Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here

I often ask myself why I continue to write stuff here. Is it to edify others? Or perhaps I write to give order to my jumbled thoughts. Or maybe it’s just cathartic to exorcise one’s inner demons in the presence of one’s peers. Whatever my true motivations, it should be clear that my writing must not be construed as any attempt to educate other human beings, except maybe to serve a cautionary tale.

I follow a lot of amazing people here on the interwebz… bright and charming souls brimming with intellect and charisma. Those I admire greatest are those who have a thirst for God and hunger for a greater understanding how to live practically in right relationship with him. While God is a respecter of no persons, I find myself in awe of quite a few people.

I am most fortunate to belong to the greatest church in the history of ever.  The leadership does not shy away from incendiary topics such as giving, sex, politics, responsibility, and accountability. The worship is professional caliber and, by design, crafted to lead us into a deeper communion with the Father.  Throughout most of the year there is a plethora of classes to equip us with greater spiritual tools to live in the full, authentic power of a spirit filled Christian.

At home I am the head of a nuclear family of an amazing wife and two sons who serve as daily object lessons of God’s own love for me.  On the left coast, I have three other object lessons to the consequences of exerting one’s own free will. They are my soul, none the less. They all keep my prayer life at a premium.

At the center of it all is Jesus. He accomplished it all so that I do not have to work harder for it, but simply believe in His finished work. Talk about a free pass. Obviously, I am not without responsibility, but it is a labor of love to serve a father who loves you more dearly than His own life.  There is no pressure to be perfect, and the river of true grace is deep and wide, and fresh daily.

Round Is A Shape…

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It’s amazing to me that a man who loves God so deeply can be so weighted by the chains of bondage. None of us are immune. From birth, the enemy is looking for a foothold (read stronghold) in our lives for the purpose of inhibiting our relationship with God…  just one little thing that we can be condemned for, even if only in our own minds.

Most of our struggles are obvious to us. We know what the source of our bondage is even if we feel powerless to stop it. Think unforgiveness. Other issues are more obfuscated, such as the bondage of addiction. An alcoholic may blame alcohol for his bondage, when his real struggle is an issue of idolatry (for example). Some areas of bondage appear, outwardly, to be completely counter to our experience. For example, a wealthy man can struggle with a spirit of poverty. Bondage, like a spirit of poverty can only be revealed by the Holy Spirit. Our natural minds can’t even fathom it.

As I contend for the health of my body, I am led to the spiritual elements that brought me here. Since moving to the SW some six years ago I have amassed a lot of extra weight. One can easily assess that my sedentary life style coupled with excessive caloric intake has led me to the inescapable conclusion that is my current condition. But a deeper look into into the “whys” reveal and underpinning truth that have struggled with a spirit of poverty, a spirit of rejection, and an orphan spirit.

It is a spirit of poverty that tells you that you never have enough. It tells you that you better eat what you can, because there won’t be any tomorrow. Let’s add to the mix a spirit of rejection, and an orphan spirit, and you have the unique little cocktail that makes up my spiritual condition. The spirit of rejection tells you that no one will accept you. You are not worthy of acceptance. A person in bondage to the spirit of rejection often goes out of their way to reject people before they, themselves, are rejected. It’s a defense mechanism. The orphan spirit is a little trickier. It would be real easy to pinpoint if I never had or met my own father. But I know my dad. I know where he lives. He left my mother, baby brother, and me when I was just four years old. My brother was a newborn. I remember him trying to explain to me why he was moving away, but I couldn’t grasp the permanence of it. As he drove off down our long dusty driveway, I chased his blue Chevy truck as fast as my little legs could run, until he was gone.

My formative years were fatherless for the most part. We had two or three occasions a year where we saw our dad. Each reunion reinforced further rejection. I was not dressed well enough. I did not  have noble enough character. I was a clown. There have been two or three occasions where my dad outright refused to acknowledge me at all. I am currently in the middle of just such a “daddy drought”. I am not aware of the reasons (as if reasons can be given), but I am persona non grata with the man who sired me into the world.

