"And this do, knowing the time, that is is already the hour for you to awaken ....The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand..." Ro. 13:11 & 12
I chose this picture to illustrate the quote because of the intensity displayed. The times always require us to earnestly seek the power of the Holy Spirit; this is a perverse and evil generation!
Mediocre Christianity will not suffice.
Trauma bonding is the attachment an abused person feels for their abuser, specifically in a relationship with a cyclical pattern of abuse.
The bond is created due to a cycle of abuse and positive reinforcement. After each circumstance of abuse, the abuser professes love, regret, and otherwise tries to make the relationship feel safe and needed for the abused person.
Trauma bonding is one reason that leaving an abusive situation can feel confusing and overwhelming. It involves positive and/or loving feelings for an abuser, making the abused person feel attached to and dependent on their abuser.
Signs & Symptoms of Trauma Bonding
Because not all abusive situations result in trauma bonding, you may be unsure if this term applies to you.
So, what are signs of trauma bonding? They include the following:2
An abuse victim covers up or makes excuses to others for an abuser's behavior
An abuse victim lies to friends or family about the abuse
A victim doesn't feel comfortable with or able to leave the abusive situation
An abuse victim thinks the abuse is their fault
The abuse follows a cycle (i.e., the abuser tries to make up for an abusive incident)
The abuser promises they'll change but they never do
The abuser controls the victim (i.e., manipulation or gaslighting)
The abuser isolates the victim from friends and family
The abuser gets friends and family on their side
The victim continues to trust the abuser.
This is from "Very Well Mind" here is the link for further information.
https://www.verywellmind.com/trauma-bonding-5207136
Zealot or Savior?
"This U.S. Minister Is Training Rebels in a Civil War.
For 25 years, ex-Special Forces officer Dave Eubank has been dodging bullets to bring humanitarian aid to rebels in Burma’s ongoing civil conflict.
Starting in late December, I spent three weeks with Eubank and the rangers in the jungle, going on missions and trying to understand what would drive a man to not just lead a crusade in the bush but to also haul his wife and children with him. In nearly two decades of conflict reporting, I’ve never encountered anyone like Eubank — an ardent believer with deeply held conservative values willing to risk his own life and family for a faraway cause. And not only offer much-needed aid and relief to the persecuted and battle-scarred, but also money and muscle.
I learned Eubank was nicknamed “Mad Dog” and “Father of the White Monkey,” and led an all-volunteer staff of ethnic minorities and foreigners — many of them ex-military — working on the front line. Controversially, some team members carried weapons, ready to fight the Burma Army if they came under attack. Others carried video cameras to document war crimes. Word was the charismatic American triathlete could cover 40-plus miles of hostile terrain in a single day while preaching the good book.
Burma’s lawless depths have attracted plenty of G.I. Joe wannabe’s with a messiah complex. From a distance, it’s easy to think of Eubank as a Bible-thumping mashup of Colonel Kurtz and Captain Fantastic. But even the most hard-boiled Southeast Asia hands agree, that in a world of counterfeits, Eubank is the real deal: a diehard humanitarian who has risked his life time and again to help the most vulnerable in a forsaken place that most Americans can’t find on a map.
Eubank prays aloud more often than anyone I’ve ever met. On the phone, when under attack, for large crowds or passing strangers, even mid-sentence. Often he’ll be talking in his crisp, rapid-fire cadence and then slip in a prayer that’s only discernible by the closing phrase, In Jesus’ name, amen.
Such religiosity can come across as pious and performative when delivered from the pulpit. With Eubank though, all the prayer somehow feels endearing, a genuine hedge against existential threats that are very real."
The article is written by Jason Motlagh, journalist for Rolling Stone magazine, and the photo is his as well.
And I waited for sympathy, but there was none;
And I looked for comforters, but I found none."
Ps. 69:20
What a heart wrenching photo.... I wish it weren't so common,
I wish no child ever experienced child abuse, but sadly, this is all to common today.
The only question I must ask myself is this,
"Am I ready and prepared to help her?"
If not, call me what you will, I'm no Christian. My eyes are blinded, my heart is cold, my faith is impotent.
Forgive me if I'm harsh, but this is our world today,
am I in it?
Am I salt and light?
Is the pulpit I sit before training me to be an advocate for the hurting?
Do my Bible studies help equip me to break down the gates of hell?
Am I learning how to love like Jesus loved?
If a broken child came to me, would I have words of light and life to lift her lost light and broken spirit?
Are the doors to my heart and home open?
