Most things don’t matter in retrospect. People. Wishes, hopes and expectations are electives. There is no end to a man that hungers for forever. Keeping it in reserve is great, pragmatic, until the car breaks down and fuel festers.

The end feels like the beginning. Agitation. Promises must be reviewed in their keeping. Are you nervous about the test you must take whether passed or otherwise? Remember, life lived in abundance demands some measure of failure.

Looking, East for weather and signs of movement. Transformed, blown by the breezes of passions beyond my own admonition. It heals and no one knows the restoration until limbs employed. Seeking wisdom where none has been found.

Use it and find peace in the sighs of expiration. Fumes, tombs and brooms, all blown away by the hand of time. There is nothing but love which extends a heart to eternity. In the quiet words, adoration lingers. Touching tomorrow’s edge.

Not what it or I once was. Remembering the pulled teeth of my own resistance without condemnation. Into the next day I wondered, plundered and bumbled. Tossing about grand swelling words hoping to change the tides of my fate.

One seeks home, whether in the weeds and blood of battle or the calm smooth waters of the garden pond. These are the days for which we prepared and lingered. Finding the rough pebbles touch memories of a world that came to pass.

No Stop in me. Gone, the boundaries and gates imposed. Wind through the trellis. To flight, no right or left but onward to where dreams become the stuff of experience. When hope meets tear and laughter meets to turned up corners of smile. All the while, refraining from entertainment of just reason. For there are powerful words rolled up in emotion and tests.

Don’t keep the wings awaiting. Let loose the wicked and the good to work out parameters of glory. Ensued, imbued, renewed. Filled with the things that swallow up time and expiration. All the while, facing scenes from nightmare’s cancelled in the joys of moments present. To the edge, not kneeling or peering over at valley’s beyond. Beyond is the bastion we seek.

What if you knew you could have ten more when stewardship considered? Pestering voices in the back of mind’s eye. Blinking to let the streams of universe yet solvent, flow into the containers they’d been given. You’re candid about willingness to imagine a universe without the God who made it and you. Don’t get lost in the annals and labyrinth of your wounds.

Too close to estimate the dungeons collapsed speak volumes to the prisoners found freedom. We sought rest, while forgiveness, promise and hope were handed out. Too extreme to consider that perhaps we don’t know everything. A little while and we remember our fondness for consideration of the absurd. Relinquishing control of the lured masses.

I did not mean to stamp toes, add burden or set hearts aflame in anguish. Rather to lead them to burst into fire themselves at the joy of seeing the mystery resolved. Before them there was no one who doubted in acquiescence. For our Fathers prepared our hearts in their disobedience to Sovereign. We have known correction and find it becoming.

What is right but that which guides hearts to stand against any obstacle? Declaration, admonition, posture or promise. Defense of the untenable or complacency to pain and suffering of those unprotected. What backbone, defying the logic of self-protection or preservation to demand no advances? What warns or wills a man to stand against the fury forces of the dark to deny them access or control over those innocents who would otherwise be overrun and underwritten in victor’s history and retelling of revision?

We live in pregnant moments of the world’s rebirth by the Will and influence of our Sovereign Creator, God. Lying down, milling about or standing with feet planted upon the immovable, Rock of Ages, is the choice calling each of us. What ground is under your boots? Will you be moved forward to stand against the crushing wave and fear of dominion? Or be found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, filled with the power that created and established all things? What voice speaks to you in desperate moments?

Always forward the Cherubim pass. Why never retreat of feet or flight of wing to tender fealty to fear and resignation? What comes in confidence beyond the threat of harm or death? What price is paid to buy the hearts and mind of transformed man? What value the life of Sovereign, in forgiveness and acceptance of Faith? This is the joy we seek, yet deception leads us to greater promised wealth. What is worthy, worth more than the blood and breath of God, stepping into worldly dimension to fulfill the promised of eternal hope and love?

Where have the grip of my crimes departed? What shame is felt in dedication to the moments born before time for my feet to stand or flee? What is the promise of rebirth in the birth pangs we now enter? What day shall the dangerous things of the world depart leaving the children un-threatened to live out days too long to now foresee? Why did Methuselah die before millennia? For the length of life in a day is one thousand years before God. Do we yet have the mind shifting reason and tenure to stand against the dark of day when the light shown so clearly into night?