Being a Christian means becoming whole. Leastways if you’re doing it right, that’s what it means. I have a heavenly Father who not only does not reject me, but He created me the way I am. My many quirks and personality traits, are of His design. I have been given all the things that were previously withheld from me by my earthly father:  an identity. Acceptance. Love.  A purpose. An inheritance. I’ve also learned how to forgive. Forgiveness does not mean that my father wounds never happened, it simply means that I have given up my claim to hold my dad accountable for his wrongs against me which, in the end, benefits me greatly.

Having a relationship with a loving God, worshiping a risen Savior, forgiving, and being forgiven goes a long way towards restoration of one’s life, however until we’ve dealt with our areas of bondage, we can experience a variety of ground hog’s days of resurfacing issues. I say this not for your education, but to show you where I am at currently.  I try to eat, love, breathe, and have relationships all that I can have in one sitting in preparation for the drought ahead. My experience has told me this is what I can expect.

During my last fast, the Lord told me that He can’t call me into greater abundance because I have not yet learned how to deny myself. I countered, “but Lord, I don’t HAVE anything!” He said that He wont give me the things  I want as long I am trying to supply it for myself. What a revelation! Because I do not deny myself the things I want, God wont provide them! I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a life blessed of God than one insufficiently provided by my own hands.

As if to emphasize this, a Facebook friend of mine posted this on her page:

“A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough today to last him for the next 6 months, nor can he inhale sufficient air into his lungs with one breath to sustain life for a week to come. We are permitted to draw upon God’s store of grace from day to day as we need it.” – D. L. Moody

Abundancy

Powerful is the little finger that one gets wrapped around. Every connection is meaningful. Intimate.

I am shelling pistachios on my chest and staring into his wide, dark brown eyes. He is faithful to feed me one in ten. The significance of this is not lost on me. The continuous and steady flow of shelled snacks hits a peak where I am feasting on one of every three, and between each one I am given a hug and/or kiss. This would be more significant to you if you knew what an act of divinity it is that this child stop for anything, let alone anything so inconsequential as his own father.

To say that my son is proof of God, would be to deny the esteem in which God holds me. It would be more accurate to say that he is proof that God loves me. Every touch, look, and interaction is an intimate connection bonding us ever tighter.

He has his mother in him. His sleepy eyes. His pink lips. The contour of his ears. The way he pretends not to hear me, or rolls his eyes when I speak.

Today we begin our day at the table.  Me with my coffee and laptop. He with his own laptop, a sippy cup of milk, and scrambled eggs. After breakfast we moved on to picking up all of the refrigerator magnets from the floor, and consolidated his building blocks into one box. We sit opposite each other with our legs spread out to form a lopsided diamond,  but moment by moment and inch by inch he moves closer and closer until he is sitting between my legs, and our architecture is erected before us. First a castle with hits many turrets, then a single, giant spire containing every single piece from the set. That is until Mothra destroyed it like Tokyo. He is his daddy’s son, too, after all.

Nothing more profound than this. Just really love being a dad.

Painful Lessons Are The Best!

I’m heading north on I35 at a casual warp 4, blaring some classic rock and singing at the top of my lungs. “Rocket man! Burning out his fuse up here alone!”

Once a month I have to make the trek up north with my step son so he can visit his father. The drive is mundane and featureless, and if the truth be known, I detest the trip outright. In order to combat the tedium I put myself in auto-pilot by cranking up the music, and locking the cruise control at 80. I’ve done this every month for five yeas without incident.

I am startled out of my driver’s coma by the sight of brake lights directly in front of me. Seeing no one in the other lane, I swerve over in hopes to maintain speed and direction with minimal mental intrusion. I don’t even see it til I am passing it: A patrol car. Its occupant staring at me while quickly strapping his seat belt across his shoulders. I’m hosed.

Pleasantries over, I merge back into traffic, the proud new owner of a speeding ticket for $209. And just in time for Christmas, too! Of course I’m steaming about it. Me and many traffic laws just don’t see eye to eye.

I’m a bible believing Christian. I am a total Jesus freak and I believe that the bible is the unerring word of God Himself. If I ever find myself in opposition to any tenet I assume that the error is mine and adjust my thinking accordingly. I say all this in preface to a longstanding disagreement to the interpretation of Romans 13:1

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. – NASB

I won’t go into my argument, but I assure you that it is well thought out and even Supreme Court lawyers couldn’t refute my logic (I’m just that good). Suffice it to say, I have continued on in my observance of the scripture based on my interpretation for many years.