Or will the Lord speak His words to me ---
"Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter;.." Ecc. 4:1
This is not an actual photo of an abused girl, but those who fight abuse used cosmetics to mimic the effects of abuse and the girl is a model.
Do you have doubts??
I'll share something I wrote and give to struggling and doubting Christians frequently.
You are not alone, it isn't unusual to doubt, nor does it alarm Christ.
First, let me remind you that if we have faith as a mustard seed, we are Christ's, right? Jesus loves us with an everlasting love, and He also says that “A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish." Mt. 12:20
That means that He knows His children, those who believe in Him and He will not cast them out even though their faith is tiny, feeble, shaking, up and down, and even doubting.
In the book of Jude, he tells us to “have mercy on those who doubt;” vs. 22
Mercy, not condemnation, not judgment or scorn, but mercy.
Every thinking person has doubts, and certainly, the younger we are in the Lord the more doubts we will have.
To be honest, there are many who call themselves Christians that I find little of Christ revealed.
We have a society that is using every form of media to engineer doubt and unbelief in God; every portrayal of Christians is either weak and repelling, or vicious and uncaring.
Songs deny Him, movies laugh at Him, Television distorts His message, mocks his followers and shows only the failings.
So, that alone is a significant hurdle.
Another common struggle Christians have is, they see in the Old Testament God blessing His people with material things, and we can be influenced to believe our success, or material blessings are the foundation of our faith or reveal God’s love. But in the New Testament, Jesus specifically taught that the riches of God, wisdom, perseverance and joy are within us, not in our changing circumstances.
Life brings many struggles, tragedies and sorrows, and Christ certainly had a full measure of suffering, and so did each of His disciples, and truthfully, no one escapes hardships.
Jesus taught us that in this life we will have tribulation.
Be that as it may, many doubt when it befalls them.
And truly, some tragic things that happen in this world are beyond what we can bear alone, but Christ promises to walk with us and bring us out of any and every loss.
No doubt, great losses change us forever, but God will even transform our great losses for good.
I try and encourage you, in large part, because I’ve suffered great loss.
Jesus wept, loved and showed the world what compassion truly was, and it was forged on the anvil of sorrow, not prosperity.
“He was a man acquainted with grief, a man of sorrows.”
Don't be discouraged, Christ will lift you up!
The Kingdom of God is a contradiction to so many rules of our earthly kingdom and culture. "Results" are the measuring stick on earth,
but "intentions" are the measure in Christ's society.
We want to present to God a seamless flow of victories over our prominent failings, and when we fall short, we are flooded with discouragement.
"Oh, it is all in vain," we cry,
"I have failed once again and will never move past these hindrances to success and wholeness."
But in these very sobs of remorse, rises a higher prayer of intent than any pride of accomplishment.
Christ will never be brought down to measure us by our accomplishments, but He will ever look deep into our intentions as the measure of success.
Each time we fall and feel remorse, we are, by
"kingdom life's standard,"
exercising great faith and intent.
He measures our devotion, not by achievement, but in our calls for mercy.
Each time we rise from failure and continue on in hope of mercy, we are met with His approval and acceptance.
We stand, not by our abilities, but by our hope in His mercy, which endures forever.
His promise is ever to the bruised reed, those who stumble, stagger or fall, but look to Him for remedy, they are accepted as beloved.
“They are blessed who realize their spiritual poverty, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them."
This is the most contrary law of heaven: that our weakness is our strength.
Giving up our hope that we will achieve our goals, but rather, that we will never achieve them; but He will take our desire for completion:
our sobs of remorse, for prayers of victory;
and out of our weakness He will make materials for success.
It is always Christ's duty to achieve; our duty is to believe He can and will.
How will you ever encourage another if it depends on their own determination?
How can all come to victory if it depends on our ability?
Oh no, we fly to His arms for strength;
the cleft of His rock for comfort;
under His wings for aid and safety: always trusting that,
"God calls into being that which does not exist."
Legalism – What it is, and how to tell if you are one
There is something missing in the presentation of the gospel that the legalist presents that leaves me feeling like an important element is missing.
At this point it's hard for me to find the precise words to describe it but there is a harshness or rigidity that permeates, and I think it can discourage the struggling believer; and which of us isn't struggling?
Christianity is good, but it needs mixing with humanity before it will have a practical value. If only a little humanity is mixed with it, the product will be dry and tasteless; but if it is combined with the real milk of humanity, and enough of it, the result will be a loaf fit for the tongues of angels.
The kingdom of God did not, in the beginning, consist in words, but in power – the power of godliness – though now we have fallen into another method; we have turned all religion into faith, and our faith is nothing but the productions of interest or disputing; it is adhering to a party, and wrangling and protesting against all the world besides.