Are we to become the men that God breathed? Not men of valor born of angels mix in blood and rule. Men made by the heart of the Prince of peace. Not born to dominion or conquer but love for Him and them? What days shines before us? That we may find glory, not for self but for far greater purpose than one man serves in his own passing. We have been given grace for the taking. Not a future promise of transformation, power, hope and eternity. Now, is the day of my deliverance. Now I stand marshaled against against the things that threaten courage. This day I have been given to stand. I have been become the immovable object and the over whelming force of God to stand against ALL advances of evil. In His name.

An adopted rat who thought forgiveness real. Continued being who God made him, saddened by his once ratty ways but always the ugly rat who survived all events sharpened in his rattiness. Squirreled away in admiration the things and provision a rat must pack for continuance, absent any real forgiveness those who never saw the rat any other way but as scapegoat for the painful dilemma’s of this life. Along the way this rodent beloved the unfriended and did all a rat may do to welcome them to health. But being a rat he knew that eventually finding that safety in acceptance he would once again be discarded for the prettier pets of life’s finding. You see a rat for some reason doesn’t deserve the forgiveness offered others. Being unsocial in his undertakings or humble in his works he is never admired for the dedication and diligence it takes a rat to make it. He is perceived filthy by any measure and though he may have remanded himself to a higher calling will always be loathed as the rat of everyone’s understanding. You see they were never going to accept and forgive the rat for being a rat. Even if he wore another hat.

The myth my own. The friendship my carefully developed fable to tell myself in the moments when the loneliness and self loathing unbearable. The inability, unwillingness or total denial of the horrific things a man has done, haunting him are the stuff of dissolution of any healthy recovery must find termination even if given over to the imaginary. You see the Gospel is the only thing for which I shall never be ashamed. Its forgiveness real. Its healing achievable. Its ends certain and Divine. There is no shelter for the rat but with God. No adoration for his gifts or treasure of friendship, but the eventual exclusion from all that may be sought to compel a joint objective. The rat will never be anything other than he has always been to those who tolerate his existence. Only God Almighty may find him useful, adorable and worthy of allegiance, faith, hope and love. The rat no matter how many days attempting to make himself something other than he is will find that acceptance in kind. The myth dispelled, the rat settles into being a disgusting rodent, though his heart discontent in the lack of acceptance and the festering reality that his love for the beautiful and the horrid remains. For God having loved him as a rat demanded that he share that grace with all who continued in unforgiveness. The rat gave up being the hero of his own story. For all real glory is achieved in submitting before God.

Having ended the pursuit of forgiving himself something beyond his resolution. The rat did whatever he could, mostly in secret because none would believe goodness from a dirty rodent. He forgave, lived and long beyond the days of hope believed that some would eventually see, if not that they needed a rat, but that God too had made him for His good purposes. He knew the love of God and that would be his healing. No longer living self-created and perpetuated lies he began to see that all had a bit of rat within them. Most ashamed of what they’ve done associated their works with their identity and suffered the shame of imaginary coping. Many found the darkness and the secrecy befriend them. Practicing in the shade and shadow those things for which they too would be ostracized in rat-hood. Knighthood beyond him he resolved to be the best rat he could become through the guidance and power of God’s Spirit and initiative. For God showed him that there are no imperfect creations, only those meant for Divine effort and those for pursuit of hell and separation. Being a rat was never the problem. Being a filthy rat, though beyond our means and tenure was. In submitting himself to the Sovereign the rat had found forgiveness, a forgiveness and cleansing beyond the will and want of man. The rat found that even a rat can live in goodness, righteousness and faith. He would always have to scurry to avoid the loathing and lash of those who saw him ratty, but it mattered not the hearts of those who despised but the love he cherished for them.

