Retrospect – There Is No Future In The Past

Posted on 2023/09/04 by JimR, Chaplain

I happen to live in the moment sometimes not thinking about the past or future. Today I woke up from a dream I still have on my mind. It was about my first real love. It was real, but it wasn’t meant to be. Then I married at twenty-one to an eighteen year old girl. I spent thirty seven years and two sons trying to make it work.

In December of 2008 I met someone. She was married as well, but we were both floundering in failing marriages. By May of 2009 we were together. We both left marriages of over thirty years each.

We have been inseparable since the day we met the first time in January 2009. My “now” wife and I got married two weeks after my divorce was finalized in 2015. She has been my inspiration to stay alive and solve anything life throws at us. Everyone we ever met since we’ve been together thought we were already married.

The retrospect comes from the “what if” realm. What if we had met when we were young. Back in those days she was hanging out with my brother, who later wanted to get serious with her, but she only felt it to be a great friendship. Still I never knew her. She had moved to my hometown the year after I left for the Army. It was strange that we came close in some ways and could have crossed paths. Both of us have wondered what would have happened had we met and married back then.

I picture us married with five sons. I feel that so strongly. I feel like I missed out on something so much more than what I had in my past marriage. We have been such a good team. We communicate. Something my previous marriage never seemed to have. We can even go out to eat and without speaking order the same thing from the menu. We’re that close. When I was ordained into the ministry she came to me wanting the same thing and now she, too, is ordained and has her own ministry.

I wonder how much more God could have done with both of us in a longer period of time. Then I have to wonder if all my life was ordered to be what it is without the “what if”. My wife and I rest in our love for each other and know that God put us together in the turmoil of times we went through.

This throws me back to a PBS program we watched this past weekend. It was about the life of a Nashville icon Carl Jackson. There was a song that struck my thinking. The title of it was “There Is No Future In The Past”. How much more truth can that say?

Posted in Christian, Common Sense, Days in Small, Failure Not An Option, Family, God's Calling, God's direction, God's Guidance, Good ole days, Growing up, Home, Hope, Love, Marriage, Maturity, Memories, Mental Health, More of God, Possibilities, Sobering Thoughts, Soulmate, Spiritual | Leave a comment

The Deck

Posted on 2023/08/14 by JimR, Chaplain

Some days I stay just one step ahead of depression. It’s such an annoying part of my life. I’m Christian and you would think I would not have issues, but to be honest no one is without something that dogs us. I have all the things I need. God has been good. No worries for food, clothing, a home, transportation and such. Most of all He gave me a wife that loves me unconditionally. We can even disagree, but even that doesn’t last long. Maybe even a few minutes. The love we have for each other is so much stronger than division could possibly cause.

So why am I writing this on a Monday morning? I had a very rough Saturday. I got outside to work on finishing up our deck with just the railing caps and railings on the steps and could not get past the second section. I was feeling really bad. To put things into perspective, I have a glucometer and blood pressure cuff that transmits my reading back to my doctor. However I have a non-transmitting BP cuff I use sometimes just for my own reference. When I came inside after becoming dizzy and feeling faint I found my BP was 88/64. That is way too low. I should have passed out. I get dehydrated and that is the kind of thing I get for not taking in enough water.

This morning I have to get back out in the oppressive heat and finish this job up. It’s not a difficult job. It’s just a bit more tedious than the other parts of the deck construction. It has been a very fulfilling project for a 72 year old man and his wife to accomplish.

God has blessed both of us with the ability to get this done. When we look around at our friends from our school days we can’t but thank God for this. I’ve lost another of my school friends last week. Another is battling cancer. Another is having a return of cancer.

However, God has told me this is my last big project I will ever do and I agree. It’s 24×16. I don’t know many men my age that would tackle such a project.

The deck is a deck, but to me it is a symbol of God’s grace and strength for my wife and I to accomplish at our age. It will stand for a long time for not only the rest of my life, but for whoever gets this home after we’re gone.

God is good.

Posted in Abundant life, Christian Mission, Failure Not An Option, Health, Home, Love, Marriage, Maturity, Memories, Mental Health, Old Age, Patience, Ponderings, Possibilities | Leave a comment

Paradymn Shift

Posted on 2023/08/11 by JimR, Chaplain

While talking with my pastor yesterday I was able to grasp something I’ve already realized yet had not verbalized.

I’ve considered myself as OCD for many years. That is not something I self-identified so much as what some who know me have expressed such an issue. My self-awareness began to kick in and I would suppose that summation is true. Everything has to be symetrical. Everything has to have a place. There has to be a strict order and arrangement. If this is not accomplished I am totally lost until I can put all things in a slot somewhere in my thinking.

