Category: The Spiritual

Today we celebrate Independence Day. It’s a good time to do some thinking. This country is very different from the one I grew up in. We spent the weekend in Houston. We didn’t see many folks who could speak English. I am not saying that’s a bad thing. It’s just one piece of evidence that the country is changing. The people who make up America are changing. We have always been a melting pot; it just seems that lots of the new folks aren’t melting in. I’m not sure that’s good. The new folks don’t seem to be aware of or grateful for how we got to be independent. Even the young folks who were born here seem to have that problem. We have always been free; but I wonder how free we are. I feel more controlled and watched and limited by government than ever before in my life. I have never known a time when the IRS and the justice department and the Congress in general was so corrupt. it’s not a question of “might be” corrupt. There isn’t much issue about it. I think we are less free than ever.  What worries me more is that […]

I have come to believe that we can measure our maturity by how we value people, things and ideas. Consider with me: Self. When young we tend to value ourselves by what we do. This is not surprising since strength, beauty, brains, energy and a life time to do, all belong to the young. We think we have capacity, opportunity and time to succeed and measure ourselves accordingly. It’s only after years of fighting, failures, and unfairness, that we begin to realize that our value can’t be in what we do, since what we do is so much less than what we dreamed. The realization that our worth is in who we are is slow to come and difficult to keep up. If we have had the blessing of coming to know Christ, we learn that it’s not about what we have done, but what He did. Our worth is in being His and being loved by Him. What we do is as filthy rags; what He does through us is the stuff of  miracles. If we fail to reach this level of maturity, we die in failure and hopelessness. If we learn to live in Him, we live in […]

Sometimes I amaze myself at just how clueless I am. When listening to my grandchildren I only understand about 10 percent of what they say. When I drive off the paths I take most days, I see things that I forget about. I see poverty and shacks in which I am sure hunger stalks. I walk in crowds and see empty eyes and blank faces that show a complete absence of the love Creator God has for them. Occasionally I hear things that shock me to the core.  There are employees working in private homes who are forced into serving and/or fraudulently convinced that they have no option to leave. Women, men or children are forced into the commercial sex industry and held against their will by force, fraud or coercion. Human beings are forced to work under the threat of violence and for no pay. These slaves are treated as property and exploited to create a product for commercial sale. Individuals are compelled to work in order to repay a debt and unable to leave until the debt is repaid. It is the most common form of enslavement in the world.Women and children are forced to marry another without their consent […]

To all those fathers who do their best to be all they can be to their children, “Thank you.”  Society doesn’t appreciate your effort or understand the value of your calling. You are the butt of jokes and the easy one to blame.  You are making a difference. Don’t give up. To all those who try to fill the shoes of absent fathers, “Thank You.” Your efforts are often not recognized, sometimes spurned or misunderstood. Carry on. You are desperately needed. To all those whose father is absent, physically, spiritually, or emotionally.  Know that you are loved by the Lord and Father of all. Turn to Him. Be especially blessed this Father’s Day when you feel you have no one to thank or to honor. To my own special father, now gone too many years. I am so sorry I never recognized the great job you did while alive. Who today could raise nine children on almost no money and not end up with any in jail or on drugs? To my descendants, here and gone and yet to be. I am so sorry for the times I have been absent, or too distracted or too busy. I am […]

Have you ever come to the sudden realization that you’ve been robbed? Years ago we walked into our home to the realization that someone had been inside, ransacked and taken some things. It created a huge sense of violation. I have often since come to the belief that I’ve been robbed, that something I had or think I should have is not mine. Perhaps you’ve had this sensation. Particularly as we grow older we can be overcome with a sense of loss, or a sense of a failure to gain. Perhaps it occurs when we discover that our life didn’t turn out as expected. It can happen when we realize that our spouse and kids and even ourselves aren’t perfect, far from it. Maybe it’s when we realize that the dream of arising to the pinnacle of our profession is never coming to fruition. Perhaps we realize that the financial security we thought we would have isn’t there. When these realizations, we have to consider two possibilities: Perhaps our expectations were unreal. Should we really have expected that our spouse would always be twenty-one? Was it realistic to believe we would be the wisest, richest or most beloved person […]

Mind control. It’s not just the stuff of grade B sci-fi movies. It’s a very real thing. Just spend some time on Facebook, Twitter or television news. Folks seem to be wandering around like mindless zombies. Repeating what they have heard and having no thoughts of their own. On Facebook folks keep posting pics and stories from four years ago as if they happened this morning. I wish Facebook had a “no politics” mode that would automatically hide anything about Hillary, Donald or Bernie. Talk about mind control. Satan is very definitely in this mind control business. He wants us regretting yesterday and fearing tomorrow so we won’t be good for anything today. He wants us thinking about politics, bills, terrorism, taxes, flesh-eating bacteria and the antiChrist so we will give no thought to God. I suppose he’s pretty good at it, but we really make it pretty easy for him. We Christians, who claim to be eternally secure, worry constantly about death and think every cough and tummy ache is cancer. We claim to be heavenly minded but can’t remember the last time we told someone about Jesus for fear of offense. We store up stuff where rust […]

Today is June 2, 2016. I guess there really isn’t anything special about today. I’m in south Louisiana so it’s going to be hot. It’s a Thursday which is one of my favorite days of the week because the whole weekend stretches out before me. I already know I haven’t done everything I had hoped to do this week.  It looks like a rainy weekend so I should probably get my yard work done. It’s a pretty ordinary day. It’s also incredibly special. It’s a gift from God. I need to make sure I don’t waste it regretting yesterdays or worrying about tomorrows. It will be full of opportunities that I can refuse to see, let slip by or take full advantage of. In just a few hours it will be gone. There will be nothing I can do to get it back. God preceded it with a few hours of quiet darkness so I could rest up for it, spend some quiet time with HIm,  and face it fresh. I will get the same break in a few hours when dark will settle in again and I can reflect on opportunities missed, ignored or taken. I will have […]

And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah 6;3 I have seen many glorious things: beautiful mountains, oceans, and forests. I have seen the Grand Canyon and the redwood forests in northern California. I have seen sunrise over a bayou and sunsets over a sea. It’s a bit sad that we’ve become so urban. We think skyscrapers, stadiums and the like are glorious, impressive sometimes, but not glorious. I have seen other really glorious things: my bride walking down the aisle, my children and grands and greats, still red and bruised from the birth trauma, taking their first steps, or laughing for no good reason,  and newly baptized converts, gloriously changed and miraculously healed, gloriously saved. I think what makes something glorious isn’t its beauty. It’s something so spectacular that the sight of it changes you. Isaiah said that the whole earth is full of the Glory of God. I don’t always see it. To those who don’t know Him, the world is void of glory. Through His grace, eyes are opened. The more you know Him, the more glorious the world. The more […]