then relayed the story of my brother, and how he had been healed of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), and how the Mayo neurologist, pretty much the best in the west, had never seen it before. I told her the story of the woman who had the bleeding disorder for 12 years, but also had a great faith, and how she was healed. I told her that the God who created our planet and the Heavens in six days is capable of anything, and we should never give up hope. Nancy C. broke down, she began to weep heavily, because she had been carrying such a heavy burden for such a long time. I held her hand and let her cry, and when she was done, she cleaned herself up, and I took her mother’s name (Irene D.), and told her I would begin praying in earnest for her healing and would also pray for her, to find her way back to the Lord. Nancy told me that she thought God sent me to her that day, and at one time, I might have doubted it, but no more. John 3:8  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

God Bless-JFT

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Out Of The Ashes

Okay, I have started to write three blogs on various subjects this week, and fell asleep at the keyboard on the last one. I have been trying to keep up what I feel is kind of a responsibility now, to encourage those who tune in regularly. But the fact of the matter is this, I have been depressed, my brother’s illness has been a serious blow that has knocked the wind out of me.

I was sick for a week with a migraine, then several days of recovery from that, and then before I could catch my breath, my brother was diagnosed with ALS, the cruelest of diseases known to man. Last night, I went to my girl’s high school football game (they are cheerleaders), and it was my first social outing in three weeks. I have been sleeping night and day, and I know the signs of depression, and I know I can’t keep giving myself over to them. I haven’t ridden my mountain bike in weeks, which is a passion you know. So he has succeeded, he has derailed me. Satan has knocked me for a loop this time. It just goes to show you, on the heels of every great achievement follows a great challenge and I am in that challenge now.

It is at times like this where the depth and breadth of ones faith are truly revealed. Is my faith like a mountain stream that flows rapid and tempestuous, yet is shallow and seasonal? Or is it like the mighty Mississippi, deep and wide and long, forever flowing. I would like to think the latter.

So, it is necessary for me to get out of this funk I am in and get back to being Jim, so for the time being, I have made the decision to double my caffeine intake and get back to being who God wants me to be.

I think one of Satan’s biggest tools is confusion, hitting us where and when we least expect, from the direction we most do not expect. I had a breakthrough a couple of weeks ago that I wrote about here, about how I was able to close a back door the devil was using into my life, and I was exuberant. In the background of my celebration, I wondered if he would now go after my family, less than a week later, that question was answered.

When we make the choice to follow Christ, to take up our cross and follow him wherever He leads, we have to be prepared to be targets, but we also have to be prepared for our loved ones to be targets too, and here is the hard part, “sometimes the people we love get hurt because of our faith”. Yes, if we are making life hell for the devil, he will strike out at us, and if he can’t reach us, he will take what he can get, he is a sulfur stinking rotten to the bone opportunist. When we take up the cross of Christ, we must know that it may cost us our wives; it may cost our children, our parents, brothers, and friends. Those are the hard losses; the easy ones are job losses, home losses, monetary ruin, etc. Satan is a sore loser, and he is ruthless in his pursuit of those he considers his.

Now while I haven’t been his for a very long time, I have been making life hard on him, doing my best to steal his followers at every turn I can. I pray to God every day that he will place me in the path of someone who I can share the news of Jesus Christ with, and I have been praying that prayer for more than two years now. And guess what, God has answered that prayer favorably, when I have been sick for a week and don’t leave the house, God doubles up folks on me when I am well. I don’t keep track, but if I did, I would bet that it would be exactly one for one since I began praying that prayer. Did all of those folks come to the Lord? I have no idea, God gives the increase, but all of that talking is bound to make the devil a little anxious, wouldn’t you think?

So, When folks ask us what is most important in our lives, most of us Christ followers will say, God, then family, then friends, work, etc. …………

But, what if being a Christ follower means your child, your wife, your son, your mother, your brother, your dad are under attack, will be killed because you are on fire for the Lord, how strong will your faith be then? When your family is on the line, will God still be number one?

I know how strong my faith is, I know who is at stake, I know how much I love them, and I know this life is just a trial run for Heaven. I know if my family continues to get harmed because of their or my faith, God will see us through it, so here is what I have to say to the devil. Is that your best? You fight like a girl, when you are really ready to fight, bring it, I’m ready!

