Category: Book Reviews

By David Jeremiah

Chapter Three Choose: Minimize Your Distractions

Many Christ Followers (CF’s) do not know how to say “No,” and consequently are constantly over committed and the “greater things” are left behind, never even comprehended, visualized, and certainly, never remotely  experienced!

Suggestions to avoid such disasters:

1.) Just say NO. That is a complete sentence.

2.) To be more polite, say “I’m sorry, but I simply cannot at this time. I have a personal policy, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to, but if anything changes, I’ll be sure to let you know… It looks like I’ll have to pass this time.. I just cannot fit it into my schedule…..  That is such a good cause but  I’m already supporting other good causes.

Jesus often said NO.  Our first priority is to fulfill our Father’s will by implementing:

1.) Love God.

2.) Love those around you.

3.)Love Yourself.

Then he suggests you arm yourself with the clarity of Prov 3:13-18

During the years of ’68-73 I traveled US Rt 30 through Ft Wayne frequently and knew of David Jeremiah from being on Moody Radio and seriously considered stopping by to see him in his double wide church in a field… but I never made it a priority. My loss of just one more another “greater things” in my life! merlin

David Jeremiah’s personal testimony verbatim near end of Ch. Three.

“I entered the ministry nearly 50 years ago in a startup church in Ft Wayne, IN. And I was focused. Man was I focused. I wasn’t necessarily aiming to be a spiritual success, I just didn’t want to be a miserable failure. All my friends knew I went to FT Wayne to start a new church. I wanted to prove to them and myself that I could build a church from scratch. So I was knocking on doors every night, Saturdays and Sunday afternoons; I was gone all the time. I was doing the work of God; what could be better?

But at that time, we had two small children. Jan was a toddler and David was 13 months younger. While Donna was at home, I was out on my white horse winning people to Jesus and building the church. When I came home for dinner each day, Donna would say to me, “Are you going to be gone again tonight?” I was struggling to balance my responsibility to my family and to the ministry. And then I’d go out and knock on some more doors and come home later to the hurt look on my wife’s face. I thought I was doing God’s will, but I was really doing David’s will. I just didn’t want to fail.

One day Donna set me down in the kitchen, “Honey, I just want to tell you I’m never going to ask you again, are you going to be gone tonight? I’ve been thinking and praying about this, and the fact is you are the priest in this family, and one day you are going to have to stand before God and give an account  for how you led us. And if you believe led us by being gone all the time, then I’m not going to argue with you. This is all in your lap now. You are responsible.” That was a turning point in my life.

I realized there are no ultimate conflicts in God’s perfect will. He doesn’t call a man to be both a father and a pastor in such a way that those two roles constantly war against each other. I began to pray God’s priorities  back into my life. Soon they became crystal clear to me. I organized them into the following four statements: (Note I edited the fourth to meet my situation. You write yours accordingly that reflects your current activities)

I am a person with a responsibility before God

I am a partner with a responsibility to my spouse. (if applicable)

I am a parent with a responsibility to my kids.

I am a PT entrepreneur heading toward retirement and a FT Ambassador for Jesus Christ with a responsibility to either coach or to refer appropriately and responsibly.

Folks, I believe we’ve all been hanging around long enough! Grab onto the life lines of God’s priorities and move forward in His design for your life always abounding with His momentum and with His Blessings.

I’ve not always lived up to these four priorities. Whenever I feel myself straying, I find these four principles pulling me back into line. That’s what priorities do……”

The above words met me head-on once on the interstate of life (guess then I was going the wrong direction since interstates always imply traveling in the same direction?) And yes, spiritual re-freshers are good! Not sure “re-fresher” applies though to the current Broadway Plays that I heard recently are stuck big time in the rut of predominately only “doing over” their past successes. Evidently their audiences are also ok with living in the security & shadows of their past good times rather than to look forward to and trust in new performances. Perhaps not unlike many CF’s stuck today in the rut of past successes when Christ is really calling us to, as Jeremiah’s book is titled, Discovering God’s Presence and Purpose in Your Tomorrow, not your “wispy past.”

A few minutes ago I just viewed the clip of Ron and Sue Wenger sharing their journey with Sue’s cancer during the Fairlawn Easter service. Such events and the deaths of the two youth days earlier near Fredericksburg remind us of our priorities. Please pray for these families as well as for your own during the fleetingness of life as we enjoy it.    

I, Erwin Raphael McManus, am an immigrant from El Salvador. My heritage is rooted in the long history of violence and oppression that has consumed Latin America for generations. We seem to have only two reoccurring approaches to government: revolution and dictatorship. With every revolution, there is the promise of freedom. Yet without fail, every revolution brings us a new dictatorship. In time, the oppressed becomes the oppressors. What history has proven is that we need more than a change of government – we need a change of heart (first, and second, a US Constitution would be helpful).

It is quite easy to mistake powerlessness for humility. It is easy to convince yourself that you are different from your oppressor when you are powerless to act differently. You can only know who you truly are when you are fully capable of imposing your will on the world around you. Who would you be if you were free to be yourself? Would you be better? Would the world get better?

