Category: Faith

There’s a fable about an old couple that were known to have been constantly quarreling for many years.  All at once the strife ceased.  The village gossip called to inquire what had produced the change.  She was told they kept two bears in the house and the peace was due to them.  The couple were no longer “crabby Pattys” and they gave all the credit to the bears.

In the early years of Captain Kangaroo, the cartoon character, Tom Terrific was introduced. He lived in a tree house and could transform himself into anything he wanted, thanks to his magic thinking cap.  Every week he would come against his arch foe Crabby Appleton (the first Crabby Patty), whose motto was, “I’m rotten to the core!”  And, no matter how bad he was,   Tom would miraculously become whatever was needed to overcome Crabby’s rottenness.

That old couple told the town gossip that their reconciliation and renewed love was due to the scripture bears now living in the house.  The one was, “Bear ye one another’s burdens;” and the other, “Forbearing one another in Love.”  Their names were Bear and Forbear.  The explanation of it all was, the old couple had become transformed by the bears and had overcome their antagonism towards each other.

The name Bear means:  to endure with strength and hope;  to sustain and maintain Love;  to carry the burden of the moment as if it is a gift to strengthen your character;  to continue and gain something necessary for your own well-being; to know that this difficult moment comes from the Hand of God.

The name Forbear means:  to hold oneself up against the other with a humble and sympathetic spirit;  to understand the destructive nature of the moment and seek a resolution with kindness and mercy;  to be gentle and kind in response;  to have the nature of a lamb;  to be enabled in the moment to restrain oneself and refrain from responding with anger and resentment.

“There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God.  God is in the midst of her.  She shall not be moved.  God shall help her and that right early. Then He showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and the Lamb.  On either side was the Tree of Life which bare twelve manner of fruits and yielded His fruit every month and the leaves of the Tree were for healing of the people.“

Those who drink from the River of Life are empowered to Bear the other’s burdens and those who eat from the Tree of Life Forbear one another with the Fruit of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faith, Self-control, Humility, Forgiveness, Power and a Sound Mind.

My granddaughter Shelby and I were sitting outside on the front steps of her house a couple of days ago.  She was squished up against me as tight as she could and she looked at me and said, “Grampa, I love you.  Thanks for coming to my house,”  and she gave me a little peck on my arm.  “You’re welcome.  I love you too Shelby”.  My face (and my heart) are smiling right now.  She’s only two and a half, yet there is already a depth to her that serves her character well.  The most remarkable evidence of that depth is her whole-hearted willingness to bestow her little sweet love on those around her.  She is the fruit of her Mom and Dad, Rachel and Mark.  .  .and a reflection of the family and friends who continually give her the freedom to be herself.  Her middle name should be Love.  Just what the world needs now.

I was driving into the office this morning and a car started tail-gating me, even though I was already ten over the limit.  I was watching her in my mirror and she started vigorously waving her hands,  motioning me over to the right lane so she could pass me. Even though I’ve been at both ends of the tail-gating experience, I’ve never had one motioning me over before.  I had a few choice words for her that popped up in my thoughts.  .  .and I moved over.  A half mile later, the two of us were side by side at a red light.  I looked over at her, ready to give her a sheepish smile and say, “I am the tortoise” but she wasn’t having any of it.  There is a hate and anger in me that  always has a potential to erupt in any situation when I feel victimized.   But the world has too much of that, and you know what the world needs now.  And no, not just for some, but for everyone.

   “A new commandment I give you. Love one another.  As I have Loved you, so must you Love one another. All men will know if you are my child, if you Love one another.  .   .God is Love and all who live in Love, live in God and God lives in them.”  John 13:34-35;  1John 4:16

Lord, we don’t need another mountain, there are mountains and hillsides enough to climb; there are oceans and rivers;       enough to cross, enough to last until the end of time. And Lord, we don’t need another meadow and there are corn fields and wheat fields enough to grow.  There are sunbeams and moonbeams enough to shine, O please listen Lord, if you really want to know, what the world needs now.  It’s Love, sweet Love. No not just for some, but for everyone.