This leads me to the title of this post. When I used to minister on a more regular basis I was very meticulous in preparation for the alloted time I would have to teach or preach. I would try to follow the notes I prepared. I always felt God showed up in the moment, but something was lacking. At this point in life I have found something that has caused me to change. I told my pastor I no longer feel to prepare a message. It comes from my own intellect via the direction God would give me. A deeper delivery of a message now has become something different.

I think of it in the term of “free-wheeling”, but it’s not. I’ve a lot of life-experience to lean on now with age. One thing I’d rather do is to shut down my mind when I stand to minister and allow God to speak directly through me. I’ve learned to combine the principles of the Word with what has been written on my heart. God has given me understanding that can be expounded upon without thumbing through meticulous notes.

Learn to speak from your heart. In your walk with God you become more like Him. Learning is one thing, but becoming is an entirely different avenue for us. My heart is for Him, about Him and towards Him. I’m more inclined to say what He says as I get older. Delivering a message from a pulpit that was prepared by me is making me a middle man. To listen for God to speak and allow my vessel to be the conveyance takes me out of the way for Him to speak directly to other. It’s isn’t me speaking. Listen for God in the vessel.

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Why?

Posted on 2023/08/03 by JimR, Chaplain

I’ve dropped the ball on writing. I’m busy with so many other things. Driving a school bus for the summer reading program finished up last Thursday. My wife and I are building a huge deck. It is a major project. It is 24x16ft. It is almost half the size of our small home.

My wife wanted it as big as possible. She and I are building it ourselves. On the trailer to the left of the picture is a trailer with a sliding glass door that will be installed by a contractor I know. As you can see the deck has not yet gotten handrails. That is for next week. We’re taking a break for a few days. My wife is going to her cousin’s home at the lake upstate for a visit with some other ladies for something of a retreat. Perhaps this is just as much for me as it is for her. I will likely build the steps on the deck. It’s not a difficult task. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, which will keep me inside anyway.

God is still at the forefront of life here. He’s been speaking to me. It is a calming understanding of things in life. I once wondering as a young man how older people nearing the end of life dealt with the knowledge of the imminent end.

I read a lot and I’ve heard both sides of the story concerning what men think is after this life. . . or not. I thought way back then that I could likely lose my mental state from the impending end. However, now that I’m going on 73 yrs old I find myself not so concerned any more. I’ve got a contentment about the end of my life. I don’t suspect it to be any time soon, but I feel when it is time I will rest in what God has been showing me.

I don’t understand people who revel is declaring there is no God. There is an empty place in all of us that gives us cause to want something we know we need. These unbelievers have only to take on God to prove Himself to them. How do I know God is real?

When I was about 12 years old I heard God tell me I would be a mnister. More directly I would be an evangelist. Over the next several decades I came and went like the tide in my faith. My definition of an evangelist shifted several times. What brought me to this day was the school I attended for certification as a Chaplain. I was already an ordained minister under my church an the state in which I live. The more I studied to become a Chaplain I found that the truest form of a Chaplain is best defined as an evangelist. God slipped that over on me. I had no idea the culmination of my calling would be revealed at this late time in my life.

How do I know God exists in other ways. He met me with the Upper Room experience with the evidence of tongues. There have been times I’ve heard other speak in tongues and knew what they were saying as confirmed by another in the setting.

God told me when I was 31 to sell my home and move my family to a little town, which is where I still live decades later. I had nighmares about selling my little brick home that I bought in 1973. The amazing thing is the home my wife and I live in that I bought eight years ago was built in 1973. It’s brick as well with a huge detacted garage. God practically gave us this home. We looked at, made and offer over another possible buyer, got approved the next morning. The next day my home at the time sold that day and the buyer paid me by check and said I had to be out that day. So we looked at, bought a home, and sold another home and moved in. That was done in 3 days.