There is an old adage that’s almost universally accepted: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” While most of human history seems to confirm this, I am convinced this conclusion is wrong. Absolutely wrong. Absolute power does not corrupt. God has absolute power, and he is incorruptible.

Actually, what absolute power does do is far more telling. Absolute power reveals completely. Power gives freedom to what has been hidden within the human heart. Power tells the truth about who we are. Power sets free what has been imprisoned within you. Jesus seems to have understood this. It’s why you can live in a free country and still be captive by the condition of your soul. (no longer any doubt about it now! Truth always prevails )

Those who use their power to oppress do not have the luxury of freedom. They are trapped within the small confines of their limited minds and hardened hearts. For them to see someone who is truly free is more than they can bear. There is a strange darkness within the human heart that feels the need to destroy what it does not have or does not know. (well said!)

It was 1986 and I was studying for my master’s degree while traveling across the country as a speaker. My schedule was often hectic. I spent days  running at a deficit of energy while trying to do far more than I probably should have attempted.

In one of my classes, the professor allowed lots of open conversation and even dissension with his views. For whatever reason, I chose the path of dissension. Quite often I would find myself interjecting or interrupting his lecture to openly disagree with something he had just said. I remember thinking, I can’t believe he’s teaching this class. I wonder how someone with a PhD could be so wrong.

A I look back, I feel a significant amount of embarrassment at my lack of humility, openness, and teachability. I think I saw myself as a defender of the truth. Then one Tuesday, I rushed into the class – late as usual – and something seemed different. All of the students were quiet and completely focused on the papers in front of them. A wave of fear passed over me when I realized why. It was the midterm exam.

I felt so confused. The midterm is on Thursday. Today is Tuesday. It felt like one of those dreams where you’re naked in front of a crowd, only this time, I wasn’t asleep. I couldn’t contain myself. I groaned out loud and asked – not any one particular student, but the entire class – what was happening. I turned to my left, where my professor stood, watching the entire scenario. Maybe out of pity, ne looked at me and said, “Mr. McManus, please step outside.”

He could have humiliated me in front of the class, as I had done to him do many time during the class. But he didn’t. At least my execution would be in private. At least he would grant me that small kindness. Still, I worried. Was I being expelled from class? Would he fail me on the spot? This was his opportunity to return the disrespect I’d shown him throughout the year. He should take it, I thought. I certainly deserved it.

The professor was a quiet man. Thoughtful, introspective. A man of few words, and endless deep thoughts. I’ll never forget what he said to me that day, as I stood in the dark and dingy hall waiting for the hammer to drop. He took a deep breath, and finally broke the awkward silence.

“Mr. McManus,” he said, “there are times in out lives when our only hope is grace. Today is that day for you.”

He didn’t ask me for an explanation. He told me it was obvious that I had confused the dates. I didn’t need to justify my incompetence. He simple told me to come back Thursday for the midterm.

I’ll never forget that moment. A lessor man would have taught me a different lesson. It would have been fair of this professor to teach me the consequences of my arrogance and impertinence. Instead he taught mee a different lesson that shapes my life to this very day: There’s nothing more powerful than the power grace. Nothing more beautiful.

I never saw him the same again. Thereafter, his lectures resonated and reverberated in my soul in a way that had never been done before. I then understood that to sit at his feet and learn was a gift.

So, if God, who has every right to find us guilty, refuses to do so, how can we not forgive one another? If God, who see’s everything we’ve ever done and could easily drown us in our guilt and shame, seeks only to make us whole and gives us freedom, how can that not be our intention toward one another?

In our current environment, we have what is now known as “cancel culture.” We ransack the history of every tweet a person has ever written, every statement a public personality has ever made, any joke a comedian has ever delivered, or any mistake a person has ever made in the past, looking for ammunition to end their careers. We do not allow for change, or growth, or simply the imperfection of being human.

Condemning is easy. It’s also ugly and inelegant. Grace makes both the giver and the recipient more beautiful. Grace gives us room to grow, to change, to mature, to repent for a past we are resolved will not define our future. Oh…that’s important, too. Grace believes in your future.

You would assume that religion would exist so that grace would flow freely, but time and time again the opposite has been shown to be true. Religion dispenses grace as if it were the rarest of commodities, existing only in limited supply. It hoards power by demanding works of us to attain grace – and since the reality is that our need for grace is endless, perhaps insuring that we will always be indebted to the church or temple or mosque or synagogue for its dispensation.

Grace is only needed when it is undeserved. This is the elegance of grace. This its genius. Jesus left us with a new way of seeing the world. He freed us from the burden of judging each other and condemning ourselves. He lifts us above guilt and shame and shows a better way to exist. The genius of Jesus enabled him to find the grace for every moment and every person. When we choose to live by grace and give it feely, we, too, step into the genius of grace.

Jesus also reveals that empathy is the highest form of intelligence. Spiritual maturity reveals Jesus did not simply come to ensure that we understand God. Perhaps He came so that we would know that God understands us. It seems that God has fought over and over again to reestablish us in his love, though we keep replacing his intention with religions built on guilt and shame, judgement and condemnation. God was always a God of love.