Love:  “the attraction, desire or affection felt for a person who arouses delight or admiration or elicits tenderness, sympathetic interest and benevolence;  devoted affection like a mother’s or father’s love;  a warm affection with enthusiasm;  hold dear;  attraction based on sexual desire with the affection and tenderness felt by lovers;  to cherish and foster with Divine Love and mercy.”  Webster

Love:  “Love is an incredibly powerful word.  When you’re in love, you always want to be together and when you’re not, you’re thinking about being together because you need that person and without them your life is incomplete.  This love is unconditional affection with no limits or conditions:  completely loving someone.”  Urban Dictionary

Love: “If I understand all the secret truths and mysteries of life and possess all knowledge, if I have not Love (God’s Love in me), I am nothing – a useless nobody.  If I dole out all that I have to the poor in providing food and money, if I go to extremes in sacrificing for others, but have not Love (God’s Love in me), I gain nothing.

Love endures long and is patient and kind.  Love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy.  It is not boastful or conceited nor is it arrogant and inflated with pride.  It is not rude and unmannerly.  Love (God’s Love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking.  It is not fretful or touchy or resentful;  it takes no account of the evil done to it.  It pays no attention to a suffered wrong.

It does not rejoice at injustice and wrong-doing and law-breaking, but Love rejoices when right and truth prevail.  Love bears up under anything and everything that comes.  It is ever ready to believe the best of every person.  It’s hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and endures everything without weakening.  LOVE NEVER FAILS.  IT NEVER FADES OUT OR COMES TO AN END.”  1Corinthians 13:1-8

This is the measuring stick for Love.  This alone is Love.  Only this Love can transform the world.   But it is a Love that is impossible for man.  Who can fulfill these requirements?  It is possible with God.  Only He possesses Love that there’s just too little of.  It is a warm and devoted Love, an unconditional Love that delights in His children.  A Love full of mercy and forgiveness, with no limits or conditions.   A Love that creates a union with the Son of God, who becomes the very Life of each of His children and through them spreads His Love, Sweet Love.   .   . and it is what the world needs now.

I just got home from a shopping trip to Walmart to pick up a few things for a barbecue today.  My daughters Rachel and Jessie, my son Ben, my son-in-law Mark, and my granddaughter Shelby are coming by today to celebrate Father’s Day.  On my way to the store, I passed by a small church with a sign that said, “Faith is not believing what God, the Father can do;  it’s believing what He will do.”  I would add to that, “It’s Believing what He has already Done.”

“Faith is the Substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  .  .for we walk by Faith, not by sight.  .  .for we are saved by Hope, but hope that is seen is not Hope, for what a man sees, why would he hope for it?”

       “What the eye is to the body, that is Faith to the soul:  the eye by virtue of its seeing ability, beholds sensible objects but does not produce them.  They exist before they are seen.  If they did not previously exist, the eye could not see them.  The sun exists before it is seen as thousands of other examples hold true.  Faith is to the soul as the hand is to the body.  It receives things for its use; but these things must exist before they are received.  Faith receives all the Blessings that the Father has prepared for His children, which already exist in His Eternal Will, known by Him before time and arrive in time, exactly as He has Authored them.” 

“You are risen with Him through the Faith that is the Operation of God.  .  .the Work of God is this, to have Faith in the One He has sent.  .  .what is the greatness of His Power to us who are Enabled to Believe.  .  .who are Given the Faith to Believe according to the Working of His Mighty Power in us.  .  .for to you it is Given through your Eternal Union with Jesus, to have Faith in Him.”

Faith is a Supernatural Act.  The Faith that sees and touches, that holds tightly to the promises of God is a Spiritual work.  The faith that man possesses from birth is a natural act and bears the fruit from a cursed, earthly tree.  The Faith that takes possession of the Gifts that God has Provided for His children, must come and will come from a second birth.  .   .from a union to the Tree of Life that bears the Fruit of the Spirit.

