Nick’s Walk

I remember the first time I heard the term “Spiritual Warfare.” I had visions of extremists, nuts, snake handlers and… well you get the picture. Even as the years of my spiritual walk passed I still considered Spiritual Warfare the work of specialists, kind of the Seal Teams of Christianity. I thought that “Soldiers of Christ” was a term to be applied to a small group of super Christians and not the the body in general. As has so often been the case in my life, I was wrong. Let me suggest this. Pick a gospel. Let’s say Luke. I pick Luke because he was a physician, a man of science. You would think he would not get too caught up in the spirit realm. Let’s see: Chapter 1: He talks about Zacharias being filled with the Holy SPIRIT. Christ’s birth being announced by an ANGEL. Elizabeth being filled with the Holy SPIRIT. Zacharias prophesizing in the SPIRIT. Moving to Chapter 2: ANGELS appear and announce the birth of the savior. The HOLY SPIRIT fulfills a promise to Simeon. Chapter 3: John Baptizes Jesus and the HOLY SPIRIT descends on him in bodily form like a DOVE. Chapter 4: Starts […]

I grew up in a big family, the oldest of nine. We were close, the kind of closeness that only poverty can create. When I say we didn’t own a car until I was in high school, I get one of those yes-and-you-walked-ten-miles-to-school looks. I remember carefully studying and analyzing the Sears Big Book in the weeks before Christmas preparing for that all important decision: what one gift could I get this year. Sharing ideas with brothers and sisters. It didn’t matter that what looked so good on the glossy well-worn Big Book page, didn’t quite match up by late on Christmas day.  Our family is still, what you might consider, close. Although many I see but once a year. I keep up with many of them either because they’re on Facebook or, in the case of my baby brother, we share a passion for UL sports. It’s always good when I’m with one of them and the days of growing up together, days that were somehow better, don’t seem that far away. I think we’ve lost the sense of family. I see a generation whose concept of family is too loose and too complicated. Divorce, separation, and non-marrying […]

[14] And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying,[15] “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.[16] “So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”[17] Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.”[18] And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.[19] Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”[20] So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.[21] “However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” Matthew 17:14-21 A couple of days ago my wife asked me, “Is that knee getting any better?” It was a rhetorical question. I was hobbling around pretty […]

Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man  26 They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes,

For the first few years of my marriage I was in the Navy stationed far from home. We would try to get back home a couple of times a year, often during the holidays. We always looked forward to seeing our families. We are close both to my family and my wife’s. But those “vacations” had a certain tension. It seemed we were always balancing the time to be spent with each family. Christmas with one; Christmas eve with the other. Maybe the opposite split for New Years. Many Christmases we had two big meals. Now, many years later, my family gathers on the 23rd of December to avoid as much as possible, scheduling conflicts with the increasing complex family relationships. It is often the only time during the year I see some of my family. Rose’s family has become much smaller and that has made things less complicated. I am getting that same kind of feeling for next Saturday. I have a Kairos meeting in Baton Rouge and a Fall Family Fun Day in Maurice. Two of my families have a scheduling conflict. I have to admit that I haven’t normally gone to the Family Fun Days in […]

Yesterday I encouraged you to be a Fearless Lover. I pointed out we need to be Fearless, particularly in these end times; but we need to do so in a loving way that allows our message to be heard.  Soon after writing that post I faced a real-life example of how hard that can be. I attended a team building meeting for Kairos Prison Ministry. Our slogan is Listen Listen Love Love. We try to bring the love of Jesus into prisons. Listening is hard work and many of us are natural talkers. Further, silence makes us uncomfortable so we tend to talk to fill it. Yet that very silence may be encouraging a timid person to finally speak out. In the past we have struggled with volunteers who, through nervousness or habit, just can’t seem to shut up and let our guests do the talking. It has been very frustrating. Yesterday at our meeting we were discussing what to do with the person who doesn’t seem to want to talk. I insisted “Just Shut Up.” Someone else, a new volunteer,  wanted to keep talking about it and I just kept saying, “Just Shut up.” Finally the speaker got […]

Everyone seems to be saying that the end times are near, maybe here. We rejoice because we know that means the soon return of Our Lord. We tend to slip to the back of our mind that it also means tough times. It may be disputed among Christians just how much, if any, of the “tribulation” the church will experience. We excitedly await the rapture.  No matter where you stand on that issue, we have to accept that things will get worse for Christians before they get better. We will be required to be braver, more courageous, than we are now. In short we are going to need to be fearless. The church has too long lived in fear. Fear cripples and cramps joy out of living. Doesn’t that describe the church today? Crippled and joyless. The world looks at us as irrelevant, unable or unwilling to change a decaying society and bringing not joy, but condemnation to a needy world.  That’s not the state Our Lord called us to. We should be living such joyful and fearless lives that the world is compelled to ask, “What do they have? Whatever it is. I want it.” How can we […]

We have new telephone service and a new security system. These changes left me with a stack of manuals to review. The installers taught us the basics, but upon reading the manuals I discovered there were some substantial features that had not been mentioned. In fact, one of the installers was not aware of some of the goodies I found in the manuals. I am not usually a manual reader. I believe that a real man doesn’t read manuals. At least not until he has made a mess trying to figure it all out on his own.  Manuals can be a great money saver. More than once I purchased some new gadget only to discover that a tool I already had was fully capable of doing the job, if I had only read the manual.  I’m sure you already know where this is going. We have a manual for life. God has given us His word; but we are reluctant to read it. We only turn to it when we have already so messed things up that miraculous intervention is required. How often have you discussed an issue with a friend and been told, “I just read a great […]