Seeing is Believing, After All…

Most of you know that for a number of years now I’ve been dealing with some very serious, apparently impossible to diagnose, health problems. I’ll spare you most of the details, but let’s just say I can’t do road trips, or anything else that keeps me away from a bathroom for more than about 20 minutes… If a car ride or anything else is suspected to last longer 20 minutes, I have to starve myself of all fluids for about two hours before… There have also been some lingering, very ambiguous, stomach problems. I’ve had just about every test they can run, had two surgical procedures, as many ER visits as Evil Kenivil, and taken enough drugs to keep just about any pharmacy in business but none of this has taken me any closer to being better. All of these Dr. visits and medicine have done nothing but continue to frustrate me, and put me deeper in debt.

 

I know it sounds like I’m airing my dirty laundry, but that’s not really the point I’m trying to get to. What is my point? I’m getting there, be patient, we’re just getting started here…

 

So, for about 5 years I’ve lived with this, and managed to cope, but lately God has been doing so much in my life, and it’s all been very excited, I’ve certainly learned more about myself, and about Him though everything He’s been doing. About a month ago though I got to thinking, “Ok, God is doing all this stuff I never could have imagined Him doing but I’m still dealing with all these health problems… What gives?” I have known from the very beginning of all of these health issues that there would come a time when God would take them away, so I’ve prayed that a lot over the course of the last 5 years. At times I’ve prayed it so often I’m sure God was tired of hearing it… but things have never gotten any better. In fact, they’ve continued to worsen, which is very disheartening to say the least. On to the point, there is one, I promise. About a month ago I really felt like God was telling me it was time for me to be healed from this stuff, and I started praying really hard for that… Nothing got any better, but I kept hearing that it was time for me to be healed, and thus, kept praying for that. A week ago my body almost quit functioning, and Friday night I ended up in the E.R…. again. All the time, knowing God has told me I’m going to be healed.

 

I still haven’t been. At least it hasn’t manifested yet… and there, friends, is the point. God has already done the work. He has already healed me, that healing just hasn’t manifested in my body yet… It’s strange to think about, but it’s true none the less. God promised He’d do the work, and He did, I just haven’t received the full benefit of it yet. The price Jesus pain was more than enough for the healing of this body, after all, it saved my soul from hell. Maybe there is something more I have to learn through all of this, who knows, I can’t even begin to understand some of the things God does in my life. All I know is that before too long this body will functioning at 100%… How do I know that? because God said it would… He said it to me personally, and He’s said it in his word dozens of time.

This is another example of God giving me a gift, in this case though, I just have to learn how to receive it. It’s another example of believing, then seeing…

Self help is an enigma…

and one I’d rather not here anything more about… I’ve been digging a little more into “Oprah’s Book Club” and the material they… well peddle to be polite. Most of those titles contain some seriously dangerous humanistic theology. The point of this particular musing is not to attack Oprah (although that blog may be coming before too long) but rather to attack the American, or maybe just western, mind-set that ‘we all have the power within ourselves to make all our problems go away’… If we, as a people, were capable of such things don’t you think the way the world works would be a little different? I do.

Until we, as individuals and as a people, acknowledge that we’re not able to make our problems go away, no matter how many self-help books we might have read, our problems will stay right where they are… In the center of our lives. Focusing on an issue, and analyzing it from top to bottom doesn’t make it go away. If I drop a glass and break it I can spend hours reconstructing that event. I can measure the distance from my hand to the floor where the glass broke. I can decipher where ever single piece of that glass went. I can probably even figure out why exactly a dropped the glass, but I can never “un-drop it”. I might learn from that mistake, and be more careful next time I’m holding a glass, but that glass will still be broken. If I want to put that glass back together, I’m going to need some help. I’m going to need super glue, and I’m going to need someone to hold the glass while I piece it back together… and really shorting of melting it down and starting over, that glass will probably never hold water again. The same principle holds true in the issues we face in our daily lives. Our problems are there, and even if we learn all about them, we’re not going to make them go away.. The only real solution for our problem is help from God. He’s the only one that can make the parts of our lives hold water again.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t look into our issues, I think we should. Like I said before, maybe that will help us to not make the same mistakes again… As for solving problematic circumstances that already exists… We’re gonna need help for that…