In summary, to know God, or his mind, was never intended to be about information, but about intimacy. It’s about finding a depth of love that produces kindness, compassion,(compassion will move you to action, but empathy is what moves you to understanding… empathy is the deepest level of knowing). This was apostle’s Paul desire for all of us when he prayed in Ephesians 3:16-19 “that out of Christ’s glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His spirit in your inner being, …. That you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God.”

Excerpts from Erwin Raphael McManus latest book “The Genius of Jesus: The Man Who Changed Everything” recommended to me by my “reader” friend, Harry Wilkins.The Genius

The other day a lady asked me if I had ever flown a jumbo jet – one of those huge birds that holds 400 passengers in its metal gullet. I almost said, “Yes,” but had to limit my answer to, “Well, almost.”

How do you almost fly a jumbo jet?

My good friend Roy Long, a senior pilot with a larger commercial airline, is in charge of a jet pilot training program in Miami. Pilots preparing to fly the company’s mammoth airships get their initial checkout in what is a called a “simulator.” It’s an awesome-looking piece of machinery which contains a simulated jumbo-jet cockpit. Housed in a multi-million dollar training center, it stands on tall mechanical stilts which move a few feet back and forth – up and down – controlled by then, a roomful of computers.

One night Roy invited me to join him in a training session. While the regular pilots were taking a coffee break, he gestured toward the simulator.

“Strap yourself in the left seat, Bernie, and let’s make a couple takeoffs and landings.”

While I buckled up, Roy punched a few buttons on the console and somewhere a few rooms over, a metallic brain clicked and whirled in response and went right to work.

We found ourselves on the end of Runway 9-Left at Miami International. The computer left nothing to the imagination. I’d never been in such a complicated looking cockpit in my life. There was the Miami runway stretching out in front of me – glaring white in the mid-morning sun. I advanced throttle, heard the engines go from throaty rumble to mechanical scream, spooling up to max RPM. My jumbo started to roll forward as a stewardess somewhere in the back greeted the passengers. Beads of sweat formed on my brow while the runway flashed under me. The airspeed indicator crept past 140 KTS and Roy called out, “Rotate!”

I eased back the yoke. We were airborne – climbing into the hazy blue over Miami. In the weight of the controls, I could feel the huge craft behind me. Sure would hate to land this bird in the Andes, I thought to myself. We climbed to pattern altitude. My copilot nodded as I circled the great field and lined up for the landing. Roy was calling out airspeed as I worked the throttles and controls – letting down for the landing. I heard the wheels screech a protest on the runway and then felt the weight of the plane settle on the gear. My feet were on the brakes as I reversed the engines. We coasted to a shuddering halt.

“Not bad, Captain,” Roy grinned. “Not bad at all for your very first landing in the L-1011.” Running my sleeve across my brow, I was warmed by a feeling of accomplishment. No hitches or hang-ups. It felt good.

But it wasn’t real. It was all a Disneyland make-believe. We hadn’t traveled two feet. We never went higher than our stilts.

And that, I am slowly realizing, is a parable of much of our Christian experience. We build million-dollar simulators. We climb in, sing passionate hymns with an electric organ that simulates 20 different instruments. We listen to exciting stories and even make emotional commitments. There’s only one minor fraud. W never really take off. There is noise and motion – but we haven’t gone anywhere.

“Spectator Christianity” has vaccinated us against the genuine article – participation Christianity. One church advertises, “ For those who want more than a Sunday religion.” Now, that’s the way it should be.

Dr. Samuel Shoemaker asks us all, “What has Jesus Christ meant to you since 7:00 this morning? Is your Christianity ancient history, or is it current events?”

God’s invitation is to mount up with wings as eagles. Why be content with a stimulator when you can fly?

Taken verbatim from Bernie May’s book “Climbing On Course.” This book was loaned me by Glenn Shoup who had served as a young man with Wycliff in several locations around the world. Last week during Sunday school, Glenn told me a time before JAARS was at the airport, Bernie May was at an event here in Wayne county with two other pilots in a helicopter. While touring the area in the helicopter, they saw an Amish farm threshing oats so they unannounced landed beside the operation. Since it was nearly lunchtime, they shut it down early and of course, the three were invited for lunch. It was the highlight of day for both Bernie and the threshers; especially when they were ready to start threshing again, when everyone grabbed a hold of the drive belt between the tractor and the threshing machine, and while tugging on that drive belt moving as fast as possible, they were able to start the tractor’s engine. That demonstration of physics prompted Bernie when they were ready to lift off, to invite several Amish youth and teasing them into thinking they could start the helicopters engine by simply spinning its rotor blades… but they soon realized Bernie was just  joking with them.   

Bernie May served thirty years as a missionary pilot for Wycliff/JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Radio Service) and past president of Wycliffe USA.

FYI, over the years, Glenn Shoup, already 83 years young, has blessed his Kidron Mennonite congregation during their Children’s Moments as well as numerous other churches, fellowships, and of late,  Amish schools, reunions and their business events and dinners with his magical encounters highlighting front and center the Gospel message of salvation, thoroughly enjoyed  by young and old alike.