God Bless-JFT

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My Prayer

                                                         

My God, I’m Yours

Take me and use me

Lead me through the quagmires of life

Dress me for battle, put armor on my chest

A helmet on my head, gauntlets on my arms,

And armor on my legs “Oh God”

Reach into my chest, fill my heart with courage

Make me into a valiant warrior,

Fearing nothing that the adversary can bring.

Make me your champion “Oh Lord”,

Teach me to lead and to follow

Make me bold and humble                                                                

Help me to lead the charge

And to bring up the rear also.

Help me to know what it is that you want of me “Oh Lord”

Help me to wake daily to serve you,

Help me to know that the answer in that lies in others.

Help me to die to myself every day “Oh Lord”

Help me to “always” put others first

Help me to know that through You,

All things are possible “Oh Lord”

I cry out to you now in thankfulness

Thank You “Oh Lord”, for the beauty of golden leaves                                    

Thank You “Oh Lord”, for the smell of fresh cut grass

Thank You “Oh Lord”, for the smell of a newborn baby

Thank You “Oh Lord”, for the gift of Your Son

Your faithfulness is undeniable, Your love unquestionable

This life was never mine to give to You “Oh Lord”

Even our free will was a gift from You

But that gift I now return, “My Lord”

I’m Yours, Take me, use me, and do as You wish

That I might have the lowest place in the Kingdom, “My Lord”

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Forensics

I did my best to sit upright in the class, wishing I wore glasses, thinking that a reflection might allow me to close my eyes a bit. Oh my gosh, this stuff was so dry, they poked through the book of Acts like crash scene investigators piecing together what happened. I listened with twenty-five percent of my brain, just enough to answer a question if they called on me, but this was like shoving bamboo shoots under my fingernails.

This was how I used to feel when I was in Sunday school years ago, when we would study the Bible, I could never connect with the characters as actual people, it was more a study in forensics. Now before I go any further, I want to be clear, this site is not nor will it ever be a platform to rant against anyone or anything. I was raised up in a very legalistic background, and I believe with all of my heart that those folks think they are serving God right. But sometimes we need to step back from our comfort zone and look around, do a self check, check the pulse of our faith, etc. We get an annual physical; there is no reason why we shouldn’t do the same thing with our faith.

One of the things that I remember about church when I grew up is that everyone sat in the same place every week.  Several of the old timers positioned themselves either next to or directly behind the large support pillars, depending on if they cared whether the pastor saw them sleeping or not. The ones next to the pillars would lean their heads against it and snore, while the ones behind it would nod expertly in line with the pastor. I remember one week the poor pastor saw so many sleepers that he commented that it made him feel good to know he put so many people at ease. I used to nod off then too, because there wasn’t anything to be too excited about.

Those years were so sad for me, legalistic as could be and nary a clue. If you would have asked me, I would have told you all about how bad legalism was, never for a moment suspecting that I was part and parcel. We were trained to know the bible, so we could show everyone how messed up they were, missing the part about love and Grace, and it is capitalized for a reason, because it is so amazing.

Back then, the Apostles were yellowed text, cracked with age and not pertinent to me today, Jesus was God on earth, a perfect God-Man that I know never had anything in common with the guy who back then ran a forklift in a freezer dock. But it was what my folks did, it was what my wife did, I believed in God, so I needed to just roll with things, and that is what I did. But then the most wonderful thing happened.

The yellow pages began to turn black and white, and they weren’t cracked and broken anymore, the pages became whole. The two thousand year old Apostles were no longer men from other cultures that spoke different languages, that I couldn’t possibly have anything in common with, they became what they were, a bunch of average at best guys. I felt the Saul (the Apostle Paul) trying to swallow the lump in his throat when he encountered the burning speaking bush. I felt the wretched shame tear through Peter’s soul when he heard the Rooster crow, knowing he had let the Lord down, after he had assured him that he was solid, that it wouldn’t happen. The surprise on Thomas face when he “did” find the holes in his Master’s wrists, and he would forever wear the moniker “doubting Thomas”. The funny thing is, it took me being rocked out of that environment painfully, in what would eventually prove to be the biggest blessing of my life.