For the rat forgave himself the greatest of God’s provision. He apologized for his ratty ways and hoped that all would find peace within their hearts in laying down the burden of unforgiveness. Most never would and found themselves justified in the fact they needn’t forgive a rat for any reason. He realized that the love unrequited was in truth a greatest sense of living outside his own intention. The relief from hopeless and wanton acceptance allowed him to see greater things than just self-actualization. He began to walk a path most never knew a rat could travel. Not enlightenment but service in discernment. Knowing that God connected all things even the snake and rodent. Not for their own chasing and disgusting yearning but to see in this life the things that lay beyond it. For all seek the eternal even the rodent of remembrance. For there is nothing achieved in unforgiveness. The burden, debt and trap of attempting to atone for past failure is a loop of perpetual enslavement. For those things of the past may never find reckoning in the present and will always be used as filthy veil to disguise the greatness and potential left within us. Although he wished otherwise the rat reconciled his failures and after all saw that well what he had done was what all rats do. But there is no need to wear the shawl of worldly condemnation. Regardless of how eyes saw him he would remain disassociated with identity of what he had done but aligned with what he was yet becoming. Those who cannot forgive a rat are shackled. Trapped by their own rules, perceptions and self service. But the rat understood that it takes each of us to have that awakening to see it. So he forgave and moved on to embracing, experiencing and seeking God’s good will in each offering, knowing that all the pain of being a rat and all that entails would be left behind in stardom.

What is the nature of our moment? Are we left defenseless, frightened, cajoled? Or have we been given all opportunity, power, pregnant silence and chaotic maelstrom as provocation to make a weighty decision? What question would be so severe and awesome that we would be given lifetime to decide? Am I focusing upon the shaky ground of the years here or beginning to live eternity? Where do I wish to be when last breath escapes me? Isn’t that they only question worthy of a lifetime’s contemplation? How will you finish this life as we are all in the business of living forever or completing this timely but temporary measured existence?

What is security? Isn’t it a sense of peace set in defense against approaching or potential threat? How may a man’s money assure that conjecture of defense? Is it quantum entangled with our perception of security from intrusion, health effect and harm? Is it defined by our worldly inclusion and determination to defend against loss of life and property? Is it a question of eternal consequence? When I seek security as the basis of my peace am I employing supernatural or sub-eternal authority? Are my quests if not simply offered the Divine in prayer a declaration of my carnal desires and maintenance as if a man contained in the jail cells of time and space?

How does a proud man utter declaration? What peace is known of man? What history has been written free of the victorious romance of the Worlds’ Empires? Realistically if they killed everyone in your tribe, do you believe that your history was properly recorded? What price is found in ignorance? What bliss included? Is that the peace that man sought? To die not knowing the keys to intelligence and the gravity of God’s demanded decision? Is that the nature of deception found? Is ignorance only achieved in information-controlled deception thus their worldly declaration of its power? When those who seek to conquer do it to control the historical record is it world dominion they seek? What is the potency of deception that makes it alluring to the wicked?

When I find that all I pursue is frivolous, what value fills my heart? Where in lay the definition of freedom but in awareness separated from the deceptive hand of those who seek enslavement? What peace is found in a world that never wanted it? What pray tell may be resolved in my manipulation, control or influence of worldly variables? All my peace lay outside the bars of time? Infinity may only be discovered in a discussion and decision beyond the boundaries of space, gravity and measured existence. The Divine question and opportunity is invitation to find that which exists beyond the parameters of the temporary. It is the only path to life everlasting. It is the invitation to inherent, experience, benefit and know the life awaiting all through the decision that must be determined in this life. To experience life eternal we must meet Christ here to reach the hereafter. There is no other way. It has to be done this way.

Remember the most forgettable, regrettable night? The flight or fight that drove you from doorway to road in search of wisdom in absentia? The follies you’d thought were proven, the smiles held in contempt and the tears too cool to evaporate. Well-passed-frozen in memorization that you failed to take that next breath. Claiming innocence while holding shards of glass you had cast into the fireplace after toasting. The scapegoat realm.

Never thought to stop and learn what I needed. Never knew much more than blatant lies. Flabbergasted at the mirror of the moon on the screened porch. Gone into darkness before finding the light switch. I dreamt of women who could have explained the righteous. Planted in the flower box waiting for a slice of sun. Lost before I’d begun, never knowing I could have simply won. Draping scales and heavy curtains before my eyes hoping that spiritual understanding arrived.

There but wishing you had bought another ticket, taken the next bus found that new road, leading to unknown blossoms in the sky. What does grateful entail but avoidance of the next stupid move never made? Giving in when you would have doubled down and lost it all. To brawl with shadows who were far too quit to lose a fight with the likes of devolved chimps. We negotiated neglecting to see that our partners in crime had also been bluffing.

