First and foremost, we must prepare ourselves for the work of the Gospel. If not, what good are we to those we are commissioned to adjure the lost into the fold?
Have a ready answer when either in season or out of season but be sure of what you speak as having already been applied to yourself. I’m not asking for perfection in the sense we know it. I’m asking for maturity. Don’t continue in the same fashion from day to day but grow into the next level of your walk.
I sit here tonight with nothing in particular on my mind. My wife went off to church for intercessory prayer. I’ve been to a previous evening, but tonight I’ve had all I can do for one day.
Being old isn’t for the faint of heart. My right kidney has ached for over a week. My upper torso in my back has hurt for an equal amount of time. My vision comes and goes with its ability to function fully. My left heel hurts when I stand on it too long. I’m quite sure I have a low grade sinus infection and my ears sometimes hurt. My blood pressure is either in the basement or a bit on the high side, but thank goodness my glucose readings are pretty much normal. I still fight with depression at times, but I’ve learned to curtail it before it gets bad. I’m not complaining. Just stating the facts.
I have to face the fact I will be seventy-three next week as well. In all, I can say that I have lived a blessed life in spite of all I stated above. God has proven to me that He is in control. If I were to complain, and I do sometimes, He whispers that all is well and He’s not done with me yet. I live for that reason.
Now to turn that coin over. God has given me a new fresh approach to life over the last fourteen years. I have come from severe depression with anxiety attacks to and ordained minister. I’m also a Chaplain that is certified via the American Chaplains Association. My wife has also become an ordained minister as well and is very active in ministry. We have a nice home, nice vehicles to drive, a nice neighborhood in which to live and my wife and I love each other very much. She has been a very wonderful help to me. I was married prior to 2015, but separated since May of 2009. I made bad decisions and I still pay for the residuals of that. Yet above it all God still blesses my “now” wife.
Yesterday my wife’s 50+ group had a dinner and devotional time after church in the fellowship hall. We had probably eighteen in attendance and I gave a devotional from Psalms 37. As I reflect back on us I realize how far we have come over the last fourteen years together. We were rock bottom. Lately I realize rock bottom is where the foundation has to go to be built upon. The Rock of my salvation is where I started rebuilding and He is the lifter of my head and has been so till now and forever.
I am a product of God’s grace and mercy. I don’t deserve any of what I have now, yet He has seen to wash me with the sacrifical blood of His Son to clean me of my past. To be honest, I can’t remember clearly anything I did before 2009. I just remember it was hell more than heaven. Today I am fulfilled in all that I do. I am satisfied with God’s never ending attention to the details of my life. I don’t have to struggle anymore. The world is in turmoil, yet I’m at peace. I realized something today to sealed that peace even more.
With all the turmoil, God is still in control. In fact, He ordered it. All that is, is for our teaching and understanding. It is for us to depend on Him to take care of us. We don’t have to overthrow a government, nor do we have to become doomsday preppers. God will supply all my needs even in the worst of times. To be honest, some of the things I have to encounter in my daily walk now would have devastated me fifteen years and more ago. I worried about everything. No more. I have begun to feel the fullness of God’s provision for my life. Like Job, it can all go away and He would return it 100 fold.
I watch as others wither and die, yet I’m still here. I am totally sold on God. My respect for Him has become more reality to me than I could ever imagine. I love Him with all my being.
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. – Psalm 127:3
I have had something that has shifted in my life of late. I drove a school bus when I was a high school student back in the 1960s. About six years ago I decided that retirement wasn’t enough to do things I wanted to do, so I signed up to drive a school bus again. After extensive training, which was not the case fifty years ago I was rewarded with a CDL-B with the requisite P & S endorsements to transport people.
I was given two schools to run routes to and from. By chance at the time it was a middle school and an elementary school. I was on the route to learn it with the driver the first day who was leaving. She drove that morning and I drove it that afternoon with her observance. After that it was all on me. Those kids were wild. After a few days I remember not too far into the afternoon run for the elementary school I thought to myself I didn’t know if I could do this without incurring a heart attack. The stress was real, folks.