A character which Christianity does not fructify – does not soften, enlarge, beautify, and enrich – is not benefited by religion – or, rather, has not possessed itself of true religion.
God loves that which is beautiful and attractive in character, just as much as we do, and it makes no difference where he sees it.
A Christian sucked dry of his humanity, is just as juiceless and as flavorless as a sucked orange, and I believe that God regards him in the same light that we do.
Jesus was not attempting to regulate civil society, nor the church, by minute regulations, but by inspiring the soul with those nobler emotions from which the just rules spring, and which themselves need no laws. He spoke from conscious divinity in Himself to the moral consciousness in man. He was not framing principles into human laws or institutions. Now the Pharisees sought to restrain evil by a microscopic consideration of externals, and so does the legalist.
Leo Tolstoy’s wife Sophia records in her diary the tragic hardships of living with a hard religious man of unending moral strivings:
“His sermons on love and goodness have made him indifferent to his family, and it means the intrusion of all kinds of riff-raff into our family life.
And his (purely verbal) renunciation of worldly goods has made him endlessly critical and disapproving of others."
“There is so little genuine warmth about him; his kindness does not come from his heart, but merely from his principles. His biographies will tell of how he helped the laborers to carry buckets of water, but no one will ever know that he never gave his wife a rest and never—in all these thirty-two years—gave his child a drink of water or spent five minutes by his bedside to give me a chance to rest a little from all my labors.”
Has Christianity given to you the true feeling of brotherhood? As for me, I think we need improvement, to understate it. To many that call themselves Christians, leave me feeling hollow, distant and discouraged. And sadder still, I know at times, I’m guilty as well.
Inspired by the writings of Jeremy Taylor 1650, Henry Ward Beecher, Timothy Titcomb, Phillip Yancey,
"It is not by darkening and dishonoring the creature, that we honor the Creator.
Those men glorify God most who look with keen eye and loving heart on His works, who catch in all people some glimpses of beauty and power, and who have a spiritual sense for good in its dimmest manifestations, and who can so interpret the world that it becomes a bright witness to the Divinity."
William Ellery Channing.
As I was reading them my mind drifted back to the eighties when we had prayer meetings at church and in homes.
These were times set aside to pray, not to fellowship, not to eat brownies and discuss end times or politics, but just to pray.
I remember my son inviting me to a prayer meeting he was going to with some people from the Vineyard church.
My wife and I entered and the prayer had already begun; we found a seat on the floor, there were about a dozen or so there, some were singing songs of worship, others were praying out loud, some quietly praying and the air was alive with the presence of God.
We were immediately transported by the Spirit into His presence.
Tears flowed; joy bubbled over in this difficult to describe meeting.
I left with my heart burning with love.
So, how does one describe this? I think this passage from Song of Solomon describes it perfectly.
Song of Songs 8:5-7 TPT
“Who is this one? She arises out of her desert, clinging to her beloved.
When I awakened you under the apple tree, as you were feasting upon me, I awakened your innermost being with the travail of birth as you longed for more of me.
Fasten me upon your heart as a seal of fire forevermore.
This living, consuming flame will seal you as my prisoner of love.
My passion is stronger than the chains of death and the grave, all-consuming as the very flashes of fire from the burning heart of God.
Place this fierce, unrelenting fire over your entire being.
Rivers of pain and persecution will never extinguish this flame.
Endless floods will be unable to quench this raging fire that burns within you.
Everything will be consumed.
It will stop at nothing as you yield everything to this furious fire until it won’t even seem to you like a sacrifice anymore.”
"I am rapt in an ecstasy of sweet terror, for the Lord God is coming down upon us. He is standing before me and touching my body, so that I have to close my eyes in a terror of shuddering ecstasy...." Author unknown.
"And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said,
“Woe to me, for I am ruined!
Because I am a man of unclean lips.." Isaiah 6:4-5
Whatever your experience with God, however you walk with Him now, there is more!
Gillian is a seven-year-old girl who cannot sit in school.
She continually gets up, gets distracted, flies with thoughts, and doesn't follow lessons.
Her teachers worry about her, punish her, scold her, reward the few times that she is attentive, but nothing. Gillian does not know how to sit and cannot be attentive.
When she comes home, her mother punishes her too.
So not only does she Gillian have bad grades and punishment at school, but she also suffers from them at home.
One day, Gillian's mother is called to school. The lady, sad as someone waiting for bad news, takes her hand and goes to the interview room. The teachers speak of illness, of an obvious disorder. Maybe it's hyperactivity or maybe she needs a medication.
