Archives July 2023

“Evening, and morning, and at noonday, will I complain, and moan; And he will hear my voice.” (Psalms 55:17)

“The days are long but the weeks go quickly.” My Grandfather used to say this, and I’ve heard several people repeat the idea.

Higgly Piggly—hodge podge—at times thoughts run through my mind and it’s difficult to tie them down. I do like to laugh but there are days when it is easier to moan and complain. Maybe I’m stiff and morning has come earlier than I wanted, or maybe it is just one of those days. And I’ve found the perfect scripture for when people tell me to hush up and stop my moaning and complaining… Of course, we don’t want to moan or complain as the Israelites did in their wanderings.

A few years ago a person was commenting that they had put up a heavy-duty fence around their sweet corn to keep the raccoons from destroying their sweet corn crop. However, that night the commotion could be heard in their house as the fiendish animals climbed all the way up and over the electric fence, made a mess in the corn patch, and then the same howling came back as they crawled up, over and out of the patch.

How do the rascals always know when it’s time to harvest? But embarrassingly, when I arise in the morning I have begun sounding like the foolish critters climbing the fence—moaning and complaining.

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A few weeks ago I read a snippet from Seth Godin in which he was expounding on the futility of our ways of doing things. Using the example of speed bicycle racing—

“Someone in 1933 won a speed bicycle race with a recumbent bicycle and UCI became concerned… In 1933, a twenty-year-old speed record was broken by a racer on a recumbent bike. Concerned, the leading manufacturers of upright bikes went to the UCI and persuaded them to ban recumbent bikes from competition.”

And so he concluded that “Little decisions compound and then (the little decisions) anchor systems. And once those decisions become entrenched, Our commitment to defending sunk costs keeps those systems long after they’re no longer serving a purpose.

Which can lead to all sorts of ideas, traditions, or strange habits such as the belief that “to cut off dog’s tails is somehow more healthy”.” (Seth Godin~)

At this point, we might begin to feel like George Carlin when he wrote: “Some people have no idea what they are doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” George Carlin

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I’m sitting at my computer this morning as what I assume are spray planes and spray helicopters are buzzing and flying back and forth. In a normal world, I would think of them in terms of farming and crops.

However, I have been known to view things on a different level. It’s called being in writing mode, or where do you get ideas for your stories?

For instance, I could put it in a future story file that starts somewhat like… “I hope they aren’t looking for me, and why would our powers that be care what a seventy-year-old woman is thinking or saying on her social media or personal communications? As a youth I was taught that honesty was the best policy, but in today’s world—not so much. And sadly that’s how I learned not to stay in one place for longer than two days in case they are looking for me…”

Writers do have a different way of taking a path, yet it begs the question, who’s writing your story?

According to Robert Frost, who wrote “The Road Not Taken.” There are many different paths a person can take. We must be careful that we don’t follow the meme that says “Sometimes it’s hard to hear what the Lord is saying to us when we already have in our mind what we want him to say.”

The Paths We Take~

When you look at the way before you or when you look behind you, what do you see? Do we ever look either way, do we ever see? I’m guilty of deciding too quickly what path I should be aiming for. Keeping my choices as Godly as possible helps me not go off the curb, and there’s a blessing in that.

I gleaned several thoughts from a Facebook post. I believe the author was Donna Ashworth written to her daughter. I pared it down to just six of the twenty-three she listed:

1. It’s okay to cry when you’re hurt. But, wash your face, and get up off the floor when you’re done. You don’t belong down there.

7. If you can’t smile with your eyes, don’t smile. Insincerity is nothing to aspire to.

10. If you have an opinion, you’d better know why.

17. Question everything … except your own intuition.

19. No matter where you are, you can always come home.

20. Be happy and remember your roots.

Most of these are self-evident. Beginning with number one, men women, young and old, we all have those days when we hit bottom, and no matter what our actions are when we vent and ‘cry’, after it’s over, get up, pick yourself up, get your life in order. A setback should not be permanent.

Number seven, be honest. Be sincere. Numbers ten and seventeen go together, I would say question everything, even your intuition. Figure out why you believe what you believe and don’t count your intuition out, it can be a second reason you believe and have your opinion.

Number nineteen, I pray for each of us that we always have a home we can go home to. And it’s important for each of us to treasure our home that we can go home to. And that goes along with number twenty—contentment. If you know who you are and where you’ve come from always retain your balance. Don’t get out of your element.

