Emergency instructions

  We have all flown on commercial airlines. Well, at least most of us have, perhaps many times even. Remember those instructions the stewardess, oops forgot my political correctness, um flight attendant, would give out at the beginning of the flight?

  The review would include where the escape hatches were. What to do in case of smoke entering the cabin. How to disarm a devout muslim (no need to worry about the backslidden ones! Aww c'mon its a joke right?). Water landing instuctions. The seat bottom doubles as a floatation device. You remember them, right? Me neither.

  Turns out, we don't pay attention too well to things we don't think will happen.

  Today I listened to a show and the lady spoke about one of those instructions. She had been in a destructive relationship and kept trying to "fix" the dude. Want to know the instruction that helped her?

  If the cabin loses pressure, or smoke fills the plane, air masks will fall from the ceiling. Place the mask over your face then wrap the straps around your head. (Here is the important bit) If you are taking care of someone who will need your assistance putting on their mask, put yours on first then put theirs on.

  Understand this, you must be in safety before you can rescue someone else. If not, you both might not make it.
  I could spin this into a great metaphor for our Christian life, but you have already thought of an application that works for you. Follow the safety instructions dear friend. Another emergency is likely to happen again.

Count em up

  Remember the childrens song, "Count your blessings, name them one by one"?

  I am just sitting here marveling at the great mercy God has given in my live. A little over one and a half years ago I thought my life was over, friends would be gone, and my family would have disowned me.

  Sure there are those "friends" who are no longer my friends. And, there are family members who have no idea what to think and thus might choose to remain upset. But my life, it has never ever been this good.

  Today I have a loving relationship with God. I think about spending time with him in the same terms I think about spending time with my bride. I imagine a lifelong romance with my creator.

Let me explore this thought a bit. Do a lil' compairing. 

  My bride is a gorgeous woman. She has captivated my thoughts as well as my eyes. I daydream about her often. I know that I know her but a little. My desire is to know her more and more with each passing day. When she smiles my heart blossoms. When her eyes twinkle at me I almost faint. Ohh baby!

  I have been asking God what I could do to develope the same "practical" love for him. I see my wife's beauty and I adore her, in what sense can I have this towards God? What is the equivalent to holding hands with my bride? Can I hold hands with God?

  I really would like to know what this should look like. I look out and God's creation and I see magnificent beauty, but that isn't Him. Just like I see my wife's beauty, but that isn't her. I want to know the genuine beauty, that alluring love that God created. 

  How is God's love for me supposed to be similar to my love for my bride?

  Jesus commands me to submit to my wife and sacrifice myself for her. Pour out my life for her. He says my prayers will be hindered if I fail to do this. Yikes, I don't want hindered prayers! I am to love her as Christ loves the church. Christ loved me BEFORE I loved him. Radical! What a great love he gave. I must try and give this love towards my bride even when she doesn't love me back. But, God will always love me back. 

  Back to the idea of spending time with God. I am a romantic. I like waterfalls, flowers, sunsets, all that gooey stuff. I like having my wife next to me in those romantic times. How can I create a romance between me and God.

  I am not trying to be weird here. I simply want romance with God. To be enamored with Him. Maybe I should write Him a poem or psalm. Perhaps I should take Him on a walk. We could enjoy a sunset together. Now I am getting the picture! Take God with me wherever I go, but specifically, take him places I want to take my wife.

  I got off the target of talking about blessings. I really needed to express myself about romance. I gotta go find a beach, lake, or stream, and take God on a nice walk. Spend the time just talking with Him. Ask Him what things please Him. Then ask Him where we should go on our next date. I am sure He has some wonderful ideas.

 

Bad teeth and sour grapes

Ezekiel 18:2 - "What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are on edge?"

  The idea that God is getting across is that my basic desire to blame others (specifically parents) has to be stopped. Until I take responsibility, no progress in my relationship to God will be found. Tough words indeed!

  But does it make sense? I mean, obviously the decisions made by the parents will have a factor in what happens to the kid. If the dad is mean, lazy, isolationist, lying, sexually immoral, etc..., wouldn't it make sense his child would be as well? I would think so.
  Here is the thing to take notice of, the children in this chapter (Ez 18) are having communication with God. In this world many things that we do can be traced back to our upbringing. God understands that. He says that the Gentiles are a law unto themselves. Hence, if you were born a Gentile, you would not know the Law of God. But God gives you the law on your heart and then you must choose to obey.