Lately, I have been really pursuing God’s heart for my life. I am serving at my church and beyond. I am taking continuing educational classes to better enhance my knowledge and love of my Father in heaven. Whatever else is said of me, I hope that the most oft repeated phrase is, “He loved God”.

On my return trip from the purgatory that is Oklahoma, I found myself in conversation with God. “Since I have your attention”, He begins. “All your logic and reason for civil disobedience ignores one glaring fact. You disobey ME.”

“Forget your contentions with safety laws and those who enforce  them (I am well aware of your complaints). You disobey ME. How can I trust you to be obedient in greater things when you won’t be obedient in smaller things?”

I would have fallen to my face and immediately repented right there if it weren’t for the whole new set of traffic laws I’d be breaking. It was all so much clearer to me. This heart issue was not about me and my long standing feud with the law, but about my willingness to be obedient because it pleased my God.

I made a vow right then and there, that I would be a traffic law obeying driver from here on out.  I may have to sell something to pay for this ticket, but I built an altar in my heart at that moment. I sacrificed my reasonings, my lofty arguments, and vain imaginings on that altar to invest in something pleasing to my God. I want to be trusted. I want to be used of God for greater things. $209 for a heart change and happy Father? Yes, please!

What Are Your Credentials?

I’ve been asking myself lately, what possible reason should someone listen to me in regards to their eternal souls. What credentials do I lend that might qualify me to speak into a person’s spiritual life in the name  of an almighty God?

I have many friends who are doctors and masters in their various fields. Their education and titles give them varying degrees of credibility and authority to officially have something to say on pretty much every subject.  One particular friend of mine is a doctor in human sexuality and I trust his opinion absolutely regarding issues of faith. Perhaps it’s not the title that commands my respect, but without having a personal relationship with him I can garner from his degree or title alone that he is a man who knows a thing or two about a thing or two.

So who am I that you should listen to me? I’ll tell you why: I got a G.E.D. and a give ‘em hell attitude.

Okay, I might have a little bit more than that. I have a baker’s dozen years in working out my salvation with fear and trembling. I also have a metric crap ton of experience of dealing with the dark side of the force. To paraphrase John Wimber, when I was serving the devil I got to do all the devil’s things. I lied, cheated, stole, played with the occult, and convinced others into doing same. Once I got saved, I now get to do God’s things. That includes healing people, reaching the lost, resurrecting the dead (haven’t done that one yet), and casting out demons.

Unlike wisdom, experience doesn’t always take a lot of time to attain. Because of my past, I brought to the table a great deal of knowledge about spiritual warfare that the average baby Christian didn’t have.  I knew that the satanic bible is a joke, but ouija boards are bad juju. I knew that drinking blood does not a vampire make, but spiritual ties are formed from the sharing of bodily fluids. I also surrounded myself with wizened veterans empowered by the Holy Spirit to help temper my knowledge with wisdom.

Picture, if you will, the many gifted leaders in AA, NA, and other such groups. These people do not necessarily have a masters in human behavior and psychology that guide them when reaching an addict. They were once addicts themselves. They’ve been there. They know where you are, where you been, and more importantly, where you are going.

Too many times I have seen people with a real heart to reach people, but they get caught up in their lack of credentials, believing themselves to be without sufficient authority to speak effectively into other people’s lives.  It seems to me that the best person to speak about good marriages is the person who has been in a bad one. The best person to speak on moral purity is the guy who struggled with a porn addiction. The right person to speak on good parenting is the person who came from a dysfunctional, single parent home.

Time and time again we see that people treat their past as if they carry an infectious disease. “I used to go to strip clubs, so how can I lead a small group for young couples?” or “I’ve been married four times. Why would anyone listen to my take on the sanctity of marriage?”

The truth is that everyone’s past is littered with a history of sin and bondage issues. If you have been delivered from these ties, those past areas of bondage are not infection at all.  They are battle scars. These are your credentials. It is by your overcoming of these obstacles that you have something valuable to say. Listen to God and say it with authority.

