Every Breath I Take

Sunday we had the pleasure of friends from our past visiting at church.
They usually visit our humble congregation once a year as they are in the area for family reunion time. We are amazed at how we are all still in the boat paddling down life’s waterway after fifty-plus years.
Old Fuzzy had a great lesson for us on salvation. Marching on into August we have now left July behind. There have been good days, bad days, but almost every day has been interesting.
This morning I realize I haven’t written for quite some time. There have been slow changes and I’m still working on the next book. The Lord plainly told me to stop working on my diddly projects and hit the books. That’s what I’ve been focused on.
Today the swallows are still nesting outside our front door. They don’t like the kitties that come to visit our deck. Sometimes the kitties come to visit our deck more often because they are dreaming of a bird dinner, but I couldn’t tell those swallows anything when they persisted to put their nest where they did.
We had our air conditioner on most of last week, but this week has been pleasant without it. I do like to run it when we are running the stove for cooking or canning. So there’s that. I will probably run it around lunchtime.
There was an overwhelming odor of gasoline at the church building Sunday, so we turned off the air conditioner and opened the windows. That took some of us way back to the good old days. Windows open on the church building and prayerful for a breeze, along with hand fans in the pew racks…good old days.
I believe we have the tendency not just to close the windows, but to put church in a Sunday box. Not Christians so much as society. We were having difficulty during the 2016 year and before with government interference in religion. Government insisting for instance that the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of nuns dedicated to ministering to the poor, provide abortifacients.
It was deemed that the Christian religion should and needed to be observed quietly at home, but not in public, and definitely not in a person’s life outside of their homes.
Back in the day when Thomas Jefferson wrote his letter to Danbury Baptists, the issue was not that religion would get into government and society, but that government would get into churches. Religion was expected to be in government and society by the original founding fathers.
Even education was merely for giving children the ability to read, write, and understand scripture for the ability not to be led astray by a ruling class of priests telling them what to do to acquire heaven. They could read the Bible themself, you see.
It appears to have failed in that now we have people who either can’t read, or still don’t know, and even worse, still don’t care, and an education system hijacked by people who are bent to indoctrinate children in their evil ideology.
Many are trying to wrest power away from such an entrenched hierarchy but since the hierarchy has dug itself in it will be a battle to the finish. A struggle that will never really end until the Lord Jesus does return, good versus evil. Yes, we win, but not without…
1Peter 5:
6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.