Life, for me, has radically changed over the last 46 years of walking with Jesus. In these years God has taught me so many things. i’ve learned to not be angry about everything and for a guy who was easily angered by everything that’s a big deal. i’ve learned to listen, not only to the Lord but to others and even to myself, and for a guy who never seemed to listen to anyone, again, that is a big deal. Not being angry and frustrated was a biggy for me. i used to doubt everything i thought, everything I said, and everything i hoped for, everything I thought was real… in my mind it was a constant state of chaos and indecision. Rarely could i resolve anything within myself because i fully believed i was a consistent and perpetual failure. i know many people out there might like to advise me saying, “Oh it was your parents”, or “The church failed you,” and, “The school system didn’t really do its job.” But when it was all said and done, it was nobody but me. It wasn’t my parents who made me mad or sad or depressed… it was me and I was choosing. No one had the power to make me angry, in fact, my guess is no one was really interested if I was angry except only as far as it affected them.

The truth is, I was choosing. And the real heart issue, above and beyond anyone and everything else was that at my core I didn’t believe Jesus was who He said He was…yea, I’d say it was a basic sin issue. Of course, i didn’t know i didn’t believe it. Looking back at myself all those years ago i’ve concluded i was a poser and didn’t know i was a poser, just lost in all my well-meaning poserism.

Life is happening out in front of me, like looking out the front windshield of the car. In my rearview mirror though, from where I’m sitting I can see some of what is past, and in that view of history I can easily see God’s footsteps, guide posts, the path of answered prayers, old war zones, and even bountiful places… but through it all is the testimony of change as worked by the Lord. Can you see the footsteps of God in your life? They are there for sure… what do they mean to you? If you can’t see them, ask yourself “Why not?” I can assure you, they are there.

Be patient a moment, take a breath and get comfortable… i’ll be right back.

Many times, in my life, I was like a boat which was tied to a dock, and over time my tether to the secure place slowly came undone… i drifted, not even realizing i was slowly floating away. The drift away from righteousness was so gradual it was virtually indiscernible, almost like watching the tide go out you know. It can’t be seen all at once, it’s a gradual ebbing away until one day, you look up and notice that you’re not at the dock anymore, you’re way out in the middle of the lake, and you wonder to yourself, “How in the world did I get way out here?”

Friends, I understand that many of us pray and read our Bibles to some degree probably… most of us have some sort of core beliefs of the Lord concerning who He is and where we are in our relationship to Jesus. Sincerely speaking though, I just don’t think most of us are very honest with the Lord, ourselves, our spouses or friends. And there is a difference between not lying and being honest. Just because we don’t lie doesn’t mean we are being honest, necessarily. Many believers seem to have sort of stopped participating much, we’re frustrated with our job, spouses, children and friends, and it seems that generally, many of us don’t seem to like who we are, where we are, or what we’re doing. Upon further investigation, i’ve come to believe most who have drifted have no idea how to get back to the dock. Sure, going to church, reading your Bible, and praying is absolutely the big three for re-establishing your relationship with God, but having the courage to be honest, and the diligence to put it all into motion is no small ask. Maybe even hell has figured a way to convince us we deserve our guilt and shame and a right to suffer.

Jeremiah 50:6, “My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place.”

Like the boat which went adrift, i believe many people feel as if they have become untethered somehow, having no sense of their joy or peace anymore. Not only do they have the terrible feeling that something is missing, but also seem to have no sense about how to return, and if they do have a desire to return, the fortitude to do it is thin.

Matthew 8:5, “When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.” Ahhh! There is the starting point…. “Help!” “Help” is a great word to begin the path of returning home.

For most of us, our emotional and mental person is a mess and we’re just generally conflicted. What do you say we go together and get some ideas about how to do a little conflict resolution with ourselves? Yea? Let’s talk about it.

Following our use of the word “Help!”, I suppose the next step is that we’ve got to be honest about what’s going on with ourselves. When asked, “Are you angry,” we must stop kidding ourselves by saying “No”, thereby deflecting the question away from ourselves. Watch people drive, do their work, eat lunch … just watch… there is pensiveness in their motions, a tension running through their faces and shoulders. They seem quick to give a short reply, quick to smile maybe but really not involved, in fact, maybe more involved with their phone or iPad than the world around them… maybe most of us would rather watch TV than be involved with our spouses or children…just detached. Chances are good that your spouse doesn’t hate your job, but more likely is how you obsessively do your job, leaving no room for a healthy relationship with your family or friends. Often, when we inquire as to the well-being of a spouse or our children, we’re often tossed a crumb of a reply which is inconclusive. If you inquire further, there rises a subtle anger and frustration … are you angry and just don’t want to admit it? What’s it about? It’s good to recognize our anger, but what is more important is to understand, in depth, “WHY” we are angry. Be specific. One way of viewing anger is seeing it as unmet needs. There’s something larger going on within ourselves and we’re going to have to start by admitting there is turmoil. Internal turmoil is a powerhouse for generating secrets, and once we start creating secrets, it’s a slippery slope toward creating more secrets. Secrets begat secrets.

Once we start planting those seeds, they will grow, and when they grow they will bear fruit, and take it from me, through my hard earned, bruised and beaten life experience, the fruit of our plantings WILL come to find us like children who go looking for their parents. Is the turmoil in your heart planting seeds for a harvest you really want to put in your pockets? Secrets generate fences which not only wall out prying eyes, but also wall us in. Confession builds bridges, and we need more bridges than fences.

If you’re in a relationship and it’s a secret, something is wrong with that. If you’re not being honest and transparent with your spouse, what’s up with that? We go to conferences, raise our hands in praise and worship and put on our brightest faces, while at the same time the rental of adult entertainment at the hotel where we stay while at the conference, goes up 80 plus percent. To me, that speaks of unresolved conflict and deadly secrets. Something is wrong with that.

I had a dream once, and in that dream,  I went to a garage sale. I wanted to buy something but the man at the sale refused to tell me what the item was I had in my hand. I remember looking at the man in the dream and saying, “You can’t get rid of your stuff unless you’re willing to call it what it is.” If fear is a problem, it won’t just magically go away unless we’re willing to call it what it is, fear … until we dig it up, look at it, and name it, it will always be this cloud of looming, faceless doom which just hovers over us following us around. Anger is the same way, until we call it what it is, it is just a hovering dark cloud that grows the fruit of isolation, chaos, and secrets, none of which is healthy for anyone.

I spoke to a man at jail who had been incarcerated for 18 years and more. His life had all but been stolen from him by his being constantly in jail and prison. I asked him what was going on inside him, and he said, “I’m just angry all the time, angry about anything and everything. ALL my emotions are anger.” I asked him what he was so angry about … you know, he couldn’t tell me, but he could tell me that since he had asked Jesus into his life, up to that point, he had been completely unwilling to even admit he was actually angry.

Proverbs 22:24, “Make no friendship with an angry man, And with a furious man do not go,”

Several years ago, we had a disgruntled and angry man attending our fellowship. He was critical of everything, in fact, he told me it was his calling to point out the things which needed correction in the church. Of course, eventually we had to address the situation because you can’t let things like that stand. The Lord plainly said to me, “Do not contend with a contentious man; do not go to the wrestling mat with this fellow, that is My work.” Eventually, all our controlling and manipulating leads to living a very frustrated life. You can’t control every minute and every penny of another person’s life and expect them to not feel like a captive, eventually despising your presence and even the sound of your voice. Is that really what you want?

The problem isn’t them, the problem is within yourself; and the more we don’t deal with our internal conflicts, the more the conflicts make us bleed. We must call on the name of Jesus and stop the bleeding friends. Be honest and call it what it is. Stop the bleeding friends, stop the bleeding.

Proverbs 30:33, “… as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife.”

All through Saul’s life, he couldn’t control his own life, so he controlled and strong armed those around him. How many of us are like that? Can’t control your own life, so you control those around you, putting unkind requirements on them, ones you yourself can’t even keep.

Proverbs 29:22, “An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.”

At some point we must take the words of our God seriously, putting them in motion in our lives. How miserable must we become before we begin to take action towards reconciling with our family, friends, and God? Where is your tipping point?

2 Corinthians 5:14 says, “For the love of Christ compels us…”, and that word “compels” is a Greek word which means “to hold together” or, “to hold fast”. When our life becomes untethered to the rock who is Christ, our hearts become soured and sad. It is Christ, the Love of God who holds us together. To return home we must be honest with ourselves and call our conflicts what they are. We say we love, but love would never advance, aggrandize, nor does it diminish loved ones to exalt itself. Love tempers and restrains our passions, and never leverages the outcome of things in its own favor at the expense of others.

i do what the Lord asks of me because it’s the right thing to do, not because i’m going to get something in return, as if i’m always measuring the return on an investment, and certainly not because i’m always measuring my wellbeing by how obedient i am. i used to do that because i wanted to do well while here in this life. But now i am obedient because i love Jesus, not out of obligation, doing the rules and law, or out of fear of Heaven’s anger and rage – as if God is going to get you if you don’t do right… that’s not true of Him. i do what He asks of me because i love the Lord and His way really is the best way. i heard a woman ask a great question recently, she asked, “If we say we are walking as Christians but we aren’t being obedient, are we actually being Christians?” i thought that was a great question: how do we walk uprightly with the Lord and be disobedient at the same time? At that i want to add, we can’t just “do the rules” either. In Ephesians 4:26, it says, “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath.” That’s easy to say, but let me say again, having wisdom and doing wisdom can be two very different things. It’s easy to say, “Don’t be angry”, but then learning to have the presence of mind to be reasonable and not allow yourself to be angry is a difficult and fiery trial indeed. It would seem we, ourselves are the prime cause of our misery. Hear this: There are some things which are pleasant in the evening but are dismal in the morning light.

If we who are contentious and conflicted allowing our anger and frustration to continue, blaming others and controlling the very breath of those around us, let me say, as it is true of every sin, contention and unresolved conflict is only bitterness in the end of it all, and it bites like a poisonous snake releasing it’s venom in your soul and body.

In 2Sam13 Absoloam nursed his anger, frustration, and bitterness for two years, and in the end it was isolation and death. Absoloam’s words came out of his mouth smooth as butter, but in his heart there was war.

Let … it … go. Open your hands and let your bitter memories drift into the distance. Some memories truly should not be forgotten, but those things of anger, frustration and bitterness cannot be allowed to keep making front page news on your soul’s newspaper. Put them in their proper place, back on the last page and leave them there. Let Jesus into your heart, accept his forgiveness and then extend it to others, not for their sake for truly most people don’t actually want your forgiveness, it’s not for them, it’s for you. Let … it … go.

We can’t continue to be so angry and unresolved you know. The Lord says there are better things to do. You know what i’m saying? Think about it.

Philippians 4:7-8, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.”

It’s been another beautiful evening, the sun setting low, as the day ebbs into twilight and all things tend to come to rest for a while. i pray your heart will be at rest, letting your anger and frustration go. Proverbs 3:13, “Happy is the man who finds wisdom, And the man who gains understanding;”

James 1:20, “For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

Difficult circumstances are not really the problem … my problem is my reaction to the difficult circumstances. Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

Be strong and courageous this week. Take action digging into what it is which is at the heart of your conflicted heart and DO something about it, take action to resolve the conflict.

Read your Bible, pray without ceasing, be at peace, and be honest with God and yourself. Amen.

i had a dream several years ago. In the dream i had driven through deep woods, up through the mountains, down into the long view of endless flat land, and eventually to a very arid climate when suddenly the road ended as if that was as far as someone had decided the road needed to go. It was about the middle of the day, not hot, not cold, just middle of the day somewhere. Beyond the end of the road was rocky desert covered in low brush… and, just… no more road. As i sat on the front bumper of the car wondering about all that, i had the big idea to survey where i had come from. i stood up, pushed my hat down on my head to block the sun, and looked back at the 2-lane, long, smooth stretch of blacktop highway i had been on for days which, now, had come to an end. Upon turning around to look at the end of the road again, wondering why it had ended in this exact spot, i was filled with dismay and wonder, because now, the road did not end anymore. Where the road had previously ended, there was a place on the asphalt where the old road had joined to the new, greatly improved road which was previously not there. The new road was far superior to the old and continued on, as best i could tell, into the distance toward immense mountains whose tops were lost in the clouds… bigger, and higher mountains than where i had come from. In the dream i thought to myself, “Ahhh, those are the high places.”