Cookies In Hell

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They say that with age comes wisdom. Trite little phrase isn’t it? You might as well say “the more you do, the more you know.” Well, thanks for that little nugget, Einstein. As one gets older, as one is certainly prone to do, wisdom is an inevitable by product of having lived. Don’t get me wrong, there are varying degrees of wisdom, but even a 70 year old raised by wolves knows a thing or two about the world that surrounds him that would baffle the most learned scholars. With pain comes wisdom. Mistakes, miscalculations, errors in judgment, failure, all lead to wisdom. And unless God is tapping you on the shoulder and making you king of Israel, wisdom will not be had by osmosis due to chronology. It is with this idea in mind that I write this blog.

As an atheist I debated with Christians and won. As a born again Christian I debated with atheists and won. I rarely lose an argument that’s based purely on reason, logic, and/or personal experience. The reason I defeated so many Christians is because so many Christians fail to read their bible. Most really do not even know what they believe. When I was saved some dozen years ago, I immersed myself in the study of my bible and every apologetic and Christian work I could get my hands on. I could not be persuaded into the kingdom of heaven by the words of men, but I had a very real encounter with Jesus and there was nothing religious about it.

Just like when you fall in love, you become a student of every aspect of your heart’s desire.  The same applies to a new love in Jesus. You want to know more. You want to know what He likes, what He dislikes, what causes Him to shout for joy, and what causes Him to chase the enemy down with flaming sword in hand.

So later, when I debated atheists, I was armed with knowledge and experience that could not be contested. And this is where knowledge and wisdom diverge. I was plenty smart enough with sound and logical arguments to defeat my foes, and thusly the foes of Jesus, but did I really win anything at all? Was one soul won for heaven? Were these foes of God really His foes at all? All that earlier reading and study of Jesus promptly discarded just so I could engage in a fight.

Jesus said to love our enemies. Jesus told us we are in a war, but that tends to be where we stop reading. If we bother to read on, Jesus also tells us how to fight. I won these arguments and lost friendships. I stood on heaps of defeated foes…. who looked alarmingly like God’s own children. The tools I once used to serve hell were now being used to serve hell in a whole new way. I am ashamed of myself.  I do not walk in shame, because I am free from all of that, but I am acknowledging a fundamental failure to let wisdom dictate what I knew. We are in a war and we are called to fight. But my job isn’t to fight God’s enemies, it is to fight the fight using the weapons Jesus has given me to fight with.

For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 6:12 (NLT)

I am not defeating hell by punching an atheist in the neck. In fact I probably just served to add one more to hell’s occupancy. Using my clever intellect to subjugate, humiliate, and defeat people in debate is the exact same thing. If you are like me, you have this fire in your heart and you want to kick a little satanic butt. Knowledge tells us that if you remove a person’s heart he is defeated, but (biblical)wisdom tells us that you defeat your enemies by making them your friend. I can better serve God and defeat the fires of hell by baking chocolate chip cookies for a rival than I can shooting him in the face.  A wise friend of mine said this: Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is knowing that you don’t put one in a fruit salad.

Tossed About Madly…

I’ve been pondering a lot lately. Wh0 am I really? What am I? I mean other than the biological facts that make up my physiology, who the hell am I? I’ve always had this image of myself as this semi-edgy, “rebel without a cause” kinda guy, with a quirky outlook on life and a stunning intellect. I think however, as I look deeper, that  what I am is a hodgepodge of half stolen characteristics that I once admired about other individuals.

What I would like to believe is that I am what I want to be, but that is more wishful thinking than based on any fact. It could be rightly judged that I am a product of my upbringing. Mediocre parents without any dreams at all who discouraged dreaming of any sort. Just put your head down and work real hard, get married, start a family, and he who dies with the most toys wins.  Of course I always zigged when everyone else zagged. I thought that it made me me an individual… that it gave me character.

I shunned the “wisdom” of my parents at great peril to my future self. Without any real dream of my own, and without knowledge of my destiny, I “zigged” myself into middle adulthood without the finances or tools to properly provide for, or lead the family I created. I am a ship without sails tossed about on a turbulent sea of my own making. Make that a half-finished ship.