  So then, when we start communicating with God, He is the perfect judge. He knows when we do things by our invisible upbringing or when we do them by rebellion. To rebel against what we know is right is sin. 

  We may look at our employment, education, housing, car, habits, etc..., and think, "My parents are to blame". Blame for what? Not having as nice of things as I think I should.

  Were we commanded to worry about what we wear, what we eat, or where we live? Just checking. 

  Let us use the perfect example. Jesus. His father was The Father. He came into our world, not by demand, but by choice. Jesus lived a much rougher life than mine. Then, out of his own volition, died on the cross. At that very moment the payment for every sin ever committed was paid for. That is really taking the sour grapes thing to the extreem! Jesus really did have to pay for what everyone else did. The payment was huge.

  Did Jesus complain during any of this? Was he bitter that this was going to happen?

  I am not saying we should imitate Jesus and sacrifice ourselves. Sometimes we should, but that's not the point of this blog.

  The point is, when we start communicating with God, He holds us accountable for our actions. We better get this correct here and now, for the Bible teaches that we store up judgement for the day of wrath. Sort of an unholy savings account, each sin is a new deposit and we sure like to save up those points! Stop saving up wrath dear friend. Jesus paid it all.

  So, mom and dad, I guess I should stop blaming you. You likely blame yourself enough for the both of us. My life is what I have made it. My choices, my problems.

  Today I choose to follow God. He promises that if I will give my life to him, he will take good care of it. I will never be alone and I will have nothing I need to worry about. That's an awesome promise!

Picking at wounds

  Why is it in my life I like to scratch at my fresh wounds? I am often obsessed with picking at my scabs, not just in a figurative way.

  The real scabs I would receive from my adventures in childhood were lots of fun to pick at. Heck, I still do! My mom would tell me things like, "Stop picking at them, if you don't you will get scars". Boys love scars. Chicks dig them!

  This reminds me of that old elementary school joke. The one with the little girl eating corn flakes only to have her little brother ask if she had seen his scab collection he had misplaced.

  I need to stop being gross in these blogs. Everyone will stop reading them. Guess my humor is twisted!

  Back to the concept at hand.

  When wounded emotionaly or spiritualy, I tend to take a sadistic pleasure in picking at my wounds. I play the scenario over and over again. It is as if I enjoy revelling in the pain.

  This happens worst when I get into a depressive cycle. One of the hallmarks of depression is thinking only in absolutes. "Things will NEVER get better". "I ALWAYS mess up". "Never" and "Always" thinking is a sure sign that I am slipping into a funk. Then begins the picking of the scabs.

  What can be done about it? When I catch myself getting into thinking only in absolutes, I must remember that God is the only unchanging absolute. He never changes. His love for me is as full and bright today as it ever was in the past.

  The opposite of depression is called "manic". I am a somewhat depressive but not so much a manic. But I would like to throw in a thought about mania that I relate to.

  A sure sign of mania is thinking only in grandeous thoughts. "I will ALWAYS be doing this good". "I am the BEST". "Failure will NEVER happen again". Notice the similarity to depression? They are polar opposites, hence the term "Bi-polar". They used to be called manic depressives.

  I relate to mania and depression. I don't swing into the extreems that a bi-polar will, but I have the tendency to think great thoughts sometimes and horrible thoughts at others.

  Let me bring it back around to the scab picking. I tend to either pick at my wounds and think that healing won't happen OR I see my scars and think that I will never be wounded again. Neither are true.

  I hope this makes sense. I don't think I will ever be able to write in a way you can understand. Then again, I think I write better than anybody. Oh no, there I go again!

   I am going to eat a bowl of cornflakes and try and figure this out. I don't have a little brother, I should be fine.  

 

Bad singing in church

Here's a singer that should make you feel better if you don't think you sing well. I just hope the video has been dubbed over or was just a guy making a silly video, cause I mean like really! Oh well, have fun and smile. This should be a ring tone!

Anger management

  A good friend and I were discussing the finer points of being angry. The general conclusion we came to was, God doesn't want us to be angry about anything except those things that attack our brothers or God. Now, God is tough and can handle himself, so I guess that leaves our brothers (this includes our families).

