God Is Not Finished With Me Yet

Jeremiah 10:23

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

²³ I know, Lord,
that a man’s way of life is not his own;
no one who walks determines his own steps.

The other day some kids were taunting Katie through our back fence. I watched it from a point where the kids couldn’t see me. When one of them threw something at Katie and scared her, I remonstrated with them. They dashed away out of sight yelling back at me. I knew at the time that my approach was poorly chosen. What I should have said was something like the following.

“Hey guys, dogs are pretty stupid when they bark at somebody from behind a fence. I often feel that way, too. Katie doesn’t recognize you. She may even think you’re up to no good. If you owned that house, you might even want a dog to bark at somebody in your backyard whom you don’t know, especially if they were there with malice in the minds.”

This may even have earned their empathy. If not, we may still have parted as friends not antagonists. Hindsight is always 20/20. Jeremiah adds this prayer to his lament that we don’t walk the way we want to:

“Discipline me, Lord, but with justice—not in Your anger, or You will reduce me to nothing.”

Truly the Lord does discipline us but with far more grace than we ever deserve.

Thank You, Lord, for covering our erring steps with Your marvelous undeserved, forgiving grace.

Preacher, Cook, Blog

[i][ii]

Psalm 143:8

Good News Translation (GNT)

⁸ Remind me each morning of your constant love,
    for I put my trust in you.
My prayers go up to you;
    show me the way I should go.

I sat in the large congregation of people celebrating the life of Dr. Harold Fagal. As they told of how he had let his witness be known, first as a pastor and later as a professor, I decided that I should write down my thoughts about God and put them somewhere where others could read about them if they wanted to.

I created a file on my computer called simply Devotions, and my first entry was on January 26, 2011. I continued filing my thoughts and turning over and over in my mind how I might place them where others could see them if they chose to. People had spoken about blogs and how they could find things on a blog. I had no clue what a blog was, but that weird word stuck in my head.

Then I purchased the video Julie & Julia simply because my daughter’s name is Julia (and definitely not Julie). In the movie Julie created a blog where she entered her experiences of cooking each of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The blog gained lots of readers. Julie then published these blogs in a book. Julia Child was livid with anger; she felt that Julie was simply using her name to make money. I said to myself that if Julie could make a blog, so could I.

Between Julie and my own nagging head, I started to investigate blogs. I found there were lots of public blogs. Many of them cost a monthly fee, which I was not about to pay. Some of them were free, and Blogspot seemed to be a leader in the free group.

So on November 8, 2013, I posted my first blog, entitled Speaking Well, about a young soldier on duty in Germany who spoke the most abominable English I had ever heard but loved me into reconsidering Christianity after I had completely given up on it. I ended that blog with the prayer “Thank You, Lord, for your love that flowed through this soldier to me. May Your love flow through me to others!”

For seven years now I have written hundreds of devotions, and for well over five years I have posted some of them. I tend to be technologically challenged, and it still takes me a half hour or more to post a single blog, not counting the hour or two it takes me to think about it and write it down. I see that last year I only posted 13, about once a month! I can do better than that.

Father in Heaven, You remind me each morning of Your love for me; help me to express my appreciation to You more frequently.

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[i]Harold  Fagal http://ak-cache.legacy.net//legacy/images/cobrands/PE/photos/mugs-513521mg_20110109.jpgx?w=200&h=200&option=3&fc=fff

[ii] Julia Child http://cook.fnr.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/cook/editorial/blog/legacy/devour/2010/8/Julia-Child-The-French-Chef-588.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.616.462.suffix/1505357138862.jpeg

Cancer and Hope

[i]

Joshua 1:9

Good News Translation (GNT)

⁹ Remember that I have commanded you to be determined and confident! Do not be afraid or discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go.”

On Friday afternoon I spoke with my cardiologist. I had looked for my report from Parkview Hospital of my 3 weeks there during the first stage of my West Nile Virus (WNV) treatments. I had gotten them from the hospital on a CD, and I took a copy to him back in June last year. I hoped he might be able to lay his hand on it.

Of course he asked me why I needed it, and I told him I was planning to see an oncologist in Los Angeles about my prostate cancer (PC) growth. The oncologist wanted any lab reports, etc. that I had gotten recently. He asked me what I am doing currently, and I told him I was taking two hormone treatments. I told him that the oncologist in LA had an alternative treatment system that I wanted to investigate.