The following is verbatim from the book’s Introduction by Bernie on Pg. 5.

Sometime ago a BOAC jet came apart in a thunderstorm shortly after takeoff out of New Delhi, India. All the crew and the passengers were killed in the crash. The last words spoken by the captain before entering the fatal storm were, “We’re climbing on course.” When I heard about it, I thought, What a great last position report – climbing on course.

“Position reports” are vital – for both pilots and pilgrims. They indicate where we are at any given time. Whether I have learned more about flying from my moments with God – or more about God from my experiences in the air – I don’t know. But I do know that as I have tracked the skies of this world – putting my confidence in instruments which have guided me through dark and rainy nights, or listening to a distant controller steering me to a final approach – God has taught me about faith, discipline and eternal values.

Frequently I have been what is called a “critical attitude.” That means the aircraft is in danger of crashing because of its position in the air – nose high, one wing low, power off. That’s me: nose high in pride, doctrinally off balance, and spiritually powerless. It’s a bad position report. But you know, more and more, as His Spirit takes the controls, I’m climbing back on course.

I share my experiences with you, hoping that you, too, will want to know Him better, and to learn with me what it means to “mount up with wings as eagles.”

                                                                                                        Climbing on course,

                                                                                                         Bernie May        

I am suffering from a late evening compulsion to remind all of us of one of the most famous of Aesop’s fables, that being “The Goose and the Golden Egg”.     

“There was once a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg. The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich. But it was not long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough.

Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the goose and cutting it open. But when the deed was done, not a single golden egg did he find, and his precious goose was dead.”

And I can just hear some of you already saying, “I know exactly where Merlin is going to take this, Please NOT AGAIN! I just can’t stomach anymore of this America missing its mark paranoia!” As I said above , I am “compelled” and I make no apologies as I see and speak everyday with many clueless. The world’s humanity is on the ropes and down for the count. Or perhaps better visualized on the stormy high seas of life in a rowboat without oars, sails, or even an engine. Being without Christ’s awareness and His indwelling Spirit, we have no clue of our physical, mental, emotional, and especially, our spiritual vulnerabilities, even here in the spiritual breadbasket of Wayne County OH.

So, for America, what represents the golden goose in Aesop’s famous fable? Perhaps our nation’s “golden goose” could be likened to her citizens, created in the image of God, as is everyone on the planet, and because of the faith and wisdom of our nation’s forefathers, our citizens live with the freedom to create, work hard, and prosper. America’s liberty grants us both the privilege and responsibility to meet needs and challenges while pursuing our own dreams while assisting others in their meaningful pursuits.

Our Creator and heavenly Father loves to see His children blessed and freely able to bless others. History reveals that when people no longer recognize God in the first place as the wise, overseeing Father, they forfeit their freedom through foolish idolatry, selfish indulgences, irresponsibility, and insensitivity to God and others. When we fail to love God and our neighbors, we will lose our freedom and watch our productivity diminish. The inability to produce wealth and prosperity not only robs us of our own blessing but also prevents us from being in a position to bless others.

The noose that kills the goose is excessive control by any power other than God and the effective oversight given by free and responsible people. In America, this noose is the overreaching and excessive control of an ever-expanding, all-consuming federal government and its bureaucracies, along with freedom damaging regulations. Supported by the godless idea that the government can care for themselves and others, the noose is rapidly tightening and choking out the life and freedom that were handed to us by those who understood freedom, responsibility, and true prosperity. The excess and greed on the part of those who prosper, as well as the envy and covetousness of those who lack, are used to justify the federal noose being tightened, ultimately killing the goose that enabled us to be the prosperous and benevolent nation in history. Never doubt the father of lies is determined to steal, kill, and destroy  (John 10:10).

We must remember that the same success and prosperity that consumes some people, leading them to be totally selfish, also enables those who have been blessed and prosper to assist the poor and needy. Those who work hard and succeed help fuel the economy by investing, creating business and opportunity, and producing the benefits derived from their consumerism. A person must have a measure of wealth and a level of prosperity to be able to purchase something they need or desire.

Never doubt that out-of-control people will lose their freedom to an out-of-control, all-consuming power. Truly free people will keep the Ten Commandments, including the first, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3) and the last, “You shall not covet” (v. 17). Put God first, work hard, and be productive, while encouraging everyone to assist others. We need to be committed and consecrated to God, followed by compassion and care for others. When this happens we will watch America’s golden goose soar like an eagle and gratefully behold the manifest blessings of our God and Father. This will happen when we decide to put God and others before ourselves instead of foolishly assaulting the goose of opportunity.

May I share a simple Bible lesson? The prodigal son received from his father his rightful inheritance and then proceeded to mismanage (mostly squander) until he found himself in great want. The loving father waited eagerly for the son to come to his senses and return home, making things right. The prodigal returned home as a repentant son with a changed heart and the attitude of  humble, willing servant (Luke 15:11-32). Problem solved!