         You know, right when you’ve said all the words in your heart, and your mouth is dry because it seems there’s nothing left to say, many times it’s really amazing how, at those moments, God shows up, and you realize He’s not finished.

         If you believe Jesus Christ is who He says He is, then friend, we are the people of God, and we are living restored, reconciled, and redeemed lives that bring honor and glory to the Name of Jesus. Our way is Jesus Christ Himself, the singing light, the dazzling King who rains on us. He is the resplendent benefit who lives in us in majesty, He is our living lyric and composition who lifts our heart, and the light who poured Himself out to make us free.

         Have you ever felt like you’d come to the end of the road, no ideas, no dreams, and no clue what’s next nor how to get a clue? Well here we are then… stick around, and let yourself breathe.

         In the last program, i mentioned that seeing, and understanding God and scripture was like looking at a 3D picture. What is different with 3D pictures as opposed to regular pictures is that 3D pictures have at least 2 focal points, one is at the surface, and the other is just slightly past the surface, giving the impression that we are looking into the picture.

         The entire idea was that if God doesn’t open our eyes to see Him, we aren’t going to see Him, and if He doesn’t open our hearts to understand, we will not understand, nor will we have clarity. How are we supposed to do His ideas without those things? As a result, in order to have vision, to understand what we’re looking at, and know what to do with it… requires that we pursue the Lord, He is the key. Prov 2:6, “For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;” What is the point of having a great dream, vision, or great idea from the Lord, if we only clap our hands like little kids, celebrate what just happened to us, but then do nothing with it?

         i’m wondering how many of us think we’ve run our course, done all that the Lord has asked of us, and we are seemingly at the end of the road? Like a lead guitarist who, at one time had flowing melodies and lots of notes, and suddenly, he’s out of notes to play… or a writer who is used to God giving them lots of words, and then one day the words that come out of their fingertips just aren’t there like they used to be. After we’ve tried all things we can think of to break through that barrier, of course, we think to ourselves, “Alrighty then, what’s next?”, and “How do i find out what the Lord wants to do?” How many of us have even thought this, “What if i’ve done all God has asked of me and He’s just putting me out to pasture like an old horse?” Does the quote/unquote, “spirit of Eeyore” invade your space? Don’t feel alone, he knocks on my door too.

         How far are you willing to go in order to know what is next? … and you KNOW in your heart of hearts your run isn’t over until you’re at your vanishing point and there’s no more breath. We fast and pray, sing, and are silent, read our Bible more, and still, we seem stuck in a waiting room somewhere. How about just being still and stop trying so hard?

         i good friend of mine, after many tries, made an appointment with the chief of the First Nations folks in this state. He made the long drive to the chief’s house and was met at the door by his wife, who told him the man was out in the long house. He walked out past the barn to the long house where the chief had set up two chairs. My friend spoke his greeting to the man… the only indication he got was only a nod… no words, not even a grunt from the chief… As they sat, my friend talked a little bit, the chief just nodded some more…but still no words. An hour went by when my friend said he was pretty well talked out from having a one-sided conversation so he fell silent… and they continued to sit in silence… silence for another hour, and another, then several hours as they sat in dead quiet. Finally, after 5-6 hours, my friend stood up and said that he had to go, thinking to himself that this whole encounter was the strangest thing he’d ever done. Before he could walk away, the chief finally spoke, saying, “You’ve lasted longer than most and that’s a good sign. i figure, if a man isn’t willing to sit with me, then why should i share my wisdom with him?”

         Are we willing to sit with God as long as necessary in order to hear what He’s got to say?

         Many years ago, i had come to a crossroads in life. The former things seemed to have all run their course, and i had no idea what the Lord wanted to do… i didn’t even have any ideas about what to pray or dream about… not even any imaginings of what “might be”… my mind was just a big blank, and for a guy whose mind is virtually NEVER blank, that was a big deal. i went to work, came home, made food, read my Bible, and prayed as i had always done, day after day… and just nothing. Over time i had the idea that what i was looking for was not where i was, yet still had no clue about what to do. The next day while looking at a “Where’s Waldo” picture, there came a spark of a thought like a whisper, “Where’s your appointment? Go find God’s appointment. When you find His presence, you’ll have a direction.” i did what i usually would do, which was my fallback method for discovering the heart of the Lord… praying, fasting, visiting local churches, none of which produced any results. Everywhere i went it was just white noise. On one particular Thursday, i had the idea to just get in my car, Friday after work, and just start driving, looking for Jesus and His appointment. You may think that’s pretty unorthodox, but how far are you willing to go to find out what the Lord wants to do? For weeks and weeks, i would just drive all weekend in ever-widening circles, staying the night in this town, and then in that town. i didn’t know where to go, but i did have the sense i was getting closer. It was my way of pursuing the Lord.

         i parked under a huge oak tree which was in the parking lot of a little church way out in the middle of absolutely nowhere Virginia. It was hot, and i’d stopped to pray and think… there was nobody for miles and no cellphone signal either. i wondered if this was all just stupid and i was just being dumb… suddenly, the radio came on… yes… all by itself, and a guy on the radio, instantly, said these words, “Don’t stop what you’re doing. Keep going, you’ll find what you’re looking for.” Then he went on with whatever else he was saying. i was blown away. Then, right on the heels of that miracle, in the middle of my phone, where the name of the carrier is supposed to be on the screen, appeared the words, instead of the phone name or carrier name, it said, “Jesus is Lord! Don’t stop!” The name of the phone is hard coded into the phone’s circuitry, so i knew it had to be God.

         About the time i thought i had come to the end of all my possibilities… out of directions, vision, dreams, and was even clueless about what to pray, the Lord spoke to me. When i was willing to pursue Him, when i was interested enough in what God had to say that i moved out of my comfortable place… going beyond my usual habit of fasting and praying… going out of my way, and looking for Jesus, He found me. If you will look for Him, He will find you. The Lord says to you today, “Seek and you shall find, find and you shall have, for I am the Lord your God.”

         As we are today, in the course of all our reading, writing, and dreaming, for many at the end of their own pavement, it may seem there’s no one in charge, but if we’ll look a little closer, in fact, someone IS in charge – God is behind it all. In looking back, all our big ideas are not at all random or haphazard, every word from God’s mouth works in harmony with the next. There is nothing accidental about our Big Ideas. When God is in the house, nothing “just happens”, and nothing is merely circumstantial. And with you, as a believer in Jesus Christ as Lord, when you’re at the end of one path, you WILL have ideas while your eyes scan the horizon for the next step… in the moment, you will know they are a “supernatural fortuitous event”. Be willing to sit with the Lord, and not want anything from Him, other than the joy of sitting with Him… and by and by, He will give you His wisdom.

         James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”

         Some intend that they’ll implement kingdom ideas by first going to get some person with a title to approve of them, and THEN they can work on it all. Others think maybe they’ll get their God-ideas moving if they buy a 501(c)3 number, becoming a tax-exempt non-profit calling themselves “a ministry”, then, ahhh yes, then, they’ll get busy on what God has given them. What if… no man gives you any answers, and no one approves and validates you? Will you still chase after Jesus? What if you’re never amazing or great, never to stand on a stage somewhere, wowing the audience? Will you still chase after Jesus? What if the miracle doesn’t happen like you hope and the judge doesn’t seriously shorten your sentence? Will you still follow after Jesus? What if that husband or wife doesn’t come back? Will you still pursue Christ? What if you pursue the Lord in prayer and fasting, and He asks you to get creative in your search for Him? Will you get up and go out intent on finding Jesus, the One who holds all the righteous ideas and dreams? Friends, i believe that in the life of every believer, there comes a time when God doesn’t allow us to be validated by others, and He’ll allow no man to give you the advice you want. Instead, He wants us to go forward solely on what He has spoken to us because He has spoken to us and we believe Him… doing what is in front of us because God said so, not because we are approved of, or are well-advised by other people. It is your responsibility to pursue Him, it is your responsibility to find Him, and to be a good steward of what He says to you. True, God gives us good advisors to help us, but in the end, the responsibility is with each of us. i want to be responsible with all of what the Lord says to me and never take His words and direction for granted.

         When we’re out of ideas, rather than do a knee-jerk reaction and figure some dismal thing like, “God doesn’t care about me anymore”, kick it out of gear for a moment, step out of “git ‘er done” mode, and be patient. Yes, i know, easier said than done, but being patient and at peace doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means be at peace where you are, keep going in your work-a-day world until the Lord brightens your imagination. In John 14:18 Jesus said, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” … and He didn’t say that just to put you off for a while so He could think of something else to do while keeping you spinning on your hamster wheel. Every word Jesus said meant something. Every little micro-communication God made was for our benefit… every lift of His eyebrow, every smile, every breath, every story, every step is for us was for our benefit. He is NOT just the “man upstairs”, He has a specific name, Jesus. To call Him “the man upstairs” lowers Him down to us rather than us rising, in Christ, to Him. God is very specific. He has a specific name, doing specific things, for specific reasons… there is no approximation with the Lord.

         When you think you’re at the end of the line, it’s not the end of the line… in Christ, there is more, there is always more… even when we’re old and gray, we’ve still got something to say. He is the endlessly faceted revelation, so there is no end of possibilities.

         Evil and wickedness will come to the end of their road and go no more, but those in Christ are continuous because God is never-ending and continuous.

         Rom 10:4, “Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” Or as stated in another translation, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

         My dream, which i first spoke, was more than just about myself and what i was supposed to do next. The dream was indeed about me, but more exactly, was about law and grace. Where the law had come to the end of its road, grace was a much better road, and picked up the path taking me to high places.

         When we move out from the world of legalistic religion, which is a world of do’s and don’t’s, into the Christ-centered life filled with mercy, kindness, and good boundaries, we quickly conclude that Jesus is really really alive, just like He said, just like the word of God states. In our conclusion, we wake up to the fact we are living in a world where, in the end, God calls ALL the shots… has the first and last word on everything, and everything means literally everything… at the end of our old law-road, stepping forward onto the new, greatly improved grace-road, we’ve got tore-center our hearts, re-focus our eyes, re-calibrate our ears… we need to let the Lord show us how to re-imagine and re-think things. We can’t keep being like we are and expect to go forward with God… we can’t expect God-sized-ideas unless we embrace the Lord with a different heart and mind… the old wine skin of our thinking and dreaming will not contain the vision to come which the Lord has for His people. No man who says he does the law actually does the law. Similarly, everyone who does the law will die, and everyone who embraces Christ will live… forever.

         We strain forward to see things clearly like we’re squinting to see in a fog, or peering through a mist. 1 Corinthians 13:12, “… But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!”

         If we want big God-sized ideas, God-dreams, and God-visions… and that is God as Yahweh, Father, Son, Holy Ghost with Christ alone as our path, we’re going to have to step off the page, so to speak, and take a chance with Him. It’s time to walk on water. Get out of your safe place of cruising in your boat or sitting on the porch swing, and go look for the Lord. Sitting at church hoping someone will just come along and magically give you a word, that’s not pursuing Jesus. Don’t get me wrong, those things happen, but for the majority of folks, life doesn’t happen that way. Everyone, and i mean everyone in the Bible who had a breakthrough or miracle… made a move. They left for work, went out to find a donkey, or left where they were to go to a place they didn’t know… they all got up, called out, stood up, or something… but they all made a move. Just because you have great ideas, no matter how creative they are, if you do nothing with them, what are they? Just things you tell other people so they will be impressed? Your amazing dreams are no better than a colorful vision of a circus somewhere unless you take them to heart, and DO something with them. Oh, and quit telling people how qualified you are, and just do it.