Sometimes dreams are a bit too real. Bruises that never fade and fail to allow us to blend into the crowd as anticipated. None of it was planned, all of it was booed, none of it was anything but perfect. Into the landscape I sought to dissolve wearing an apron of bronze, a headlamp and a purple tie. Knowing all along that God would have them see and remember. All along hoping for an understudy part in the cast that was there for the purpose of being forgotten.

No tortures of aspiration. No modifications of rituals or rules. No playing field, only a dusty, rock filled path leading skyward. What gleams is not absent shadow. What accepts the rich, coal dark not always following perdition. For the light alone knows and judges hearts.

When we first told the truth. It felt sideways in our long drawn beaks. Erasing our alignment with sect and secret society we found ourselves alone often in the hidden burrows of darkness. What came of this cleansing led men to realizations beyond our comfort.

What when the torch was passed? To Moorish maze and gilded hall. What lay in protection or ownership of vast desert? What cold streams lay untended for the misunderstandings of men caught in bias craze? What would children be taught that they would practice in belief?

We esteemed ourselves good enough. What vast separation between the Truth and will of Man? Laying lonely in the residue of life lacking reason. Our boots sodden our minds filled of pyres, fables and aged thinking. We escorted the future to our palaces forgotten planting.

What peace brings the moment of breath and time? What august beginnings and reshaping in the recognized need? What glory found when sought for the lot of God? What preaching shared when first having stomached the horror of our daft beginnings? What now, what then?

We arrived at the prayerful day of our own accounting. Facing the fickle facts of our own rewritten story. This dream would be sown for all to ponder and few to remember otherwise. Our footfalls having been chosen for gold’s chasing and promised fortifications rarely seen.

Our only escape in the memory and recall. Thus the chipping of elderly minds. Failing the retelling we filled our bellies with the aching call of lust, power, greed and legacy. When only in the transformed or awakened thought would we encounter the glory of our creation and the treasure of our destiny in faith.

In the middle of my wanderings did i forget about the Lord? I sat upon the shield of faith and saw no cause to pull His Sword.

Neglected all His Promises and promised to myself. I would always find dependence in my talent, luck and wealth.

In the midst of my dilemma in foolishness and pride. I failed to recognize Him standing steadfast by my side.

When I sought out independence my heart so full of pride. He let me make a mess of things waiting with Arms out open wide.

Cunning in my calculus and certain in my doubt. Pursing my own happiness, I forgot what joy was all about.

In the person of Lord Jesus I find the shelter from the rain. He freely gives me wisdom to withstand this life of pain.

But when I’m oft confronted with His Deity I find eternity and more. And hear Him outside knocking waiting for me to open up the door.

Please Lord will you remember me even when I forget. I know I’m never worthy and that you’re not done with me yet.

As I pass through desperation into a certain Truth. Take away from that foolishness such an obstacle through youth.

He gave me grace and mercy when I followed or forgot. He stood beside His Covenant whether I was cold, warm or hot.

He looked out for my heart and mind from heaven far above. He sent me swift reminders of His undying Love.

No other god’s before me in for I am the ONLY One. Remember me in Sovereignty for you are my adopted Son.

The time is soon upon US His Kingdom is at hand. Time for the world and heaven to be shaken as He planned.

Grateful. Reluctant to break down the value of Grace at every spoken word or effortless breath. This is not a standing discipline. Though most of our lives is expended walking and talking. Many things may be done on one’s feet. Not so with humble gratitude, not simply for life and the autonomous controls programmed into flesh. But, for the repercussions of choices made and new life experienced simply because you heard and appropriately responded.

How my choices are altered by interaction with the Divine providence of God. Nonchalant reactions to the miraculous are insanity of purpose. Taking for granted or offering base acknowledgement of God’s intervention may never be taken lightly, especially in the midst of tumult or spiritual deliverance from Dominion. Built upon the foundations of matter, time, energy and gravity a life lived in the solid grasp of gratitude presents a clarity beyond reason. Having God’s Spirit breathe life into dirt and the reckoning of each moment that preserves transcends self awareness.