In no way did the wise father give that foolish son more money to waste after he ran out. No way! Our out of control government demands that we continue to give it more to mismanage without first coming to their senses and finding every possible way to reduce government spending. If you want to rapidly assist the tightening of the noose that will kill the goose, just give irresponsible leaders more of the American people’s means to waste with mismanagement. Don’t attempt to justify this wrongdoing by saying the money will be taken from someone else (like the rich, our children, and those yet to be born), and that will justify the foolishness. It will not! It is easy to overlook stealing when the money is not yours.

In summary, a free market is a golden goose. It is a blessing of God. We must not destroy it in our attempt to solve injustices. Doing so will not raise anyone up or build back the broken any better. Such nonsense will only tear everyone and everything down as has been proven throughout history, and especially so, the past 150 years.

Again, the question that begs to be asked is “When is our silence-in-the-land actually becoming complicity?” Perhaps we are to ignore the rhetoric; and rather, seek truth telling dialogue with the “creative minority so as to impact the influence of the majority” as Jamie Winship instructs us in his You Tube “Turning Chaos into Opportunity in Every Area of Your Life.” (1:05:34) This clip actually accomplishes its title. Change your perspective and your life. merlin       

Today I am compelled to share Ferree’s writing’s with you. Now 48 years into our marriage, Loretta and I realize that although we’ve been richly blessed, we have no guarantees for tomorrow but are increasingly aware we’re being drawn into worship. We were planned for God’s pleasure and our doing that is worship. Anthropologists have noted that worship is a universal urge , hard-wired into the very fiber of our being – an inbuilt need to connect with God. Worship is far more than music, and not merely a synonym for music. Actually, every part of a church service and far beyond may be acts of worship!

Having just finished her book, I am reminded of Evelyn Husband’s telling in “High Calling” of the Columbia shuttle disaster of 2003, how at her husband Rick’s memorial service while watching video clips of her late husband both sing and speak at his own memorial service, that “in the middle of my immeasurable grief, something happened: I worshipped. I got lost in God’s holiness and provision. I was swept away by his faithfulness and presence. In the depths of my agonizing heartache, God was there comforting and holding me.” King Jesus wants to do the same with us in our daily living, not just during tragedies

PDL author Rick Warren is spot on stating worship is not part of your life, it is your life. Col. 3:23 Message Paraphrase says “Take your everyday life, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work-life, and walking around life—and place it before God as an offering.”

Real worship is all about falling in love with Jesus, wanting to know him, to please him anyway possible, and again, continually, regardless, and best of all, in the absence of fear. I’ve heard it said the safest place you can ever be in this world is in the center of God’s will. Sometimes since covid, because of all the posted no fear signs, it seems that the Christian’s identity with John 3:16 has possibly been replaced by I John 4:18 “There is no fear in love; but perfect  love casts out all fear; because fear hath torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.” Actually both verses are so spot-on!

Perhaps we do not usually associate fear and worship typically with widows, but my personal experience with such loss and healing proves otherwise. Therefore, relax and relish Ferree’s experiential wisdom of grieving sent out 1/27/22 via email to subscribers of Plain Values.

Click on the link below to view the email to get better acquainted with Ferree.

https://plainvalues.substack.com/p/changing-the-calendar?r=690o5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

During the next year, my sophomore year in high school, my biological father came back into my life. My mother and I were staying with a different aunt this time, in a house that actually fronted on a street. One day a man drove up out front and parked his car halfway onto the curb in the yard. My mother called me to the door and said, “Come here, son. Joe Robison’s here . He’s your daddy.”

A tall man, about six feet two, got out of the car and started staggering toward the house. He came inside, smelling of booze and we visited for a while, and I can remember thinking, with the hopeful naivete of a boy who grown up without a dad, Maybe he can play catch with me sometime.

I soon found out he couldn’t even throw a ball to save his life. All he had ever done since he was nineteen years old was open whiskey bottles and beer cans.

When my mother got another in – home nursing assignment, we moved into the patient’s house, and my father came to live with us as well. I didn’t understand why my mother would allow a man who had raped her back into her life, but I had no say in the matter.

I has purchased a motor scooter with money from my job, so I now had transportation and I didn’t have to walk as much. I was really careful out on the roads, but one day a police car turned right in front of me, and I had a terrible wreck.

Just before the collision, the police officer saw me and instantly accelerated, and his car lurched forward so that I almost missed him altogether. If he braked instead, I would have hit the car broadside and would have certainly been killed.

With no time to react, all I could do was hit the brakes, lay my bike down and hope for the best. Like most people in those days, I wasn’t wearing a helmet. They weren’t required and were seldom worn by anyone. But though I miraculously avoided cracking my head apart, I took off the back part of the police car – the bumper and taillights – with my right thigh. To this day, my leg has a big indention where the muscles were compressed in toward the bone.

After radioing for an ambulance, which came pretty quickly, the officer came over, picked me up and moved me onto the grass median. He was really shaken.

“I’m so sorry, son,” he said more than once.

He followed the ambulance to the hospital and later visited me in the hospital and at home and became a real friend.