         Make a move man! Break out of your place of complacency and move out. You’re not at the end of the road, you’re just waiting for the rest of the road to be opened to you. You’re not done, God is just beginning again! Think about it.

          In Isaiah 38 King Hezekiah was so sick he was going to die, Isaiah the prophet even came and said for him to set his affairs in order because the king was going to leave this place. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to God saying, basically, he’d done the best he could as best he knew how, and then he wept bitterly. The Lord heard him and gave him 15 more years. Hezekiah thought he was at the end of his road, but God said there was more.

         In Mark 14, Jesus told Peter that before the rooster crowed three times, Peter would deny he knew Jesus. Peter replied, “Never Lord, that’ll never happen!” Sure enough, while Jesus was on trial, being assaulted, and accused, Peter did exactly as Jesus predicted. In vs 72, it says Peter remembered the words of Jesus and wept bitterly. Peter thought he was done for… after all he had been through with Jesus, he was just out. But then in Mark16, at the tomb of the risen Savior, an angel told the three women who discovered Jesus was no longer dead, to go and tell the disciples, and specifically said “… be sure and tell Peter too” that Jesus would meet them all, including Peter in Galilee. Peter wasn’t out… he wasn’t at the end of his road… in fact, where Peter thought the road had ended, there in a dry, desperate place, regardless of how badly he had failed, God had more and suddenly there was a new road which continued on to high places Peter had never imagined.

         Right when you think you are out of ideas, your sleep is empty of dreams, and the musical notes and words from your fingertips are done… relax, breathe, and believe, that God has more. If you only see the end of your path, look again, the Lord has more, there is always more in Christ. You say you have looked and seen, but the Lord says, “Look again!”

         When you think you’ve come to the end of the road and nothing else is apparent, step out of your comfortable place and get adventurous in your pursuit of the Lord. There is always more with God… more love, more beauty, more life, more vision, and more revelation. Take your time and sit awhile with God without wanting anything from Him, and learn to simply enjoy being with Him… the new road in front of you will be there, you’ll see.

         Be strong and courageous this week, trust that God means what He says and that He’ll do exactly what He’s promised. Drive carefully and be kind to your neighbor. Amen!

Some wounds clear up pretty quickly, but there are wounds of the heart and soul which take time, introspection, insight, and understanding to resolve. When a friend is surprisingly brutal or your left with a cruel betrayal, it leaves a contusion of the heart which doesn’t easily fade away, and i don’t know about you, but in my life, things have been said and done which make those hurts and bruises just hard to get past sometimes. When someone, especially a friend of many years, repeatedly scoffs and belittles you, it hard to get past their projected moral superiority sometimes. More than a few people carry those bruises to their grave, nursing their wounded hearts along, sometimes for years, only to show up later in life as bitterness, lack of trust, unbelief, or even in some cases, depression, isolation, and anger. How do we deal with that stuff?

i know a trauma nurse or two who have worked in the ER of the local hospital, and they’ll tell anyone dealing with physical wounds, that the healing process, even for physical wounds requires care, time, and attention.

Wounds require binding, and binding takes time. Wounds require the right kind of salve, the right kind of dressing, maybe even a little surgery, and i want to say that Doctor Jesus is the universal expert on dealing with wounds of the heart, mind, and body. We need God’s healing salve and power like never before.

In 1759, Joseph Hart composed a song that has endured the test of time, even to today it speaks to those who are wounded and need binding, beyond a doctor, they need God’s healing attention.

The words are: “Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love and power. Come, you weary, heavy laden, Lost and ruined by the fall; If you tarry till you’re better, You will never come at all. I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms; In the arms of my dear Savior, O there are ten thousand charms, yes there are ten thousand charms.”

As an example, let’s take getting over divorce, considering in our nation, it is probably one of the most common yet destructive examples of having a wound which needs binding.

Do we really ever get past divorce? i believe it’s like a living death. In an excellent book titled, “Beyond Betrayal” by Jerry Price, he mentions that when someone dies, it is goodnight, not goodbye, our loved one has become separated from the body. But when relational wounds occur, it is as if the person has died, they have not become separated from their body, and our grief goes deeper. There is the feeling of estrangement because the other person is still alive, even though the relationship is dead. In this case it’s not just goodbye, but now it’s good night. There is a wound there which is difficult to get over, if we ever actually get over it, and, i’m convinced, if God is not involved in our healing, our hearts will not actually mend in a way which is prosperous and promotes health and life.

Psalm 34:18, “The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart…”

When most people are physically wounded, blood rushes to the wound area where platelets cross-link to create a plug called clotting in an attempt to stop the bleeding, if any. Over time i’ve learned grief seems to serve no purpose, but yet it is somehow necessary in our process of living past the sadness in our lives. i believe in the same way, when we are emotionally wounded or spiritually wounded, the Lord sends us friends to be kind to us, speaking help and hope, the friends and family sort of “cross-link” making all efforts to stop the emotional bleeding. When a loved one dies, we often see the family gathering and consoling each other… it appears as a type of clotting in an attempt to begin the process of healing a broken heart or mind. If you’ve ever been grieved, or distressed, isn’t it interesting how the Lord puts the thought of you on the heart of your companions, He sends them to console you in your time of sadness. They cross-link with each other and you begin the process of closing the wound. This is the beginning of God’s healing process.

When our hearts and minds are wounded, after the metaphorical bleeding has slowed down, the wounds of our heart need time to process what’s happened to us. Proverbs 4:26, “Ponder the path of your feet, And let all your ways be established.” That word “ponder” in Prov4:26 means to “roll it around in your mind until you come to a conclusion”. Our bodies react similarly. An assessment of what has happened is made and a course of action to repair the physical wound is decided.

i have another observation – people, and i suppose… most all things, when wounded, are highly inclined to withdraw to, what they think is safety. i call it a time of contracting, which is a self-defense mechanism designed by the Lord. Contracting, as in withdrawing, can be observed when physical wounds as well as emotional and/or spiritual wounds have occurred, real or imagined. Unfortunately, it’s also easy once we’ve entered the time of withdrawal, it’s so very easy to simply become a victim as all of darkness hopes we do, encouraging us to replay the scenario of our getting deeply wounded, and there… we remain withdrawn, thinking, if we just don’t go around anymore then we probably won’t be hurt anymore. Yet, playing the victim doesn’t ever seem to resolve our conflict but seems to serve to perpetuate things. i know a fellow who will tell you all day long that he’s an introvert. You know, i’m not buying it. i believe he’s a wounded soul who’s simply withdrawn and relabeled himself as “introvert” so he can feel better about it all.

Similarly, in our bodies, after we’ve been physically wounded, the cells tend to re-organize, and for a time, the wound literally begins to contract, meaning the surface area gets smaller. Anyone who has ever had a skinned knee should be able to relate to this, remembering that after the bleeding stopped and a scab was formed, the wound area contracted and felt tight. It is highly likely we also may have had to put a softening agent on it to encourage the closed wound to be more elastic so as to not impede our motion as much as possible. Our hearts and minds do the same thing. God puts healing salve on our wounds to keep down scar tissue and to encourage the heart wound to remain elastic.

Isaiah 1:6, “From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness– only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil.” Wounds require binding, and binding takes time.

The Lord has a process for healing our hearts after the wounds of betrayal, and interestingly, it is the same process for our bodies. The Lord is absolutely brilliant!

In wisdom, our bodies, again by design, take an inventory of traumatized systems and begin to follow God’s protocol of healing. Do we not follow the same processes mentally and spiritually? i believe we can see God’s process of healing simply by observing the systems of healing He, in His wisdom, has built into our bodies. Yes, i realize i previously said that, but i believe it is so important we grasp God’s wisdom.

On a side note, healing takes time unless the Lord intervenes, setting us immediately in order… and He does indeed intervene. Luke 4:40, “When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them.” Some would say, “Well, that was then and this is now.” but i have personally been witness to very similar events when God directly intervened in that the Lord does not immediately heal us, our emotional and spiritual wounds go through another process where what is disorganized by trauma begins to be re-organized, rearranged, cross-linked, and re-aligned. The problem of wounds being healed though, occurs when we stubbornly refuse to allow the wounds to be closed, denying God’s healing process to happen, and we just circle the memory of hurt and betrayal, crying and moaning, which is like having a physical wound that is trying to heal and we keep picking the scab off and keep digging at it. Friends, we must let the Lord do His work taking us to His healing-place. It simply takes time.

Wounds require binding, and binding takes time. While in the healing process, we often have to wait, and waiting is such a difficult thing. i’ve said it before, but here it is again, as much as we have to wait in this life, you’d think we would be better at it. When we have to wait on the Lord to work healing on our wounded hearts, often i hear people say they feel abandoned, or forgotten. Oh, not true, you are not in exile, we are being alone with the Lord so we can be re-organized, and re-focused, in order that He can personally tend our hurt and contusions.

If you are in leadership and have become entangled in sin, for me, i don’t want you to go away, i only want you to sit down for a while, not because you are bad, but so the Lord can heal the contusions of your heart and conscience. Some may want you to leave, but i don’t think it’s always a wise option. We don’t need to kill the wounded, we need to keep them close enough to us that we can help them get over the wounds of their heart and soul. Galatians 6:1, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.”

When the Lord takes us aside to His healing place, it is not exile …. it is being alone with the Lord. i understand that it feels like exile, and it’s hard to withstand the feelings of exile no matter how wide our shoulders, or how tough our hearts, …. let us remember they are just feelings.

In His mercy, God takes us to His healing place, for all wounded things must wait to heal; detoxification from the world, sin, and the aberrations of church-ianity simply take time … it is wisdom, and distinctly to our advantage to go with God to His place of rest. John, who wrote the gospel of John, first, second, third John and Revelation, he was the victim of Roman persecution, and an exile on Patmos. It might seem a terrible thing for John to be put in exile, but it would also appear it was God preserving John’s life by taking John aside to Himself.

Let us ask the Lord for, Psalm 51:12, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Restoration takes time, be patient and let the Lord do what He does so well. My friends, God knows exactly where we are… He takes us out, to bring us in, He brings us down to take us up.

The idea is to “go with God” not “get what you want”. With God good idea, without God, bad idea.

True, the time it takes to be healed has hollow hours in the moment, and true, it feels filled with alot of waiting, it would seem … but while we are there, again it is wisdom, for sure, to remember that our God is not mean … be confident He loves us, and everything He does and wants is for our well being … always. Remember, Jesus said in Luke11:10-12, “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?” If we look for Him, He will find us, but we do have to be interested enough to go and pursue the Lord.

In my own personal experience i’ve learned that in the seemingly hollow hours of waiting, i have also been alone with God where He wisely bound my wounds and healed my heart and mind.

Isaiah 30:26, “… the LORD binds up the bruise of His people And heals the stroke of their wound.”

If you have been wounded, disgracefully uncovered, or have been beguiled and deceived; if you are sick and sore, know that Jesus stands ready, with hands full of pity, love and power. If you are weary, heavy laden, disillusioned and ruined from the grief and trauma of life, Jesus knows exactly what to do. Even before you got to the place where you couldn’t go another step, exhausted from the lack of water in the heat of the day – weary from the battle… before you got to where you are, God was there waiting for you. He knew what He was going to do before you were ever traumatized, He had the salve and gauze ready, the surgical suite was already prepped, He is just waiting on you to call on His name for help. Rise up and go to Jesus, He is truly the only one who can help any of us. Doctor Jesus knows just the right medication to make you better, mind, body, and spirit.

i believe we are living in the days of Exodus 32 and 1Kings12:28, what i call, the days of the “golden calf”, meaning the days of betrayal, the days of treachery and treason. We are living in, what i call, “Judas days” meaning the days of believers re-deciding that Jesus is not Lord and God, going back on their covenant promises with God. It is the affliction of prodigality. For whatever deceives, whatever disappoints, whatever works to make people putrid before the Lord, whatever the enemy can put out there to wound our hearts and convince us there is no reason to continue … those are these days. Don’t lose heart my family, stand up on your weary feet, lift your trembling arms, call on the name of Jesus and God will stand the mountains on their edge to heal your bruised and wounded hearts.

