sight

Sound

Taste

Smell

Emotional

Atmospheric

Anything can bring association between the now and what was. It’s sudden and it’s strong.

Those terrible memories you have about terrible things you have done, why are they the ones who are predominant in such memory recollection? Surely you have a great many pleasant memories. But your appearance of accusation is the first choice in associative recollection.

Let’s give it 50-50. Let’s allow that you have 50% bad and 50% good memories. (I know that’s a massive stretch). But it seems the bad memories come up far more often; the accusations fly from the past, and we have to look hard to see the joy. WHY?

Ponder that hard.

There is an answer. The truthful answer comes from Christ. It’s like one of those impossible puzzles, you’ll never figure it out until you really study the solution. Christ Jesus is the solution. 

What is this spine that I wear on my back?
It’s not the one I was born with.

This spine is tempered steel .
“ I can’t live in a fire to temper my spine!”.

What is the strength of it?
What does this do that bones cannot?

Let’s take a look:

Why am I sitting here full of peace?
I look at the blazing aura of chaos I live in.

Full of bad choices, only responding to ducking and weaving.

So how am I at peace?

This is a hand of God!
This is where I can see Him!

This is how I can personally know his salvation is upon me, regardless my personal value!

Christ! Christ! Christ!

Is my transformed spine.
To give me peace in the pit of despair.

If you never feel tempted by the devil, it can only mean a couple of things. Either you have no moral compass so your conscience doesn’t bother you at all or you’re so in league with the devil you think everything he and you do is right (and not even you, let alone others, has the right to confront you).

On the other hand, if you were deeply bothered by your own desires in mind, tempted all the time, horribly regretful for the things that you do you know aren’t right, you’re being called by God. He has determined you belong to him which sets your world in a dead man Warzone.

Everybody wants God to bless them. If a mass murderer were given a slice of sanity, he too would ask God to bless his hand! Think about it.

The problem is when we get blessed in some earthly fashion having been on the bottom, nothing more than a walking pile of Dung, we lose something incredibly precious when we receive what we call a blessing.

What could we lose that’s worth more than all the riches in the world combined? We lose our God blessed position of suffering in this world for his namesake. Now we’re happy but is that a happiness that could compete with the happiness a person finds in Jesus while in their lowest times? Isn’t the fragrance of Thanksgiving in times of need far more suitable for God‘s throne?

Let every person do as they see fit in all of this. Let the glory of God in grace be forever brilliantly explosive. Everyone will receive the truth. (Be careful what you wish for. Let God grant us the sanity to see the difference).

At the bottom (a pallet sized hole in the ground, reaching to the surface far above my head) is an absolute desolation that does not come from man.

I wonder how many have actually been here and got out. Then the answer comes down the tiny little stream next to me, as many as I have called, as many as I have chosen, as many as love me more than all this.

The child of God in Christ knows from the depths of his soul that the place where he stands right now is closer to God than anywhere else he can stand! “ I am nothing. You are all”.

The latest Lord’s , teaching to me:

Accept everything that IS. Do not let it change you in the slightest. Be at peace and full of joy, no matter what kind of circumstance arrives. Not just as a public veneer, but as a true joyful heart to encounter what is thrown in my face.

You lift your joy just like you do your arm; it’s a conscious choice. That kind of joy is not subject to gravity, like your arm.