I got an insurance settlement from the scooter wreck, but I didn’t want to buy another scooter, so I , bought .30-06 rifle, a pre-64 Winchester model  70, hoping that one day I’d be able to go hunting with it.

One day my dad came in a drunken rage and choked my mother until she passed out. Thinking that he had killed her, he left the house and drove off. When I came home from School that day, my mother had marks on her neck. When she told me what happened, I became really angry.

“Son,” she said, “if I hadn’t passed out, he would have killed me.”

I don’t remember if it was later that day or sometime the next day, but when my father came in drunk again, and when he found out my mother wasn’t home, he started cursing me and threatened to kill me.

When he sat down in a chair still cursing me, I ran back toward my bedroom, where I had a baseball bat leaning up against the wall just inside the door. I grabbed the bat and looked to see if my dad was coming after me. If he’d been there, I would have hit him. That’s how scared I was.

When I saw he hadn’t followed me, I dove under my bed and grabbed my rifle. This was just a few days after I had shot an oil can filled with water and blew a hole in it the size of a softball, so I knew what it could do.

I chambered a bullet, went back to the front room, and sat down on a little stool by the telephone, which was mounted on the wall. Sitting maybe twenty feet from my father, and with the safety off, I pointed the rifle at him and said with all the firmness I could muster, “If you move so much as a finger, I’m going to blow a hole in you big enough for someone to crawl through.”

I reached for the phone, dialed 0, and asked the operator to send the police. “My father threatened to kill me,” I said, “but I’m going to shoot him.”

Within ten minutes, the sheriff’s deputy who had hit me with his car was standing at the front door. He had been to the house many times after the accident to visit me, so the minute he heard the address on the emergency call, he came right over.

Here’s the amazing part: although my father sat there cursing me and calling me every name under the sun, he never moved a finger. If he would have so much as raised his hand to scratch his cheek, I would have shot him. And I would not have missed. At age fourteen, my world would have been turned upside down. Who knows what would have happened? But I believe the prayers of the Memorial Baptist Church of Pasadena, and the people who had been praying for years for the little boy who had stayed with the Hales, froze my father and kept me from killing him.

That story is part of the miracle of my life, and that’s why I tell people “Don’t ever give up on your prayers, and don’t ever give up on the people you’re praying for.” We don’t always see our prayers answered, or answered in the way we would choose, but prayer is like love – it doesn’t fail. And it’s an amazing privilege to be able to pray for people.  

MLE now:

 I find it interesting that this Sunday’s Utmost reading focuses in on personality. Personality, Chamber’s reminds us in the Dec 12 Utmost reading, is the unique, limitlessness part of our life that makes us distinct from everyone else. Such perhaps is too vast for us to  comprehend when examining our seemingly mundane lives, but when we read wisdom books such as scripture or  like this boy’s future life being spared possible devastation as portrayed in “Living Amazed,” we suddenly realize the visible portion of our island of our personality is merely the top of a large mountain, and similarly, our personality is much like that island. We really have no idea of the great depths of our being, expressed as our personality, as neither we or anyone can measure ourselves. We may start out life off thinking we can, but if we’re honest, we soon realize there is only one Being who fully understands us, and that is our Creator.

Personality is the characteristic mark of the inner, spiritual man, just as individuality in the Dec 11 reading is described as the characteristic of the outer, natural man. Folks, don’t worry if you’re struggling with all this, I’ve been reading Utmost for fifteen plus years (not continuously though) and I’m just beginning now to grasp its truths.

Our Lord can never be described by individuality and independence, but only in terms of His total Person – “I and My Father are one”(John 10:30). Personality merges, and you only realize your true identity once you are merged with another person. Consider the chemistry activated when love or the Spirit of God comes upon you or another person; you or they are transformed! You or they will no longer insist on maintaining your or their individuality or the isolating portions of your personality. Our Lord always spoke in terms of the total person – “. . that they may be one just as We are one. .” Love is always the overflowing result of one person in true fellowship with another.

I’d be remiss now not to tell you this truth forms the basis of the best book on marriage I’ve found to date. Tim Keller’s book of accumulated sermons titled “The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment With the Wisdom of God” is essential reading for anyone who wants to know God and love more deeply in this life during this culture’s chaos! Consider reading it in 2022. Such wisdom books change lives. Perhaps enjoying self – centered  entertainment for Christ followers will soon no longer be so enjoyed? Perspective?

Consider how even before James reached fifteen years of age and the necessary understanding of the dangers described in Ephesians 6:12 “ For we wrestle not merely against flesh and blood , but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world , against spiritual wickedness in high places,” God reached down and protected this child once again by the earlier prayers of his intercessors. They no doubt were quite limited in assessing or acknowledging the magnitude of the darkness about James, but they chose to concentrate on the provision of God’s abundant light far surpassing James momentary present darkness. These intercessors possessed an opportunity to intercede for James, it was not merely a job or an assignment!

And as James matured spiritually, his book explains his love for David starting off as a shepherd boy through his entire life. James understood he who is forgiven much, loves much, as well as the inverse. It is also evident throughout the book that James fully appreciated God’s continual demonstration of protection.