  Suppose we have a brother that is being taught that he could lose his salvation. The person teaching that is a heretic. The bible commands us to stand up to a heretic, then if he doesn't listen, leave him alone.

  Let's explore a Biblical example of anger being used correctly. Peter, the apostle, was spending time with the Paul and the gentiles. The bible teaches that Peter was excersizing the freedom the gentiles enjoyed by eating with them.

  It is a heresy to teach that what you eat or drink has any bearing on salvation. "How" you eat or drink might have something to do with salvation. But only in the sense of repentance of sins and turning to Christ. If you are a drunk, you must repent of drunkeness. You may or may not succeed in stopping drinking, but you must repent.

  Back to Peter. He is enjoying the liberty of the gentiles. Bacon double cheeseburger please! Then along comes his old buddies, the circumcision guys. Peter abandons his gentile friends and cuddles up to the legalists. Behold, Peter the lap dog.

  Paul is furious. He strips Peter down by pointing out the hypocrisy. Basically, if Peter wanted to be a legalist, so be it, but if he wanted liberty, stand for that like a man.

  So you see, it can be ok to display a bit of anger. Let's explore the other side, reasons anger can be bad.

  If we get angry about anything going wrong that we helped cause, we are in sin. Read that again you manly man! Did you help cause the problem? You have no right to be angry about it. Period!

  Does this really need to be explained? I don't want to place any examples here. I don't want to hurt anyones feelings. Suffice to say, if you helped cause the problem, have sympathy towards those who are struggling thru those consequences.

  Ok, I just thought of a good example. Suppose a man is a farmer. Year after year he let's the weeds slowly take over the farm. One day he looks up, recognizes the destruction, and gets to work fixing the problem.

  His wife and kids start pulling weeds and helping. But they tire quickly and want to be done. Perhaps they aren't very good at weed pulling and don't accomplish much. The man begins to get upset that the family isn't pulling weeds like they should. 

  HOW DARE THAT MAN BE ANGRY WITH THEM! HE CAUSED THE PROBLEM!

  Ok calm down Josh. I just get pissed at myself because I did this kind of crap to my own friends and family. I feel like a turd for doing it. All around me I see men doing the same thing. Heartbreaking.

  Wow, how did I end up here in my writing. I am a little angry. Is it good anger or bad?

  We men have forgotten what gentleness is. When real men get frustrated at the weeds they start pulling the weeds. If the family doesn't join them, he cries out to God for mercy on the family. He is gentle and strong, knowing the "wrath of weeds" he has brought upon his family.

  This goes back to the medic or warrior discussion. A warrior should be pissed off, it helps him whack heads off! A medic should be gentle, knowing the pain of the wounded.

  Choose your anger wisely dear reader. Anger can be productive but it also can be profoundly destructive. Be careful.      

  

Injured brothers

  Addictions are very difficult to overcome. Trusting God with recovery from addiction requires complete honesty and a commitment to do the things that God indicates to do. God will place us well outside of our comfort zone, so it involves a lot of pain. The thing is, our comfort zone is the wrong place to be. Placing our faith in God to carry us thru the discomfort of recovery creates a new "comfort zone". "The Comforter Zone". God's Holy Spirit.

  I bring all this up because of a brother who has stumbled. I, and others, hadn't heard from him for a while. We hoped he was doing well. He wasn't. His relapse is heartbreaking. I wanted so much to shake him and warn him that there was danger ahead. But, he wanted to trust worldy solutions to spiritual problems. 

  Its a tough dilema figuring out the balance between caring enough to say something and being overbearing. When someone isn't reaching out for the help that they should want, it breaks my heart. Are we responsible to beg or plead with someone to get right before God? Unfortunately, nope.

  Our responsibility is to love, care, pray, and exhort our fellow brothers. We are to encourage them unto good things. If they stumble, it is NOT our responsibility to kick them at all. We are medics to our brothers and warriors to our enemies. 

  Truth be told, we sometimes are amazed that others aren't where we are spiritualy. This very fact is the peak of pride. We assume they aren't where we are because we are so much better than they. That is why the bible tells us to check ourselves before helping our brothers lest we fall as well. Remember, pride comes before a fall. Our pride says, "They fell cause they don't love God like I do". Be careful with those thoughts, dear reader. God takes a dim view of proud people. 