I’ve always been impatient. I have always avoided being tested. I never felt the need to submit to a trial by fire.  However fire does not require your permission or willingness to submit to it.  So here I find myself, unfinished and undefined by anyone but my Creator. Whatever that identity is, it is still a closely guarded secret for now. I am tired of being a poser, but don’t yet know who I am. With probably more years behind me than ahead of me, if I don’t find my identity soon, others will choose it for me after I have passed. Perhaps that’s the way of it. We are what others say about us. Just seems so disappointing to me.

Divided We Stand

I don’t know how to pursue my wife. I’m not bragging or proud, just stating a fact. From our beginnings, there was never any courtship or exchange of loving warm fuzzies. Ours was an act of happy obedience to a seeming arranged marriage.

Before Sara, I was in a sinful relationship with what I believed was the love of my life. Everything perfect with a couple glaring exceptions: She was 19 and I was 35 (it seemed less creepy at the time). She knew it could never be, but I wanted to keep her forever.

As the relationship drew to its inevitable conclusion, my heart was destroyed. Even though I was saved I was unable to reconcile my heart for this young woman in the face of what I knew was a fully developed and deadly soul tie. I hurt so bad that I cried out to God in what I believed was my final attempt at salvation (not the eternal kind).

God heard me. And just like for Abraham, Sara appeared as my metaphoric ram to save me from doing any further harm to myself. She said she was told by God that she was going to marry me. Feeling that this was perhaps the closest thing to a real intervention, I prayed and submitted to marry this woman that I loved because I believed God said that I should.

We are opposites, Sara and me, and we don’t really attract. She is a homebody content with simple pleasures of children, homemaking, top 40 music(gag), reality TV (double gag), and a love of traditional values of church and Sunday dinner. I am a live out loud, everything must be epic, counter culture music loving, competitive, aggressive, show me the miracles, adventurer from the west.

This union had to be a work of God because there was simply no amount of justification for our relationship to exist. And while we heard the words correctly, we were probably off on the timing. I was still not healed from my broken relationship, and Sara had her own baggage. Still, we knuckled down and continued on the promise that God was in it.

Last month was our six year anniversary.  While not as passionate as we would both like, it is not a loveless marriage. There is plenty of sacrifice on both sides. In my estimation the best adjective to describe our marriage is “sturdy”. We have our fair share of blowouts, hurt feelings, and misunderstandings, and the bedroom is probably best known for the two semi corpses that inhabit the polar extremes of our king sized bed, but the relationship isn’t “terrible”.

Recently, Sara and I have had the opportunity to attend some of the freedom ministry courses offered by our church. We both feel that these have invigorated our sense of purpose, and gotten us excited about our future. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t think there is a greater aphrodisiac than  a spirit filled relationship. Just as the night was looking to be one of great intimacy, it came screeching to a halt when Sara told me that she lost her desire for intimacy when she starting feeling that she was not being pursued.

Huh?

But I never did pursue her. She told me that God said we should marry. I said “okay”. We married. Now she wants to be pursued, and I have no basis for it. Without God, I never would have chosen this woman. I obediently love her and try to daily “die to self” for her, but I fall short in the “pursuit” department.

Unlike the majority of my gender-folk, I’m not a hyper sexual person. An ex-girlfriend of mine called me a sexual camel. Once or twice a month is all I need. For the longest time, I believed this statement to be true, until I recently stared into the rear view mirror of past relationships and found one instance where this was simply not true.  In this one relationship, listed above, we could not get enough of each other. Physical intimacy was only a part of the intimacy we shared all day long via text messages, online chat, and regular dates. We talked and talked for days and she had a direct line to my libido that had previously been unknown to even me. I am attracted to super intelligence. I love having my mind stimulated. Win my mind and you can have my body. That sort of thing.

Now, I have to confess that I was not always a child of God. Most of the relationships I have been in were outside of any relationship to Jesus. The two exceptions are the sinful relationship listed above, and my wife.  It’s sickens me to think that I have one whirlwind romance of love, passion, and pursuit, but completely outside of God’s will, and I have this other, God ordained, union of mutual respect, honor, self sacrifice, without much intimacy, and no pursuit at all. How can I take all that was right about one relationship and apply it to a relationship that is righteous?