Yes, these people were no longer “forensic” they were people, but the people who were at the forefront, they were there, they walked with the Master.

That brings me to the best news of all, that guy who drove the forklift in the freezer many years ago, who thought more about making a better life for his family than his everlasting soul, yeah well. Guess what, that God-Man, as hard as this may be to believe, He became a Man, and He knew my name, He had always known my name. When He came down here, He had in fact been a man, He could have left anytime, but He didn’t.  Jesus didn’t want to die on the cross, He looked at that future and said “whoa, is there any other way”, but in the end, He said Father, Your will be done. The thing that is really hard to wrap my mind around, always has been, always will be, is that that God-Man cares about me, but oh man, he does.

He snatched me up and I was blessed with a knowledge that managed to escape me for thirty two years of my life. Grace, last night I sat down with my two teen-aged girls to make sure that they understood grace, the blood of Christ and that we can’t work our way to heaven. Yeah, they knew, but my dad and step mom managed to make it eighty years without knowing, just saying. Jesus knows us, every one of us, I don’t know how, but He does. Maybe when Your blood atones for someone’s sin, You just know them, but He does. If church is legalistic and forensic, if you can’t feel the indecision in the Apostle’s, the lump in Paul’s throat, then it is time to do a self check. I am not a fan of church hopping, but the church is us, and I use two criteria. If you are serving, and serving the Lord well, meeting the need well, and you and your family are being fed then you are probably where you should be. Only you can answer that. God Bless-JFT

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The Keys To The Kingdom

In my attempts to understand and work through the hard times that kept coming last week, God put people and answers in my path that has led me to some really key spiritual discoveries. These discoveries are huge, they are something I have battled with all of my life, and have finally found resolution to them, in a very long and winding road that led all the way back to a seven day long migraine headache.

After the first attack, when I answered the Spirits call, and was immediately struck down, I did not recognize it as an attack, much in the way we did not recognize the first plane to strike the world trade center as an act of terrorism but more as just a plane hitting a building. But after the second time when the Spirit called (refer to previous post) and the second immediate attack I knew something was up, something was wrong and I was under attack.

I wrote some of what I was going through in my blog, and you all responded with concern. Larry wrote me an email with some thoughts that sent me down the path of discovery though. He wrote  ” When I state that your migraines (and most migraines) are caused by a demon, this does not mean that you personally have a demon in you because your inner man is filled with the Greater One. And Jesus does not share space with a demon or Satan. (Only unsaved people can house a demon in them.)

 

But instead, it means that somehow a demon has influence over you. I think of it as a string attached to a door into your soul (mind, emotions, memory, etc.) or your flesh. Somehow this demon can pull on the string to open that door at certain times. Usually, the string is attached because of sin or a curse. So, I always tell people to ask the Lord, “Why does this demon have a right to attack me? What have I done? Or is it something that someone else has done which now affects me?”

This is the Holy Spirit’s job to help you and disclose these things to you.

Once, you know why the demon is able attack you, then you can go on the offense.

 

Hmmm, I thought, demons. Well, God uses angels all the time, I certainly don’t expect the devil to be everywhere at once, of course he uses the evil equivalent of angels to get his dirty work done, but how. I am a good person right? But I do have sin, and it got me to thinking, and it caused me to do some self-examination.

I meet with a group of guys once a week, we open up with one another, we share things that we are having issues with, family issues, work issues, spiritual issues, and we hold each other accountable. It works very well, most of the time, we share much of our deepest problems and pains, but one thing that I realized, is that you can only be held accountable for what you share, and if you don’t share something, then you are hanging on to it, and I still had a couple of things I was hanging on to.