Let the Lord heal your conscience, your heart, mind, and body. He stands, not sits, but stands ready to help. Wounds require binding, and binding simply takes time. Please friends, let God’s process work in your life. Think about it.

Micah 1:3, “For behold, the LORD is coming out of His place; He will come down And tread on the high places of the earth.” Isaiah 35:3-4, “Lift up the feeble hands, and steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

Galatians 6:9-10, “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

Share your bread with those around you, let us join the Lord in His work of reconciliation. You know, in 2Cor5 Paul says God reconciled us to Himself and also gave us the job of aiding and assisting others to come to reconciliation also.

On a side note, if we don’t begin to address shame, restoration is very difficult.

Be kind to yourselves if you’re not being healed as fast as you think you should be, or if circumstances and seasons aren’t changing quickly enough. God’s process of healing is thorough and righteous. Wounds require binding, and binding simply takes time.

Be strong and courageous this week, go in peace, and let the Lord’s healing process do as He has designed it to do. Go with God and rejoice, for Jesus knows your name, and that’s a good thing, don’t you think? Amen.

Have you ever tried to find the picture hidden in a picture? It’s like, the more you try and see “in” the picture, the more you only see your first impression.

A picture in a picture is called a stereogram, which is typically, nothing more than a tiled pattern, and it’s not just a play of imagination, the hidden image is very realistic and it is just a matter of seeing it.

Isn’t the Lord and scripture very much like that many times?…often the answer to our prayers is there if we give ourselves time to let God re-focus our eyes, minds, and hearts to grasp His intents and purposes. Scripture is like a 3D picture to me…i read the passage, and re-read it, and then re-re-re-read it, sometimes for many weeks, over and over again…there are parts that are obvious, of course, but as you know by now…with God, there is always more. The parables Jesus told were many-faceted, and as often as we read and understand them one way, over time, the Lord unfolds them in a new way, right before our very eyes.

When the Lord gives us ideas, i see them like looking at a stereogram. It might be just a word, a dream, a snippet of a vision, or a repetitive whisper in our hearts. It may be so faint we’re not sure if we should take it seriously or not…we all think lots of things, and learning what to take seriously is a learned, educated choice. 1Cor1:9 says God is faithful, and we must believe and know He is exactly that. Because He is faithful, even when we aren’t sure that what we saw is really what we saw, He’ll run it past us again, and then a little later He’ll give us another idea to accompany the first idea, a little scripture, a word from a friend or even someone we don’t know bringing a confirming word. But, little by little, He draws us deeper into a relationship with Him, clears our vision, opens our ears, and inch by inch, we start getting God’s big idea…and yes, every single one of His ideas are a big idea, and a big deal.

i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts, a weekly, semi-live broadcast, 30 minutes or so, meant to give everyone a little cool jazz and a bone to chew on as they go their way to the rest of their work-a-day world. This programming isn’t just a run-of-the-mill discussion about the Bible… it would be like everyone else, who all too often, do the easy things to have a little content out there…my intent is to speak to people about 3” below the surface of their presentation face, right down where they live. The contemplative conversation may be challenging, and maybe even a bit irritating at times to some, but the entire purpose is that there are things, we as believers, simply must talk about. i don’t mean we have to agree, but we do need to begin to, more specifically, address the issues that prevent us from coming to a better understanding of the heart of God. Church, we’ve truly got to change if we’re going to go around telling everyone we are world changers…let’s stop sitting where we are, stewing in our own secret mess going nowhere fast.

How do, or did, you get those “big ideas” you have… where’d you get’em or better, who gave’em to you?

There was a man who inherited some property from his uncle. It was quite a bit more than just a few acres. The man had always lived in town and in his youth he’d only gone to visit the uncle once in a while with his folks, and when he had gotten older he continued to stay in town and still only visited the uncle from time to time. When the uncle died he left it all to the nephew who was clueless about what to do with it all… the empty barn, the pasture and woods, not to mention the uncle’s old house. Seeing as how the man was given to prayer in the evening on a regular basis, one evening, he got the bright idea that he should just go out to the old place, sit in the barn, and talk to the Lord. It was a great idea and was easy enough to do… the next evening he went out there and set a spell, praying and thinking. He thought about a lot of things sitting up there in that old barn… he could almost hear his uncle telling him stories about riding horses, barn catfights, kids playing hide & seek after dark, tending cows and chickens… you know, typical farm stuff. He thought it was all so nice, that he decided he’d come back the next evening and pray and think again, and then the next evening, and the next until he had returned every evening for a week. Into his head came another idea that he’d like to make being at the old place a regular occurrence. He started heading out there early on Fridays, staying at the uncle’s house through the weekend, and didn’t come back to town until Sunday evening for church. Eventually, he started staying out there an entire week at a time, then he decided he liked it so much, he just moved from town altogether. It wasn’t long before he had the notion he’d like a barn cat or two and some chickens. It was just delightful. Then he got a cow/calf pair and filled the loft with hay. The months came and went, and as life goes, he met a girl he eventually married, and raised a whole bunch of kids, right there on that farm, the very same one he paid no attention to as a kid… then one day, it all became apparent right in front of him… God had done this thing, and it was beautiful.

One morning as the fellow woke up, he started remembering how God gave him a little idea, and then another idea to go with the first idea, and as he followed the Lord’s leading, it was peaceful and easily entreated and he just followed along with what God was doing. He couldn’t see, at first, where it was all going, and it had never entered his mind in his early life that he would ever live out there in all that green, away from the city. The man saw, with both eyes, in stereoscopic vision, that the Lord had led him out of where he was, to a better place to raise a family. Little by little, God’s big idea became apparent and he had been so clueless all along, in fact, for the most part, he thought all those ideas were his own until the Lord showed him the long view, and then he saw it… everything came into sharp focus… it was the Lord, even before he had inherited the place. God had been planting the seeds of that life, long before he got there.

Seeing the Lord and understanding scripture is like looking at a stereograph… we stare and stare, focus and focus, and then one day, our eyes relax and we stop trying so hard… we might see double a little bit… and then, oddly, things come into view within the picture… and there He is, glorious Jesus.

Don’t you know, God gives us all ideas? Matthew 5:45, “… for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” i believe if God didn’t give man good ideas, he just wouldn’t have any… good ones that is. Mankind left to himself tends to spiral downward, but with the Holy Spirit in our middle, we tend to spiral upward.

But what is it that impairs our having ideas and understanding, with understanding being the mental putting together of ideas, or connecting the dots, so to speak?

For those of us who know the Lord and read the Bible but still struggle with perception and understanding, there may be underlying issues that need to be acknowledged and addressed, like what i call, “spiritual binocular impairment”, which is where our spiritual eyes are unable to align properly, creating two slightly different views of God within ourselves. Some would call this a type of “spiritual cognitive dissonance”, two schools of faith at war with each other in our heads.

Many believers suffer from either being nearsighted or being farsighted, but neither of those seem to actually impair our ability to grasp God’s communications. Aside from that then, what else would impair our ability to hear and see the Lord? i have some ideas, and yes, i do believe the Lord pointed them out to me over a period of time concerning myself. One problem would be to suffer from a “lazy eye”, meaning one part of our spiritual vision is busy focusing on the Lord, but the other component of our stereoscopic view of Him seems to not be in any hurry to participate, it’s just too much trouble. Proverbs 26:14, “As a door turns on its hinges, So does the lazy man on his bed.”

How about having “spiritual wall eyes”, meaning both eyes look away from the point of focus, making balance and navigation a real challenge? Neither eye wants to cooperate, making vision a near impossibility. John 5:39-40, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

And then there are those with “wandering eyes”, which do work together, but are easily led astray and have a lack of fidelity… they are not loyal to God or the rest of the body of Christ… they do what they want, when they want, and aren’t committed to anything but their own vision. Jeremiah 2:19, “Your evil ways will get you a sound thrashing, that’s what you’ll get. You’ll pay dearly for your disloyal ways. Take a long, hard look at what you’ve done and its bitter results. Was it worth it to have walked out on your God?”

i had a dream once where i was traveling around town with a couple of angels, and everywhere i looked, there was a large black spot right in the middle of the vision in my left eye. It was a dream of “spiritual macular degeneration”… i was seeing, but not seeing… not that the view was messed up… it was me who wasn’t seeing it. i fully believe that if God doesn’t open our eyes and ears, then we will not see or hear His divine ideas and visions which He gives to us. Luke 24:30-31, “Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him… ”

All of those are treatable vision problems, but i do think we have to be interested enough to let the Lord repair those conflicts… the first is to admit there is a conflict in our heads and hearts, to begin with.

Being open to the Lord’s ideas, taking a chance on what we see and hear, that it actually might be the Lord… i believe is a learned behavior… it sort of goes against everything our society, and even some churches, tell us. Some say God doesn’t speak to men anymore… well, that’s just stupid…  why not? Personally, i don’t see what the problem is. He has a mouth, we have ears. John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” He speaks, we who have ears to hear, know His voice. Three times in the book of John, Jesus said plainly that the sheep hear His voice, comprehend who is speaking, and follow Him… i think that’s pretty straightforward.

Evelyn says, “The Holy Spirit is so close to us, He gives us ideas and we think we thought of it.” How open are we to the Lord’s ideas and visions?

Stereopsis is an aspect of “normal” healthy vision. Here’s how it works. First, both eyes must be accurately aimed at the same target. Then, because the two eyes are located in different positions, each takes in a unique view from its own perspective. The two separate images are sent to the brain for processing. When the two images arrive simultaneously in the back of the brain they are united into one picture. The Lord has given us stereo vision, which is how we have depth perception. If you have stereo vision, then count your blessings!

Ask the Lord for ideas, visions, and imagination. i don’t mean we should do whatever pops in our head, but we can learn what to keep and what to throw out. And sure, we’re all going to get it wrong here and there, but somewhere along the line, we’ve got to step off the page of rules and regulations and walk on water.

In Matthew 14 the boat was in the middle of a turbulent sea in what the writer called, “a contrary wind”, contrary meaning antagonistic, whipping back and forth, creating confusion. It would appear that in the middle of all this, Jesus came walking on the water, scaring the soup out of everyone. Jesus said, “Keep your shirt on fellas, it’s me, don’t be afraid.” Then, in vs28 Peter, good old Peter, got the bright idea to walk on the water like Jesus was doing. The rest of the story is history which any of us can read. My question is, where do we think Peter got the big idea to walk on water? Do we truly think he thought of doing such a preposterous thing all by himself? Scripture is silent about that, and i realize we can’t build sound doctrine from a platform of silence, but i think the Lord gave Him the idea. Vs 29, Jesus says, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.” i get it that Peter was pretty daring, and, occasionally, i am too, but who was it that persuaded Peter that this was a good idea? i believe it was the Lord. Peter may have considered that he thought of it by himself, but haven’t you ever had daring ideas, and taken action, only to realize later that it was the Lord who gave you that idea, and initially you thought you thought of it all by yourself?