 

How I Met My (birth) “Mother”…

Ok, so I haven’t exactly met her yet, but I did speak with her on the phone Sunday night. It was an eye opening conversation, and to be honest, maybe a little dissapointing. She was a nice enough lady, but as the converation started I thought to myself “this woman is drunk” and further into the conversation it became evident that she wasn’t drunk, just on phsyciatric drugs. Presummably proscribed to her by her phsyciatrist. She told me about half way through the converation that she had to talk to both her therapist and her phsyciatrist before she felt comfortable calling me back… Which I suppose I understand, seriously, who doesn’t need a therapist…

After hearing a little more about her life, and some more about my brith father I began to feel increasinly grateful that she made the choice she did. Don’t misunderstand me, I have always been thankful for my mom and dad (tim and carolyn) and thankful I was brought up in their home, but talking to my birth mother made things a little more real to me. I mean, what if she had decided to raise me on her own, I can’t imagine where I would be now, I can tell you I wouldn’t be here… I probably wouldn’t be the man of faith that I am, and for sure wouldn’t have the support of the friends and family I have now. It’s a scary thing to me, but it proves God has truly has His hand on my from before I was born.

That concept of God watching over me has always been evident to me, I’ve had too many close calls in life to ignore God’s intervention, but it’s becoming clear to me just how much He loves me. It’s sad maybe, that I didn’t realize that before, considering He sent Jesus to die for me, but late as it may be in coming, I am finally realizing how deep the love of the Father goes. At least I’m begining to realize the depth of that love, I’m not sure even if I lived 1000 years I could understand it all…

God has put so many peices together in the puzzle of my life, and He’s never had to stive to make them fit. He knows where all the pieces should go, and when they should be put in place. I’ve been told that since I was old enough to understand the english laungage, but it’s never been REAL before… At least not real like it is now. It’s a relief to me, to know that my succsess is not soley determined by my own merit, it’s comforting to know that God is the one behind wheel, I’m just reading the map…

That makes things a whole lot easier… See, cause I’d always seen myself in the drivers seat, and God with the map telling me where to go, but that’s not really the way it is… God is piloting my life, and I’m just in the passenger seat trying to figure out where the heck it is we’re going… The great thing about that is, it doesn’t even really matter, we’re going where He says we’re going, and all I have to do is what He says…

So, am I happy I got to talk to my brith mother? Yes, I suppose I am… God has really started opening up my heart with all the things he’s done regaurding my brith family in the last month… He used all of them to teach me things about Himself, and ultimately to teach me to trust Him. Yes, I’m thankful I talked to my birth mother and I’m eternally greatfull to be a part of my brothers’ lives, but most importantly, I am thankful God is teaching me to put my trust in Him, and let go of the wheel…

This is something I should have known already…

You know, I hear people say all the time “You can’t earn salvation” or “you can’t earn the gifts God gives you”, but those statements have never really hit home until recently. Most you know I’ve been under a ton of stress lately, with my uncle passing away, and all hell breaking lose at work I’ve been just about stressed to the max… Throw two brothers that I’d never met until two weeks ago in the mix and you have a guy who could snap at any second

My solution to my problems was to be a better person, to do good things, and stop messing up… I tried really hard (and plan to keep trying, even if I may have a different motive) to not slip and to be a “perfect” person. My mind set was that if I do all these good things, God will help me out. That’s true to some extent, “God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”, but I think I was relying too heavily on my self to provide posative outcomes for the sitations at hand.

I think my cheif concerns were “How am I going to be a brother to kids I’ve never met, and how is their family going to react to me” and “How in the world am I going to get all my work done in time to meet the national deadlines that are coming up”. So, I thought that if I did everything I was supposed to do, and didn’t just “fought through it” that things would turn out like I wanted them to. Essencially, if “I’m a good enough person God will bless me”. That is some wrong theology… God wants to bless me because He loves me, not because I’m a good person who never ever makes mistakes. In fact, He did bless me, with two brothers (and salvation and about a million other things) which was a gift from God just because He loved me… Not because I’d done something amazing to deserve it. So if that is a true statement, then it’s also true that the gifts that God has given me are not going to be taken away.