     “The fruit that comes from the earthly tree, what human nature does, is quite plain.  It shows itself in immoral, filthy and indecent actions.  People become enemies and they hate, and they fight, and they kill each other.  They become jealous, angry, hateful and totally self-centered.  They segregate themselves from others.  They are full of envy.  They are arrogant and judgmental.  They excuse their own behaviors, while they accuse and judge others of their sins.   But the Fruit that comes from the Tree of Life (from Jesus).   .   .the thoughts and actions that the Spirit produces within the children and becomes their behaviors, is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, FAITH, Humility, Self-control.”  Galatians 5:19-23   Good News Bible

I am always aware of the challenge for someone who reads a story filled with “religious sounding” words and ideas.  My Prayer for you today, right at this Good Moment.   .   .is that the Father of Faith, the Source of Love and the Spring of all Hope would Bless you today.  Would Bless you with His Son. Would Bless you with His Spirit. Would Bless you with Himself. Would bless you with a Father’s Day Faith.  A Faith that enables you to move mountains, to quiet a stormy sea, to bring Life and Light into your soul.  A Faith that says, “If God is for me, then nothing is really against me.”

It was a Saturday in the summer of 1956.  I was ten years old.  A bunch of us had taken the bus to 79th and Halsted on the south side of Chicago.  We went to see a movie at the Capital theater.  The place was filled with kids, anxious to see one of the coolest science fiction movies ever made in an era where life was much simpler.  Forbidden Planet. It was amazing!  One of the first movies about extra-terrestrials.  I just saw it again a couple of weeks ago on cable.  I am smiling right now thinking about it.  In comparison to modern science fiction movies, it seems kind of hokey.  I remember sitting in the theater, captivated by the thought of another Life form existing somewhere in the Universe.

Webster defines extra-terrestrial as, “originating, occurring or existing outside the earth;  the possibility of life;  a being beyond the earth’s atmosphere;  extra (outside, outwards), terrestris (earthy, relating to the earth).  There even appears to be a reference to other life forms in the Bible.

  “There are also celestial (above the sky) bodies and bodies terrestrial (worldly, earthy, on the earth):  but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.  They are very different from one another.”  ICorinthians 15:20

For a long time I have kept a secret about my own close encounter with an Extra-terrestrial.  I know there will be skeptics, but no one more skeptical than I was, until I saw one with my own eyes.  It was on a day in November.  The year was 1980.  It was the end of Fall, when all the evidences of life were gone from the earth.  My eyes were closed to the beauty that brings hope to the heart, and my ears could no longer hear the music that can comfort an aching soul.  Though I was blind and deaf,  I could still see the end and I could still hear the grave calling out to me.  It was in that very place, in the darkness and silence.  .  .that I saw One and I heard Him.

      “And He said to them (and to me.  .  .and to you);  You are from below;  I am from Above.  You are of this world (of this earthly order).  I am not of this world.  I came not to judge the world, but to save you from it.”

You can’t help but notice the news articles and TV programs about the probabilities of some alien life forms existing somewhere in the Universe, or according to some, having actually visited us in the past.  It can get you thinking seriously that there could be other life forms beyond the earth, more advanced.  .  .more evolved and superior to man.

In the early days of my experience with the Bible, I remember reading about the very first “visitors” to our planet. I wanted to tell somebody about what I read, but my bible reading wasn’t a regular topic for discussion with others, particularly not with the customers who frequented my bar.  I avoided it because of the impression it would have given them that I must have flipped out.  Anyway.  .  . I discovered that Adam and Eve were the first extra-terrestrials on the planet; but they lost the “extra” after their fall and all of mankind became terrestrial and continue in that state.  .  .until the Celestial, Heaven-sent Man arrives, so to speak.

Over the last thirty-five years, other ET’s have made contact with me.  Dumbo sheep, glow-worms, lilies, roses, firemen, sailors, eagles, jackasses, black sheep, baby ewes and others.  .  .all having the same pedigree and background.