Everyone wants to do exploits with Jesus and go on adventures with God, but you know, it takes trust in God, careful examination of the idea, scriptural alignment, and confirmation. The Lord always confirms His word to us. He gives us what i call, “prophetic markers” along the way… a word from a friend, a confirming dream, scripture to support our motivations and faith. Carefully, we have the big idea to “test the waters” so to speak. James 3:17, “But the wisdom from above is first pure [morally and spiritually undefiled], then peace-loving [courteous, considerate], gentle, reasonable [and willing to listen], full of compassion and good fruits. It is unwavering, without [self-righteous] hypocrisy [and self-serving guile].

i was self-employed for quite a while and loved what i did, but somewhere in my head was the nagging thought that a crossroads was coming up and i was going to need to change direction. One day i had the faint little thought that it would be good for me to go back to school. i ignored it… but like a drifting vapor, the idea came back around several more times, enough so, that i decided not to ignore it any longer. Years earlier, i never was one to enjoy school much, but this time it just seemed like it was the thing to do, and the more i thought about it, the more it was a great idea.

i started looking at local college classes that were available and enrolled in one. i found i really enjoyed college… then enrolled in a few more, with much success, very unlike high school. i began to see that the entire thing was the Lord directing my paths. Of course, over the next few years, there were a few very trying times… there were some really hard classes that i just wanted to quit and go back to the life i had before… but the Lord inspired me to persist… just keep going. In the words of one fellow, i figured i didn’t come that far to only come that far. There was more, and i became determined to finish.

All along, it was God Himself giving me ideas, even helping me understand complex academic concepts. i’ve never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, so i absolutely know it was God who gave me understanding. Eventually, i got a degree and to this day, i still have a sense of incredible accomplishment.

In 1 Sam 27, David was being hunted by Saul. In the opening verse, we read that David “thought to himself” that eventually, Saul was going to nail him, and the best thing he could do was get his men together and go hide out in Philistine country. His big idea to hide out amongst the Philistines saved his life, Saul called off the hunt.

Did David think of such a good idea all by himself? i doubt it. The Lord was with Him and David was available… so he took the idea and ran with it.

In Judges 6 there was this guy named Gideon who was a real scaredy cat. In vs 11 an angel came and sat under a tree while Gideon secretly threshed wheat in a wine press, hiding from the Midianites. The angel told Gideon he was a mighty man of valor, and Gideon basically replied with a big “Yeah right!” Gideon even argued asking if what the angel said was true, then why this, and why that, and even challenged him to prove it. The Lord just kept reassuring Gideon that he was the one to deliver Israel with confirmation after confirmation. He tested the Lord about every way i can imagine, and God met him time after time. Eventually, in one last confirmation, the Lord sent Gideon down to the enemy’s camp where he heard a dream interpretation that caused something to “click” in him. In Judges 7:17, when he heard, he worshipped and set the army in array to liberate Israel. He bought into God’s big idea, regardless of his fears and doubts, he tested the Lord and found God to be true.

Do you have any God-breathed ideas going on with you? What have you done with them? How long do you think you can ignore the Lord, after all, He was the one who birthed those ideas in you, and they aren’t there just for your entertainment? The Lord has an endless line of ideas for your blessing, health, prosperity, and welfare, we simply have to be willing to take a chance and go with the flow of the river. Think about it. Think about it

And now, the biggest idea of all of God’s big ideas… is Jesus, the Christ of God as Savior, Messiah, our salvation and deliverer… literally, the biggest and best idea God ever had, forever. Isaiah 46:9-10, “… For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’”

From before the foundations of the world were laid, the character of the cross was worked in the heart of the Father, so from the beginning, before there was such a thing as sin, God had a plan of salvation for whom so ever would return, coming in the gates of home as a victorious penitent.

Sending the Son to redeem us was an absolutely amazing idea that had been in motion before anything was anything.

God’s idea to raise up Moses to deliver Israel and become a powerful testimony today, was off the charts…  He had the idea to take the Israelites through the Red Sea and make miraculous provision for them was most spectacular. God had the idea to send righteous prophets to tell His story, reflect His heart, and foretell the coming of the Messiah, which was totally unique… it was God’s idea to bring Jesus in by way of a virgin. He had the design to resurrect Jesus, and it was His plan to give us ideas about how to do things, create things, and develop concepts… doing righteous business was His big idea, and even smaller things like the need to bury the dead as a kindness was His idea. It was God’s idea to make flowers, flavors, colors, and scents and to give man the ability to perceive and appreciate all those things. He was the one who put it in the heart of man to need music, dreams, sunrises, and sunsets. The Lord has really big ideas and i’d like to join Him in all He wants to do. Come, go with me! In the meantime, i’m going to ask Him for new ideas, visions, and words… in our bedroom, on the wall above the dresser at the foot of the bed are three large words that i see every morning: dream, believe, imagine… and it’s like every day my God is reminding me to exercise those three in His Name every waking minute, to let go and allow Him to take me into His infinite imagination of restoration and goodness.

i’m Social Porter with Cletus Iaomi and this is Outposts, a semi-live broadcast from the deck area overlooking the beautiful Ockluhwahhah River, where the trees gently lean over the river’s edge and every evening is pleasant.

This production was supported by Living In His Name Ministries, Tommy, Perry, Alan, and Kevin at the Mebane Freedom League, The 20/20 Men’s Group, Sister’s Coffee Company, and of course, the ever-strong and reliable, Jeff and Karen at Trinity Bakers, where there’s always something good in the oven.

.                   What big ideas do you have? Do you think you thought of things all by yourself, or is God at the roots of it all? What are your God dreams, visions, and words? You’ve got them, i guarantee it, you just need a way to make it happen. Let’s pursue the Lord together to release the vision of His heart to the world… afterall, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” Think about it, and Amen.

i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts, a semi-live broadcast from the late evening, cascading banks of the Ockluhwahhah River, where the trees gently lean over the river’s edge and every evening is pleasant.

Our topic is about getting old and the modern-day challenge of actually living long enough to become gray-headed and wise. Think about it. On one hand, we’re being told people are living longer than ever, but on the other hand, there are so many ways to never make it to old age anymore, it is surely the grace of God that navigates us through life, between the glowing ignorance of dangerous situations, and even the purposeful attempts that could end in catastrophe, not to mention the options of a permanent solution to a temporary problem. i’m reminded of a story about a boy. Yea, chuckle, always a story about a boy at some point, huh?

When the boy was two years old, he seemed to have no respect for boundaries… no thought for reasons why doors were locked, why knives were hung out of his reach, ladders were out of his grasp, or why there were bars on his crib. He had an unquenchable curiosity about all things unseen and hidden, a very real “drive-you-crazy” sort of inquisitiveness… he always had an endless line of questions about how stuff worked, and why people did what they did… even at 2 going on 3. He wondered why his mother told him he shouldn’t go outside to play at three in the morning…playing was playing to him, whether it was day or night….as a result, his parents found him in the backyard sandbox in the wee hours of the early morning more than a few times. So, his dad started locking all the doors and windows in an effort to keep the boy safe. The problem was the boy didn’t understand why it wasn’t safe, after all, he didn’t see what was unsafe about a lot of things… he became an escape artist of sorts. He got good at getting out of his crib… up, over the bars, carefully down the other side, plop to the floor, and he was down the steps and out the back door to his favorite place in the sandbox with his trucks and cars, his buckets and toy building machines. His parents increasingly became more and more concerned for the well-being of the child. In great frustration, the boys’ parents, tied bed sheets across the top of the crib, locked the kitchen door and the screen door. The boy managed to work all night prying the bedsheets across the top of his crib apart, just enough to squeeze through, used the bedsheets to swing down, then down the steps to the kitchen. He got a stool to unlock the back door, a broom to jimmy open the screen door latch, and man… he was f-r-e-e! The neighbors told the parents the boy was a dangerous child and would never live to see the age of seven. All things came to a head when the boys’ father heard a noise in the kitchen early early one morning before daylight. Upon investigation, he found his now 3-year-old son, sitting on the floor with a butcher knife, stabbing the top of a can of apple juice because he wanted some apple juice. The parents were now beginning to truly believe, their darling child was so inquisitive and headstrong, surely it was true, he’d never make seven years old before being killed somehow. It seemed he’d never see middle age much less old age.

Honestly, i’m as surprised as anyone else that i have lived to be 70+ years old, it’s just incredible looking back at the crazy stuff i did and the situations i got myself into out of sheer ignorance and even willful disregard of the consequences. Now that i’m this old, i realize how much the Lord spared me terrible injury or death. i didn’t know much to be honest. Not only did i not have any input from elders, but if i did i certainly didn’t listen. Oh sure, i nodded when a grey head would advise me to not do something, but then, in all my youthful arrogance, i did what i wanted to do anyway. Even in my 20’s and 30’s, i’m sure the old guys in my life looked at me and shook their heads thinking, “He’ll never see 50.”

Not only does the Lord give us the elderly for wisdom and understanding, but God Himself is considered the Ancient of Days, wisest of the wise, smartest of the smart, and understands all our ways better than anyone.

i’ve often thought to myself that the reason wisdom is with the aged is because they’ve tried the way of the rash and young before, and things didn’t work out as a young imagination figured they would. i used to visit retirement homes and occasionally got in great conversations, and one of those was with an old fella named Bob who was in his 90s… one day i posed him a problem i was having with a man at church who, no matter how nice i was, he just seemed to have it out for me. As Bob sat crumpled to one side in his comfortable chair, him with his Velcro strapped shoes and old plaid collared shirt… after i explained my dilemma, he looked at me through aged, cloudy blue eyes, smiled his old smile with crooked teeth and said, “Just let it go son, just let it go. Offense is a waste of time. It doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t do anything but wound everyone involved, especially yourself. If you can’t make peace with the fellow, then quietly leave him to his life and find something better. The Lord will show you. Believe me, i’ve been where you are and discovered, the hard way, there are better things to do than to wrestle with someone who won’t make peace. Just….let it go.” The smile fell from his face for a moment, then with all sincerity, looked me in the eye and reiterated, “I said to quietly let it go young man.”

Bob knew stuff. i listened for a change and did as he suggested, and life became far less contentious. Imagine that. i remember laying in my bed at night thinking to myself that i didn’t have anyone older than myself in my life and asked the Lord for wisdom and understanding… He suggested i visit the elderly. i’ve realized, the older i get, the fewer old folks i’ve got in my life, and now, i am becoming one of the old folks, which means in all my foolishness, the Lord made a way for me to actually become “old and full of days”. The older i get the fewer old folks there are… i consider it a loss of valuable people.

Leviticus 19:32 “Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord.”

To be aged and elderly carries with it the idea of those who are nearing the vanishing point. In 1Chron23:1 the elderly are referred to as being “old and full of days”, a nice poetic way of saying someone is getting up in their years. Although the term “old” is typically an adjective, in almost all Hebrew words, the root is a three-letter verb… in this case “old” as a verb, denotes a state or condition rather than an activity or event. The word for “old age”, in the scripture of first mention occurs in Gen 21:2, in reference to Sarah. Into God’s description of “old age” is built time and a crown, honor, and faithfulness. The letters of the word imply, as a man or woman of God in our “old age”, we are approaching our final form, and the truth of God is concealed in our heart, which is why i say that the idea of getting old, literally means one approaching their vanishing point… As we age, our “waters are closed up” so to speak, our joints don’t work like they used to, our eyes and ears aren’t as sharp, we don’t have the endurance to run with the young anymore, nor do we recover as quickly as we used to. Our prospects of marriage and having more children come to a close. But God has given those of us who are elderly a value as wise advisors… which, i believe, is truly an invaluable resource in today’s economy which seems to employ such little wisdom.

In Ezekiel 7:26, the value of the aged advisors was rejected by Rehoboam. In 1 Kings 12:6, the king asked those advisors who were “old and full of days” for their counsel, and they gave him very wise counsel, only to be rejected and the cruel, violent, and rash counsel of young men was taken instead. Rehoboam did evil in the sight of the Lord.

God had Jeremiah prophesy to all the cities of Judah in Jeremiah 26, that if they didn’t give heed to what the Lord was saying, He was going to allow terrible things to occur to them. In a rage, the priests, prophets, and all the people grabbed the prophet with the intention of killing him for not telling them wonderful, sweeping prophecies of blessing and prosperity, but instead, he prophesied against the city. In vs 17, the advice of the elders saved Jeremiah’s life, preventing the offended people, priests, and prophets from putting him to death. i can also testify that the advice to me from those much older than myself has also saved my life, on more than one occasion.

