Dead People Walking?

A friend was in our home fidgeting with his new mobile phone. Head down, deeply concentrating on details he saw in his screen,  he walked slowly, albeit purposefully, across the living room still carrying a marginally intelligent conversation"? I quipped, "Dead man walking?," and his broken concentration erupted in laughter. If you have a smart phone....you know the territory.

Then the spiritual truth in the situation broke in on me. How easy it is to get lost in the spiritually distracting demands of a moment, of the week or the month...of my life. All the contemporary important tyrannical stuff subtly inserts itself into my intimate routines; it easily becomes the stuff of life. Ugh.

No cell phone criticism intended here, but in that moment I was curiously reminded how important it is for me to practice the reality of my Spiritual life (Colossians 3:1ff); 

• to consciously and purposefully dedicate myself to disciplined parallel commitments that contextualize today's demanding temporal circumstances (Romans 12: 1-2).
• to appropriately subject myself to the always present and ever jealous availability of our marvelous loving God (I John 5: 21).
• to live in the unfathomable truth that He literally died for me in time and space (John 3:16)!
• to invest myself in the implicit demands that spiritual truth makes on my time and how I use it (Philippians 2: 5-11) .
• to develop the variety of life and spiritual disciplines (virtues) and skills I am commanded to master and humbly practice (Galatians 5:22; I Peter 1: 3-9). 

 Dick

Your Plan, My Plan & Profundity?

When someone asks me, "How's it going," what do I say? I suspect that answer tends to depend on whether the person asking is really a friend or just an acquaintance--and whether I think he or she really expects more than a superficial answer.

Brandow Brothers

But there's another contributing influence to my response, too. It's about whether or not what's going on for me--how my day or life is going in the moment--seems to match-up with how I think it should feel or look or be. Implicitly, my answer to the question now perhaps becomes a mild reflection of how well I think life is playing out. Is my day or life going according to my plan and expectations? Is it on course (happily!), off course (a bummer), irretrievably off course (a real big downer)?  

Sis Suzie and Dad

Of course, how "on" or "off" course my life feels gets emotional. We all do that. And as we all know, our emotions tend to predict our behavior. So, wisely and appropriately I remind myself how Biblical scripture unequivocally challenges me, a Christ follower, to police my thoughts, be real (not phony) AND to think profoundly! 

Profundity is demonstrated in one's resolve. It's about purposefully, every day, and especially in such moments, choosing to anchor and then interpret the events and circumstances of my life from a broader perspective. It's one that stretches beyond the serendipitous influence of mere time-space limited scenarios and circumstances. 

Three Generations

Here are some simple Biblical examples I know of  that illustrate this kind of resolve--and profundity:

• Abraham's response to Isaac's inquiry with the statement, "God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." Genesis 22:8
• Job's response to his wife's inquiry, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him!" Job 13:15
• Jesus' anguished statement to his Father in the garden, "... yet not my will but thine be done." Matthew 26:39
• Jesus' John 9:3 statement to his disciples that the reason behind the blind man's troubling situation was, "...that the works of God might be manifest in him (the blind man)." 
• Peter's statements to Jewish Christian exiles, "...though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials." 1Peter 1: 3-6, the contrast between vs s. 3-5 with vs. 6.
• Jesus' admonition to his disciples to order their whole lives around Kingdom principles and priorities, "...but seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things (food, clothing, housing) will be yours as well." Matthew 6:33 
• I think of the song, "This world is not my home I'm just passing through, my treasures are laid up away beyond the blue, the angels beckon me from heavens open door, and I can't feel at home in this world anymore..."

Hmmm.

So, how's it going?

Dick

A Timely Support-Raising Update

Regarding my effort to begin a Campus Ambassador ministry outreach on the Colorado School of Mines campus, the support-raising challenge still comes first. 

I am directing everyone who wants to help me to go to my web page at Missions Door (click there) and see the top right corner of that page for donation next steps. That's the shortest distance between getting the word out and my being able to actually get started on campus getting the WORD out!

I have chosen to get my support raised before I begin actually working on campus. That decision promises NO DISTRACTIONS to the ministry effort once I actually get there. I'm really looking forward to being able to just focus on the ministry effort, new student and faculty contacts, and the general and three-dimensional adventure (spirit-soul-body) that a new ministry effort like this introduces.