       “For simply consider your own call when He, the One, made contact with you. Not many of you were considered to be wise according to the current standards (what is in vogue)  of the terrestrials;  not many of you were influential and powerful;  not many of you had a high and noble birth. For He, the One selected and chose the foolish to put the wise to shame and He, the One chose the weak to put the strong to shame.  The Celestial Man deliberately chose what the terrestrials see as lowborn and insignificant, even branded and treated with contempt, so that He, the One would dethrone and overthrow the pride and arrogance that sits on the throne of their heart.”  1Corinthians I:26-28

When the One reveals Himself to the broken ones, to the lonely ones, to the sad and depressed ones, to the ones who feel like failures, to the ones who live with guilt and shame, who feel like they are beyond redemption, the ones without hope.  .  . He whispers His name to them and “Extra” enters their soul.  I am teary eyed as I write this. I remember that moment, my first Good Moment when He whispered to me.  .  .”Jesus”.  .  .and the Love and the Life of THE Extra-terrestrial entered my heart.

One of the ewes of His flock who is nicknamed “a flaming torch” that brings warmth and light to the hearts of others, recently spoke at one of our meetings.  Her words express the truth that lies in the heart of all of the Heaven-Born terrestrials.

       “We are who we are by the Grace of God.  He is the First and Last in everything.  I, being a dead believer but in reality have a Living God within me.  As time has gone by in my life, the hatred of the outside world has become more relevant as though you’re being squeezed, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood.”  Yet there we are, standing with Him.  Sadness does surround me but the reality becomes more relevant and real, that I am one of His.  He brings us in a way that seems foreign, but it always ends in blessing.  He’s got us covered.  What a precious privilege.”

The Celestial One, The Extra-terrestrial One, The Sent From Heaven One makes contact at just the right Moment, at the time predestined by His Father.  .  .and His Spirit brings the very Presence of Jesus into the soul and the terrestrial becomes a being from beyond the earth, from beyond the stars, from a Place where God dwells.

Last Thursday afternoon I witnessed something remarkable in the office.  I saw a woman rise from the grave.  She sat on the couch for almost forty minutes with no visible signs of life. She was speaking, but the words came from a place deeper than six feet under where there is no light.  Only darkness. Where there is no true self-awareness.  Only Denial.  Where wisdom and common sense have disappeared and have been replaced by an ignorance that is almost mystical and keeps a person “in the dark” so to speak, regarding the personal issues that are killing them and destroying others.  It is a slow death.  It is a disease that consumes the soul.  It is a sickness that comes from the secrets we keep.  .  .from ourselves.   I will call the woman, Magdalene.

I have known her and her husband for a few years.  They have a teenage daughter and a young son.   They initially came to see me because of serious issues that had developed in their marriage.  Their friends, their family.  .  .even their own kids have been strongly promoting that they get a divorce and move on.  They have tenaciously held on and have done their utmost to make things better.  It seems to work for awhile until one of them is unkind or uncaring in their words or actions, and it gets worse than before.  There is a major contributing factor that handcuffs their sensibilities and makes them emotionally handicapped. They both have serious issues with alcohol.  I have heard them readily admit to the “problem” but because they are still functioning at an acceptable level professionally, they have minimized the affect that drinking has on their lives.  I TOTALLY understand because I have been there myself.

She started out the session with, “You won’t believe what I went through last weekend.”  Her husband, who has given up   drinking during Lent, was confrontational with her about her problem.  Her daughter had a lengthy text conversation with her about the way she is affected by her Mom’s drinking.  Her son has become distant with her over the last few months and she was blaming it on the influencing her husband was having on the son.  .  .turning him against her.

She was committed to attend a friend’s baby shower on Sunday, but decided it was in her own best interest to attend the St. Patrick’s day parade instead.  When she called her friend to inform her of the change in plans, the friend “read her the riot act” (as she put it) about her self-centeredness and said she couldn’t forgive her.  Magdalene was also furious over her families reactions to her behaviors and was convinced that she did not have a drinking problem.  She went on to tell me about the particulars of her weekend which included an evening out with her girlfriends.  “I only had six or seven beers and a couple of shots.  I was totally in control.”  She went on to say that the only problem that night was that she lost her car keys and asked one of her girlfriends to call her husband to come up to the bar to get her.  And when he refused to come, she was very angry and said to me, “Do you believe that?”   There was silence for a moment and then she looked directly at me and asked, “Do you think I have a drinking problem?”  I sat there for a moment teary eyed and then said, “Magdalene, you have a serious drinking problem.”   She was shocked when she heard the words.   .   .and I watched her face, mirror what was churning in her heart.  .  .what was set on fire by my words and a few moments later, exploded out of her soul like the bursting of a dam.