I’ve seen some of those kids apparently not taking their medication jumping up and down and twirling around in mid-air. Going head over heels over seats and crawling under seats. The window licking kid isn’t a joke. Neither is the “Ewwwww” I got when one peeled chewing gum off the floor and chewed it. I’ve had strawberry flavored twinkies dropped on the floor and stepped on. That took a knife to scrape it off the floor when I got back in from the run. I’ve had kids suspended for drugs and fights. Two got suspended for choking each other. I have drama queens that lose their teeth. No, not just “lose” a tooth, but lose a lost tooth out of a baggie onto the floor and could not find it. The search was on. I’ve had a couple of students with ODD (Obsessive Defiance Disorder). Look it up. That is likely the most difficult of situations to deal with. I’ve had students with medical issues include Gran Mal Siezures that I’m glad didn’t occur on the bus. This past year I have had tampons left on the floor from my middle schoolers and rather risque notes that found their way into my hands when cleaning my bus after my run. It can be rather interesting to say the least.
Still, I’ve had much joy evolve from it all. Most tell me I’m the best bus driver they’ve ever had and some gift me with things I value. Just this week one kindergarten student’s mom and she gave me a bag of Starbuck’s coffee and insulated cup, a cream-filled donut and gourmet cookies. Over the time I’ve driven I’ve been given gift cards to a variety of places. Some simple give me a drawing of a school bus with their rendition of them and me on the bus going to or from school. I’ve seen several of my past students that have gone on to different schools or graduated and they still light up when they see me.
My first two and a half years of driving ended when COVID hit. Schools closed for two months, but I was side-lined as high-risk due to my age and paid out to the end of the school year. By that time I went to work delivering auto parts for a local franchise. Those first couple of years I approached my students as “them against me”. I considered it the “adversarial” approach. It really didn’t go well. So I stayed away from it for a year and a half losing my CDL-B. Then I heard there was a $2500 sign on bonus to come drive again. I didn’t want to pass that up, so that was my initiative to go back.
I had to go through the whole retraining process for my CDL-B again, but that was okay. Then about two months before the end of the school year I was back to driving two routes again. I found myself with a really good bunch of middle school students, but the elementary students were a challenge.
But God was working in me to improve my attitude. He showed me that the verse I referenced above was something I needed to take to heart. Kids truly are our heritage. That being so puts responsibility on us to take care of them and see that they are given as much of a positive light on life to grow by. That meant I’d have to change my adversarial thinking into a more relaxed and positive approach to my kids.
When school started back for the 2022-23 year I went to work on getting to know more about my kids and giving them attaboys and talking positive things to them. I got a new elementary route that school year. I had the same great middle school route.
This 2023-24 school year has given me a solidification of my approach. Last year I developed a simple thing. When my elementary students got to school I would tell each of them as they got off the bus to “Go forth and learn! Come back this afternoon a genius”. I got mostly mumbles that were like “I’ll never be a genius”. I kept it up all year. Then came this year. I started it with the same encouragement. Now only three or four weeks in I’m finding some of my elementary students are responding that they are now geniuses or working to be one. Even the saddest of students from last year has blossomed into a more talkative student. She has come out of her shell. Some funny things have come out of it when one of the new students to this school year heard my encouragement to become geniuses stopped in front of me when getting off and asked me what was a genius. I told him that geniuses are really smart people. When he got on that afternoon he informed me he was becoming a genius. I’ve told all my elementary students they have this ability to do whatever they desire to become. Then I heard my mom’s voice in my head. When I was in school she always told me I could do anything my heart desired to do. She never put limits on me. This inspired me, because now I’m doing the same thing to kids that aren’t even mine.
My middle school students are much the same. They are low-keyed, yet still, they are “middle schoolers”. They are coming of age from the playground sort to noticing each other in a hormonal way. I talk to them more and find in doing so they will warm up to me and talk more to me. In getting to know them I get to speak to them positively one on one. I only hope they not only listen but heed my words of encouragement.
Children truly are our heritage. If we don’t raise them with self-respect and with the ability to see they can do whatever their hearts desire, they will fail or at their very best find it hard to achieve their goals in life. With all the abuse of children today it behooves us to take a moment to examine how we want to leave this world. We already see what happens when we don’t instill a positive moralistic approach to life. Let each of us take time to examine ourselves first to ensure we are on the right path. Once we have that right (from looking into Biblical meditation, I might add) then we will find it imperative to instill it into our future. .our children.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Livin' Small 