In the meantime, I am p-a-i-n-fully (and frustratingly) distracted.  I'm doing furniture restoration and repair, maintaining a small counseling practice called Fine Tune Your Life...and raising the financial support.The sooner I can stop doing those other things, the better! But I must do those things now, too.

Would you like to see some miracles happen...and be a vital vicarious participant? If you've not already gone to my web page to join with me, do it now (above). Then text me that you're prayerfully anticipating some miraculous things at CSM....and pray with me for rapid success in this important support-raising effort. Subscribe (top of this page) to this blog for routine blow-by-blow life and ministry updates.

Godspeed.

Dick
(Proverbs 16:9)

Sex Charades, Individualism, Gouche-ism, or simple Deception?

What kind of fish are you?

I live a long distance from the so-called cutting edge of societal "progress." But the majority of uninvolved blokes like me used to be able to figure this stuff out. It fell under the category of "common sense," which is increasingly difficult to find....(and when it is found, it's ridiculed). Culturally compromising sexual practices are being encouraged and experimented with. This is stuff that when it was talked about, even behind closed doors, used to bubble the paint on the woodwork and lift the wall paper on the surrounding walls.

For example, it really isn't cool to sleep with your boyfriend, do "hook-ups," decide you're bi-sexual, or make it your practice to chase around promiscuously with the same or the opposite sex, etc. (although we're being told that it is...and never mind the insightful research). Can anyone spell, s-t-u-p-i-d! It's a fact--and you should know it too. Why? Because I'm very familiar--as we all should be--with the dynamics  and tragic implications of addictive behavior.  

American society is increasingly committed to it's own haphazard destruction---and the vast majority of us appear to do our level best to ignore it! That, in and of itself, is N-U-T-S. We humans are amazingly susceptible to our own pleasure producing endorphins. It's a basic tenant of social (forensic and clinical) psychology that "all behavior has meaning." Why? We predictably repeat pleasurable (stimulating) and pain-avoiding (pleasurable) experiences. And, for example, just about nothing is more pleasurable than the sensual payoffs--the endorphin pumps--we get in and around sex and our sexuality. Duh!

Similarly, there is just about nothing more predictable than the growing preoccupation we can observe in, for example, all things sexual or sexually stimulating. As more and more people are doing, exploring, or just talking about "it" (whatever that "it" is),  the social stigmas around "it" declines (since the need for a social pain-avoidance diminishes). At the same time the potential for the experimentation around "it" GROWS. For example, the personal and societal appetite for the physical, emotional, and psychological pleasure associated with "it" gets bigger and bigger.

So, what's so bad about it, if so many people really seem to want "it?" It's ADDICTION. Contrary to the pervasive PC arguments of our day, it's really not about tolerance, character building, diversity, or progressiveness. There is nothing noble, creative, independent, progressive, or even praise worthy here. It's just stupid, permissive, enabling and "falling down drunk" ADDICTION. 

My dad used to say, "Any old dead fish can float down the stream, but it takes a live one to swim up the stream." So, what kind of a fish are you...are you daily practicing your crawl stroke?

NEXT TIME...A metaphor: 70 years of sugar, processed foods and simple carbs, type II diabetes and a society in trouble.

Got Obstacles Ahead?

There is stuff to say about a support raising effort. As I prepare myself for a fruitful outreach ministry at the Colorado School of Mines, the first step is that of raising my needed financial resources...including my salary. Of course that comes through a detailed ministry budget and the administrative oversight of Campus Ambassadors parent organization, Missions Door.

Some people predictably ask me, "Why do you need to raise your own support...isn't ministry hard enough of itself?" One of my answers to that question rehearses how the process helps me discover people with vision and heart who will partner with me. These stand financially and prayerfully behind me--invisible warriors, as they become--for my on-campus presence. Their passion is, in part, because of their financial investment through me for the Kingdom of God. I feel it assigns me a precious and sacred trust.

There's another answer I offer to this question, too. I sincerely believe I am partnering with God in this ministry effort. I want and need to learn to trust Him with it and in it. A big part of my own faith-growth starts anew and matures, often AWKWARDLY, in this support-raising crucible. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

So what's next...where does the faith road go from here? God knows and I'll follow Him. What are the challenges ahead for you?  I Peter 1:3-7.