To many of the people who know me, I am outgoing and friendly, to my neighbors I am generous and open, to my accountability brothers an open book, but the truth is, they were misled. They thought they were standing in the open vault of my secrets, but on the back wall there was a book case with a false wall, behind it was the door to the real vault where I kept the remainder of my real deep dark secrets. In that vault were the insecurities, the shame of things I had done and still did in secret, the things no one knew about that I had never confessed, and that I had been terrified anyone would ever know about. As my accountability friends would mill about the faux vault drinking their latte’s I would stand in front of the false wall with my arms spread casually over the bookcase, my heart racing the whole time for fear that one of my friends would stumble and fall on the latch that would open the false wall, exposing the real me for who I was, a sinner, not worthy of heaven, not worthy of anything.

Larry’s letter was so clarifying to me, we weren’t being “truly” accountable, I don’t know why, I know we were trying, but I just wasn’t able to open up “that” deep with these brothers. I do trust these men, maybe the problem is all mine, but the simple fact is this, the devil knows me, he knows my sin and he knows my weaknesses. Yes, I have grown over the years, but trust me; the devil was making the most of what he had. Like having a string to a trapdoor that even I was not aware of he was accessing me through my weakness. Unfortunately I found that there were some things that I don’t share with my accountability brothers. Ahhhh, says Satan, gocha, a rift with the believers, something they don’t feel comfortable with.

There are things, not much just a couple that I share with no one and I keep buried deep inside. So it all began to come together, I had wondered how Satan was hitting me so hard when I was a faithful servant of his, and Larry’s clue led me to the conclusion.

It was at the close of day seven of the migraine, and I was exhausted, spent, and my mind was working slowly. My balance is funky these days, so I decided to shave and shower before bed, four fifteen comes early, and I try to cut my “getting ready for work in the morning” time down. As I showered, I was not thinking about any of these things, but instead “do I have fresh jeans and a shirt laundered for work tomorrow” as I soaped up.

This is what I just love about the Holy Spirit, He interrupts, he doesn’t wait, and tap his toe humming a Barry Manilow, Maniloe, Manilo whatever tune? Who cares, I think you know what I mean. He just comes right in, anyway, so I was washing what hair I have left, and I heard a voice in my head, and here are the words that were given to me by the Holy Spirit in the shower. “The Keys to the Kingdom lie with you Jim”. For the first time in my life, I knew exactly what God wanted me to do. In order to stop this demon from torturing my family and I, we needed to treat it like any common household pest, figure out how it is getting in, and then close that door.

For the most part, I am an open book, and am open about my past, my sin, etc. but there is that small little vault that I still keep locked to the world, so it wasn’t too hard to figure out where the trapdoor was that the demons were sneaking in through. The Holy Spirit had told me what I had to do, the “Keys to the Kingdom” (gosh, isn’t that a cool line) were in transparency, because true accountability came “only” with true transparency.

I love my guys, my accountability guys, I really do. I don’t know why I can’t go that extra step, maybe one day, maybe because I am the old guy in the group, I don’t know. When I got out of the shower, I was exuberant, I couldn’t wait to follow through, I texted Larry thanking him for leading me here, to this final answer. I felt the final small hole in my heart begin to fill in as I went out on to my back patio and called Tom. Tom and I have been friends since the fifth grade, we are very close. He lives a couple hundred miles away, but we are closer than ever, he is the best man I know. He is the guy I had chosen, I called him up, and I told him he was the only friend that I felt comfortable really telling everything to, and then I opened the vault, loaded the last couple boxes of dirt onto a dolly, and wheeled them over to the incinerator. When we were finished, I left the Vault open, and I poured cement into the trapdoors, the ones that had been tripping me up for decades, causing guilt for decades, I was closing them forever.

As Christ followers, it becomes cliché to say that we die to self, but last week I feel I did, several times. But the last time I died to self, the new guy doesn’t even feel like the old guy, and I don’t mean only spiritually, I mean physically, I don’t feel like me anymore. You may ask yourself “what’s wrong with this guy that he can take something as simple as a migraine headache and turn it into a battle between the forces of good and evil”, and my answer to you will be, I didn’t, they did. I have asked myself that same question, why me, why now. The answer is God does what He does for a reason, and while it may or may not make sense now, it always does later. I am just blessed, mine makes sense now. So, this post is quite a long and winding road, but in synopsis;

As the Holy Spirit put it, we may all have the “Keys to the Kingdom”,

But first, we must be

Transparent

In order to be transparent, we must first

Open the Vault

While we are in there, we must burn the garbage, empty the vault, and

Seal the Trapdoors

We can’t go it alone, we even need someone more than God, we need a friend.

