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November 21, 2012

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Thank God for the fleas

There is a line in “The Hiding Place” by Corrie Ten Boom that is never too far from my mind.  While imprisoned in a concentration camp, Corrie’s sister insisted that they had to thank God for the fleas.  Corrie had a hard time with that but did it a bit begrudgingly to satisfy her beloved sister.  When you think of their situation, that took a lot of faith to carry on and even thank God for the fleas.  Eventually, they discovered that the Germans did not want to enter their particular barrack because of those fleas and that is what gave them the little bit of liberty that they had to teach others the Word of God.  With hindsight, Corrie was so grateful for those fleas and for the opportunity to help others at a time when they were in such dire circumstances.

God sometimes allows ‘fleas’ in different areas of our lives.  To us they look like dirty little inconveniences, problems, difficulties and heartaches.  However, our thoughts are not God’s thoughts.  He sees things from His eternal viewpoint.  It’s in the valley of decision and difficulty that the purest metals are forged.  Our darkest days have the potential to bring the greatest growth.  No one would voluntarily choose heartache, but we are all capable, by faith, of thanking God for the fleas in our lives and then of waiting patiently for the time when (and if) He chooses to reveal the reason for them.

It’s easy to thank God for our abundance and our all too apparent blessings, but have we thanked God for the fleas lately?  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and if there are fleas in your life, remember that God loves you with an everlasting love and is always doing everything He can to bring you closer to Him.

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November 20, 2012

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The Trouble With Advertising

We are surrounded by a non-stop, twenty-four hours a day barrage of advertising.  As Christians, why should this bother us?  Or should it?  The purpose of our lives is to live a life of “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Advertising is a constant distraction trying to grab our attention away from the things that are real and true and instead, get us focused on the natural, temporary things of this natural world.  The whole point of an advertisement is to get you to covet something enough so that you will spend whatever it costs to buy it.

Recently, I had a ridiculous conversation with my telephone company.  I called them to ask them to stop sending me advertisements for more of their products and services.  I felt it was a waste of paper and money.  Hohoho.  How silly of me to want to save them some money.  After a long and drawn out conversation, the woman finally agreed to stop sending the offending messages and then in the same breath she said that she noticed that I qualified for a special package.  She rattled off all of the wonderful services I could get with this package faster than I could take in what any of it meant.  Then she boasted that I could even get this wonderful package for three dollars less than I was paying at the moment!  I said that if they were really intent on receiving less money, I’d be happy to oblige them and promptly signed up for the package.  As soon as that transaction was complete, she started in on something else.   I said, “Enough!” and hung up the phone.  In the end, it saved me three bucks, but I had to wonder about the sanity of these people.

Then just the other day, I had to call my cell phone provider.  For some reason I was receiving daily ads on my cell phone since the time that I had bought it.  My daughter had the exact same phone and didn’t get any ads.  I had tried several times to have these ads either stopped or blocked from my phone at different branches associated with my provider.  Nothing seemed to work.  So, I called the main number.  After punching in the usual string of numbers required to ‘access’ my account, guess what was playing as I waited on hold for the next ten minutes?  Yes, more ads.  The woman was finally able to find the cause of the ads – an app that someone had downloaded onto my phone.  Who put it there?  Not me.  It’s not a smart phone and I don’t have any data plan.  I just use the phone for calls and texting.   Anyway, the case was solved and … no more ads.

I think that for the most part, we are so accustomed to ads that we don’t even realize that we are constantly being assaulted by them.  Yes, it is an assault.  It’s a war out there to buy your business.  No matter where you are, someone wants you to buy something more.  As a  frugal Christian trying to live an uncovetous life here on earth, I think that I try to ignore it all but lately it really does feel more like a knock down drag out assault.  It takes a consciously herculean effort to ignore it.

When I go into a store, I have to almost put blinders on in order to stay focused on the particular item needed.  Some stores, especially the ones that give you carriages (imagine that, carriages in a clothing store!), seem able to persuade consumers to buy bushels of extra items even though they entered the store for just one thing.  Maybe it’s in the layout or some kind of subliminal message in the music they’re playing.