Got a life plan?

"Life's Road"...near Birkenfeld, OR

I had an early plan for my life, but I'm here to tell you that it looked a lot different from the one I'm living. For example, if I was doing My plan...   

• My boys would have had a great deal more familiarity with the Pacific Northwest...and a relationship with their Grandparents--my parents!
• My dad and mom, sisters and brother--and my life's earliest friendships--wouldn't have been truncated by a 35-year hiatus to the Front Range of Colorado.
• I'd be a seasoned builder of custom homes with a reputation for creative, innovative inside-outside living designs.
• Yada, yada, yada, ...and you get the idea.

As a general rule, life just doesn't work our way. Either life gets in our way all by itself --and God permits it--or GOD himself gets in our way to change-up our plans (eg., Jonah 1: 1&2; Acts 9:3&4; Proverbs 16:9).

Today we're marking the 12th year since those horrific events of 9/11/2001. we're all remembering, as confusing as it may be sometimes, that God permitted some of the worst to happen in and around NYC. Lives were lost and other lives were dramatically changed--and let's not to forget the influence those events have had on all Americans as a whole!

Perhaps you're wrestling with something today--maybe even something other than 9/11? It may be that whatever it is, it seems to make no sense? Hmmm. Might you be wrestling with God or against something else he has permitted to impact your life?  

Of course I can't know, but I know there is that for which we can be completely confident, and it's this: HE promises--and has already demonstrated conclusively that our existence, our life, yours and mine in time and space today, right now--is not all there is. He promises his followers he will make-up for the sacrifices, the disappointments and the hurts we experience here, if we will just trust in HIS rewarding plan and faithfulness for our forever future (1Peter 1:3-8).  

So, together, let's swallow hard. Let's challenge ourselves to assume an attitude that says, "Yes, I will trust Him...and with his help I will persevere!" Then, let's watch what God can and will do through our dedicated lives.

"For God is at work in you, both to will and to do for his good pleasure."...and..."I know in whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him--for his safe keeping--until that day." Philippians 2:13 and II Timothy 1:12.

Bless you.

Dick

Entangled in a web....of my own making?

I walked into our chicken house and found a poor scared little mouse. At first I thought she was just hanging out in some string dangling in a corner of the feed area. But she didn't run away--and then I realized she couldn't!

A closer look discovered she was painfully hung-up in the string. Yes, in her nest-building effort she had become entangled in the very strings she was trying to drag away to her nest. She was horribly stuck! Check out this video of the situation.

What happened next? As you observed, my best attempts to help her wiggle from her confines didn't work. She was terrified, so I couldn't touch her for fear of being bitten. At the end of the video I had to put my phone down to retrieve some scissors. I'd carefully cut her free....and that worked, but even then it wasn't easy. Probably hours of wriggling had tightened the the strings across and around her little belly and back legs. She was wearing a tiny string girdle. Gradually my persistence to free her and her not so unconfused patience with my help prevailed. She was finally able to slip down, scamper across the floor, and then race out the door into the yard. 

It occurred to me how this little Mousie Incident might offer a valuable instructive lesson. How easily we can become imperiled by the very things we think are in our best interests. (Proverbs 16: 9) What we may initially anticipate as a blessing can sometimes become...a curse. But how does and how can one discern the difference--before it's too late? I think the key is time and wise (informed) perseverance. When or as we become (let's say) "vexed" by our effort to persevere, and fearful of missing out on our dream--one that's intended to be in your very best interests--it's important to be asking some prayerful questions in the counsel of and with the input of some close, caring friends. 

As you know, I'm in the midst of a challenging support-raising effort. God willing its successful outcome will place me in a ministry role on the CSM campus. BUT I have a time-limited window of opportunity to make that happen. That fact alone could emotionally impale me. So far the effort isn't going well, which could make me really fussy. But I'm not going to let it beat me; I will not allow myself to be vexed by the to-this-point-poor-outcome of my best efforts, nor will I allow myself to assume OR DEMAND that the support-raising success HAS TO HAPPEN! (Proverbs 3: 5 & 6) I will trust in the God of the challenge, not in the nature, promises, or outcome of the challenge.

I sincerely appreciate your ongoing prayers on my behalf...and please stay away from "mousie hang-ups!"

Dick