During the interview an old teacher arrives who knows the little girl. He asks all the adults, mother and colleagues, to follow him into an adjoining room from where she can still be seen. As he leaves, he tells Gillian that they will be back soon and turns on an old radio with music.
As the girl is alone in the room, she immediately gets up and begins to move up and down chasing the music in the air with her feet and her heart.
The teacher smiles as the colleagues and the mother look at him between confusion and compassion, as is often done with the old.
So he says:
"See? Gillian is not sick, Gillian is a dancer!"
He recommends that her mother take her to a dance class and that her colleagues make her dance from time to time. She attends her first lesson and when she gets home she tells her mother:
"Everyone is like me, no one can sit there!"
In 1981, after a career as a dancer, opening her own dance academy and receiving international recognition for her art, Gillian Lynne became the choreographer of the musical "Cats."
Hopefully all “different” children find adults capable of welcoming them for who they are and not for what they lack.
Long live the differences, the little black sheep and the misunderstood. They are the ones who create beauty in this world.
What do I do for a living?
I live for a living.
When I moved out in the forest 35 years ago, people said “You can’t escape reality.” I went TO reality. You’re living in a virtual reality.
You don’t even know where your stuff comes from, don’t even know where your poop goes.I live in nature where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular…Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes.
They wake up every morning in a box of their bedrooms because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then they throw that box away into another box.
Then they leave the box where they live and get into another box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken into little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them.
When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to the house boxes and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment.
They get their music from a box, they get their food from a box, they keep their clothing in a box, they live their lives in a box.”-Eustace Conway from Mountain Men.
When I saw this photo my first thought was, is this a new style?
I'm not sure, but rather, I think it's the first efforts to braid her hair by herself. LOL
Then I couldn't help but try and find a Christian application.
I suppose there are many, but what first came to mind is trying to walk the Christian walk without the "Help Meet", The Holy Spirit, who empowers us, directs us and corrects us. This gal's hair needed the Holy Spirit! LOL But like this girl, how many of us wander in lines like her part; go sideways, and end in knots!
We "put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit," He is our power, not our resolutions, promises, determination or our fortitude.
'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty—you will succeed because of my Spirit, ...' Zech. 4:6
that you do not have the love of God in yourselves.” Jn. 5:42
I read John 5 this morning and this statement stood out among all the rest. What a woeful day to have the Lord say these words. It is so easy to get distracted from the heart of Christ and His kingdom's law, the royal law of caring for others and loving them as we love ourselves.
Anyone can learn the Bible, quote scriptures, to teach and judge the knowledge of others, to walk by the "letter of the law".
But to have the love of God in us and hunger to see others walk in freedom, to have their shackles removed, the tyranny of their circumstances relieved and walk with God, cleansed in the blood and working for the betterment of all mankind, whoever and wherever they are; that is to have the love of God in ourselves. That is to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
I watched the movie "Jesus Revolution" last night. I loved it! I couldn't find one frame in the movie I didn't like. It was real, honest, and I think an accurate account of what took place over a two year period when Lonnie Frisbee and Chuck Smith met, and The Holy Spirit moved in the tiny church "Calvary Chapel."
Jesus movement beginnings
The origin of the “Jesus People Movement is traced by most to a handful of young people who had left the hippie culture, had recently become Christians, and in 1967 had started “The Living Room,” a Christian street mission (coffeehouse) for the hippies in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. As communal homes were part of the hippie culture, a Christian communal home (rescue mission/halfway house) was also established to undergird the ministry of The Living Room. This home, House of Acts, was located just to the north of San Francisco in Novato, California, and it gave the opportunity for the care and discipleship of recently converted hippies.
Jesus Freaks, as the hippie converts to Christ were mockingly called, proudly embraced and owned that name, carrying it as a badge of honor to identify with the one who was also mocked and ridiculed by the world.
Through The Living Room and similar Christian coffeehouses, many hundreds of hippies began giving up drugs, sex, Eastern religions, and the occult, and instead turned to Jesus, the Bible, and sharing Jesus with everyone they met.
Ted and Liz Wise were early adopters of the hippy revival in San Francisco in the late sixties. Ted was an arty beatnik, grafting on yachts and tripping out on drug highs. Meanwhile, Liz was a regular at the conservative First Baptist Church of Mill Valley (alongside her dope lifestyle). Reading the New Testament Ted says, “Jesus knocked me off my metaphysical ass!” Then, following a bad trip on LSD in early 1965, he responded publicly to a gospel invitation at Liz’s church.