The question begging an answer now, is do we? Or do I?

Listen to the Kidron Mennonite Church 12/12/21 sermon by Pastor Craig about receiving and dispensing Joy in a dark world. May we be found “pulling” people in, rather than “pushing” them either out or away!

Blessings as YOU GO FORTH TRUSTING IN OUR GOD OF PROMISE>>>>> mle

Taken verbatim from Pages 26-29 in James Robison’s book “Living Amazed.” and then, in Part Two followed by 15 paragraphs quoting from an article from theyeoftheneedle.com from Archbishop Vigano, before in Part Three, my personal comments.  But first the story, then onto real life today!

During my years in Austin, TX, I didn’t have much money or many material things, but I made the best of what I had. I did look forward to Christmas gifts and birthday presents from my aunt and my foster parents. But starting when I turned nine, all the way up until I was fourteen, I didn’t hear from my aunt or the Hales at all. That was very traumatic for me – and, if not for the grace of God, it might have destroyed me – because I thought that the people who had said they loved me had forgotten me.

                One October, when my birthday came and I didn’t get gifts from anybody, I remember thinking, Anybody can forget a birthday, but they won’t forget me at Christmas.

                That December, I painted a watercolor picture on a sheet of paper and hung it on the wall, and that was our Christmas tree and our decorations, because we couldn’t afford to buy a tree or ornaments. When Christmas arrived, and nothing came from my aunt or the Hales, I remembered thinking, They said they loved me, but they don’t.

                That really put a big hole in my heart, made me feel as if I couldn’t trust anyone, and caused me to doubt people’s word. Even after I got into ministry, only the grace of God was able to lift me beyond the trauma of feeling forgotten.

                When I was about fourteen, during a time when my mother was having some sort of trouble, she told me I could call the Hales and go stay with them for a week or so. I was afraid to call them, because I didn’t know if they’d want me. But they sounded so happy to hear from me and said they would come get me the very next day.

                During that visit with the Hales, I had a lot of fun with the kids at their church. On Sunday night, which was right before the Monday or Tuesday when I would be going home, Pastor Hale asked the young people in the church to share what Jesus meant to them. Five or six kids stood up and gave testimonies that were really moving.

                Then Pastor Hale gave the invitation, and when he said, “Would you come and put your hand in my hand, indicating that you want to give your life to the same Jesus that these kids have talked about?” all I could do was grip the chair in front of me. I was so shy, and so terrified, that I just hung on.

                Then I saw Mrs. Hale walking toward me, with tears flowing so freely down her face that she had to hold her glasses in place with one hand. She put her other hand on my shoulder and said, “James, don’t you want to go to Jesus?”

I said, “Yes, ma’am, but I’m afraid.”

“I’ll go with you,” she said. “Could we go together?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I stepped out into the aisle and went forward with her, and in the best way I knew how, I trusted Jesus. As I’ve said many times since that night, I put my faith in the pastor’s hand but I put my life in the Mater’s hand.

                I found out years later that, during the week I was visiting, Mrs. Hale had gone to all the training Union groups – which were discipleship classes focused on missions and Baptist doctrine – and she had told them, “We have James with us, the boy who lived with us when he was a young child up until he was five, and now he’s fourteen, and he’s going back to his mother’s place in the next day or two. Would you pray that tonight he’ll give his life to Christ?” And sure enough, I gave my life to Christ that night.

                That being a Baptist church, they took me right up and baptized me that night – right in my clothes because they didn’t have a robe. And a few years later, when I first started preaching and gave that testimony, somebody asked me, “If they baptized you in your clothes, what did you do when you came out of the water? If your clothes were all wet, what did you wear?”

                The question caught me off guard, because I couldn’t remember. The next time I saw Mrs. Hale, I asked her, “Didn’t y’all take me right back and baptize me after I trusted Christ?” When she said yes, I asked, “Well, what did I do about clothes?”

                Mrs. Hale started crying and said, “James, before I ever left for church that night, I took a change of clothes and put them back by the baptistery. That way, if you got saved, we’d have clothes for you.”

                That’s how much faith, hope, and confidence my foster mother had. In later years, when I was preaching my crusades, Mrs. Hale would come to me after a service where hundreds of people had come to Christ, and she would say, “You know, my son, when I watched all those people come forward, I remembered the night I came and put my hand on your shoulder, and I’m so glad I did.” Here was one lady who touched the life of a boy, and he went on to touched the lives of millions. But it likely wouldn’t have happened if not for her love and prayer and faith. And don’t ever give up on the people you’re praying for. God may have a miracle in the wings.

I briefly debated whether this segment was worthy, or even of significant interest – until I realized how most of my readers are, were, or are about to be parents – whether by birth or adoption – not to mention grands and even the great-grands. And regardless of our “time stamp” as kingdom citizens, or even the origin or the quality of our spiritual parental engagement, the ever absorbing and under-girding interest of we parents is that we enjoy our posterity’s fulfilling their earthly destiny followed then by a family reunion in eternity.

