You know those times when the joy is so overwhelming it is almost popping out of your pores?  You step as if your legs are light, your mind unencumbered and your spirit on overdrive.  How is that possible under so much pressure to be walking as if free of any burden?  Today, I saw a gentleman cry because he saw in my words realization that his life’s work had made a difference.  The epiphany that someone had heard what he had been saying for decades almost broke his stolid demeanor.  Tears were present and I saw in him the eventuality for each of us that have been investing, investing and repeating ourselves, thinking after some time that we have produced next to nothing.  I would imagine it is nice for Pastors to see someone approach the altar to join in prayer or perhaps accept the Lord.

The testimony each of us will give in the next ten years I believe will astound the lot of us. Things are changing at rapid pace.  What previously were iterations so tiny that they were indistinguishable are now visible in limited timing. We can see affect.  What an unusual feeling to achieve consistent gratification of ones efforts.  Not that it fulfills particular instantaneous gratification but it is an unusual feeling to reap and reap and comprehend that there is not end to the crops left to stock ad in fin item.  What a glorious day the Lord has given us to be so productive as something for which we made no preparation, other than our testimony and the joy of studying the Word.  Seeing this time, I am now truly repentant of my impatience.

What have you to add to this day that shall outdo or at rival those wonderful days of memory?  How will your dance change the way we think about dance, your song rekindle the fire in dimmed hearts your dream be the inspiration for them to reach untold horizons?  What brand of joke do you have to make my belly jiggle, my gullet wiggle my smile permanent crease across my shining visage.  What is the message you have to provoke a child’s mind to mastery, avoid disaster, free slaves from the wicked master, suspend the bad weather planned for afternoon?  Without you this mosaic its just slo mo or simply sic without the “a”for your “addition” to the mix. The song will change when you add your rare but strange rendition of ecclesiastical pnemonics, well okay it won’t be enriched by that but at least your smiling face will be in the picture for all to enjoy.  Come join the band, the band of joyful merry men, intent on abundance and peace for all.  In Jesus’ Name

 

I love you Father.  This is your time.  Friends, the things that are given to you as reminder that this world was never meant to be done alone.  Events, the things meant to present difficulties from which men make history. Days fraught with difficulty, worry and concern closely resembling foretold description.  Breathing in frustration and breathing out courtesy, testimony to changes within machinery.  If patience is going to do it work, then it demands cooperation with this cyclic purification.  Taking in world, giving out spirit, as the flame cleanses. A clean spring, having nothing poisonous at source.

These are the days for men of honor, courage and a clear relationship with You.  Songs whistled together, ticking out in time the faith in the Rock beneath their boots.  Times for either pride and worldly inclusion or quiet separation, tending to flocks and fences.  Excitement seeing these men come forth born in the forge of this moment’s demand. Strength in short supply, arduous work ahead, builds champions.  These are the days when mediocre shall be foreign to sturdy hearts, resistant to bite, burn or darkened days of dreary expectation.  A time when boys will once again turn their hearts back to their Father’s craving to learn the things of manhood absent worldly youth.  Silence, respect the attitude of reason and price paid for gathering grain.  The mooring of sturdy vessels prepared for whatever storm, flame or fire come hither.  Men born for this day, forgetting all others but the sweat, tears, blood and treasure paid to buy time, time of preparation to ensure this victory.  Together they smile and wait.

Make it straight for the crooked arrow flies astray and this skinny path demands accuracy and acuity of mind, heart and hand.  Be alert, for the moments will be twinkling, flinches, whispers of time when reaction must be instantaneous.  Spirit the center of conversation, Mothers leading their sons to grasp the force built in emotion. The strength of reason matched to wisdom, sense and faith, knowing what must be done and never wavering simply marching forward with grand expectation.  Courage built upon the Promises of a Father having never once faltered, never once met with failure, never an inkling of fluctuating prophecy.  A Word Assured in the hearts of the men who have written it upon their hearts, inscribed deeply in the surface of their shields, a Word that does not crumble, shake or shiver in the wicked wind.

These are times for the Faithful to Stand Firm, holding on to God’s Promises, overcoming all with their love, their testimonies and their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ’s certain return.  Oh, these men, I am proud to know them and that they are my kin by adoption into the Kingdom of the Most High forever and ever Amen.