Ted and Liz were soon spreading the word to their contemporaries yet, despite their best efforts to evangelize hippies through their more traditional church, they eventually pioneered an independent Christian commune, The Living Room, in Haight-Ashbury in spring 1967. Located in a 20 foot by 40 foot storefront, they offered food, rest and gospel chat. By the following year they were seeing 20 or more people making commitments to Jesus each week.
Meanwhile, Hare Krishna devotee Dave Hoyt had a revelation of Jesus’ uniqueness. Mentored by theological student Kent Philpott, together they teamed up in evangelism and saw hundreds come to faith.
Lonnie Frisbee
One notable hippie convert, who was part of the team that started "The Living Room," and who also lived and worked out of "The House of Acts," was 19-year-old Lonnie Frisbee. Frisbee became very influential in evangelistic work along the west coast, and wherever there was a flare-up of activity he appeared to have been the spark behind it all.
►Frisbee was invited to be part of the Calvary Chapel church in Costa Mesa, California. At the time Calvary Chapel only had 80 people in attendance (on a good day). After Frisbee’s arrival, attendance soared to 2,000 in 6-months, and it became one of the largest churches in the world. This also led to the multiplication of over 1,500 Calvary Chapel churches throughout the world.
►Frisbee was also involved with the multiplication of communal homes as Calvary Chapel multiplied its ministry to hippies through that type of setting. The first home they started was the House of Miracles.
►On Sunday night, May 11, 1980 (Mother’s Day), Frisbee was on hand to create a spark which gave the Vineyard Christian Fellowship its big push forward. The number of churches in that fellowship now numbers over 2,400 worldwide.
►Frisbee was also used to be a spark for revival in South Africa and Europe, as well as in the lives of many men and women whom he had spent time with.
Communal Homes / Halfway Houses
Associated with Calvary Chapel was a group that moved to an Oregon Christian commune and started a network of communal homes, which was called Shiloh Youth Revival Centers.
That Oregon commune ultimately started 178 communal homes throughout 30 states and 100,000 people have eventually been part of that ministry. At the same time other ministries had also started Christian coffeehouses in large cities and small towns across the United States and Canada. Following the same pattern as Shiloh Youth Revival Centers, hundreds of Christian communal homes were also established. Between 1967 and 1972, there were 800 communal homes established in the USA.
Street Preacher
His Place: Coffeehouse operated by Arthur Blessitt on Sunset Strip
Arthur Blessitt, having grown up as a Christian, made his mark beginning in 1967 through his bold street-witnessing to Hell’s Angels groups and along the streets lined with strip clubs. Blessitt opened “His Place”, a combination coffeehouse and counseling center which on some nights had 500 young people come through for free food and to listen to music and testimonies. In two years, 10,000 decisions for Christ (average of over 12 per night) had been recorded.
Hippies Rejected by the Churches
Many churches were appalled when newly converted hippies began attending their churches. They could not endure the bare feet, beards, long hair, beads, etc. The street preacher Arthur Blessitt, though highly successful with evangelism, agonized over the churches that would refuse to welcome and disciple the hippies he had recently led to the Lord.
Further down the coast in Costa Mesa, Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel exploded with growth. Five hundred new converts were baptized each month at Pirate’s Cove on the Pacific coast, as the church embraced a wave of hairy, hippy youth turning to Jesus.
Billy Graham
The controversial and powerful pastor Billy Graham quickly embraced the movement, writing a best-selling book on the subject and using it as a vehicle for recruitment.
Secular Magazines
Secular and media exposure in 1971 and 1972 ( (Time, Life and Rolling Stone magazines) caused the Jesus Movement to explode across the United States, attracting evangelical youth eager to identify with the movement.
Coffeehouses
Coffeehouses began springing up in every city and small town throughout the United States. These were gathering places for young people so they could have “church services” that were aligned with their own culture. These coffeehouses and worship services were accompanied by bands playing “Jesus Music.”
Jesus Music
Contemporary Christian music is said to have had its beginnings with the Jesus Movement. A few of the well-known recording artists at that time were: Matthew Ward, Chuck Girard, 2nd Chapter of Acts, Larry Norman, Children of the Day, Nancy Honeytree, Phil Keaggy, Scott Wesley Brown, Kelly Willard, Andraé Crouch, John Michael and Terry Talbot, The Way, Agape, All Saved Freak Band, Petra, Resurrection Band, and Servant.
Results of the Revival
• By 1977, an estimated 2 million new born-again believers came into the Christian faith. That does not include those who came to Christ as the revival spread to Canada, South America, and Europe.