If I go back to 1989 I got a call to an interview for a job with civil service. I really didn’t want it because I would lose one half my pay. Even so, God told me to take the job. In fact He told me at the time I would suffer two things of which the evident one was finances, but the other was sickness. After about the fourth month I had attorneys and collection agencies calling for money and I ending up in the hospital for the first time ever in my life. By the way, God told me this endurance would last five years, but at that time I would be restored to my original state. On the fifth anniversary to the very week, I got a promotion at work and restored my pay to a liveable level. My grandmother’s estate, which I thought had been settled at least two years before came to bear. I got a check from her estate that paid up all my debts to that date. You can’t beat God for having the best for yourself

Even through my divorce He was with me. I collapsed, but God picked me up and restored me from that. Right after my first wife and I separated God promoted me at work again with a very sizeable increase in rank and pay. The woman I had begun a relationship at the time became my help both mentally and physically. She became my wife five years after we met. We’ve been married eight years now and she became ordained as a minister a couple of years ago and is very active in ministry. There is so much to share, yet not enough space here to write about. I love this woman beyond measure. She is my compliment.

In all these years God has never left me without a roof over my head, a vehicle or vehicles to drive and food on our table. My former wife has never thrived. She’s had mutiple issues with one being cancer. She lives in bitterness and I cannot make that change for her.

But most of all I’ve told this many times. My dad said my family did not have longevity. All the men of my family died before or by age 60. I’m the oldest of five sons. Three are decease in their fifties. My dad, granddad and great-granddad all died on or before sixty. I told my dad I was not buying this family curse. God has seen me through. In October I will be seventy-three and my last check ups with my docs were all good. All tests within limits. My heart is strong, My only misgiving is I am 72. Some days I feel old, but I still put in a busy day. God is good. I have a strong mind and my soul belongs to a loving Father in Heaven and I might have to say heart as well.

The recent revelations God has allowed for me to see have further bolstered my faith. People that can’t understand that will never know WHY till they stop being so unbelieving and give time to searching their hearts for why they are so hardened to the fact that Jesus died on a cross for them as well as me. We all have that in common. WHY not seek Him?

Posted in Absolute(s), Abundant life, Christian Mission, Common Sense, Death, Divorce, Follow God, God's Calling, God's direction, God's Guidance, Health, Home, Hope, Love, Marriage, Maturity, Memories, Mental Health, More of God, Old Age, Patience, Priorities, Respect for Life, Retirement, Salvation, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Investments | Leave a comment

Seasons

Posted on 2023/07/21 by JimR, Chaplain

I remember as a young child I loved playing with my toys in the dirt. Then came the day when I realized that wasn’t for me anymore. Then came the day when a bath was necessary because I realized girls really didn’t have cooties. Then a day came when responsibilities became a priority to maintain a stable life. I learned I had to make a path through this world.

Seasons changing are a signal that growth is happening. Embrace it. Look forward. Only look back to observe that you have grown. Not something you cling to.

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Stop!

Posted on 2023/07/09 by JimR, Chaplain

People may not like rain, rain, rain, but rain is beneficial to growth and cleansing. It is inconvenient for outside activities, but we must bear with it. Too much can be a bad thing as well, but still, we bear with it and move forward. Tomorrow is another day, rain or shine. This earth is a wonder to behold. Maybe God wants you to take a moment and contemplate the wonders of nature. So stop a moment. There is enjoyment in God’s presence.

To add to the above thought, I want to say this in addition. I sit here in my living room on my couch with it reclined in partial darkness due to the overcast sky outside. The front edge of a storm is presently moving in. Thunder can be heard in the distance. Somehow I feel closer to God in these type moments.

God has put on my heart certain people. Two of them are my neighbors. One worked in the room right next to my office when I was working at the hospital. She was the communications supervisor. She directed calls for emergencies, firedrills, or people calling in on the generic main hospital line through her crew of operators. A while back after I had not seen her in a while, I was taken back by her appearance. She was no longer the robust dark-haired woman I knew from the hospital. Our paths had just not crossed much due to our schedules. I spoke to her husband and found out he’d had a stroke and was retired due to his health. Then yesterday I learned from her he’d had another stroke and was now blind. Then she related to me that she was now in need of a liver transplant. My heart sank. I put my arm around her shoulder and told her we would keep her in our prayers.

On another side of things, the church my wife and I attend goes out once a year on Saturday and scatters around the town at local businesses and randomly (as led) pays for people’s groceries, gas, food (fast food restaurants). We also prayed for those that requested prayer. This isn’t the whole crowd seen in the picture. Some were still out painting fire hydrants for the fire department. Yes, that is something to help the community as well. We paid for almost $8k on people’s behalf.

While milling through the Walmart where I was, I ended up paying several people’s groceries, but what I thank God for the most was one customer requesting we pray for her. So, there in Walmart at the checkout two or three others and myself prayed for this woman who is to have surgery. That meant more to me than all the money given away. I had one small girl tell me she was giving out devotionals and telling them that Jesus loved them.