As the Apostle Paul wrote/said, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain;” (1 Corinthians 15:10)

We are all what we are, but not all of us are where we should be according to God’s grace. We should be striving to be the finished product God is designing. We are all traveling the road to go home—one way or another. What is difficult is to let go of us and let God work.

“And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. But when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called your son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But while he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:16-20)

But Peter said unto him, Thy silver perish with thee, because thou hast thought to obtain the gift of God with money.
(Acts 8:20)

Having been there—and back, having the right words, but not having the right time, a person can deliver the message but the message sounds hollow to the one hearing.

Romans 13: 11 “And this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed.”

12) “The night is far spent, and the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.”

13) “Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy.”

“The tragedy of life is we grow old too early, and wise too late.” It is a real tragedy because in our youth we fail to recognize what is truly important in life, and in our old age what was important has long gone.

This morning has been quiet. We’ve been praying for rain, and the Lord has blessed us with several small showers in the last week or so. Reminds me of the song “Showers of Blessing.” We are at the “mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead” stage.

I did call them showers, but they are more like the mercy drops. We’ve had two ‘showers’ in two days that added up to half an inch.

Several years ago I heard the story of a thirty-year-old young man who had climbed the corporate ladder and was pulling in some big bucks. One day, he woke up to find his world falling apart. He was about to lose everything. Surely, he thought, with my expertise, I can quickly get another job.

As sometimes often happens in this world, days rolled into weeks, and then into a month and more. He now realizes he’s ruined, and he leaves behind some mountainous debts as well as his fancy lifestyle. No one wants to hire someone with his baggage.

Family—he does have a sister living in a two-bedroom trailer with her two kids who offers him a bed on the couch. Still, no one wants to hire him. He stops putting in resumes, and he gets a job flipping burgers. Well, it’s something. Then he gets another part-time job as a pooper scooper at the local zoo.

But he’s still sleeping on his sister’s couch. He comes across a small acreage with a small trailer house, but his credit is shot. He takes the chance to apply for a loan. The banker looks at him through narrowed lids, incredulous that he’s asking for money…

The banker decides to take the risk, and oh, glorious day, the young man can now get off of his sister’s couch and has his own place. Yes, it’s small, but it’s his. Slowly, slowly, his life begins to come back together. He purchases an older vehicle, begins to raise a garden, and learns to enjoy a much simpler life. And it’s his life.

All life comes with a price. Living the high-rolling lifestyle came with a very large price tag—not just in money.

The devil always hides his price tag… And the devil intends to keep life so fast and furious that people don’t realize the price. The young man found a more satisfactory life even if he didn’t have the big bucks he once brought in.

Earthly life isn’t as long as we tend to think. As the Bible says “three score and ten, or perhaps…” We know that is a generalization, a give or take. Still, the saying, “I knew I’d get old, I just thought it would take longer” is a funny summary of youth and old age.

The idea that yesterday I was young and fun, but today I find going to bed at 9 o’clock is the norm. Or, as I saw yesterday, “Yesterday I was young and fun, but today I’m taking pictures of my garden.”

“How long will ye vex my soul, And break me in pieces with words? These ten times have ye reproached me: Ye are not ashamed that ye deal hardly with me. And be it indeed that I have erred, Mine error remaineth with myself.” (Job 19:2-4)

What price is paid when we err? Much is being written about our current social climate. At one time people proclaimed, that what they did in their homes was their own business. Yet, now, very little that we do is left to our own business.

In a 1984ish twist it seems as if everything that an individual does is recorded somewhere. Who would have thought this would become our way of life? And in another bizarre twist ungodly perverted people are allowed to strut—not in their closet, but down the public street in indecent attire doing unmentionable deeds in front of—as we used to say, in front of God and everyone. And if you’re shocked there is something wrong with you. Tsk, tsk, indeed.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

Indeed what a topsy-turvy world we live in. Yet, there has been some solid pushback. Every day people have been told, “We’re coming for your children, and then we’re coming for you.” And that appears to be a doorknob too far. For all the people that warned of these things to come and were once called conspiracy loons, they are now shown to be spot on.

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.” (Matthew 5:13-14)

There is a Ted Haggard quote that says, “Sin will take you farther than you ever intended to go, it will cost you more than you ever expected to pay, and it will keep you longer than you ever intended to stay.”

“Men tell us in these days that sin is what you think it is. Well, it is not. Sin is what God thinks it is. You may think according to your own conscience. God thinks according to His.” ~ John G. Lake

Sin isn’t merely to ‘miss the mark’. Sin is to miss God’s mark.

“But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” (Romans 13:14)