• The 1970 Asbury Revival took place at this time period, as did the 1971 Saskatoon Revival.
• Many thousands of young men and women across the United States received their calling into the ministry (pastor, evangelist, missionary).
• The generation that rejected the “establishment” continued to do so during and after the movement had begun to wane. Most of them did not join traditional denominational churches, but instead established new fellowships of churches (loosely associated denomination).
Chuck Smith, pastor of Calvary Chapel
Two notable ones were Calvary Chapel and Vineyard Fellowship. House churches were also part of this new transition away from the mainline denominational churches.
At the height of the revival, through the ministries of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, California, alone:
• 200 were won to Christ each week.
• There were 500 baptized every month for a period of two years.
• At the baptism services, crowds of 3,000 would gather and the occasion was used to preach the Gospel, with many more coming to Christ.
• Chuck Smith, pastor of Calvary Chapel, stated in his book The Reproducers, that during just two years there were more than 20,000 who accepted Christ and there were over 8,000 baptized at Pirate’s Cove, which is part of the Corona del Mar State Beach.
• Calvary Chapel trained hundreds who were sent out to start churches, first in California, and then up and down the Pacific Coast. Then churches began to be planted throughout the United States and the world—reaching well over 1,700 churches.
• Calvary Chapel was highly instrumental in giving contemporary Christian music its start, with many groups being formed through the church and many songs written.
In December 1971 Calvary Chapel started Maranatha Music/Publishing to promote and sell Christian music.
Catholic and Mainline Denomination Renewal
Throughout the nation Catholics were experiencing a renewing of their faith in Christ with Pentecostal-type services being held on various nights of the week. Other mainline denominations (Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, etc.) were experiencing similar movements that contained a strong charismatic flavor.
Hunger for God
There was a hunger for God among people of all ages. If Christians were willing to pay the price and engage in evangelism, it was normal for an evangelistic team to lead dozens to Christ on a daily basis—this was reported as having happened on Haight Street in San Francisco. It was also reported that on a “bad” night, only ten people would come to Christ.
“I have bumps…I can lift a car”
That’s what the little boy holding his mama’s hand said to me as we were standing in line to eat dinner at the UGM Crisis Shelter for Women and Children.
He flexed his nonexistent muscles with a proud look on his face. Then his even littler brother who was holding his big brother’s hand said: “I can lift all the people”
It was a funny moment of connection, but the reality of what was happening didn’t escape me as I looked at this young mother surrounded by her three boys.
I have no idea where “Dad” was, but these two little musclemen telling me they were strong while clinging to their mommy’s hands let me know what was probably deep in the heart of this family’s story.
Little boys having to be strong is a tragic reality that plagues our broken and shattered home fronts.
But it’s not just boys, last night one young girl casually told one of my leaders that they were there because daddy hits mommy. It was said in a manner that was way too normal but for too many children…it is their normal.
To be a big man in a crisis shelter is an unnerving thing. I am acutely aware that for many in the room I am a reminder of hell and horror.
To sit at a table next to a woman who doesn’t know me or is possibly there to get away from some man is a profoundly challenging reality to try to navigate. I am aware and do my very best to be present in a way that’s gentle, humble and loving but cautious. It’s common to be ignored.
But I persist.
I do so because of many reasons but one of the biggest is I see the look in children’s faces when I come into the room, it’s the look of longing. Even after all the chaos, drama and trauma these little ones have experienced, they still reach out for something within them that they need: love from a father.
“Sit by me” is a request that captures the great need of a generation’s soul in this moment.
To have a young man wave at me as he leads his little brothers up to a shelter room is an act of gratitude that reflects a heart that’s starving for kindness.
To almost stumble over a small little girl with big eyes and a dollie in her hand that’s following me around is a sign of the deep need for attention.
To have an little spitfire African American girl come up to me and place both her hands on my beard and rub my face is a gift born out of small sense of safety.
When a young girl looks at LeeElla and I there together and declares: “You are her husband!” reflects a recognition of a reality that’s painfully absent from her own life.
As I watched LeeElla try to wipe off the Ravioli sauce from her shirt as she began to lead worship in the chapel service, I realized something. That sauce slopped upon her face and clothes by a rambunctious lap nestling squiggler was actually the anointing oil of the Holy Ghost. A symbol of the signs and wonders being displayed where love is seeking to serve the orphan and widows among us.
Watching a little pistol of a girl walking up the stairs holding LeeElla’s hands to show her the room where she stays is the kind of gentle miracle that sustain my battle-weary heart.
These are the victories of love and these fleeting moments remind me love is stronger than death.