  I must love and pray for my brother. He is bruised and battered. He is going toe to toe with a great enemy and he can be victorious in Christ. It is not a question of him knowing Christ (he professes faith), it is a question of trusting God's word to do what it says it will do.

  So, I will carry my weak brother. I do this because I love him and I want God to be glorified.

  We battle as men. God's men. The only people who don't get injured in a war are the people who aren't fighting. So let's not pretend that an injured brother isn't a warrior, let's bandage him up, give him his weapon, and get back to fighting! Hoo-rah! Semper fi!   

Having a cold

  There is a lot that sucks about having a cold. I am presently getting over one. I think I get sick far less than other people. This cold almost wiped me out. I was able to function but when I got the chance to get some sleep, I took it. I think I slept about 15 hours out of the last 24. Impressive for a guy who hates being sick.

  My personality is of such that I don't like weakness in myself. I have only called in sick to work, and was sick, once in my memory. I don't think of being sick as a weakness, I just manage to fight thru the junk better than some.

  I didn't want to go into a big diatribe about sickness and how different people cope with it. No really, I didn't. I wanted to bring up something that really disturbes me about sickness and I have never heard mentioned before. It can't be unique to me! But who knows. Let's see:

  My sinus' are clearing up. It is nice to be able to nose breathe again. I felt like such a nose drooling mouth breather yesterday. Yucko!

  Here's the thing. When I lay down to sleep my sinus passageways sometimes "pop" or "crackle". If they "snapped" as well, I would call it breakfast. Tasty!

  It is disturbing. My head keeps making all these funky sounds. I can't sleep with all the noise. Am I alone in this? I am sure that there must be others who hear sounds when their nasal passages are getting cleared up.

  Sorry to gross you out. Just being real here. Our bodies are fabulous creations of a marvelous God. Sometimes I just smile at the goofiness of being human.

  One more quick thing.

  I remember another sinus thing that happened years ago. I had a cold. I went to work (I was a roofer at the time). My sinus' were compacted and I was miserable.  Sometime during the day I reached down to grab a coil of nails, just when my brother-in-law was looking, my sinus' drained. Looked like perhaps a 1/2 cup of clear liquid (I didn't have a measuring devise on hand, use your best judgement with this recipe). Have you ever had that happen? Clear liquid just pouring out your nose like that? You ought to hear my brother-in-law share the story. His perspective was slightly different than mine!

  Anyways. Enough of the goofy talk. Lemme know if you hear noises or have water shoot out your noses when you are sick!   

P.S.  Mom, if you made it this far without being grossed out I am so happy! Usually talks like this end up with you thinking of refunding dinner! Hehe

A holy kiss

  The verses that say that we should greet each other with a holy kiss have always been perplexing to me. We know that kissing a ring is wrong, but what is right? I believe I saw an example tonight.

  Church had just ended. We are making our way thru the foyer. The preacher comes zipping past with a pat on my back and a nice "hello". (No the kiss isn't with me!) 

  The preacher has a target he seems to be heading for. Its a young couple and he is going to comfort them or something. They seem very shook up. 

  Before he gets to the young couple he sees a friend. Its a tough looking, northern Idaho, manly man, complete with camoflage. The preacher says hi to the guy in passing and plants a big ole smootcher on the dude's cheek!

  I know, I know, Dudes hugging and cheek kissing, fag me out like really. But this wasn't that at all. What seemed to transpire was a demonstration of great brotherly love in Christ. It was awe inspiring.

  I instantly recognised a deep care those two manly men had for each other. Clearly they had carried each others burdens thru many hard times over perhaps many years.

  All this from a kiss? You had to be there. I know I did, even if just to witness those obscure verses actually put to use. What an evening at church! God really does know what He is doing.

Liar!

  "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" speaks about a man called into a courtroom to give testimony. They were worried he would not share the truth so they gave him some truth syrum. When asked to share "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth", he started talking. Trouble is, they had gotten the amount of syrum wrong. He had been given too much! And so, he started sharing the truth. They ran screaming away, put barricades up to block the entrance to the court, and surrounded the court with an army just so people would not have to hear the truth.

There was a funny bit about frogs tho!