My cardiologist pointed out how well I am improving and healing from my WNV encounter. He insisted that I am in a lot less dangerous position now with PC than I was under the WNV. He pointed out how well I am currently. He urged me to follow the standard treatments used in medicine today and not to get lulled into some promises of alternative medicine. In his own optimistic way he urged me to “be determined and confident”, and not to “be afraid or discouraged”. He went on to tell me that he would see me in 10 years and then in 15 more years (then I would be 100).

Thank You, Lord, for Your encouragement and Your promise to be with me wherever I go! I am confident that You will do exactly that.

#CALIFORNIA, #SOCAL, #IE, #HEALTH, #CANCER, #PROSTATE, #PROSTATECANCER, #WNV, #WESTNILEVIRUS, #HOPE, #HORMONETREATMENT, #MEDICINE

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[i] https://www.24hrcares.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/this-picture-says-there-is-hope-for-prostate-cancer-because-of-the-blue-ribbon.jpg

All the World to be Taxed

Luke 2:1

King James Version (KJV)

2 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

This week congress passed the revised tax law for Americans. President Trump touts this as a great step forward for America in his goal of “making America great again.” He is, of course, totally unwilling to acknowledge that America became great initially when almost no American paid any income tax. He tells us confidently that everybody’s taxes will go down. His opponents point out that the taxes of the middle class will go up and that Social Security and Medicare will go down, giving me a double whammy! Secondly, I had over $2,500 tax wrested from my account a few days ago because I live in house in California. Furthermore, the California legislature is doing everything it possibly can to push that amount up to $10,000 and more.

The Old Testament predicted that our Lord and Savior would be born in Bethlehem. His father and mother, Joseph and Mary, were betrothed to be married and living in Nazareth in a different province of the Roman Empire that was several days’ walk from Bethlehem. Mary was “great with child.” Other Old Testament prophecies indicated that this was indeed the exact time Christ was to be born. 

God in His infinite wisdom knew that both evil angels and people (both Jews and Gentiles) eagerly awaiting this birth. He didn’t dare have the parents either married or living in Bethlehem lest they be destroyed before Christ was even born. So He had the great Augustus Caesar suddenly decide he wanted to know exactly how many subjects he had, who they were, and where they came from.

Only an absolute dictator could demand such from his subjects. He issued a decree that everyone should be taxed, in Greek ἀπογράφεσθαι, which looks to me like it means something like “written down.” Various English Bible translations render this as taxed, enrolled, registered, census taken, and even “names written down in a book[i].” This must have been the greatest data base every assembled in antiquity. Whatever it was, it was instrumental in getting the Joseph and his “espoused wife” to the right city at the right time while many others were also there so that Jesus had to be born in stable. Of course, to the watching universe, Jesus anonymity was shattered that very night by the visit of the shepherds.

Thank You, Lord God, that You are willing and able to “pull strings” to get Your will done even when it means going to the very top of earthly powers. I trust that You are willing to do this even today to prepare the world for Your Second Coming.

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[i] Worldwide English (New Testament) (WE) © 1969, 1971, 1996, 1998 by SOON Educational Publications

Unshakable Government

[i]

 [ii]

Hebrews 12:28

Good News Translation (GNT)

²⁸ Let us be thankful, then, because we receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him, with reverence and awe.

This past week Robert Mugabe, the world’s longest ruling dictator of 37 years, was deposed by a carefully orchestrated, bloodless coup d’etat.  Mugabe had emerged the victor in a bloody civil war that rocked the idyllic, prosperous, and peaceful Southern Rhodesia or just Rhodesia. Hundreds of innocent people were killed after the war by simply stepping on land mines that had been planted throughout the country.

Mugabe started a systematic genocide attempt on the Ndebele people who had put up the strongest resistance to his assuming leadership.  He methodically drove the successful white farmers out of the country and gave their farms to his favorite military generals who had no desire or skill to farm. The net result was that when he took office, the country was exporting food to the nations around: after his policies took effect, starvation overtook the country. The international community has had to step in and feed his people.

The pictures above show how he squandered the limited wealth of his country to build himself a mansion that rivals the mansions of European nobility and royalty. As the country ran out of money, he printed vast amounts of paper money until the Zimbabwe dollar became literally worthless.

[iii]

King Ndebele, a boyhood friend of mine, once wrote, “When the British were here, we had freedom but not independence. Now we have independence, but we don’t have freedom.”