Prayed for you, especially when the wicked drive in your heart forced you to slander her good name, bring suit against a good king and machinate in the dark about how to shed their innocence.  Been kind to you as I wiped the spit from my cheek, thanking you for showing me what it means to love in spite of hate.  Spent time, asking the Lord to step in and break the fallow ground around your heart as you laughed at their dilemma.  Been truly concerned for your apparent journey into hell and the opportunity to help you avoid that eventuality in Christ.

There are many things for which I am ashamed, the greatest of which are the times when I showed you me instead of showing you Him.  See we both live here.  The difficulty is that my flesh has the audacity to step in at all the wrong times and take back control of this life precisely at the times when Christ could demonstrate His love or you and this world.  I continue to be found out for the frail, messed up, insecure, easily angered man from whom I was transformed by God.  Never mind this new creature feels so much better and does the things that the Lord intended, there is a responsibility to comprehend and attend to the direction in my heart.  Lord, my breaths come in wave as I realize how much I need your forgiveness for the man I have not yet become.  Please be with me that I might some day do the things you are praying for me to master.  Thank you for the opportunities that you’ve provided to see the truth of my own behaviors, without that mirror I certainly would be doomed to repeat these issues perpetually.

Lord they are wicked and I know that means they will be having a date with you, where in fairness of judgment you reward their evil with appropriate punishment.  But that is not my cause, business or concern.  I was sent here to warn them and tell them the good news of Christ that they might turn from their wicked ways and be saved, cleansed and renewed.  How come I always want to do your job and neglect my own?  Father, I see that you love them and continue to call them to answer the call of grace, upon that Truth I will make my stand.  For if you continue to call them to repentance then hope remains that some will accept that offer and step away from the waiting abyss.  Let me continue in the logic and belief of that possibility and though my heart or mind tells me to war with them, castigate them or pronounce them beyond hope that the fact that we are still here directly contradicts those ideas.  Let me be free of regret when I sit on that bench at your side and forget what I should have done, remembering only what was done good and faithfully.  Your Servant.  Praise You.  In Jesus’ Name.

Did they just say it is not good for the Government to be too transparent?  Spoken as a true miscreant, hiding your power moves, political reciprocity and acts you need to conceal because you wrongly convinced yourself that the people either do not need to know or they are too ignorant to comprehend what is being done.  Either way, your duty is to explain it to them so that they do understand what is being done in the name of their government.  Transparency, has a pretty clear definition, I know laborious comedy.  However, it really is a word that cannot be misunderstood, unless of course the objective was never transparency but obfuscation, camouflage or opaque understanding.

Do I speak truth or do I beat around the bush hoping to pull the wool over your eyes that I might appear better, stronger, more original or noble?  Ouch that one hurt.  My own desire to tell partial truths, expand upon the truth through exaggeration or just give the part that is consistent with glorifying myself are frankly SIN.  If I see it any other way then I ought not call out any politician for I am the same cat, operating by the same principles, within the same parameters and tool set.  Again what is involved in being honest except just that?

I am sorry for the things I have embellished, concealed or partially delivered for I have sinned against you and God.  I hope that you will forgive me, but better hold me accountable the next time it happens because that is not the man I want to be.  Take time to be honest with me about my dishonesty or attempts to fudge, knowing this that is the man I wish to be, the fellow that is always reliable to give the truth of course in a gentle fashion.  Lord, keep me honest, let me be content with what I have instead of trying to build myself or portray myself as something that I have never been.  It is a joy to be exactly who I am and not have to be concerned about what I lie I told to who at what time.  Too many balls to keep in the air at once for me, I would rather just tell the truth.

Give us the truth that we might be set free, indeed.  Thank you Jesus.

When its eighty degrees there is more emphasis to get to the point, what then if it were one hundred eighty?  The same decisions, contemplation’s and muses become desperate when the variables change in significant degree.  Determining where I will work and for how much becomes an unlikely deliberation if my family is starving, my wife or child sick or there is little work available.  It is in my nature to relax when the pressure is off, but why?  The voice of reason in my head says the same thing that the ant is saying all year long, better do the work now because at some point the weather will change and there won’t be any food stored away.  What is the origin of complacency?