       “On each bank of the River all kinds of trees and Lilies will grow to provide Food.  The leaves will never whither and they will never stop bearing fruit.  They will have Fresh Fruit every day because they are Watered by the River that flows from the Temple of God in Heaven. The trees will provide food and the leaves will be used for Healing people.  This Water flows through the land to the east and down into the Jordan Valley and to the Dead Sea. When it Flows into the Dead Sea, it replaces the salt water of that sea with Fresh Water.  Where the River Flows, everything shall Live.”  Ezekiel 47

The human soul.  The Dead Sea.  A stagnant pond with an inlet but no outlet.  Repressed feelings, suppressed thoughts, hardened hearts.  No flowing.  .  .only some movement when the winds blow and momentarily brings a false sense of life into the soul.  But on this day, the Day of God’s Power,  Magdalene began to flow.

She cried and she cried.  Then she confessed and revealed to herself and to me, what her secrets were.  .  .a litany of truth about her offenses and the affect that it has had on the people she cares about.  Dozens of stories about her drinking, her blackouts, her humiliations and embarrassments, her self-condemnation and regrets.  It was remarkable.  Through it all she continued to sob and every secret that was making her sick was now flowing out of her.  .  .a purging of the polluted water in her soul.  A dying to the influence of what has kept her imprisoned and has held her captive.

The following Monday morning I sent her a text asking her how the weekend went.  She replied, ” no drinking,  had family time   and it was perfect. There is hope yet for all of us.”  I saw her again yesterday, Saturday.  The day after Good Friday and the day before Easter Sunday.  The day after Christ’s death and the blood that He shed for the sins and offenses of his sheep, that Flows over their soul like a River and cleanses them from all guilt and fear of punishment.  And then Easter Sunday.  .  .the Day that His own Life Flows through their soul to Enable them to Live victoriously, without a spirit of fear but with a Spirit of Power and Love and a Sound Mind.  Magdalene heard these Truths on Saturday and like the Magdalene in the courtyard who was brought by religious hypocrites to Jesus to have her stoned to death for her sins, she noticed that all of them had dropped their stones and left.  “Who is here to condemn you” Jesus said.  “No one, Lord” was Magdalene’s response. Jesus answered, “Neither do I.  Go in Peace”,  And Magdalene Loved Him, her River of Life.  Flowing on Good Friday with Forgiveness and Flowing today on Easter Sunday with Resurrection Life, Given to His children as Free Gifts of His Love to Hope in the improbable and Do the impossible.

Where the River Flows, Everything Shall Live.

When my own dark gray, near-death experience passed in 1980,  my near-Life experience began.  .  .and what arrived from the authoring hand of God, was a series of unexpected events that have contributed to the Life in me.  .  .and has made me a prisoner of Love.

I found myself going back to school to be a counselor.  It was the beginning of a Sensibility that directed my mind to believe that my failures in life suited me to help other “lost but found lambs”, groomed by their sins to be flying, soaring eagles.  But I also needed to find a job that would provide income to help support my family.  So.  .  . He made me a painter.

I worked as an apprentice over the next couple of years for two established painters who taught me the ropes.  They had some expertise with making colors from tints, which saved us time and money.  I never did get the knack of it except for creating a few basic colors.  The one color that was the easiest to make was gray.  You begin with white and you would slowly mix in a black tint until you arrived at the shade of gray you were looking for.  For some reason it reminds of the story of the frog and the kettle of water.

“They say if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will leap out right away to escape the danger.  But if you put a frog in a kettle with water that is cool and pleasant and then gradually heat the kettle until it starts boiling, the frog will not become aware of the threat until it is too late.  .  .the parable is often used to illustrate how humans have to be careful to watch slowly changing trends in their environment that can lead to death.” 