As I compare the Sunday School picnic turbulence of both Robison’s childhood and mine during the ’50’s, over and against the explosive rampant “polarizing fracturing” in our world today, especially in our nations’ institutions, homes included, we are left literally speechless. In fact, speechless is too often our apparent default position as I look around the neighborhood, church included, and listen in on the conversations. I seldom hear anything significant from Christ followers or even general humanity that we  are already or soon will be in the cross-hairs of an extermination/depopulation/effort/attempt against humanity as proposed by the New World Order (NWO).…. mle

Taken verbatim from James Robison’s book “Living Amazed: How Divine Encounters Can Change Your Life.” Pages 20-23.

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. Luke 4:22 NIV

It’s a miracle I was ever born. In fact, if the laws we have today were in effect back then, I’m 99.99 percent certain I would have been aborted.

My mother worked as a practical nurse, giving hospice care to home bound individuals. She had been married at a young age, but by the time she was forty, she was long divorced and working in the home of an elderly man in Houston. The man had an alcoholic son, about ten years younger than my mother, who one day forced himself on her and raped her.

My mother lacked the wherewithal to press charges, and when she became pregnant, as a result of the assault, she went to get an abortion, for all the reasons you would hear today- product of rape, no father or family in the picture, mother living in poverty and unable to care for the child. But when she went in to see the doctor, he refused to perform the abortion.

I don’t know why. Did he see possibilities and potential in that unborn child? Or did he simply believe all life was precious? Whatever the reason, and whatever you might think about it, he refused to perform the abortion.

 When I was old enough to understand, my mother told me the circumstances of my birth and that the Lord had told her, “Have the baby; it will bring joy to the world.” (Interesting prediction, LO!)

As a result, my mother as convinced that I would be a good girl, and she was going to name me Joy. In the delivery room, when the doctor told her she had a son, she said, “No, I have a little girl and her name is Joy.”   

You can call him anything you want,” the doctor replied but you’ve got a boy.”

I was born in the charity ward at the hospital, and my mother immediately placed a newspaper ad seeking foster care for me. This was 1943. Doyle and Katie Hale, a Baptist pastor and his wife from nearby Pasadena responded to the ad and took me in. They raised me for the first five years and were hoping to adopt me. In fact at one time, they had paperwork drawn up, but my mother would never sign it.

When I was five, my mother showed up one day and announced that she was moving from Houston up to Austin and that I was going with her. I clearly remember running away from her and crawling under the pastor’s bed. And I can remember my fingernails dragging across the hardwood floor as my mother dragged me out from under the bed by my foot. I remember that desperate clawing like it were yesterday. It was quite traumatic.

Mrs. Hale was crying so hard that she was convulsing. She had to go lie down. And Brother Hale was saying to my mother, “Please don’t do this, Myra. Don’t do this.”

But my mother insisted. “No, we’re going.”

Brother Hale tried to give her a handful of money to help her out, but she wouldn’t take it.

“We ‘ll be all right,” she said.

But the fact was, she had only enough money for us to get on a bus in Pasadena, on the southeast side of Houston, and ride to somewhere just on the other side of the city. That’s where we got off and hitchhiked the 165 miles or so to Austin. I clearly remember sitting on a little cardboard suitcase with all my belongings in it, and my mother had a bag. I still have that little beat-up suitcase in my office today.

When we got to Austin, we moved in with one of my aunts, and my mother began to look for work. When she found a job, she needed something for me to do during the day, so when school started, my aunt, who was a teacher, paid for me to go to a private school. I was only five, but I went into first grade and got a pretty good kick start on my education. All the way through, then, I was a year younger than everyone else in my class.

Though school always came easy for me – boringly easy – I was so shy and so afraid of everyone during my childhood that I would not even stand in front of a class to give a report. For the first ten years of school, I was so withdrawn that I wouldn’t mingle with the other kids. I carried a brown bag lunch every day, and I ate alone. When they picked teams in gym, I was the kid who was never chosen – because nobody knew me. My mother and I moved so often that I was always the new kid.

We lived in Austin for the next ten years, and over that time we moved so often – fifteen or sixteen times – that the words home and family were meaningless to me. Most of the places we lived did not face a  street or have a street address, and we would get our mail at someone else’s house. I’ve said that our only address during those years was an alley, a creek, or a dump. If it had an address at all, it would be some number and a half. They were typically little one room houses with the living area and kitchen all together with a bathroom attached to it. We lived the longest in the back of a junk yard, with auto parts, wrecks, and other debris lying around. That was the yard I played in.

In junior high, I walked three miles each way to school every day because mother didn’t have a car and no school bus ran anywhere near our house. During the entire ten years I lived in Austin, we never once had a car. And nobody around us had a car.

To be continued tomorrow…  Although none of us likely experienced the material scarcity above as children, we indeed may have suffered far more devastating trauma and abuse, either as a child or in a marriage, for which we’re still seeking healing, deliverance, and reconciliation. Keep reading. The next segment is titled “To the least of these.” I am one of them! Are you?

Continued Blessings as YOU GO FORTH, NOW encouraged and relishing in the fact you possess great hope>>>>> merlin