Category: Life

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Old Men and Their Junk

Rustic woodworking shop with various hand tools hanging on the wall and a workbench with jars and wood shavings

Old men love their stuff. It is gold to them but to others it is rust and dust. Coffee cans and peanut butter jars filled with assorted nuts, bolts, screws, and nails. A tube of hardened super glue he feels has another drop.

In the corner of his shed are several bird’s nests of bailing twine for when the world may end. On the shelf is a Dollar General yellar bag filled with strips of old Hanes t-shirts that are his go-to grease rags. There’s a row of nails with greasy baseball caps that a vagabond wouldn’t dare to wear.

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Don’t Allow Your Past to Destroy Your Future

Rusty metal chain breaking into pieces with sparks and glowing light

Many people allow their hurts, abuse, regret, sin, or disappointments to steal their joy and future. These words are not intended to downplay the difficulties you may have encountered. But we must realize there is absolutely nothing we can do to undo the past.

Too often we allow a never-ending replay loop to visit the problems of the past. At the end of the replay loop, there is no delete button. It is sad that so many people allow the past to mar their future.

All of us have choices of which we regret. “I wish I hadn’t done that!” or “I wish I would have made a better choice there!” There is nothing we can do to change the decision or the action of the past. That door is shut and cannot be opened.

Then there are so many who have suffered abuse for no fault of their own. They experience shame and guilt over something totally out of their control. It is like the enemy leaves an open sore that never seems to heal. These people need our compassion and the healing that only comes from Jesus.

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Pattern of Living

Man and child holding hands walking on a dirt path surrounded by autumn foliage

Sometimes, we hear people say, “Do as I say but don’t do as I do.” This quote is morphed from a warning of Jesus to His followers about the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, “Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do” (Matt. 23:3 NKJV).

We all have patterns of living. The habitual lifestyle of good or bad actions creates a pattern by which we are known. Others observe us subconsciously and purposefully. Those around us know us by our patterns. We are generally known by our lifestyle. It is not that people are judging us; they are only taking note of their observations.

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Tension: Strengthening by Two Forces

I have been thinking about the concept of tension for a few weeks. In the physical world, you need two opposing forces to have tension. Think of limp rope that is tied securely on one end to an object. It will remain limp until the other end is attached to another object and the slack pulled from the rope. In society and everyday life, people dislike tension in their lives. We gravitate to one side while despising the other end.

We grow stronger by having some tension in our lives. There is no need to look for trouble/tension because it has a way of finding us. We need to see the opportunity of becoming stronger when trouble comes.

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Jesus on the Cross

This week is Holy Week when we remember and declare Jesus Christ’s trial, crucifixion and resurrection. As we approach Good Friday and His crucifixion, I wanted to share the first chapter in my book, Journey of the Messiah — The Awakening. It describes not only the horror of the cross imagined from His perspective but also the ramification of His redemption to a lost world. Note: The book is written in the first person of Jesus, as if He is telling the story. It is from the author’s perspective and imagination.

Chapter 1: To the Cross, from the Cross

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV).

From the beginning, I knew My life as the Son of Man would come to this torturous end. It was the redemptive plan of God for man, before man was to be. This knowledge did not make My pain any less but added grief to My agony. The weight of the sinful guilt for man is a knife to My soul as the nails are to My flesh. I hang between heaven and earth, bridging the gap for all time and for all who come by faith to drink My blood and eat My flesh.

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The Tension of Balance

Imagine someone walking on a balance beam with a rope tied to each arm. On either side is someone holding the loose end of the rope. The two rope handlers’ job is not a tug-a-war but one of tension. The tension of the two opposing forces match each other to keep the person on the balance beam.

I have tried to apply balance to my life and encourage it in others. I have found that those who like to view themselves as radicals do not like the concept of balance. Balance sounds like compromise to the radical. I try to be very choosy on which mountains I am willing to die on; molehills are not mountains.

In our current world, everyone seems to be divided into two camps on many issues. Our country is divided into political, cultural, religious, and societal issues with very few clear balanced proposals. It seems that a line has been drawn in the sand and swords are drawn.

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Better and Faster Than Fiber Optic

Living out in the country has many benefits. I am a country boy at heart and in the flesh. I love not having my backyard joined to another. A big disadvantage since the dawn of high-speed internet is living out in the sticks. Our internet has been painfully slow. Hope is on the way, in about six weeks or so, gigabytes will arrive. We have fiber optic internet coming soon. WooHoo!

Some of the line workers have been in our area. Salesmen have been knocking on our doors and we have been saying, “Where can we sign!”

One of the line splicers was working in my yard today. Nice guy! Being the old man with a thousand questions, I was hindering his work like ole men tend to do. He showed me the single strain of the fiber optic. It is amazing the information and signals that can travel that little glass-like, hair-thin wire.

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Wars and Rumors of War

Wars are troubling and the rumors of war strike fear in the hearts of reasonable men. Jesus told four of his disciples as He sat on the Mount of Olives a few days before His crucifixion, “But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet” (Mark 13:7 NKJV).

In our broken and fallen world, war is easily predictable. Something was up when one of the first brothers, Cain, killed his brother Abel. The history of the world is more punctuated with wars as a long sentence is filled with commas.

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