Never pass up a chance to serve God’s purpose in this world. So stop when you hear Him say to you to pray for someone. It speaks louder when you do for others moreso than all the preaching you can hear in a lifetime.

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What If. . .

Posted on 2023/07/08 by JimR, Chaplain

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, – I Cor 15:51

God spoke to me this week concerning the above scripture.

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: – II Cor 5:2

I haven’t begun to fathom this subject. I think sometimes God teases me with the tip of the iceburg on a subject. In that I can only assume it was meant to prode me to dig into the subject. I still haven’t forgotten my other thoughts, but as quickly as I try to delve into a subject God throws another thought to me.

I’ve had teaching on this many years ago. Certain words don’t mean what we think in Western society, so I understand what is being said. I can only encourage you to study the native culture from which the Bible was written and especially the word meanings from original writings.

What God threw to me was this. He asked me what would I do if He turned that all important God gene on in my being and I became immortal. What, you ask? Have I lost my mind? Well, I’m only giving you scripture above that this event is supposed to happen. If I were to seek Him diligently on this could this actually become something real in my life. How strong is my faith to believe this could actually happen. I’m sure it would not be just me this would happen to.

Is this the age in God’s timing this is to start manifesting itself. I’m sure people will squint at me and ask the question of me am I okay. Some would say I’m old and my mental state is becoming less than what it should be.

The word “change” in the scripture means to change, to exchange one thing for another, to transform. Being changed from ONE THING for ANOTHER. That means we become something totally different yet we will still be ourselves.

As you read on further in the I Corinthians scripture where it says “Twinkle of an eye” it speak of a moment in time that is sudden. I’ve had some say it is a time of transformation.

I am in no way am past the surface of this thought. It will take weeks to dig out the proper exegesis of scripture concerning this subject. Lord, help me. I have so much that bombards my thoughts on so many subjects. I need this transformation to immortality so I can have the time to understand all I’m seeing out there.

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Just Get Up

Posted on 2023/07/02 by JimR, Chaplain

I know. I haven’t written much lately. I didn’t know life could be so busy when I retired. Being off for the summer from driving a school bus lets me sleep in a bit longer, but I still have summer school driving starting the 10th of July for a couple of weeks. I drove some middle schoolers to the aquarium Friday before last.

We’ve bought a deck kit for a 24×16 deck that I will start on tomorrow. Bills to pay for the month. I set them up all at once and date them to hit on their pay date. I don’t like the heat. Summer is finally here with 90 degree temps. I mow our church lawn and mine, so that is on for one day this week.

With all that I still find time to talk with God. He’s been quite fascinating lately. I’ve started a post on sin conciousness. But for this evening I’m just letting those of you that read my blog that I’m still here. In my studies of the First Book of Enoch I’m having a paradymn shift in my belief system. I’ve spoken with another minister in Europe that tells me that Enoch is included in the Bible they use and it holds equal reverence as the 66 books we employ in our Protestant Bible. I really believe we need to expand out thinking and weigh Biblical and Hebrew writings. Weighing Enoch against Biblical canon I find it weaves itself into the books and explains scriptures that are vague. I’ve even sat with my pastor and assistant pastor and discussed it with them as well as read and watched videos concerning Enoch’s content.

Right now at this moment God is tugging at my heart to write something. I don’t know what, but I will kind of freewheel and let His Spirit guide me.

I find most churches are a mile wide and a quarter inch deep. Most of what is preached is “feel good” messages. There is nothing in them that contains instruction into the deeper things of Christ so that we may conform to Him. Most of what I hear is telling people how to fix what’s wrong with them and to me it has become a word that focuses on what’s wrong and what needs fixing. You have a past. I have a past. It died with our conversion. I know we have to grow in Him. That’s a given. However we need to stop looking back and start looking forward to what God has planned for us. We need to be dropping our past like a hot rock while looking forward towards our goal in Him. That goal is to become a mature (perfect) spirit in Him. We speak of perfect wrongly in Christian terms. No one is perfect (mature), but we are being perfected (matured) through our growth in Him.

Matt 5:48 – Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance defines it this way: 5056; complete (in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character, etc.); neuter (as noun, with 3588) completeness:–of full age, man, perfect.

Perfection isn’t attained all at once. It’s a process of growth. We are being told by Jesus to grow up. Falling down in our walk isn’t failure. Getting up and continuing the walk is what makes us grow. We are bound to fall down. It’s the getting up that counts.

In the process we mature in Christ. Don’t let yesterday’s failure or even today’s failure be discouraging. Just get up. That’s how you’ll grow up.