It is in the kettle of our lives that the fire created in our human nature heats up our passions and desires, our ever-growing needs.  .  .or something new.  .  .or something more extreme.  Behaviors become boiled delicacies for others to consume as we become food for the appetite of others.  .  and we call it love and we believe it, or empowerment and we’re confidant of that.  .  . or some other word that provides the evidence of the total ignorance within all of us.   And with it all comes a “you deserve it” mentality that frees people up to become as dense and numb as the poor little frog.  The current “green light” of the world is to grant personal freedoms in the “gray areas of life”.  Freedom to choose your shade.  .  .freedom to choose your poison.   .  . freedom to chose the form of death that arrives as the grays turn darker and darker.  .  . until our portrait on life’s canvas is black.

I looked up the word gray on the internet and one of the first search items it came up with was the phrase, “gray matter.”  It is defined as “a major component of the central nervous system.  It is present in the brain, brain-stem, cerebellum and present through out the spinal cord.  It is made of unmyelinated neurons and other cells that influence regions of the brain involved in muscle control, sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision-making and self control.  While 20% of all oxygen taken in by the body goes to the brain, with 95% of that going specifically into the gray matter.” 

“But of the tree of the knowledge of Good (what is White) and evil (what is black), thou shall not eat of it.  For if a day comes that you eat from it, you shall surely die.  .  .and the serpent said to the woman (Eve), if you eat from it, you shall not surely die.  .  .and the woman and the man (Adam) ate from the tree and death (Blackness) entered their souls.” Genesis

Every shade of gray is a lie.  Every moment of life in the gray areas is a moment in the kettle. Man is born wearing glasses that tints everything gray and as life continues he finds himself wearing darker shades in order to see less and less of what is white and pure, and Good for him.  Each moment begins in the cool, refreshing water with a reassuring, “all is well”, until your soul is cooked and the light grays have become medium grays.  .  .and the medium grays have become black.  .  .and the conscience becomes hardened and insensible.  .  .and death rules in the heart.

“The human heart and mind, which resides in the brain, is desperately wicked and mortally sick.  .  .and totally ignorant of its own ways.  .  .it is utterly self-deceived.” Jeremiah 17:9

I can only speak for myself.  All of this is my own personal experience.  The personal knowledge of this is a Gift from God.  .  .and freedom from all of this must be through His Gift.  .  .His Son, Jesus.  Full of Life and Light.  .  .and in Whom is no darkness at all.  Who freely forgives every shade of gray, from the lightest to the darkest.  Who rescues lost and helpless sheep from the boiling kettle and the inevitable death.  Whose Spirit Breathes pure Heavenly air into the heart and mind and soul.  Who covers His little flock with His own White Garment of Salvation.  And they all see perfectly through His own eyes.  .  .and what they all see is Infinite, Eternal and Merciful shades of Love.

       “Tis a point I long to know, it often  causes anxious thought. Do I love the Lord, or no?  Am I His, or am I not?

If I love, why am I thus?  Why this dull and lifeless frame? Hardly, sure, can they be worse, who have never heard His Name.

Could my heart so hard remain, prayer a task and burden prove; every trifle gives me pain, if I knew the Savior’s love?

When I turn my eyes within, all is dark, and vain, and wild; filled with unbelief and sin.  .  .Can I deem  myself His child?

If I pray or hear or read, sin is mixed with all I do.  You that love the Lord indeed, tell me.  .  .is it thus with you?

Yet I mourn my stubborn will, find my sin a grief and thrall; should I grieve for what I feel.  .  .if I did not love at all?                                                                                                        

Could I joy, His saints to meet and choose the ways I         once abhorred. Find, at times the promise sweet.  .  .if I did not Love the Lord?

Lord, decide this doubtful case!  Thou who are thy         people’s Sun. Shine upon Thy work of Grace.  .  .if it be indeed begun.

Let me love thee more and more, if I love at all, I pray.  If I have not loved before.  .  .Help me to begin today.”         John Newton