Be Accountable To Someone

When you close the trapdoors that the devil sneaks into your life through, he will have no secret means by which to ambush you personally. Living “fully” transparent will make you a much more effective soul winner for Christ, no holds barred, All In. Even though I had the migraine last week, I would still have to say that last week was the best week of my life to date. God Bless-JFT

P.S. I would like to give special thanks to my brother, friend, and mentor, Larry Nevenhoven for his wise counsel last week. Without his words, I would not have found my way out of the maze.

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To Lead Or To Follow

The trio of cowboys kept point on the herd, the trail boss in the lead, and his two assistants keeping everyone moving on the sides. When the herd began to slow, the trail boss whooped and hollered to get them moving again. There was no time to stop and eat grass, fall was here, and winter was coming, the herd needed to be in the safety of the winter grounds before the snow came and the water got hard.

An errant steer decided he wanted to blaze his own trail, and broke from the pack, headed off toward the locoweed that grows on the edge of the arroyos in this area. It looks good and tasty, but it will kill a steer quicker than a trip to the slaughterhouse. The cowboy whistles at the trailing cattle dog, and the pooch bares his teeth and heads after the steer with a single-mindedness that makes the cowboy smile. The small heeler flashes his teeth, nips at the heels of the huge steer in a charade that his breed has been doing for thousands of years now. The steer changes course and heads back into the pack as the satisfied dog trots back to the cowboy, tongue hanging out and smiling, or at least it would appear to be so.

The herd breaks from the last of the mountains whose peaks are already glowing a bluish white from the first snows of late fall, and spills out onto the green pastures of the winter valley. The cowboys loosen their control of the herd and allow them to begin grazing peacefully, and drinking from the spring fed pond, they have made it, and have lost no one.

I have often thought of ourselves in relation to some of the examples that the Bible has given us, sheep in a herd with Jesus as our Shepherd. If you were to go around and ask people what they prefer in life, to be a free spirit, coming and going with the wind, or to be submissive and to be led like cattle, I think the majority would say they would prefer to be the free spirit.

But one thing I have noted over time is that no matter what people say, their actions speak louder than words. Our world pushes us to achieve higher than everyone else, to get more than anyone else, and to blaze our own trail. But if you look at our world, it is rife with examples of those who have done so, and in doing so have gorged themselves on the lush locoweed that lines the gorges of life off the main trail, leading to their demise. The truth is, people are natural pack creatures, and we desire strongly to be led.

I think about the Hebrews led out of bondage in Egypt, and how Moses led them toward the Promised Land, and I can’t help but see the natural similarities between them and the herd of cattle I just described above. They were guided, yet they occasionally tried to blaze their own trails. Their needs were met daily for sustenance, yet even though they were fed with a food straight from Heaven itself, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since, they still wanted something better, they still wanted greener pastures.

When the trail boss Moses had to leave the herd for a little while to go up on the mountain and receive instructions from God Himself, they were impatient. Without Moses to constantly guide them, they began to question all of the decisions he had made to get them to where they were, and they revolted. The remaining under-shepherds were not able to maintain control over the herd, and when Moses returned, they were a mess. Without “constant and continuous leadership from God” we are like the herd left unattended, we return to our old ways.

In our world today, with mass media and real-time communication, the message we are fed constantly is that we should not conform, we should all be trailblazers, leading the pack, following no one. We are fed the message that we are in competition with everyone else, and it is survival of the fittest, there is nothing in the message that says we should be a good follower. Boldness and confidence are lauded, and humility and submission are labeled as loser virtues that will get you a permanent home in last place.

These are all lies put forth to mislead us by that craftiest of evil beings, Satan. God makes it very plain, you want to be first, then you are going to be last. You want to be the greatest, yeah well, you are going to be the least then. God left us these messages a couple thousand years ago, and his words have never changed on the matter. If you want to be first, then that means you are rushing to the front of the line, which means you are stepping in front of others, and the whole message of the bible is to place others first, before yourself. So God lays it out, if you value being the greatest, then that means you have your heart in the wrong place, so you will be cut down to size. You will be sent to the back of the line, you will be demoted, you will be put in your place until you get it. Here is a hint, “It isn’t about you”, it is about “you” putting others first, and if you don’t get it, then He will humble you.