We all know that tough times come and hopefully they go, though that is not always the case.  Why then, firmly tucked in this solid reality, would any of us sit back when the opportunity provides itself to get ahead a little in order to make it through the tough time that are inevitably around the corner?  It makes little if any sense, yet we all do it.  Why do we wish to relax, what is that desire to be comfortable, restful and frankly lazy?  For those of us who live in climates that change drastically between seasons, it is logical to get done the things that we may not attend to when it gets too cold or too hot.  Yet, we leave them until the last minute.  Why have we left all these problems in America until they are nearly past the breaking point?  Why did we have to be shaken from our slumber, instead of developing a cultural context of preparation and forethought.  If you want to see the largest single thing for which we receive disrespect around the globe it is that we are so blessed and yet take it all for granted, living regrettably paycheck to paycheck.  What causes us to adopt this concept that we can just rush and get it all done.  Rushed work is never as good as work that is carefully tended.

What then of our prayer life, our Bible studies ,our preparations for the Lord?  I know we don’t want to talk about it.  Okay, that is the same excuse or beg off that we used for not cleaning our rooms, doing our homework, straightening the garage, keeping up our checkbooks and taking down the Christmas lights.  When do the excuses end and our egos stop being so frail, tender and sensitive that we can actually take a realistic look at our prayer life?  I am no ones minder, no body’s steward, but my own and all these criticisms fit right here in the review of my own behaviors.  Well, I guess the only real way to be a good leader is to live by example.  Enough said.

Lord give us the courage to look at ourselves in truth and mindful reflection that we take accountability for our own walk in preparation to being found ready at your return.  We love you and ask forgiveness for those times we took things for granted, especially your loving kindness in forgiving our sins as an excuse to keep doing the same one time and again.  In Jesus’ Name.

Something consequential to heart, something to keep the soul and the spirit far apart.  What could be written in these simple words that would provoke the world to action?  I don’t have that kind of authority or wordsmithability to evoke something so precious, appealing and entirely encouraging as to capture the attention of all who’ve heard it.  How then do we marshal testimony, provoke action, edify courage and tenacity to stand in winds our senior?

Can it be done by word, well the rappers are reaching millions of our children for their endeavors, perhaps I should learn that sort of word twist?  Or maybe I could spout hate and violence which draws millions to the theaters in a quest for manhood in the spectacle of lost life dominance?  Perhaps I should write fantasy fiction of gods and evil empires, elves, dwarves and hybrid humans, for that seems to attract millions of eager viewers.  Or better yet I should talk of aliens, cannibalistic risen dead or some alternate universe where we can all have our needs provided for by electric flowers and water that fills all your calories requirements without fat?

What is it with me that I am concentrating on the reality of the issues we face when I could easily use some platform far more effective at reaching a much broader spectrum of people?  Am I that daft, that I would rather sing into the farm yard with few friends and chickens pecking then be a spectacle for those to view as something comedic, salacious or chaos provocative?  Adjust for the audience they say, adjust for the audience.

If I become the center of attention and I have to utilize, sex, popularity, fantasm, wizardy or violence to deliver the message I have been given to speak, what then does it say in my resolve, my determination and surety that this message is the righteous truth that should reach all with ears to hear its call?  I am just repeating a wonderful message written by the Creator of the Universe, given me to speak because that is who he chose to say it, in this body, this set of talents or lack there of, this set of circumstances with this limited capacity at delivery.  Do I doubt Him so that I believe His choices ill suited for merchandising this message?

No, this is what I’ve got and if perchance He wants me to have greater breadth, depth or audience, then He will make it happen.  I am content in the Word I’ve been given to read from.  I am overwhelmed at the majesty and kindness of its purpose and content of its story line.  This is the message meant for all, regardless of place, people’s purposes or passion.  This is the Word Smythed before the beginnings of time for each of us to hear, ingest and take that glorious action availed to all to make a choice of whom we serve.  So listen to me, I hope that you do.  Adjust the message looking for a larger crowd, I cannot. For even if He gives me one heart to whom I ought speak, I would give the same message to a million.  God save you all through Jesus Christ the King.

Focus on the changes that are being made in each of us. The law has been an awesome mirror to show me my sin and how far away from the Lord’s holiness I reside.  But I no longer receive condemnation because the Lord paid for these sins, and although I am trying my very best to avoid each and every one before they occur, when I do slip up the Lord is faithful and true to forgive me and forget them.  However, over the years I do see the evidence, the fruit, the benchmarks, so to say of sanctification by the Lord’s hand.  Each year he takes away from me those old habits, verbal patterns and reactionary devices replacing them with noticeably improved methods of dealing with catalyst with wisdom, understanding and grace.  It is good to see those changes though I still weep at how easy it is for me to mess up.  Did you mess up this week?  I hope that I extended to you the same grace, encouragement and understanding that the Lord continues to give me.