I just wish I was strong enough to “lift all the people” out of their desperate situations but at least last night a few kids met a man and a woman that loved them."
Pastor Eric.
“Christian love can do something which nothing else in the world can do;
it can repeat the incarnation of the Master.
Paul says that Christ took “the likeness of sinful flesh” – put Himself in the circumstances of those who have gone astray.
Every Christian is, in this respect, made to follow Christ.
He has to cast himself down into his brother’s environment;
to feel his weakness,
to experience his helplessness,
to measure the strength of his temptations.
He has to cast himself down into the stream of his brother’s heredity,
To learn the power of long seated corruption,
To estimate the force of an impure fountain.
That is why Christian love is not easily provoked.
Before it sees the fault, it feels the frailty.
Before it marks the waste, it measures the wave;
Before it apportions the blame, it allows for the influence of ancestral blood.
Oh God, give me a sense that the flesh is weak and the burden strong,
That the will is wayward and the temptation keen,
That the ship is small and the sea tempestuous!
Let me live in the heart of the humble;
Let me dwell in the soul of the sightless;
Let me walk in the lair of the leper;
Let me tread in the den of the demoniac;
Let me consider the friendlessness of the fallen before they fell!
Then shall I bear on my breast the world’s sin; then shall my spirit be provoked no more.”
George Matheson.
“To educate a child perfectly requires a profounder thought, greater wisdom, than to govern a state.
The grand work of rearing children is not surpassed by any position, profession or station in life.”
And may I add, gives greater joy and satisfaction.
Here’s a list of six topics that are part of good parenting and will help children live to their fullest. This isn’t intended to be another “to do” list, but rather to inspire and give greater vision. I gleaned these from a lengthy chapter written by William Ellery Channing.
1. Morality
Teaching children to be moral beings is of prime importance. When a person looks into himself, he discovers two distinct kinds of principles, and comprehending them is so important. The child discovers desires, appetites, passions, which terminate in himself, which crave and seek his own interests above others. These desires focus on his own interest, gratification, and distinction.
But he also discovers another principle, an antagonist to these, and it is impartial, unselfish, universal enjoining on him to regard the rights and happiness of other beings and laying on him obligations which must be done, cost what they may, or however they may clash with his particular pleasure or gain.
2. Religion
When we look into ourselves, we discover powers which link us with this outward, visible, finite, ever-changing world. We have five senses to discern all the material of creation. And we also have a power which cannot stop at what we see and handle, at what exists within the bounds of space and time. There is something which seeks for the Infinite, Uncreated Cause, which cannot rest till it ascends to the Eternal, All-comprehending Mind. This we call the religious principle, and its grandeur cannot be exaggerated by human language. It is the essence of true religion to recognize and adore in God the attributes of Impartial Justice and Universal Love, and to hear Him commanding us in the conscience to become what we adore.
3. Intellectual
We cannot look into ourselves without discovering the intellectual principle, the power which thinks, reasons, and judges, the power of seeking and acquiring truth. And to gain truth, which is the great object of the understanding, I must seek it unselfishly, I must choose to receive the truth, no matter how it bears on myself. I must follow it no matter where it leads, what interests it opposes, to what persecution or loss it lays me open, from what party it severs me, or to what party it allies.
4. The Practical
The practical part of child rearing proposes as its chief end, to fit us for action; to make us efficient in whatever we undertake, to train us to firmness of purpose and to fruitfulness of resource in common life, and especially in emergencies, in times of difficulty, danger, and trial.
5. Beauty
When we look at our nature we discover, among its admiral qualities, the sense or perception of Beauty.
We see the germ of this in every human being and it should be enlarged and cherished in all. An infinite joy is lost to the world by the lack of culture and development of this spiritual endowment. Beauty in nature, and the mysterious charm found in the loveliness and grandeur of art and sculpture, in elevating literature and music.
6. The Power of Utterance
People are not made to shut up our minds to ourselves, but to give a voice and to exchange it with other minds. Speech is one of our grand distinctions from animals.
Our power over others lies not so much in the amount of thought within us, as in the power to bring it out.
A person who cannot open their lips without breaking a rule of grammar, without showing in his dialect or brogue or uncouth tones, his lack of cultivation; and having no clearness, grace or force of utterance or without darkening his meaning by a confused, unskillful mode of communication cannot take the place to which, perhaps, his native good sense entitles him.
This is a for the married men who come home from work and neglect their wives and children.
The men who sit at the Xbox or the television while their wives continue working, cleaning, preparing children for bed and their husbands don't lift a finger to help.
I responded to one such woman who was a stay at home mother and also worked forty hours online from home, and when her husband comes home he flops down and neglects all the duties she attends to.
