Tag Archives: truth

She Never Told Me

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I don’t like to write long posts.  With the flavor of society today, very few will read if they see a lot of words.  But it can’t be helped.  What I’m about to write is worth a volume as thick as “War and Peace”.

My mother was born to a wealthy family in New England.  She met a young cavalry man when she was 11 or 12.  One night the ladder went up, and she was gone.  They had eloped without a word. 

She never told me what happened afterward.  Surely there was a phone call or a letter.  But she never spoke of it.

I remember hearing once that her father disowned her.  His heart was broken.  His dreams of family crushed.  No grand babies to laugh with and hold.  No more smiles regarding his beautiful daughter.  But she never spoke of this.

The couple moved from state to state, rarely staying in one place for more than 6 months or a year.  By the time I was 7 years old we had moved from Rochester New York to Salem Oregon, living in almost every state between.

The majority of those seven years was spent in the backseat of a car.  But she never told me why.  She never apologize for the childhood that did not come.  And I don’t know why.

Her gallant young cavalry man turned out to be a vicious incestual Lord.  Drunk as often as he could be, he squandered his life in brutality.   The three daughters he had, knew him as far more than daddy.

The oldest one moved away and became a prostitute.  (She is long dead now, so I don’t mind telling you.)  The other two daughters married Canadians and moved away from the house as quickly as possible.

Her oldest son disowned her, because she was not a Jehovah’s Witness.  The other two daughters followed suit.  As soon as I could, I joined the airforce at 17, just to get away from the stench of our life.  Only my youngest brother remained.

The brutal man who gave us birth, developed an affection for a woman in the congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses.  When I was 12 my parents were divorced.

As a family, we lost it all.  And she never told me why.

I remember, in the days just after the divorce, a song came out regarding the dreams of an everyday housewife.  I remember her saying clearly, “I hate that song!”   But she never told me why.

She died in a nursing home, abandoned and alone.  The excitement of the ladder had turned to an entire life of horror.  And she never once told me why.

Had someone warned her of what was due to come she would not have believed them.  She would have laughed in their face with that little girl smile. 

Ripped from her family, by the lust of a girl, she encountered the beginnings of a horrible end.  But she never spoke of that moment.

By the time before she fell ill, she had married five other men.  I hated to call home, because I didn’t know who daddy might be.  And she never told me why.

Without knowing why, I mimicked her life.  Without planning, I followed her every step.  Women and drinking, drugs, willful abandon, and the life of poverty, belonged to me.  And she never told me why.

I do not write this to shame my mother.  All told, she was a good woman.  When I look back, and dismiss the difficult things,  what I find is an exemplary human being.  She did the very best she could with what she had.  But she never told me why we lacked so much.

I write this because I know there are so many out there who have done the same things.  Have you told your children why?

As I raised my family, sanity appeared.  One day I woke and vowed to break the chains.  I told my children of my own foolish ways.  I had found Christ Jesus, and truth began to flow.

What has happened as a result of my own foolish ways is yet to be told when I am dead.  I would tell you the result of my life of sin.  But I have caused enough suffering.  Why put it in writing and tear at the hearts more?

Have you told your children why? 

By His Grace

Spiritual Fashion

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The old man sits on his porch dressed, and covered with a white blanket draped around his body.  While it was yet dark he appeared.  No one saw him emerge. 

It is his habit to go to God early.  And the blanket has become this spiritual fashion of choice.

Cigar in hand, he ponders the things that man, rarely knows or senses.  So on the front porch, he sits as light begins to dawn.

Lost in a world invisible to men, he is not aware of approach.  Feet carry another; perceptions cross as two paths conjoin. 

One sees truth.  The other is lost in lie.  Nothing is spoken, yet God hears:

“Teach me ‘Great Sovereign One’ what is true, that I might serve You with faithfulness.  I beg You, let me become your desire.”

“What an odd excuse for a man.  May my future have mercy on me, that I may not become as he.”

As time moves quickly, they part present company.  Never again opportunity.  One has won.  The other has loss.

Enduring Consistency

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“Raw raw sis boom ba!
I belong! I belong!”

The proper exaltation for one who formerly was cast out.  It is not proper that this one should hate the inclusion.  But does that joy last?

The beaming smile of a young man as he gets his first car.  “I’m free!  I can go where I please!  Finally, I am a man!”  Not really, but don’t tell him yet.