What is it?

Today, it’s rediculously hot in our office… ALREADY, and it’s only 9:45. See, our air conditioners are down, and were supposed to be repaired yesterday, but it rained so the repair people didn’t come… What I don’t undestand is the part of the AC they are working on is INSIDE, so what effect does the rain really have on wether or not they can work? Yeh, I don’t know.

I’m pretty tired today, had class till ten monday night, didn’t get to sleep till around 1, I was in Muskogee Tuesday night, and didn’t get back in to town until after 7, and had like… a ton of homework to day, didn’t get to bed till 2 that night, and last night was class again… This schedule is going to kill me, so far this week there hasn’t been one night, including Sunday, that I’ve had over 4 hours of sleep. I know to most of you, that’s probably normal, but not for me. My Dr. tells me I’m supposed to get a minimum of 10 hours of sleep a night, because of certain health issues I have… Of course that never happens, but usually I can rack up 6 or 8…

In case you hadn’t notice, this is just me rambling, so feel free to stop reading any ole’ time you want.

Last night I made some “Soy Ice ‘Cream’” and suprisingly enough it wasn’t bad. I have some idea for how to make it taste a little bit better, and I’ll be shooting for that this evening. It has a pound of soft tofu, frozen strawberries soy milk and vanilla, so it’s essencially a frozen smoothie, but it was really good. No where near as good as real ice cream, but good. It tastes kinda like strawberry sorbet but the tofu makes it a little more “creamy”… Tonight, I’ll go again at the strawberry and try the chocolate recipe too!

Ok, I should do work now… later guys!

War is Ugly

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Eph. 6:12

It’s just now dawing on me again that we are at war. I’m not talking about some physical war, although that would be a true statment as well. I’m talking about the spiritual battle we fight every day. Lately is seems that ever area of my life is being bombarded with plots straight from the pit of hell. The good news is we win.

“Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hell will not overpower it.”

Matt. 16:18 

“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace; in this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world” 

Jn. 17:33

But You Lord are a shield around me, my glory and the One who lifts up my head. I cry aloud to the Lord and He answers me from His Holy mountain”

Ps. 3 3-4

I don’t think I need to explain those verses…

Do You Trust Me?

Most of you who will read this know that something incredibly unbelievable has been happening in my life over about the past two weeks, really, and while it’s exciting it almost has me as worried as it has me excited… So I was thinking, and praying today, and everything that could go wrong in this particular situation… I was asking God, “Why now?” and “Is this really You” and yatta yatta blah blah…. My mind was all over the place, then I heard, almost as clear as I hear this guy blabbing on the phone in the next office, “Daniel, do you trust Me”- That shut me up real quick… I have to trust that God knows what He’s doing in causing all of this to happen at this moment, and that He’ll be faithful to finish what He started… a long long time ago… Just because I know that, doesn’t make it any easier… So my answer to God was “I’m trying, I’m really trying”… and I am…

Sleep is Boring…

Apperently my body has decided we sleep on it’s terms, and it’s terms only… I’ve told it it’s time to go to bed a bunch of times now, but it just won’t listen…

Sometimes We Have to Wait for What We Want

And sometimes we don’t want what we want- Shala Peeples.

Ever find yourself suprised by what you really want? Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want out of life. The conclusion I have come to is that I want to be succseful profossionally, yes, but I would rather be extremely succesful personally. What I mean by that is, yes, it would be great to have lots and lots of money, and have people know what I have done professionally, but to me, it would mean more to know that I’ve raised my (future) kid right, and given my (future) wife a happy life. You know what I mean, I’d rather be rich with being a great man of God and a good father and husband than have a million dollars… I mean, a million dollars would be great too, but… how much greater would it be to know you’ve raised children who will do God’s will with their lives? Don’t get me wrong, I want to persue my career too, and I want to do the best I can at that, but not at the expense of having an amazing family…

 So, I’ve done, or am doing all the things I need to do to be succefull professionally, now I need to work on the personal end… My relationship with God is probably better than it’s ever been, so I guess I’ll just keep at that, and see what happens…

To Be Free…

^“15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.
¹⁷So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.” -Rom. 7:15-18