Where to next?  Well that is the joy of our walk with the Lord, we just don’t know but unraveled in the revealed mystery are the contents of the things beyond our own performance.  For in his power, authority and abundance there are treasures, discoveries and works beyond my current imagination.  I don’t want to continue on the same track, being handed the same lesson time and again because each time I fail to get it the Lord returns me to that same starting gate.  That is not acceptable to me, my own limitations will not be the obstacle that keeps me from reaching the pinnacle of God’s plan for my life.  Oh, you thought I would say that it is someone externally that is causing me to falter, well that just isn’t true.  I am the obstacle to my own understanding, my sin the barrier to my holiness, my rebellion and lack of obedient love the prohibition of my righteousness.  The enemy just knows my frailties and offers me the same lust that tripped me up the last 47 times.  If it worked those times it will continue to work, until the Lord takes that away from me, removing that desire for some more grand.

This life is nice, sure it has some great joy and abundance, but there is also significant heartache, separation, agony, grueling tribulation and yes my great reservoir of sin.  Those are things that I will not have to deal with beyond this life, so yes I am getting ready for the next round, my new life, in the country in which I have been a citizen since accepting Christ.  Do I crave it, no I do yearn for Him though.  I am content with being content in the knowledge that I am here because He has not yet seen that I am ready to move on from this crucible.  So, I ask Lord that I at least get the lesson you have been hoping that I would have gotten today, so that tomorrow I might graduate to a new set of trials and learning experiences on my journey through preparation to be in the presence of a Holy and Righteous God.  After all that is the objective isn’t it?  In Jesus’ Name.

This dance your own, combined steps and the rhythm in your head producing a set of footprints in the sand to remember.  Can they know your dreams without you demonstrating their creation?  Captured and controlled by your own aspirations of fear, doubt and courage.  Will you let the world see the inside of your philosophy, so modern, precise, egalitarian and economic or reason with yourself the causes meant for darkness?  The exacting question one of light or dark, which only each man may answer.

Lead on into the nightmare, fantasy or daydream of romance, money, power, heroism and glory.  These are the inner workings of your creation, to find that personal answer to question only you have been given.  Plod on diverting your attention with the things of other people’s pleasure, searching, seeking, counting, treasuring or measuring the content of wisdom, power and purposelessness.  Whilst internally the machinery groans, the components agonized, twisted, made for other work mis-employed for dally’s justice.  Arguing with conscience the only battle that may never be won by two, for it is singular this quandary.  What will the reckoning be in this diminished ambition?  What if you should be king, will that be easily weighed, balanced and forgotten?

There is no time limit but life, no practice field but the same, where achievement is what it becomes.  Why is life only left to the living?  Are those the rules or may a man imagine his afterlife effective course for correcting the errs and mis-steers of manhood? What you say it must be played, paid or constructed here, to stay here, recorded here for only those left behind to hear in it’s retelling?  What if I imagine a new world, where my own reason, my own imagination controls sound, ground and air?  Shall I dare become that kind of empire to my own existence, wishing the world into something more or less than it is, into what I believe it should become?  The machine is the machine and shant be manipulated by man only escorted, expected, massaged and twirled to the tune of your own volition, for it is the dance that makes a man.  The dance in which each of us wins at being well, you.

In Jesus’ Name.

Biblical understanding demands that I acknowledge our current state of affairs on Earth.  Not wanting to accept that satan currently, rightfully holds the title deed to Earth is insufficient option when considering the methods by which we may be extracted from the chaos surrounding us. The enemy knows that we want to escape oppression.  The enemy also has the authority, the power, the cleverness and the control of all those who have not yet accepted Jesus.  That requires that we accept the fact that he is going to use all of those hearts and minds susceptible to powers and principalities of the heavenly realm to keep us under his thumb.  Now the tough part, based upon that understanding we must NEVER consider any other option, President, Pope, Q or King as the effective resolution to our circumstance.  They cannot save us from the fallen who rules and reigns, the only power that overwhelms and trumps that current understanding is the rightful heir and King of All the Earth and Creation, the Lord Jesus Christ the King.  He alone has defeated the powers and principalities of satan and his minions.  Therefore, unless Jesus intervenes we would never prevail.  However, the Bible does say that we win and that the victory was secured on the Cross some two thousand years ago.  So, what then am I getting at.  Come on Eddy, out with it!