Which is stronger, inclusion or the responsibilities that will surely come?

The joy of a child is dear, and held in high esteem by all who are mature.  If this is not so, then someone needs to explain to me why grandmas talk about babies incessantly.

The beaming smile of a middle aged woman; her face constantly glowing.  Though trials, terrors and difficulties have strewn across her path, she endures with excellent consistency. 

Such things are even marketable among men.  “There’s a lot of money in that there attitude.”   (properly voiced with cigar in mouth and scowl on face)

But wrongful pride in a young girl, who has been granted inclusion, is ugly.  And the rebellion of a young man stacks up in the courts of the land.  Our joy in them is dashed. 

And the beaming face of a middle aged woman, which is only apparent by means of cosmetic surgery, is no beauty at all; the cheap imitation of truth.  Kinda like some knock off version of Kool Aid; sour to the taste and despised by all.  “Back to the real stuff we go!”

If Christian joy is not sincere, it cannot be joy at all.  that special kind of hypocrisy that non-believers post prominently in neon signs.

We read the accounts of those who sang with boldness at the prospect torture and death.  No fictitious apparel can produce that kind of joy.  No provisional joy will endure in those circumstances.  “Ya either got it or you don’t.”

How do the exceptional remain exceptional?  How is it that they have kept their joy pure; unadulterated by pride and difficulty?

We find the answer in their perception.  The answer lay squarely in their expectations.  Those who endure to the end do not consider themselves as belonging because of any special trait they own.  They keep first in mind that they are included in something vastly larger and more desirable than themselves.

The young girl becomes the appealing woman mentioned above.  And the young man contributes greatly to the society that granted him his beloved freedom.  And the division between beauty and ridiculously ugly glares brilliantly.

With this answer something astounding appears.  Correction in our attitude is simply a matter of changing perspective.  “Becoming” is only a matter of being willing to understand the value of our place.  And never to allow that understanding to dissipate, or to become poluted with pride.

The engine of truth is relentless.  It drives through humanity without respect to the desires of any.  A man will either jump on board or get squished.

But if we embrace truth we retain the things that are beautiful.  We “become”.  We desire.  We learn to “do” with excellent consistency.

___________

Please don’t allow stupidity to interpret this message.  This is not a “how to” message.  It is not the preface to an impossibly thick manual on “becoming”.  It is more like a directional sign.  “Caution detour ahead”.

The true answer for any man is within him.  It is God Himself who directs.  If we don’t point to him, then we join with liars. 

“If the Lord does not build the house the builder builds in vain.”  If you want to be excellent, you have to go get it from him.  Therefore this message is far more a description than a “How to”.

If that disappoints you, then you’re the very reason I wrote this.

Fantasy is Fallacy

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If we want butter we are forced to go to the cow for its milk.

If we want metal we are forced to dig at the ground.

If we want rain we are forced to wait for the clouds.

If we yearn for day, in the darkness of night, we are forced to wait for the rising Sun.

If we want to learn we are forced to observe the things that are.

Fantasy gives birth to fantasy.  Lies give birth to lies.  Truth gives birth to truth.  And only God can give birth to what is godly.

Why do you look for godly righteousness in places where he is not?  Why do you search in your own heart for the things that God demands?

God is forever, never fails, and will never cease.  This is the nature of the righteousness you seek.  You do not possess it, nor can you create it.  It belongs exclusively to the Most High God in his Holy Son Christ Jesus.

Pride lies to itself and says,  “I will create what I do not have.  Then I will be perfectly acceptable and glorified.”

To the proud I say this:

“Make your own milk that you may have butter. 

Create your own ground that you may make metal. 

Go make your own sky and produce the clouds for rain.

Speak to the black universe and create your own Sun. 

Do these things, and vastly more, and it will be granted that you are righteous; able to save and sustain yourself.

But you observe what God has done and call it your own.  Let foolishness be what foolishness is.

Fantasy gives birth to fantasy. 

Lies give birth to lies. 

Truth gives birth to truth. 

And only God can grant what is God.

This Day, the Trembling Rabbit

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This day has never been.  And wicked men wake with fear.  Yesterday is now a testimony both for and against all men who lived it.  It is written in stone; unmovable and sure.

As men slept. their testimony of yesterday was rolled up as a scroll.  It was set in a place unreachable by the desire and hands of men.  It was set among the scrolls of all their yesterdays.  And the living God, himself alone. knows the place.