I believe that it is an issue for Christians because it keeps us thinking about natural things, natural desires.  It makes us discontent with the things that we have and creates a constant desire to always have more, more.  Most importantly it takes us away from our true purpose here on earth, which is to live the God life, the life which He put inside of us.  It keeps us from connecting with that part deep inside of ourselves that would raise us up out of this earth’s natural crust and help us to discover that we are truly children of the Most High.

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August 15, 2012

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Drought in the Midwest

The nightly news is replete with information about the record drought this summer.  It’s important to watch these stories because the reporters cover the story from a variety of angles. You can see many of the ramifications of such an historic summer.  As you watch the different segments of the story, it gives you ideas on who and what needs prayer.  The farmers, most definitely, but also the poor animals who are hungry and hot, the cows and the chickens.  Many professions are affected besides the farmers, including river boat pilots on the mighty Mississippi and other businesses that depend on it as a resource of some sort.  There is much to pray about this summer.

At the same time, we have to consider why this is happening.  Scripture tells us that the land is full of adulterers (it is) and that because of swearing the land mourns and the pleasant places are dried up (Jer 23:10).  In our modern world, our whole lifestyle is adulterated.  Even our crops are adulterated.  Scientists engineer the seeds that are sown in the ground and the companies that own the engineered seeds make sure that only their seeds are used.  God knows that the seeds were perfect and pure before all of the engineering.  He sees the bigger picture that the engineered seeds are not good for our bodies.  What is He to do?  He loves His creation but we are destroying, not only ourselves but others and the land with us.

The fertilizer required to maintain these engineered crops is running off into the ground water and in its turn is destroying the river that it runs into.  The mighty Mississippi carries this pollution into the Gulf of Mexico and vast regions of this beautiful body of water are now dead zones.  What is our Father to do?  You could say that instead of a green thumb, we have a black thumb that destroys everything that we touch.

God loves His creation the way He created it.  If you were God, what would you do to get the land to return to the way it should be?  So far, everything that mankind has tried hasn’t worked.  No one takes the naysayers and the protesters seriously.  Therefore, God HAS to send a strong message to the ones who are the most instrumental in its destruction.  What if the drought in the Midwest is actually a blessing?  An intial thrust of change in the way things are done?  God is certainly drawing attention to this most critical area of our country and showing us the value of this rich farm land.  We need to return it to its pristine beauty of only a few short centuries ago.  It is entirely possible to reverse what we have done to the land.  God always gives us a way out.  He tells us multiple times in the Old Testament that if we turn our hearts to Him, He will hear and heal our land.

God’s way is the perfect way.  His garden was the perfect one.  We can turn back the clock of destruction by turning back to our Father and letting His way be true.

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July 19, 2012

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Why does God allow evil?

God hates evil, so why does He allow it?  Since God is only good, He can only allow it as long as something good will come from it either immediately or in the long term.

After living several decades on this earth and going through many experiences, I think that I am qualified to say that sometimes we humans don’t know our upside from our downside.  Sometimes we get the goofiest ideas and we adamantly persist in the idea that we’re right.  Our goofy ideas are going to lead us into a pit.  Our kind and loving Father can only look at us in amazement and sigh.  Then He has to set about arranging situations to get us back on the real right path.  His methods at times are intended to shock us out of our stupor.

That’s a very simplistic way of looking at it, but we cannot see how to navigate our way in this dark world.  God has to constantly rearrange us.  Sometimes difficult circumstances are the only thing that will lead us back to Him.

On a grander scale, it’s the same with humankind.  We, of our own selves would ultimately destroy ourselves with our ignorant ‘knowledge.’  We use our brains for all kinds of research that ends up creating things that will kill us better.  Nowadays, we have engineered seeds, engineered everything, ‘new and improved’ things that God originally created perfect.  How can you improve on perfect?  We humans think we can.  Foolish.

As a consequence, we can only see the error of our ways when our own foolishness turns around to bite us in the proverbial butt.  We can only reject evil and choose good, if we see the consequences of evil and make a conscious choice to act positively in our lives.  As a result, the consequences of our bad choices surround us.

Even people who are not religious are able to see what’s wrong and make decisions to do good.  They see the wrongs in this world and they decide that they will help out their neighbor or contribute to a cause.  A lot of good happens because someone read about trouble somewhere in the world and people want to help alleviate some of the pain. A lot of people are realizing that some things were better before technology made them more ‘perfect.’   Each one of us has inside ourselves the ability to make our own choices against the evil that we see both in ourselves and in our world.