The Return of the King and any movies made about that subject are either made to foster our understanding of that awesome foretold event or to indoctrinate us to an idea that will be submitted, swapped or offered in the place of this truth.  Let us never idolize a king or agent of God as God himself.  Our current circumstances may only be dealt with by Jesus.  For example; the enemy killed Lincoln, Kennedy, and some others and tried to kill Reagan.  What happened to our demeanor and resolve when those assassinations took place?  The same thing that happened throughout history when satan’s human assassins killed any inspirational leader, the people fell into depression and lost their resolve.  Why is that?  Because they had placed the hope, faith and trust in something that was insufficient solution to the current predicament.  Our problem is not the deep state, the pope, the empire, criminals or otherwise our problem is that Jesus has not yet come again to take back rulership, remake all of this, place the enemies in chains and do away with this evil plaguing humanity.

Any, I repeat Any attempts to raise up a human leader in the place of the position reserved for Christ alone.  ANY attempts to place our faith in human means to save us from the mess in which we find ourselves.  ANY attempt to predict that America will be returned to its former glory and remain free of the hand of tyrants, is false as it is inconsistent with Biblical understanding.  The only way back to an America that lives free, is worship of the King who blessed us through answered prayer with a Nation that represented the idea of His Love For Us.  If we are hanging all our faith on our current leaders, President or otherwise to deliver us from this circumstance, I must ask; what makes us believe that Satan who rules here now is ever going to allow that to happen?  Do you think you can stop him?  Pride continues to be foolish no matter the century or the individual preaching it.  Jesus, the Way the truth and the Life and NO ONE comes to the Father but through HIM.

Falling into line like the fresh picked olives from the crooked vine.  Still don’t know if these are yours or mine.  Into the morning of apprehension I stick my weary head too encumbered by last night’s concerns to turn my thoughts to ward any other way. Pristine water mirrored in the gray windswept formations overhead. The tear in my eye yearning to be one with the water, misty mud laden gladness of the dew.  Am I to make sense, unraveling this mysterious conglomeration of worldly events or leave them be, buzzing, chiming, spinning, turning, wiggling like the worm on the warmer side of morn. They can’t help but catch my eye, Red and white, then augury blue, testing something deep inside, remembering for what we stood, Still.  Four-thirty and dawn happened. Standing as older men, pressing forward, a little closer than I’d care to be, smelling of too little attention and three day old shirt.  Soured to the things of pleasantry grumbling, stumbling, lacking the balance of a baby boy, fumbling for completed sentences we stare in patient expectation.  He don’t know Jesus, only the accumulation of things, the years washed away. people gone, memories too, nothing to hold on to but the thoughts of a tomorrow that may never come.  I want to say I love you, knowing that will be dismissed by the wave of a spotted, left hand intent on forgetting something he cannot remember.  Decay, rapid decay of thought, wishes and good manners, nothing left but pain but yet the pain helps it drives, it clears thought, it gives at least, well something to hold onto. Pestering aside I’d truly wish some reason, some reason to try to break through the decades of defenses built to keep out people who would have you feel something about something, don’t they know that I just want to forget it all and move on.  But there is something left worth saying.  Ed, do you know where you’re going when you leave this painful life.  Is Ethel there or is even that enough to get you talking, listening, accepting of prayers, smiles and kin? I ask about the war, no answer, about children, still the same.  Then I stop to ponder what he always discussed at the quiet suppers where nothing much was said or remembered.  For him it always was the lake, the Lake He said, “It’s wider than the river and deeper by a mile”. “On this side you can barely see Montana, and over there a sterling rainbow Christened the birth of our new yearling”, so I leaned a little closer and whispered of the winter touching its windy tongue on the dock of Farther’s Crossing. One stern fueled eye turned to me, reviewing me curiously as a giant views a talking fly.  The tight sewn corners of that beaded old mouth curled in what could pass in most parts as the beginnings of a smile.  He held it a while and then his eyes looked up to the light passing through the window and he pointed as if we would see what he had recalled. And on that winter’s lake was the moment I met Jesus, He was there and I think he shared my thoughts.  For in the boat that day we both saw him resting on a pillow in the bow, settled against the misty, icy breeze.  Then with a tear in the side of his eye, He turned his head right to me and said to me, “Sweet Jesus Bring Me Home”.             ,