The old ones of the Lord are to be revered and honored. Prov20:29, “The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair,” and “Grandchildren are the crown of the aged..”, Prov17:6. Our elderly folks are to be appreciated and honored, but yet in our society not only do 28% of our seniors live alone, but in their isolation their risk of abuse, depression, and an increasing pessimism about the future rises exponentially. Those with grey hair get lonely, just like anyone else, and loneliness is contagious. Remember, someday, you too, Lord willing, will be old….do those statistics sound like a life you’d like to lead?

We live in a society that seems to be totally obsessed with being young. Especially in America. So many games and amusement, retailed goods, political practices, and even our economy is all geared to the younger generation…..why is that? Even the elderly change their hair and get plastic surgery, often doing almost anything possible to keep from looking old. i don’t know about you, but it is settled in my heart that i’m going to simply look like myself, sagging eyelids, turkey neck, dwindled muscle mass, and all.

Many years ago i went early to a very fancy mall. i got there early and had to wait for stores to open. i sat in front of a Tommy Bahama store on a bench, just watching the few people who were there getting ready for the opening of the business day. Shortly i began to smell suntan lotion, then i was hearing in the distance, seagulls and ocean waves crashing… there were sounds of children laughing, and indistinguishable adult conversations like moms talking at the beach while watching the kids. Incredibly, i also smelled salty ocean air. Although, obviously, i was not at the beach, it smelled and sounded like i was at the beach. As i sat there i noticed the huge bathing suit display in the windows of the store…and suddenly i got it. The smells were being sprayed by little DC drive atomizers above my head, and the sounds of the beach were played by small speakers that sat next to the atomizers. The entire idea was to put into the minds of shoppers the memories of being at the beach, laughing, talking, and what a wonderful time was had in order to compel the shopper to come in and buy something. That same day, i spoke with a regional manager of several jewelry stores, relaying my experience in front of Tommy Bahama, and he told me there were three, thick, 3-ring binders outlining the psychological profiling of shoppers and that the entire mall was designed in such a way, by colors, music, and smells, to pull people in the front entrance, push them down the long halls of the mall, and out the other end. i remember thinking that everything was geared toward the young, children, women, and families…

By observation on my part, i expect the world to act like this, but i see the church carrying on in the same way. So much of church life caters to the young – the music, the worship styles, and even the sermons have to be upbeat, contemporary, and relevant to today’s generation.

But from God’s perspective, those who are older are valuable in church leadership, they have wisdom and maturity because they are “older and full of days”. i can testify of my own growth, not because i’m so good, but because when it comes to church leadership and wisdom, i have done it wrong just about every which-a-way you can imagine…as a result of my foolishness, i can say i actually know something about life for a change.

i am disturbed by church leadership who passover the elderly as advisors, picking more modern and relevant young people, not that the younger ones don’t have a role to play in the work, of course, but, as i see it, one over-arching condition of spiritual leadership is wisdom, maturity, experience, and understanding.

1 Timothy 5:1-2, “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.”

Contrary to the myth about aging, those who are “old and full of days” don’t necessarily lose their intellect, perception, or their decision-making abilities. There are countless elders in history who are brilliant examples of creative, active, and productive people. By example, at 71, Michael Angelo was appointed the chief architect of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome; George Bernhard Shaw, the Irish dramatist and author, wrote Farfetched Fables at 93; Polish-born Arthur Rubinstein gave a stunning performance at Carnegie Hall at the age of 90….and that’s just a very few. There are millions of elderly people who are still productive and active in their own way and want to keep being that way.

In Psalm 92:14-15, the Lord makes a promise to the elderly. He says, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are forever full of sap and green, to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.”

In Exodus 20:12, growing old became a symbol of blessing, wisdom, and righteousness – an honorable practice by which God rewarded those who honored their own parents: “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

The fact that someone has gray hair itself is considered a crown and a sure sign of growing old all throughout history…not just a reason to disregard them. Proverbs 16:31, “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.”

And then, let’s talk about Moses. He was the son of Amram, whose name in Hebrew is revealed to mean “friend of the most high”. Moses’ name meant “deliverer, and “the divine revelation of God revealed”. As a result we could say that the “Divine revelation of God revealed” was the son of “the friend of God”. Moses was 80 years old when God called him to lead His people to the Promised Land. Although he was very old by the standards of his day, Moses became the historian, leader, and statesman of Israel. When he was around 85 years of age, Joshua was divinely appointed to succeed Moses, and when Moses died at approximately 120 years of age, Deuteronomy 34:7 says, “His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated.”

In Luke 2:22-38, Simeon, whose name means “one who hears and obeys” and Anna, whose name means “grace”, are the prophetic voices welcoming Jesus. Both were very old and full of days. Old Simeon, who did the law, fixed his eyes on Jesus, the grace of God revealed, and in vs 28 it says, “he took him up in his arms, blessed God and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

When the old, gray, and bearded Simeon, the one who “heard and obeyed” saw that grace had come, he died shortly thereafter, as had been promised by the Holy Spirit that Simeon would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah, the grace of God. Or metaphorically, when the law saw that grace had come, the law knew its job had been fulfilled, and grace would take over from here.

The value of our elderly should never be pushed aside…we are diminishing them, and in my opinion, we are making our society poorer through the lack of employing their wisdom, experience, and maturity.

Let us be diligent and not underestimate God’s continual use of our elders…they are valuable and need to be honored and respected. 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” Amen.

i recently read a book by Dr. Viktor E. Frankl, who lived through incredible horror in Nazi concentration camps… he said that there is no reason to pity old people. Then he adds, “Instead, young people should envy them.” Why? Because seniors have something young people don’t possess. Frankl says that seniors have realities in the past – the potentialities they have actualized, the values they have realized – and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.

Without the God-infused elderly in our places of worship, the church wouldn’t be what it is today. They are the very epitome of our story as believers. Of course, it doesn’t make good sense to expect all the elderly to have the “wisdom of their years,” but i don’t believe there can ever be a substitute for some of the old people in our churches who pass on their wisdom to those around them.

Again, without the righteous old folks, we, the church, would not be who we are today. Throughout history, the church, and even the world, up until the last 50 years, has frowned on separating the young from the old through facilitating more and more youth services, and fewer and fewer opportunities for their seniors. Many years ago, i even attended a fellowship where no older people were expected to attend. But according to scripture, old and young belong together. They are all part of the great family of God.

This production was sponsored by Living In His Name Ministries, The Mebane Freedom League, the Candy Cottage in Salmon Idaho, Sisters Coffee Company, and of course, our always beloved friends at Trinity Bakers, where there’s always something oh so good in the oven. We certainly appreciate all their support. We are a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, and all music use is BMI licensed.

It is truly a wonder the boy at beginning of the program even lived to be gray, and bearded… yet getting older and wiser all the time. My questioning and inquisitiveness have never faded, in fact, the older i get, the more i look at faraway hills and wonder what’s on the other side, but at the same time, my tired eyes increasingly look to Heaven’s gate as i near the time of arriving at my own vanishing point. Don’t listen to the “belittlers”, the “old and full of days” are valuable. Do you have anyone older than you in your life? Take time to cultivate relationships with the elderly…. the stories are amazing, the like of which you’ll never hear again. Face it, when those old folks are gone, their stories are gone with them. Think about it.

Drive carefully this week, read your Bible, and pay attention to the whispers in your heart, God is, after all speaking to us. Be strong and courageous, amen!

What is silence? Is it good or bad? Sometimes both, sometimes neither, it depends on why. Is it a something or a nothing?

         So many times we expect an answer from God, our spouse, a child, or whom so ever we are engaging with, but there is just silence or no reply. In that space of no reply many of us tend to fill in the blank with all sorts of stuff, sometimes pretty crazy stuff, and sometimes with ideas that are quite graceful. How do you deal with silence? 

Some people can’t stand silence during a conversation, they think to themselves, “Hmmm…Something is wrong, it’s far too quiet.” But the truth may very well be nothing is wrong, it is just a pregnant pause of sorts. When you’re home alone, do you immediately turn the TV on or maybe some music? Many seem to need the noise in their lives saying it’s just “too quiet”. Many people, if not most, are very uncomfortable if there is silence at church, even for five minutes. Why?

         i have a friend who never has silence. He says he can’t stand it. He has a radio that plays all night and all day …. never goes off. When he gets up in the morning he turns the TV on; when he leaves the house to go to work, as soon as he’s in his vehicle, the radio or music is on. He keeps a radio on at his desk all day, etc, etc, you get the picture i guess. There is never silence in his life, it is never quiet. i wonder….if we never have silence, do you think it could be kind of hard to hear the Lord?

         Silence in scripture is seen as a wide variety of meanings. Like when Samuel told Saul, to “Be silent” in 1 Sam 15:16, as in “quit talking and listen”. Lam3:26, says “…it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD,” meaning to “sit still and be silent”. David writes in Psalm 101:5 that He will put to silence a neighbor who slanders in secret, meaning if they won’t cease their slandering gossip then he intends to shut their mouth for them.  

         Silence and being quiet is a big deal in scripture. Let’s dig into it some to understand the ramifications of silence. 

Silence means being quiet; stillness; reticence; calmness; a state of rest; absence of mention; desistance from bustle and language. 

Silence has to do with intent, and is easily seen in understanding the Hebrew letter aleph, which one of several meanings is “the sound made before the mouth is opened and a sound is made.” Intent. The first thing spoken to us when we are read our Miranda Rights is, “You have the right to remain silent.” A right is a “something”, which is by definition, “a person or thing of consequence”, and if a right is a person or thing of consequence then silence would also qualify as a thing of consequence, understanding that, by law, you have a right to it.

 In Hebrew “nothing” is described as “existence that is not”, or what we would call “nil”. In mathematics, the concept of “nothing” means “nil” or “empty set”. Does God ever ask us to be “nil”? No. Does the enemy desire that we be “nil”? Yes. The opposite of nothing is something, so silence is never nothing. Silence is not nothing, it is not “nil”…. it is never “nil”. 

In the book “The Shack”, when Mac was walking through the house as he came out on the porch, he saw Papa lying in a lawn chair in the sun. Mac said some smart-alecky thing like, ‘I guess even God has time to lay in the sun.” implying Papa was laying there doing “nothing” just because Papa was being silent. Papa opened one eye, looked at Mac, and said, “You have no idea what I’m doing.” Just because there is no obvious movement and no observable, action doesn’t mean “nothing” is going on, and just because it seems God is silent doesn’t mean God is doing nothing. Prov3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

How should we handle silence? When should we be silent, and when should we not? That is something each person must weigh out in themselves and is unique to each individual situation. Consider though, Isaiah 62:6, “You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent”.

i believe silence is a kind of action. We’ve heard it said, “The silence was deafening!” Silence can speak volumes if we are willing to listen.

When we want an answer and feel in dire straits and God seems silent to us, our heartaches, and there grows such a yearning to hear a reply from the Lord, even if it is a rebuke, we think some reply from Him is better than no reply from Him. David cries out in Psalms 83:1, and again in Ps 109:1, Lord don’t be silent. What do we do with “The Silence Of God”? Now that is such a large question i can’t even begin to address it in this context.

Proverbs 31:8 “Open your mouth for the silent, those unable to speak for themselves in the cause (the judgment, dispute, condemnation) such as are sons appointed to destruction. 9 Throw open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy, vindicating as an opponent at law, pleading the case for the humiliated, oppressed, wretched, and abused.” 

When we practice vindication it means to “free from allegation or blame, provide a defense for.” To say you are vindicated means you are from blame. This scripture implores us to not be silent and to plead, aloud, the case of the crushed and condemned.

Sometimes our silence can be harmful to us. When David practiced silence regarding his sin, there were mental and physical consequences – bodily symptoms caused by mental and emotional stress, called “psychosomatic” symptoms. Psalm 32:3-4, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah.”