Men may remember small elements of yesterday.  But they are powerless to affect the testimony, either for good or for bad.  What remains in the hand of men is either regret or joy.

Left alone, regret is quickly covered up.  Perhaps a man drinks himself to oblivion to forget.  Perhaps he dresses his mind with the things he has learned to enjoy.  He says,  “I will cover my regret.  It is too much for me to bear.”

But regret is like a hungry wolf who walks beside you in the woods.  You hear the leaves rustle, just beyond your ability to see through the brush.  The snap of a tiny twig.  The brush of a branch against heavy fir.  The sound of heavy breathing as desire looks your way.  And if you could hear it, your ears would hear a drop of salivation strike the ground beneath his gaping mouth.  So it is with your regret which you hurry to mask as you wake from sleep.

If this is the case of yesterday, what will be today.  You will sleep tonight.  Will the morning see you scramble to cover today’s crop of regret?  Will you spend tomorrow trembling as you walk its path?

WHY?  Why do you live this way?  Why do you allow all your days to hunt you in the darkness?  Is it that you don’t know how to be released?  Is it that you have so well learned wickedness that you think it is normal?  Have you even come to the point where you attribute your own wicked ways to the living God and His holy son?  Do you say with confidence, “There is no way out!”

By this testimony you have no joy!  It is ripped away from the reach of your hand.  And you have ripped it away of your own volition.

How pathetic that men cover their regret with such trivial joy.  How sad that men should even know the word eternity.  How horrible the men should speak the word “joy”.

Black and dark are your days.  Hunted like some terror filled rabbit, you spend your day in useless trivia.  Ignoring the wolf does not quench his hunger for your blood.

Would you be free of this hideous cycle of hopeless behavior?  Or have you come to love the thrill of death?  Do you take joy in your useless life?

Have you heard of the gospel of Christ Jesus, the Holy Son of the living God?  I tell you a truth.  He can release you from your days as a victim of regret.  But the choice remains yours.

You may read the Bible.  You may listen to sermons.  You may witness people who live free of regret.  You may ask them and receive their answer.  But if you would join them you must do the things of God.

It is not enough to hear.  A blade of grass may shiver in its place from the sound waves of truth that shake its form.  Never the less, it is cut down by the gardener.  So it is with those who hear and do not do.

What is the urgency in your heart to be free of this cycle of death?  Go!  Go visit the holy and living words that can transform your very soul.  Force your blind eyes to read.  Then ask the living God for release.  And continue for the rest of your days doing these things.  This is the life that will bring you freedom.

Do you think he does not love you?  Is not this thought a product of your own wicked and unloving heart?  If God did not love you, would he have sent His Son to be murdered in your place?  Why would the Holy living God do such a foolish and wicked thing?

Release is!  The transformation from pathetic  rabbit to a godly joyous man is real!  Do not let your eyes look at others.  Many will testify that they have looked and found nothing.  How then can this man write these words?  Pay no attention to them.  They lie from the wickedness that is stored up in their own heart.

Regret comes to you because there are words describing joy.  People are clean and are free and you have seen them.  What will you give to join them?

Rise Up!

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In the hand of God most high, through the never ending strength of Christ, there are blessings.  His perfect will is laid out before him and he knows the extent.

To the salvation of men his will is bent.  The blood of his Son has sealed it.

He has called to men by the work of the cross.  Yet who has believed his words?

Who will rise up and use what has been given?  Who is willing to receive the fullness of God’s wise gift of faith?

Who we will be, at the revealing of his Holy Son, is yet to be seen.  But there is testimony among men as to what we can be now.

Who then will take what God offers?  Who will reach to his Holy hand to become?

We say we believe the message of the gospel.  But the weakness within us stops our feet at a certain place.  The darkness before us looms with ominous trouble.  So we cease our search for his will.

We say, “I dare not go further for I do not know the way.”  But has God not promised to lead us?

Each man stands where he does by the sum of what he has been.  But God calls us to be his desire.

This challenge goes out to all.  Who will take what God offers, by Holy wisdom, to all his servants?

Do you fear he will ask too much?  Do you fear he will not provide once you begin?  Of course you don’t.

That was the accusation against God by he who accuses, and you know you are not of his house.

Then be encouraged!  Be greatly encouraged!  For every drop of Holy Blood was the sealed promise of the Most High God!  We have been told, and come to believe, God cannot lie.