I have a lot to learn about relationships. I have much to learn about my own wife.  I know that what God has joined by His wisdom should not be separated by my ignorance.  I must choose to be a student of all things “Sara”. I need to die to self and die some more. That which I want for myself can only be gained by investing everything I have in she who can give it. And so the adventure continues.

The Relationship Doctor Is [IN]

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A friend of mine once commented that I was wise in the ways of relationships because I chose to stay clear of women during the darker chapters of my life, knowing full well that I was in no position to better anyone’s life while I was nursing a bad heartbreak. I laughed at that. The truth is my past  is peppered with many a time I’d been all too willing to gather passengers on my little ocean liner of love as I sailed effortlessly into the largest iceberg I could find.

I’m sorry to say that pain is the greatest teacher.  The stories of my past loves play out more like a slasher film than a RomCom. Myself, the seemingly masochistic protagonist.  Lessons unlearned from history came screaming in like a bad cliche` to repeat themselves, even if at a slightly higher cost than the last time. This would be my bad medicine.  Maybe it didn’t kill me, but did it really make me stronger?

I think the real question is am I even the same person? It’s as if I needed to be completely rebuilt from scratch.  The old model, now obsolete, had taken one too many for the team, and now a new incarnation was required to carry on the family name. Jesus, in John 12:24 says that a seed must fall to the earth and die before it can grow and be fruitful.  Of course was speaking about us and our need to die to all of these bad ideas and unhealthy priorities, and be remade anew in an image more akin to His own.

As we get older, and hopefully wiser, God uses a scalpel to correct any minor areas that keep us from a fruitful relationship. By then you will have probably died once or twice to some bad thinking. But if you find yourself doing the same thing you’ve always done and getting the same messed up results, God has another tool he uses to fix us. It’s an an axe. I won’t lie to you;  It’s going to hurt a little. He has to kill you, after all. But don’t worry about that. Dying is the easy part. Coming back, reborn and made anew… well, that’s the real challenge. It just doesn’t hurt as much, and who can’t live with that?

Oh The Blood… Not A Vampire Story (anymore)

Blood. The very word evokes images ranging from the metaphorical to the metaphysical. Blood is the base element of life. The lack of blood is the very definition of death. Bad blood can pass disease and every manner of sickness, while good blood can cleanse, heal, and restore. To me the most fascinating aspect of blood is it connection to both the physical and the spiritual.

While I was in college, my girlfriend and I were practicing sanguinarians. Sometimes, when we were having sex, we would cut into each other’s flesh and drink the other person’s blood. The draw was not in the salty, metallic flavor, but in the deeper spiritual connection we shared with each other. Sex, by itself is facile at best. After all, it is pretty much the same with one person as it is with another. But if you really wanted to experience another person to their core, well bloodletting was the thing to get that done. At least for a little while.

The blood of mortal man (and woman) is potent. It is powerful. But it isn’t omnipotent. There is always a lack. While it is true you can have a deeper communion with your partner, it is also true that you take upon yourself (and within yourself) things that your mortal coil was never designed  to bear. This becomes particularly magnified for those who experience a transformational metamorphosis in a new relationship with Christ.

For the sanguinarian, there is a decided alchemical experience that takes place when the holy blood of Jesus is first introduced to physical and spiritual nervous systems. Firstly, the death and disease of one’s own blood comes under subjugation of Christ’s blood within you. The sin and soul ties that cling to you with cancerous tendrils, release their grasp and await a strong wind (Holy Spirit) to blow them free. The interesting aspect of this transformation is that the blood of Jesus quenches the thirst and desire for any blood not of Jesus Himself. How can one go from the pure crisp taste of fresh, glacial mountain water to the putrid waste water of a pothole filled with every vile contaminant?

The blood of Jesus within us is permanent, but it will lack its power to subjugate if it is not continuously refreshed within in. Constant attention is required to keep our flesh and spirit from getting murky. The bible is called “the bread of life”. It is true that all things consumed are carried by the blood to sustain our lives. Nothing is more true of the bible. Life is found there.

More later.