         Did Jesus practice silence? Matthew 26:62-63, “Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent.”  

People practice silence for all sorts of reasons: sometimes in reverence, sometimes in transgression. As to practicing reverential silence, take Zephaniah 1:7, “Be silent in the presence of the Lord GOD; For the day of the Lord is at hand, For the Lord has prepared a sacrifice; He has invited His guests.” There is a time for speaking and for being silent, as in Eccl 3:7 “A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” In Luke9:33-35 it would have served Peter well to keep silent, for in vs.38 God spoke from Heaven saying, This is my Son, Listen to him. In other words, quit talking Peter and listen!

Even Heaven practices silence. Rev 8:1 “When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.”

Then there is silence that is transgression: We’re sometimes silent because we get caught with our poor attitudes or wrong actions… in 1 Kings18:21 Elijah went to the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing”… they were silent because they were guilty of bad attitudes and being fence riders. i believe the people were waiting to see who would win the epic battle and then they would side with the winner, declaring they knew it all the time. They got caught playing it safe. Can you relate to that? i don’t know about you, but i sure can.

Sometimes, silence is practiced because a trap is laid or there is the intent of ensnaring. The Hebrew “trap” paints us a picture of setting a silent snare by bending wood, like bending a bow and there is energy stored in the limbs of the bow. The word has a negative leaning referring to the laying of a snare to cause trouble or to silence someone. “Laying wait at my neighbors’ door” speaks of being silent while waiting to spring a trap and there is an unrighteous silence in the tension of the scenario. Isaiah 29:21, “…those who, with a word, make a man out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court, and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.” 

The snares of the devil are like that … silent, slippery, and have the tension of a drawn bow built into them. Silence practiced with the intent to deceive and ensnare others is an evil. When we bring to the courts an issue that is just straight out wrong and demands justice, yet no matter how often we petition the judges, the court is silent, it is an evil in the earth. Sadly, we see that very thing in action in our government and politicians all the time.

Consider silence in action. Doing nothing says something and saying nothing does something. Esther 4:14, “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish.”

Silence, as in the absence of mention, makes room for everyone who is listening to fill in the blank however they want, as in the phrase, “To be understood by your silence.” This kind of silence can also be expressed as “a lie by omission”, meaning the talebearer purposely excluded the condemning part of the story, so that any “understanding” is according to the listener. Often the prudent is wisely silent, as in Amos 5:13, when corruption was so sweeping, to bring a case of injustice to the judges would have inspired an even greater injustice. In the sense of… if every time i asked someone a question, the next words were a lie, then it would be a mercy for me to cease asking questions so as help them to stop lying.

Sometimes silence is practiced when we are too terrified or astonished to speak, or to even move to run away. In Amos 8:3, historically, the slaughter was so great, that anyone left alive was too frightened to even speak.

In our modern society, often we think we are safe if we’re silent. But, really, is silence a safe haven? Just because we are silent on an issue doesn’t mean we are relieved of any responsibility. To resolve a problem that has come to silence, resolution of the conflict is the responsibility of all parties. Resolve is a two-way street, for a one-way street only runs just so far.  

Silence as a safe haven is not always safe. In Job 38:18 and 42:4, God demanded of Job to “declare” and Job was silent… Job’s lack of an answer appeared as a safe haven, and it was so not safe! 

Job 33:33, Elihu takes Job’s silence as “tacit” approval, meaning approval expressed without words. 

Silence is often taken for consent. Bad things happen when good people say and do nothing, or are silent! Many a person was judged guilty because when they did not disagree and their silence was taken as consent.

The truth is, silence proves and disproves nothing. Silence is both wisdom and can also be cruel intent… like “Giving someone the silent treatment”. Being silent without making a move towards resolve, like giving someone the silent treatment, is a power struggle in pain tolerance… it is a contest to see who can care less the most the longest.

Being silent with the intent to hear correctly is VERY different than silence whose intent is to wound, destroy, or cause to fail. 

Can we silence our conscience? We can be silent to others, and possibly silence our state of mind, but we cannot so easily silence our conscience … the only conscience which is silent is a reprobate conscience. Without a conscience, conviction has no foothold, and condemnation has full run of the field! Paul speaks many times, for a good reason, about the value of owning a conscience that is not silent.

Okay, so here’s the bottom line question: Other than reverential silence, what is the common thread throughout silence, in general? What drives our silence, even to the point of consciously, but passively participating in things we know are wrong? Silence may be golden, but it isn’t always the right choice you know. i believe the common thread many times is… Fear. i believe fear drives us to silence more often than we care to admit.

We are silent when the enemy threatens to expose our past. We are silent for fear of rejection. We are silent in the face of persecution, being marginalized or minimized. We are silent when we think our looks or homes are “unacceptable” to others, imaginary or real. We are silent many times to justify our behavior while citing someone else’s. We are silent when words are about to be spoken and shouldn’t. We are silent because someone might discover our secrets, we are silent for fear of being ostracized because we are different at church. A little too big, too small, too heavy, too loud, too… just too something.

We as a society in America today are largely, hugely driven by fear. The Lord doesn’t merely suggest we not be afraid, He commands it 68 times saying, “Be Not Afraid!” and “Fear Not”. The Lord repeatedly tells us, “Fear not for I AM with you”, “Fear not, peace unto you”, “Fear not for I have heard your prayers”, “Fear not for I AM in this place”, “Fear not, nor be discouraged”, etc, etc. But yet in the face of God’s commands and promises, still, we are so terribly driven by fear. i have 21 pages of exaggerated, illogical, and inexplicable fears that Americans are riddled with, today, right now … they are called phobias. Our top ten fears are, fear of the dark, fear of heights, fear of open spaces, fear of closed spaces, fear of spiders, fear of pointed objects, fear of germs, fear of disease, fear of snakes, and here is the most incredible… 

number 10 is… fear of the number 13… that’s right, fear of the number 13 is so pervasive it has actually influenced an entire modern culture. No 13th floor on high rises, no 13th row on many airplanes, people won’t buy a house which has the number 13 in the address many times, rarely 13th Avenue or 13th street, rarely is there “Road” or Hwy 13. 

Not in the top ten, but certainly in the top 20 are 4 in particular – fear of failure or of being wrong which is absolutely rife in our society; socialphobia, which is a fear of being evaluated negatively in social situations; sedatephobia, fear of silence; and Ymophobia, fear of being contrary or being in opposition. 21 pages of exaggerated, illogical, and inexplicable fears do not speak of people who are strong and courageous.

If we will trust God and cast our cares upon Him, hope will spring fresh in our hearts, and in hope we will step into faith. In the silence of the righteous, as we wait upon the Lord, there is hope!

Hope! Hope & Faith! Faith is the opposite of fear. Hope is the forerunner of faith. When we find faith we can believe hope was there first.

Hope generates a vision of transformation. Hope, the expectation of becoming and overcoming, and every believer in Christ has an expectation, in one fashion or another, of being a “becomer” and an “overcomer”! Hope must have an object to act on, and the object of Hope is Expectation. Hope is a character trait of the righteous, they have an attitude of anticipation with an expectation that something will happen to further fulfill the vision of transformation. Our hope is based on God’s faithfulness, and He is always, eternally faithful. Our hope is a result of trusting God. Our hope is to remember what God has done. Hope lifts our face, and opposingly, despair causes our face to drop. 

My friends, let fear flee away, let us open our mouths and be silent no longer. How long can we not break out in praise? How long will the men of this nation be silent with their praise and worship of the Living God? Open you gates and let glory come forth. Consider these words, or “think about it”.

i’m Social Porter and thank you for joining me here at Outposts. Being silent for the right reasons is righteous, but i believe, by far and large, most of us are often silent for all the wrong reasons. Silence may truly be golden, but it is not always the best choice. Let us believe God, take Him at His word, and put our foot on the neck of fear that drives us to silence so often.

Be strong and courageous this week, lift up your voice, and praise the Lord. Open your mouth unto Him and let it fly. Amen!

Decent, middling, ordinary, second-rate, so-so, undistinguished, uninspired, characterless, colorless, common, conventional, fair to middling, humdrum, intermediate, medium, moderate, no great shakes, passable, run-of-the-mill, standard, tolerable, unexceptional, vanilla…

Many years ago, on a whim, i called a friend one day…  when he answered the phone i asked him, “Hey man! How you doing?” His reply was as he always had replied, but this time, the Lord began to speak to me. His reply was, “Oh, i’m alright, i’m still saved pretty much i guess, for the most part.” Through his words, the Lord began to speak to me about myself…  his words described how i saw myself… not how he saw himself, but how i saw myself.

You know, the Holy Spirit is so close to us that He gives us ideas and we think we thought of them. In the moment of hearing his reply to my question, i had the thought, “How can you be sort of saved, or pretty much in the Kingdom of God?”

Somehow, i get the feeling that most people don’t have an expectation of excellence, so when anything exceeds their concept of average, they ooooo, and ahhh appropriately… even though it could all be so much better if we weren’t lost in the world of a mediocre life.

Interestingly, when someone exceeds the parameters of our average herd perimeter, going to extreme’s to produce art, music, food, or even have exemplary personal behavior, they are called “eccentric” or “over the top”, their surge above the leaning of the herd to be mediocre is unnerving to more than we might think.

A fellow at church was telling me that he was trying to not be angry at his son. i asked him why, and he told me that his son was entirely capable of make exemplary grades at school, but yet he purposely brought home simply average grades, only a little more than just scraping by. Then he said, “I don’t believe we should be only mediocre at anything…  not being the best, not being the worst… just common and mediocre. I would rather be the worst at something that to be just plane jane vanilla milktoast.”

If we look at the church as a whole, many seem to be lost in a mediocre walk with the Lord, like a smoldering camp fire… moderate and passable seems to be satisfactory. Are you satisfied with where you are in your walk with Christ? If there was more, so much more than where you are, would you be interested in that?

This evening’s topic is “Lost in commonality”, or… not hot, not cold, just in the pot nine days old… mediocre. Put your ears on, sit back and take it in.

i saw a poster on a website which said, “Mediocrity: It takes a lot less time and most people won’t notice the difference until it’s too late.”  Another definition is for “mediocre” is, “something that is adequate but not very good.” To be mediocre literally means to be “half way up the mountain.”

i believe, these days, the greatest assault on the church is loss of heart…  after that, it is also my belief, one of the most treacherous and deceitful influences on the body of Christ is not violence, not drugs, or immorality, but our pursuit of the trivial, the mundane, and our tolerance of all which is third rate…  which would be mediocrity, lost in a world of lesser things. We are often more concerned about the curtains in the sanctuary than steadfastness in Christ or our understanding of scripture…  lost in the things of lesser importance.

In my younger years, i simply didn’t think outside the box… i truly didn’t know how. In fact, i wasn’t even aware there was a box to think outside of… i just closed my mouth, consumed whatever the world around me presented, and didn’t really make any effort to think for myself. One day, while i was at work, i had a thought which went like this: In the days before there was mainstream media, people didn’t so easily buckle under so… unknowingly, to a life of middle of the road. At that point, i believe the Lord began to wake me up to the tragedy of simply being satisfied with being fair to middlin’. He asked me plainly, “Is this all you want? Is this enough for you? There is more if you’re interested.”

In Revelation 3, the angel spoke to the church of Laodicea saying, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” They were satisfied to only be half way up the mountain.

Is it enough for you to only be sort of involved with the Lord? Is there a fear that if you get involved more deeply with what God is doing that you’ll have to step outside of your comfortable world where things are too this way, or too that way?