We were meant to stick together, we were meant to be led, and everyone can’t be a leader. We can’t look at everyone else in the herd as our competition either, imagine if every steer and cow in a herd saw each other as competition, and tried to beat each other to every blade of grass. That would be a stampede, and it would be chaos. Is that not what our world has become like today? Satan has orchestrated a great deception, and it is served up to us on our televisions, computers, and any other source of mass media that feeds us information today. We are constantly bombarded with the message that we need to be the best, at the top of your game always. We are told that we need to stand apart from the rest, to be a rogue steer.

I know one thing, there is comfort in the gentle leading of the Master, there is comfort in knowing that He is my navigator, and that as long as I submit to Him, I will not be lost. Who is your Shepherd?

God Bless-Jim

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Character

The other day, I was at work and was speaking with a co-worker. The co-worker was telling me about a meeting he had attended with some higher ups in the company, and he referred to them as 64’s I think. This is common in a quasi-governmental workplace, but I was bothered by it, so I asked him why he did that, referring to people by their pay grade. His response was that it signified them as great men of power, and their pay grade identified their level in relation to the top. It reminded me of a story that a very dear lifelong friend told me once.

This friend, we will call him Dean for privacy purposes, had become a Highway Patrolman. Over the years, he was promoted to the Governor security team, and received the same training at the same facility as the U.S. Secret service. When completed, he had all the same credentials as those who protect the President. Now the governor Dean served was an elitist in nature, spending his life in a blueblood environment, and he treated his security detail as furniture. Dean was professional about it and never let it get under his skin, he just focused on the job at hand.

Now every year, all of the governors in the US go to Washington, DC for a meeting with the President, and all of the security details are placed in a pool, so you will probably be protecting some other governor, and this year, such was the case. Dean was assigned to a new governor, and was surprised to find this man was vastly different from his own governor. The governor he was assigned to cover was constantly cracking jokes, and seemed good-natured. He asked about Dean’s family back home, asked about Dean’s kid’s, and they both discovered that they shared a love of hunting and a love of the outdoors. The governor even asked Dean if he was a Christian, and then they even talked about their faith. This was a new experience for Dean, he was used to working for someone who issued orders then sat back and waited to be obeyed, but this governor was different, he had character. Dean was professional throughout, but this governor did his best to get Dean to drop his defenses, and to a degree, Dean did.

As the time passed and the meetings with the President drew to an end, Dean was in a central area, I believe they were having a parting reception, when he heard his name called. He looked around, and he saw the governor he had been assigned to waving above the crowd, and making his way toward Dean. He shook Dean’s hand vigorously and told him what a pleasure it had been for him to meet and work with him during their time together, not referring to him as an underling, but as an equal. They parted, but it left a permanent mark on Dean, he was really impressed with this man of great power, who chose humility when given a choice. Dean never worked with the man again, but he has held him in high regard even since that time, and even followed his career a bit.

Now that governor has since retired, and occasionally hits the lecture circuit. A couple of years ago, this governor spoke at my daughter’s Christian university. She was on the team that served him his dinner, and afterwards he came over and spoke to my Daughter and her boyfriend. More than a decade after Dean had served this man, my daughter was now serving him. She said he was “cute” and so sweet, not arrogant at all, he won their hearts right away. He even put his arm around my daughters shoulder and took a picture with her, something you don’t get to do with an ex-governor very often, and she was honored.

I told my co-worker that I would email the picture to him, because it was cool I thought, and I told him then who the governor was, and he smiled. My point to all of this was that it doesn’t matter who you are in the world, what station you climb to, don’t forget that we are all just people, created equal in God’s eyes, and that when we reduce someone to no more than the pay grade they are at, we are really doing them a disservice. He agreed, he saw my point and the conversation ended well.

Abraham Lincoln said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Here is that picture of the governor that my friend and my daughter both served.

God Bless-JFT

This story is true

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