If not. If not, but. If not, but for God’s will nothing happens. Matter doesn’t possess the quality to occupy space, or move, or think, or apply gravitational influence upon surrounding bodies. In the absence of light, heat, sound, vacuum or purpose it simply never was, is or will be. Without God deeming it so, there is no shape or form, no will to become that which never was. I am not suddenly coming to a plausible understanding of the need for gratefulness, but rather acknowledging that without humility I have misunderstood existence. Laughter though impressive as expression of mirth is simple reminder of the joy that comes from knowing God loved each of us enough to consider ever offering one millisecond of concentration upon the idea that became you and me.

He powerfully instructed Jeremiah of this gift. I knew you before you were thing in your Mother’s womb, God said. And I sanctified you as a Prophet to the nations. It is amazing that I should ever expect God to set me straight as He lovingly did with Prophets and Job. Having to remind me that I am not self existent astounds my little mind. Without God I am not even a concept. And with Him, working through His awesome life, light, provision, promise and power, I may influence the groundwork and universal elements. Forgetting this awesome, inexplicable and miraculous relationship, however brief is tantamount to amnesia. No gratitude is DNA of humanity. For absent that continuous quality of consciousness all else is void.

My own manure. The joy of personal and egoistic review. The resounding reverb of listening to my own self-centered viewpoint. Often nauseating, sometimes witty but most times bored to tears by my own capacity for bloviation and self support. This world is not complex. My attempts to present myself as one complex gear in the superstructure of humanity most frequently ends in self loathing or chuckles as my own penchant to the ridiculous. The reality and requirements of simplicity demand a regular and timely investigation of the sandwich I prepare for those around me.

I may not agree with you. Seldom do two people have a one to one agreement that support the absence or inclusion of parallel emotional and logical understanding. Most often people remain in relationship through unmet/met need or a conscious decision to achieve the 80% of objectives while settling or determining that the 20% had to suffer the consequence. We then have a propensity for compromise built into our fellowship. That realization challenges the construct or adherence to our faithful resolution of God’s Call upon our hearts and minds. For I no longer belong to myself for my reconciliation to God came with my debt having been paid for by Christ Jesus.

I seek something real, new if you so see it, but older than time. I want to live in accordance with the Will of God. Not simply to laugh about it at parties or walk in hypocrisy, but to stand without blame before God and Man. That is basically impossible for human achievement. Each day, though I have this mindset and the determined parameters associated with goal performance yet invariably find that it was just wishful thinking and spurious attempt. None of Christianity is within my ability to perform. The sooner I realize that foundation the greater my opportunity for surrender before God’s Throne and the subsequent miracle of His Spiritual power to accomplish those previously impossible blessings.

I am finding that men do not wish to see anyone reach these plateaus. For the mere sight of someone else eclipsing these heights presents the reality of our own compromise in worldliness. When I am faced with righteousness of another heart there is a moment when I too proclaim, “that cannot be true”. However, just as with my own acceptance of my frailty, the self-induced envy in the achievements of others through God’s Holy Spirit, threatens my Earthly man. Additionally, I am finding that those who knew the horrific man before each of us met Christ, often refuse to view each of us in new perspective. Refusing to acknowledge the transformative hand of God’s Spirit, Grace And salvation as they would lose their own refusal to face the now “possible” transformation of sin and forgiveness.

I forgive, but must live as if perfection is in fact possible. For God says that it is, even if that state is achieved upon attaining the presence of God. There is no path for me in the past I left behind. Therefore, there is no rational support for attendance to the arguments and the man I admit I once was but am no longer. What is in the rear view mirror must be forgotten in some sense but the joy of having been delivered from its horror retained. Yes, I am not ready to say that I may be presented before God, blameless, spotless and renewed. However, I never could claim that refinement as part or parcel of my own fleshly achievement. So, my faith in God’s righteousness compels me to announce that it will in fact occur at a time and place of His Choosing.

For those who refuse to let my transgressions disappear for whatever reason, especially those who believe it offers some relationship control to continue in unforgiveness. That is the burden of unforgiveness. It is no longer mine to pay nor the burden in my pack as I have asked and been offered that forgiveness by you for my past offenses. I pity your refusal to see the man God is recreating. For in that instant that you see what He has done and is doing in me, may in fact provide that same self review that sets you free from hell and death. In Jesus’ name I pray that you see and decide to forgive. It will be the greatest gift you can ever give yourself.