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Taken or Left?

Posted on 2023/06/19 by JimR, Chaplain

Much is said about end times and there are many people that portend to know the Bible, yet have not completely sought the true meaning of prophesy. I used to be one of those of the camp of the “any minute” rapture of the church.

I was an angry young man when I found there to be views of end times and without going into detail I was out to prove all others wrong. I failed. The conclusion led me to change my thinking. All this rustling around telling people to get ready to disappear at any moment will only lead to dispair as God prepares to vindicate Himself in the earth while we are protected by his shadow over us.

Psalm 94:15 New English Translation – For justice will prevail, and all the morally upright will be

vindicated.

Many wring their hands in despair. However, we need not do so. We speak of the world going to hell in a handbasket, but there is no need to worry over such. I’ve always said and will continue to say that the kingdom adds and multiplies. Evil subtracts and divides. Evil devours itself. It cannot subsist in and of itself. It’s a simple principle. Stand and watch the principles of God work on the earth; we only need to praise Him for His victory for and in us. His removal of evil will leave us a revived earth upon which to live for eternity.

I Cor 10:26 – For the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.

I cannot and will not expect to leave the earth. I expect to remain as Noah did.

Matt 24:40 – Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

As it was in the days of Noah the wicked were swept away in the flood. Only Noah and his family were left.

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Paradigm Shift

Posted on 2023/06/12 by JimR, Chaplain

I haven’t given up on writing about eschatological writings, but for now I have a more perplexing issue at hand. My studies have led me to an area of thinking I have not delved into before.

I tried to express my thoughts to my wife. However, I cannot sufficiently do so as I don’t have a handle on it as yet and that is what makes me troubled. God is very slowly opening up something to me I have yet to understand fully enough to get a full picture of it.

We go to church. We hear preaching on how we should live out lives and have altar calls where we can confess our shortcomings. My concern is there is something we should be looking into after we clean up ourselves. Still next service it’s the same thing. People end up at the altar to “clean up”. There has to be a time when we stop focusing on our past and shortcomings and look to God’s view of who He sees we are in Him.

If we can look at ourselves through His eyes we will see not a being that is dirty and short of the person we could be, but a victorious overcomer. Once and for all we no longer should be carrying in our thinking of who we were or short of. Positivity in our thinking should be our focus.

Phil 4:13 – I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

We should be searching and seeking God for direction that goes outside of ourselves. What are we to be doing? What is our calling? What is YOUR calling? Do you know? Persue God until you get an answer if you have none. If you do, what are your plans to fulfill that calling?

My studies have me perplexed in that there has to be a shift in thinking in myself. There is a key to that shift I’m searching for. I will find it. God doesn’t alway simply hand things like this to His own. It is when we find it for ourselves that the value is more precious and taken to heart in such fashion as it will never to be lost. It becomes foundational in our lives. I want that.

I’ve heard so much Word in my lifetime, yet only the last year or two has those Words become life to me in a deeper fashion. Recent studies has shown me the life after this life on earth is done. We have been here on this earth in a training session that consists of every moment of our waking hours. I heard it said many years ago that this life is “training time for reigning time”. We need to seek what our duty station will be in eternity.

Having been in the military I found boot camp was a stressful time. Drill Sergeants were there to tear down who we were or thought we were. Our character is eventually left naked with no preconcieved notions of who we thought we were. Most often we are for ourselves only. The base line I learned was we are taught to not be timid to confront our enemy, but more than that we are to drop our self-care for assimulation into a group mentality where our concern involves the possible sacrifice of ourselves for the lives of those next to us. By the end of training our lives are secondary to the ones next to us in battle. I suppose my strength lies in my ability to give myself for the life of another. Go figure. Isn’t that what Jesus did for us?

John 3:16-17 – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Can you imagine not being condemned? When I get close to this in meditation I am humbled more than I’d ever imagined concerning the grace of God. He saved me. He saved you. He saved all mankind. No one is lost except for those who do not acknowledge this saving grace.

John 3:18-21 – He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

It is so simple to confess we were born into sin and cannot escape its hold until we do so. All of mankind’s names are already written in the Book of Life. We just need to acknowledge this fact of the new covenant. The striking out of our name from the Book of Life comes when we reject that this is so. When we do so our name is removed and we walk under condemnation by our own thoughts and hand.

Why would anyone want to reject this gift of eternal life? Not because of fear for our own being, but from the desire to want to join the family of God because we recognize the love of God is strong and we desire to return that love to Him who has created and saved us.

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