Nick’s Walk

This week I had an adventure. It didn’t involve travel or danger. It didn’t happen in a far away place. It occurred in my own home. I cleaned out my office. If you’ve never seen my office you can’t fully appreciate this adventure. My office had become so clutter and disorganized, so much more a store room than an office, that the thought of entry kept me away. But armed with determination and Tyler, an energetic twenty something, the adventure began. In a couple of hours we had piled together enough throw aways to fill the bed of two pickups. Just getting rid of stuff that should have been thrown out years ago was refreshing. But the real excitement came in discovering stuff I had forgotten I had. I found a Lafayette phone directory from 1954. That alone could provide a day of adventure. I found enough folders, envelopes, paper clips, etc that I won’t have to go to Office Depot again, ever. Well maybe that’s over the top. I also found marvelous electronic devices that were disturbingly out of date. A hand held GPS that I thought was so cool when I got it, an electronic bible, a […]

This week we’ve considered spiritual warfare. We’ve determined that there are spirits, good and bad. Satan exists; but he’s not as powerful as God. In the end, we win. We know that there is a war going on. We try to understand that  much of what we see on the natural level is the result of what is being played out in the spirit realm.” For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12.  We are called to participate in this war. We have a place. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” So where do we start? How do we enlist? How do we get into the game? PRAY. I know that we think of prayer as a sideline activity. We think that’s something the spectator does while sitting on the sideline. Maybe that’s because we don’t understand prayer. We still think of prayer as words we say or petitions we make. Sadly that’s often the extend of our prayer […]

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 […]