"I can't tell you how much it grieves me to hear stories like yours, and, sadly, they are all too common. But let me first answer the question "do all men act like this," and that is a resounding NO. I'm 76 years old, have four sons and six grandsons, so I'm going to write a letter to your husband now as if he were my son, and if you choose you can share it with him, I hope you do.
Hi son, I'm so disturbed because I listened to your wife's struggles today. She described her marriage to you and how it makes her feel and, frankly, it's as though she were describing a form of slavery not a marriage. She describes the marriage as though you are in control, the decision maker, the task master and the only one whose opinions and feelings count. She also describes your participation in rearing your child and caring for the house and the never ending chores that come with it, as little at best. In addition, your spiritual life has come to a standstill.
Let me be honest, if this is true, you are doing all you can to bring divorce to your door. And as you know, children of divorce are at high risk for drug abuse, suicide, depression, lower grades, lower income, risky behavior, failed relationships, and so many other things that contribute to a meaningless life if you divorce. Of course, each child will suffer to a different degree, some are like dandelions and will grow even under bad circumstances; but others are like violets, that require special circumstances and wilt with the first cold breath.
So forgive me if I urge you in the strongest terms possible, to invest in your own marriage. Working hard and holding down a good job is admirable, but that is not where it ends. Your day should end when your wife's day ends, and not a minute sooner. She is not a house-slave, expected to serve and clean up after you, and then on top of that care for your child full time and work on top of that???? You are equally responsible for her mental health, physical health, emotional health, romantic health and your child's well being. Countless millions have created happy marriages where both husband and wife thrive as people, look forward to each day, as well as the future. This is your most important task in life, everything else pales in comparison. Had you presented to her, before marriage, what she now has, do you think for a minute she would have said yes? Of course not, we all want to have time for ourselves, a loving romantic life, times of quiet and reflection, times to have healthy recreation, hobbies and goals we are working towards.
Whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of reducing life to work only, where neither of you are growing as people, and enjoying life together. Will you fail at the most important thing in life? I know you can do better, and should do better; and if you continue to hold Kingship and control, it won't be long before you will reduce your marriage to the intolerable, and divorce will be the predictable outcome.
I know you can do much better, if in fact you care enough. So, work along side of your wife until the days work is done; enjoy your child with her, and then when the child's bedtime comes, spend time together talking and planing how each of you can enhance one another's lives on every level, spiritually, emotionally, physically, and watch the love grow! You will respect yourself far more and so will your wife. Happy homes are worth every minute of effort to build, and nothing compares to a happy home. ------------ So that gives you some idea of what I would say to my own adult sons if they had failed so miserably. God bless you, I hope something in this hits the mark.
When I saw this picture I knew I had to share it, but, what is it that strikes me so???
I shared this with two friends to get their thoughts and with their collaboration this is what I came up with --
Inside every man is seasons.
Inside everyman is a boy trying to grasp the beginnings of his walk.
His personality will be formed by age 5.
His body will change dramatically before 15.
His eyes will watch.
His ears will see.
He will grow so fast at times, that his physical will struggle with his mental.
Then his mental will struggle.
And back again.
But a man becomes a man when he is able, be he 5 or be he 75.
Now the apostle Paul speaks of another man, the "old man" the corrupt man that is self absorbed, shirks responsibility and lives for pleasure, and that man, the "old man," may be our first beginnings, but Christ renews our mind and we become a new creature, and "We shall mount up with wings like eagles, we shall run and not be weary.."
I think that is what I see most clearly in this picture, the renewing.
"We often ask the question, Why does God permit so much sin and evil in the world?
The visitor walking the sidewalks of a downtown city amid scenes of moral misery, or the philanthropist threading his way through paths of deep pollution, or the home missionary coming into contact with forms of life that would make angles weep -- all put the question to their heart, Why doesn't God intervene?
And to each there ought to be one answer: He does interfere, He does intervene, He is at this moment interfering; He is interfering through YOU.
This is exactly what the Apostle Paul says: "God has given to us the ministry of reconciliation."
This is a thing we seldom think of in our pessimistic moments. We often exclaim at the sight of flagrant evil, "I wish I were in God's place for one day!"
Little do we deem that his is exactly what God wishes too. God has asked us to stand in His place, not for one day, but for many days.
He has asked us to take up His burden - the burden of human sin. He has asked us to interfere fro Him, to act for Him, to strive for Him, to love for Him."
George Matheson.
"Those things we see in scripture that we morally admire; we are practically bound to pursue. Human duties ...