Years ago, a woman got mad at me saying, “Do you always have to do everything a lot?! Why can’t you just do a little sports, a little hunting, a little music, a little church stuff, and a little work?” She was asking me to be mediocre, uninspired, and indistinguishable from the herd. The truth was, i wasn’t trying to be distinguished and above anyone, i just loved the things i did. i loved my woodworking, i loved my hunting and fishing, i loved good conversation… i loved it all and was passionate about it… maybe a little too much probably, but i did passionately love the things my hands found to do. i can remember thinking the lady probably didn’t seem to feel it necessary to enter a foot race and actually win, but that it was more important to run with the majority of the people who finished, more or less, in the middle. i was truly perplexed… wondering why anyone would want to live a life of pretty much, just about, and for the most part.

Is that what God really has in mind for you, to be a person that’s only middle of the road, moderate, and just medium? Have you always been medium, and if not, when did mediocrity become the norm for you? 1 Corinthians 9:24, “You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win.”

i believe it is highly probable, at the core of the distrustful and pessimistic attitude behind mediocrity is that we don’t believe God cares too much what we do or how we do it.  The problem revealed in the opening verses of Malachi is that the Israelites didn’t think God cared about them.  “God doesn’t value us much, and probably doesn’t love us.  He allowed our city wall to be destroyed, the holy temple to be leveled, and our families to be torn apart.  He let our enemies conquer us.  He took away our wealth, our land, and our possessions.” i bet there was a big “poor me” at the end of that too. Sounds more like Eeyore from Winnie the Poo doesn’t it? Israel’s words, in short, basically said, “why should we care about God?  He sure hasn’t shown concern for us.”

They did indeed bring sacrifices, but they were nothing special… just ho-hum offerings… they brought the mediocre things and acted in average ways. Their mouths said one thing but their actions reflected a life of approximation… a life built on “more or less”.

In Malachi 1:6-8, the Lord says, “Isn’t it true that a son honors his father and a worker his master? So if I’m your Father, where’s the honor? If I’m your Master, where’s the respect?” i, the Lord your God is calling you on the carpet: “You priests despise me!

          “You say, ‘Not so! How do we despise you?’

          “By your shoddy, sloppy, defiling worship.

          “You ask, ‘What do you mean, “defiling”? What’s defiling about it?’

“When you say, ‘The altar of GOD is not important anymore; worship of GOD is no longer a priority,’ that’s defiling. And when you offer worthless animals for sacrifices in worship, animals that you’re trying to get rid of—blind and sick, crippled and crazy animals—isn’t that defiling? Try a trick like that with your banker or your senator—how far do you think it will get you?” Pay attention here, I, The Lord, am asking you.”

God was pretty well in their face about their mediocre attitude, i’d say.

The lukewarm are those who claim to know God but live as though He isn’t all that important. Sure, they may go to church, but their faith is more constructed of self-righteous complacency. They may claim to be Christians, but their hearts are unchanged, and their hypocrisy makes the Lord’s heart sad.

When i was in grade school, one time when report cards came out, a teacher wrote in the comments section, “This student can do exemplary work when he wants to, but he won’t and seems satisfied to just get by.” Many years later i look back and see myself, for a part of my life, as someone who didn’t think anyone cared or noticed, therefore i never gave anyone my personal best. i gave what was “adequate” or “good enough.

i well remember my turning point from excellence to mediocrity. In the 5th grade, i was very good at all my studies. i was an A+ student and worked hard at school. One day we had a math test… oh man, i was ready. Not only did i know how to get the answers, i understood the operations. i whipped through that test and was the first to turn in my paper. i … KNEW… it was right. Shortly, i got my test back and it had 98 written at the top. i went back up to the teacher and asked why 98 if all the problems were correct? She told me quite sternly that she counted off 2 points because in my haste i spelled my name incorrectly. i was SO mad. i remember thinking to myself, “Well, if it’s more important to spell your name right, and no one cares if you understand the material… then that’s it… i quit. From now on i’m just going to go play ball with the other boys. What difference does being smart make? No one notices, and no one really cares.” From that day on, my life was mediocre by my conscious choice… eventually i barely made it through high school and it would be years before i gave anyone my personal best ever again.

         If a mediocre life is anything, before it is ever evidenced in our actions, somewhere in our hearts it is like a polaroid photograph of how we think God sees us. When we are confident that someone important to us has taken note of our lives, most of us have no problem reaching above our inclination to just be average. But when we think someone is indifferent, wouldn’t you agree that we tend to hold back, justifying our attitude of “good enough” and “pretty much”? How many men and women simply settle for a “good enough” relationship instead of holding out for God’s best?

When we doubt a political candidate, a wise voter will go back to the candidates record of how they voted, what they said, who they know… and from the facts we collected we try to make an educated selection. i wonder why, in the years past, when i’ve doubted the Lord’s care and concern for me, why didn’t i go back and check His track record? Israel totally had a hard time, but it wasn’t because God was being hard nosed, it was their own sin and indifference to the Lord that did them in. The Lord gave them opportunity after opportunity… Israel was up one minute, and doubting Him the next.

In our relationship with God, mediocrity is a serious misjudgment.  Our God is an amazing and vast Lord of all.  He loves us.  The Lamb deserves the reward of His suffering, not our average life… not our generalizations and approximations…  not our measly 10% and the rest is for us… not our blind, twisted thinking type gifts, nor what’s left at the end of the day after we’ve had all we want for ourselves.

Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”           Deut6:5 says we shall love the Lord with everything which holds our house together, all our thinking, vitality and breathing, and with all our emotional intention and physical passions until all our matters are concluded at our end. Friends, there is nothing mediocre about the Lord, and dare i say, our mediocrity cheats God out of what he rightfully deserves.  The world is watching and our “for the most part” mentality dishonors God.  Mediocrity, if allowed a place at our table and a little room to stay in, will eventually influence the character of even the most steadfast believer.

The world seems to always cater to everyone being at middle ground. Our kids play team sports and even though their team wins every game and are the champions, i have actually been witness to trophies being handed out which merely said, “Participant”. i saw this with my own eyes long before it was a car advertisement on TV.  i remember it seemed no one but the director and the teachers were smiling…  no winners, no losers… and you know… none of the kids or parents were smiling. Why would any kid want to play to win if in the end they are only seen as a mere participant? Why would anyone want to be the best at anything, if everyone from the most care-less to the most care-ful got a prize which only said, “Good job!”?

Romans 8:37 says we are MORE than conquerors through Him who loved us… and nobody can be mediocre, just plain vanilla and be more than a conqueror at the same time. Friend, even at your worst, you are, through Christ, you are still the offspring of God… He is never common and neither are you.

Marianne Williamson wrote, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, His presence automatically liberates others.”

Ecclesiastes 9:10, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might… ”, …  in other words whatsoever the Lord gives you to do, do it with all your heart, work and live above the common, ordinary, commonplace, characterless, colorless climate.  If you don’t, you become “mediocre”.

One definition the Lord has helped me devise for my own clarity is… Godly character is the will to do what’s right as God defines right, regardless of the cost!

i believe in the days to come, we’ll hear more and more often of the Holy Spirit coming to visit Himself upon places we wouldn’t expect. When those small churches and fellowships come to the crossroads of what to do when the hour of their visitation is upon them, it will be a choice of excellence in Christ or to stay on the path of mediocre religion, business as they’ve always done.

There was a small, rural church in North Carolina that was building strength in the congregation, young people were coming, and middle-aged parents brought their kids… the place was growing. Interestingly, there also grew a contention between the older folks who had become set in their ways and the younger believers who wanted to talk about stuff… they had questions that challenged the average, business as usual crowd who could say “my family has been here for seven generations”. As the young people pursued their interest in something more than ordinary, church-as-usual… the church leadership began to make it a habit to quickly shut them and their non-traditional questions down… even before they could get the questions out of their mouth. One Sunday, they sang some moderate traditional hymns, took up a humdrum offering, and there began the usual unexceptional, colorless message from the pulpit. Suddenly, the wind picked up, and low and behold, the Holy Spirit was instantly thick amongst them. People were on the floor, the hair stood up on people’s arms and necks, the young people took hold of the Holy Wind Of God with both hands and said and did things that probably hadn’t been done there in over 150 years… oh my gosh, they were so out of control… it was all very upsetting to the older generation and all the church leadership who nervously looked for some place to be other than where they were. When there were people weeping, repenting, some singing, and yet others staunchly holding their ground for tradition and moderateness… the pastor, who was pale as a ghost, rounded up his family and left. He just left. On the day of their visitation, the main guy just left… drove away and didn’t even lock up. In the weeks to follow the young people left, the middle-aged parents and their children left, and the only thing remaining was the elderly ones who claimed their family had been there for seven generations… the same ones who had always been there doing mediocre, passable church for traditional, undistinguished reasons… eventually, it was so dry and silent, the crickets, who only sing when it’s dark, were the loudest chorus in the house. Ultimately, even the pastor left his post and just went home. That is not to say that there were no true believers there, only that the church as a whole was spiritually uncommitted to excellence.

What will you do in your day of visitation? How do you want to be found when the Holy Wind Of God which blows from the four corners of the earth, picks up speed where you are? Will you be found settling for average, pretty ok life, claiming the words, “We aint never done it that way before!” You are so much more than just a mediocre believer, you are so much more.

2 Timothy 2:15, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Let all that’s been said here sink into your ears. Think about it.

It’s time to get to your feet church, stand… up. The days are upon us to light your lamps in the evening so wayward travelers might find shelter… turn up the burner on the stove to make more food than just for yourselves. The day is far spent as evening plows under the day… oh you lighthouses, set your watch and stand ready by the bright lamp God has given you, let it shine over the turbulent seas ‘round about, warning of danger and pointing the way to safe harbor. Stand up church, get to your feet, for we must change, find your testimony and tell it, hold nothing back…  calling wrongness of character what it is and let the Greatness of God be revealed for deliverance. Get your testimony practiced up… practice a long version, a medium and a short version of how the Lord delivered you from all your troubles and fears. These are the days of excellence in all our works… in business, in relationships, in conflict resolution, in preaching and teaching… there is no place in the Kingdom of God for mediocre prayer time, or just generally fasting. Rise up in faith and excellence…   stand… up church, stand up!

i’m Social Porter with Cletus Iaomi and this has been Outposts, a semi live broadcast from the deck area of a rural cafe overlooking the Ockluhwahha River, where the trees gently lean over the rivers edge, and every beautiful evening is pleasant. As we all sat on the deck yesterday evening, when the sun was going down and there was a light warm breeze out of the east, everyone sort of broke out into a song we’d never sung before. Much to my surprise, it seemed the crickets under the deck suddenly started tuning up, and all the night creatures sounded like they were joining us. The air smells like we were sitting under a grape arbor with faint wisps of vanilla and myrhh. It is beautiful. Someday, i hope to meet you here, that is, if you’ve got time.

i am very passionate about this that i’m about to say: You are NOT mediocre or common place. If you are in Christ Jesus, there is nothing ho-hum about you… in you is such potential to be extraordinary. You may have settled for moderate or middlin’ things or relationships in the past because of simply being exhausted with trying. Chin up my friend, you are never mediocre when you live life under the banner of the Lion of Judah… God doesn’t think you are a more-or-less person… mediocre living only leaves us in our own disappointment as to where we think we should be in life. Your feet are on the path, your face is toward Heaven’s gate, you are not mediocre. You are an overcomer and more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus the Lord.

We are not called to be just decent, middling, ordinary, or second-rate. The excellence and shout of the King is in us, and we are called forward in the Name of Jesus to be world changers, extraordinary in love, amazing in kindness, courage, and truth. Maybe many of us think we are living a mediocre life, but i bet from the perspective of others, there is nothing mediocre about you, and if there is, get to your feet, take a chance with Jesus, and you will rise from the surging tide of commonality, upwardly mobile from a conventional, fair-to-middling life. It is time to walk on water.

Be strong and courageous my friends. Stand up church, the Lord is near to us, and we all know, the closer He gets to all things, the more all things become like Him.

Pray for your neighbors this week, be a blessing, and live at peace with others as best you can. i hope we’ll meet again next time. Amen!