  Seriously. Can you imagine a syrum that could make you tell the whole truth? Even truth you didn't know?

  As christians we believe that the Holy Spirit is that syrum. Why then do we struggle about being honest? We lie about our sinful past (pre and post salvation). We lie about our faithfulness. We lie about our devotion. We lie about our present struggles. WHY?

  Why do we pretend that if we lie Gods will will be somehow done better? We convince ourselves that a lie can produce results that the truth can't! If I lie about my testimony, paint the past a little prettier, make my life seem more holier, my testimony will somehow be better. You fool!

  I struggle with my own lies. I don't like the things I have done and I would rather lie about them. I almost convinced myself that lies would serve the greater good.
  How can I give testimony to Gods grace and mercy if I lie about me? God does not honor lies, no matter the motivation. 

  So I will purpose in my life to be directly honest. I do not have the right to damage others by my honesty, so I must be careful. But I am tired of telling myself, "Just hide who you are and what you have done, God will be glorified!"  It is a damn lie! God has not authored me to lie.

  Do I like the idea of sharing this way? Nope. Will God honor my work if I hide the truth? Nope.

  Eventually I would like to help others by my experiences. If I chose to, I could lie and present a glorious picture of grand change that swept my life and made me so very good. Who would that help? The very person I would be sharing with will think himself a failure if he doesn't get the same results. When I lie and present myself more honorable than I actually am or was, God cannot use me. This salt will have lost its savor. 

Buffoonery

  Ever eat so much foot you taste ankle? I feel like I have a really bad case of foot in mouth disease. How is it that I can say the dumbest things at just the wrong moments. Its not like I want to be a buffoon, I just have a knack.

  Here is what its like, I get upset or confused, I say something mean or dumb, Rinse and repeat.

  Or, I say a joke that turns up being just a bit outside the line of safe for human consumption. I am not talking lascivious here, just politically incorrect. 

  Can this be unlearned? I really should slow down sometimes. People could be hurt by my foot suddenly flying towards my mouth! Watch out! I am one nimble foot eating dummy!

Observations

  Today I intentionally tried observing things. This is becoming more and more common for me. I am not a person who naturally thinks about what I am seeing.

  So tonight I observed snowmen sitting in windows. I was attending a support group and began to look around and actively try and observe my surroundings, that's when the snowmen popped up. 

  There was a large (fake) Christmas tree with red ornaments. There was a wreath with a bright red bow in the center top. The curtains on the windows were holly print. 

  However, the cutest things were the snowmen. They sat on the window ledges looking out, well, one was looking in (rebel snowman!). There were five windows, each with its own snowman. The snowmen were stuffed crochet. They had beady little black eyes. They had on red sweaters. They weren't the traditional three stage type. These just had a belly and head, kind of white weeble wobble snowmen, only they didn't webble or wobble.

  I was called on to share. I commented on my desire to be more observant. I mentioned the snowmen. Everyone looked at the windows. I could tell they hadn't noticed them. They, like me, tend to go thru life and never truly look around. I sure miss out on a lot of wonderful blessings because I fail to notice the grandeur God has provided. Keep on looking!
 

Adventure

  Here we are beginning a new year. 2012. The possibilities are unlimited. The prognosticators are envisioning all sorts of goofy things. I will be Joshua, you be who you are, but let's be frank, God has already planned what will happen. It is our duty to be faithful to the adventure.

  Having just completed The Chronicles of Narnia again, I am humbles by C.S. Lewis' observations about life's adventures. Something unexpected would happen in the books and some member of the cast would be grateful to be on the adventure, even when facing perilous situations.

  In my own life these adventures were never welcomed.
  I remember travelling towards Oregon from Spokane. I missed the turn off at Ritzville. Of course I blamed my wife for the missed turn. I hope I was gentle about it, most likely I wasn't. Harsh words or attitude towards the most gentle soul I ever met. Damn me.

  Then we took the next road heading the correct direction. We discovered this little Indian town. We saw beautiful scenery. The detour was awesome! Too bad I wasn't grateful for the unexpected adventure.

  This difficulty is in my heritage. I don't know of anybody in my family who could get detoured and think it a grand thing.

  So that's my new resolution. I resolve to enjoy where God sends me, even when I didn't know that's where I wanted to go.