Ifeel like Charlie Brown when Lucy pulls the football away r ight before he tries to kick it. I know the battle is spiritual just like Ephesians 6:12 tells me it is. It’s like there is a dark cloud hanging over me or at minimum following me around. It started on Oct. 20, the day I had a good friend pass away and then on Nov. 18 I had another friend die. That always hurts.
Recently I had to go to the dermatologist, and he cut some t hings off my elbow and ear and, because I’m on blood thinners, I almost bled to death on the way home. The inside of the Blonde’s car looked like a crime scene, there was blood everywhere. I eventually made my way back to the doctor so he could cauterize the wounds to stop the bleeding.
Is it just me or sometimes does it feel like the world is against you? I have often said I would become a monk and live in a monastery if they would let me take Jennifer. I know that can’t happen so right now and I am ready to buy a line shack in southeastern Kansas where I have some extended family and live there in the cold for the rest of my life.
I realized several years ago I’m a fixer. I think it’s a man thing, we find problems and we want to fix them. That’s where my frustration emerges, but we can’t fix stupid, right?
The other day I was in a very public place in my community, and I saw some graffiti. It was a swastika and hate speech saying a certain race needed to die and they were hated. It was young people that had written these things. Where does that kind of stuff come from? That’s learned behavior, right? They get that from home, mom and dad.
I know a lot of people right now that used to be on fire for Jesus that are now falling into the worship of little “g” gods of the 21st century culture. They have smoked the Kool Aid of self-pleasure and escapism. This wrecks my heart and makes me wonder if they were ever Christians in their first place.
Cer t a i n s ins have become mainstream and okay. Some sins that even our nominal Christian culture hid for years are now normative. Universalism, yoga and doubt over the in-errancy of Scripture have invaded our churches. In Jonah 4:11 God said to Jonah, “There are people that don’t know their left hand from their right.” That’s an understatement in 2024.
I’ve been reading Christopher J. H. Wright’s new book, Here Are Your Gods. I love what he writes, “The trouble is, many Christians are living in the world’s story and trying to make the Bible somehow relevant to that. We are sincerely trying to apply the Bible to ‘my life’ - which sounds fine but actually assumes that my life is the center of reality…” He wraps up by saying, “We have seriously lost the plot, the biblical plot. We have forgotten the story we are in.” As salt and light, we have to change the narrative, what better time than during Advent.
It’s old school and you might laugh but Rick Warren told us in his epic, Purpose Driven Life, “It’s not about you.” Then he quotes Proverbs 11:28, “A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump-a-Godshaped life is a flourishing tree.”
I have a friend named Dave and Dave says, “A + B = C. He also says until A or B changes you will always have C.” If C equals the “things” people are pursuing, A and B need to be replaced with Jesus and the cross and then we will get kingdom living. I hope that made sense. So I’m bummed and it’s not getting better it’s getting worse. What’s my point? I’m hoping Jesus comes soon like He promised in Revelation 22:12.
He told me to tell you all of that.
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