As we see the steady erosion of our rights and freedoms in our own country, I appreciate more and more the promise that we will, in God’s own time, receive the “kingdom that cannot be shaken.”

 Let us indeed “be grateful and worship God in a way that will please Him, with reverence and awe.”

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[i] https://i2.wp.com/truthorfictioncom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/zim5.jpg

[ii] https://i0.wp.com/truthorfictioncom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/zim10.jpg

[iii] http://m.wsj.net/video/20150616/061615zimnote/061615zimnote_1280x720.jpg

God Does Speak to Us Directly

Habakkuk 2:2

King James Version (KJV)

² And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

For years I envied Abraham. When he wanted to know something he simply asked God and God answered him. That was simple enough! I wished God would answer me when I desperately needed to know which way to go. As time went by for me, I began to sense that in reality God wasn’t right there at Abraham’s beck and call. We only have record of three or four times when God actually spoke to Abraham. Abraham lived about 180 years, so on the average he received an answer from God about once every 45 years. And, of course, I have an advantage Abraham did not have: the sacred Scriptures that record God’s answers to others.

My wife, Sylvia, and I have been collecting letters we wrote from Africa over the years we were serving as missionaries there. The other day I ran across a letter I wrote on April 30, 1979. It addressed God’s response to an issue we had faced for over a year.

Soon after we married, we committed our lives to be missionaries to Africa. We enjoyed our work and stay in Africa and loved the people we worked with there. The issue at that time involved our furlough home to the U.S. coming due in 1979. Complications had arisen that were demanding our attention but were beyond our ability to solve. We asked the Lord to clearly indicate to us whether we should return to the U.S. permanently or return to Africa for another term. The Lord provided a double response in January that He clearly wanted us to permanently return to the U.S.

Sometimes the Lord has to hit me up the side of my head with a two-by-four to catch my attention. Both Sylvia and I wanted to remain in Africa, so we laid plans to continue to stay there. But this decision weighed very heavily on my mind. It seemed to me that I was ignoring God’s clear word, and I could gain no rest. Matters came to a head on Friday, April 27. That evening His response was as clear as if a voice spoke audibly to me. It said in the tone of absolute authority and gentle reproof, “I already told you!” I sensed I had been proceeding in a path of open rebellion to what God had personally revealed to me.

That is the closest I have ever come to sensing that God was speaking directly to me. I thank the Lord of heaven and earth for stooping to communicate with someone as insignificant as I. The other day as I read that 1979 letter to her, I asked Sylvia how she felt about our decision to return permanently to the U.S. at that time. She agreed with me that it has certainly been the best for us and our family.

Thank You, almighty Lord, Creator of our vast universe, for being sufficiently interested in each one of us to be willing to guide us when we really need You.

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http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/~/media/9b929b827b024a27bf5ec7ca1819f110.ashx?w=480&hash=408B149D5003DD49F949DF2C0E2F5032D03AFD51

WE PLAN--GOD DIRECTS

Proverbs 16:9

 King James Version (KJV)

⁹ A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.

Sylvia picked an eclipse atlas off of the coffee table the other day. “Are you going to use this again?” Her obsession these days is to throw away, give away, or otherwise dispose of any object I don’t absolutely have to have.

“No, I’ll probably never look at it again. You can put it in the giveaway box.”

We had planned to view the August 21 eclipse this past summer. We wanted to drive north into Idaho where the eclipse would have been very visible. Later we planned to drive with our son Fred into Oregon and view it there. I had bought the atlas to show us where the best viewing was to be.

Earlier we took a trip east to Tennessee to Sylvia’s family reunion. It had lasted the better part of six weeks, and we had seen a lot of friends besides her family. I was still recovering from the West Nile Virus, and by the time I reached home, I was exhausted. A number of the symptoms like bouts of extreme fatigue, balance impairment, and headaches had reared their ugly heads.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a rushed trip north with long drives and little sleep would just not be good for my weakened condition. So I bowed out as gracefully as I could. Instead I organized an eclipse party for our Better Than 50 Club so we could at least see the partial eclipse here.

I am still disappointed that I didn’t get to view the total eclipse, but I realize that it was the best for my health. I don’t want any recurrence of that awful disease.

Thank You, Lord directing my steps in the past. Help me to follow Your directions on a daily basis, too.