In the end God does not so much allow evil, but rather He wonders: why do we?

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July 14, 2012

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God is good.

God is good.  When we were children, we recited that three word phrase like little robots, smiling up at the person requiring us to do so (or perhaps staring fearfully at that person!).  It takes a lifetime of experience to find out that it is absolutely so.  God is infinitely kind and gracious and good.  Everything that He does is good.  He only allows good. He is only good all the time.  You can say it many ways and sometimes you need to say it a lot in order to understand how deep it goes.  A lot of people may say that God is good out of one side of their mouth and then with the other side they accuse Him of all the evil in the world and all the misery that they see around them.  God, why this and why that.  However, even so, God is only good and that is true all the time.

We only have to open our eyes.  When our many times great grandfather Adam sinned, he immediately forgot God’s goodness and hid from God.  Why was he so fearful?  God had not changed.  The only change was Adam’s sin.   Since that time, God has been forced into the position of being apparently overbearing and even scary at times in order to make man keep the commandments and do good.  Mankind most of the time won’t do it unless there’s something to be afraid of.  In spite of all of the wars, famine and trouble, God is still good one hundred percent of the time.  For each individual living on this earth, He is always thinking of ways to get that individual to return and come back to Him.  He knows that the person’s eternal happiness depends on him  returning to his Father, so He is creating situations in each person’s life to help that person to return to the place where he/she will be blessed.  Some people are not listening and will not do it in this lifetime.  God still doesn’t give up.

God is like the best mother.  A true mother will never give up on her children.  She loves them unconditionally and prays always for their well being.  She will go to her grave at times praying for them and always wishing them the best.  She can find something to love even in the unlovable.  I learned this at my mother-in-law’s funeral.  Her eldest, and most rebellious, son stood up and spoke for a few minutes and he talked about his most precious moments with his mother.  Knowing her, I knew that in spite of his frustrating and uncanny ability to alienate absolutely everyone, she loved him and saw goodness in him.  He made her laugh.

God is like that kind of mother’s love.  He loves each one of us unconditionally, but yet He knows when we are doing things that are hurting our eternal happiness and He creatively goes about leading us into situations that will help us to change that characteristic or that habit.  Yes, God is good.  He is wonderful.  I see His hand in little situations in my life that I thought were annoying, but in the end I find out that those were the situations that brought about the most growth in my life.

A little example of that happened to me last week.  I’ve been trying to pull off a refinance all summer long.  Dealing with the banks these days is completely frustrating and many things have happened along the way.  The other day I was trying to fax some documents to the refinance company and my fax machine was not working properly.  I tried everything and still it kept spitting out error notices, seemingly just to aggravate me more.  Finally, I realized that there was no way on earth that it was going through and so I decided to drive over there and drop the papers off.  As I drove over there, I began to think about a recent prayer where I said that I wanted to stop being such a big complainer.  Ka-ching!!  Wow!  This was a perfect situation to try out my new resolve to stop complaining!  Up until then I was complaining big time about my wasted time and the wasted gas, the frustration, etc.  The new realization brought a smile to my face.  As I paused at a stop sign, my phone rang – it was the mortgage secretary saying that the faxes (probably a pile of them!) had finally come through.  Yes, God is good and He just wants us to turn back to Him.  He works overtime in each of our lives to create situations so that we will get the message and change.

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June 20, 2012

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Trust Me!

The last few months have been quite trying for my husband and I.  We own a small rental property and the first thing that happened was that there was a flood in the basement of that building.  It ended up costing quite a bit of money to have someone clear out the main drain of some tree roots that had grown into it.  They were not able to clear it completely and there is still work to be done.  Then a week later my daughter, who lives on the third floor of that place, called at 11:00 pm crying and saying in a trembling voice, “Mom, the house is on fire.”  Wow.  That was a terrible thing to hear at any time of day.  We rushed over and in the end, the damage was miraculously little.  The fire department was truly inspiring.  Then about a week later, my husband’s mother passed away.  It is hard to express the emotional experience of losing her and of dealing with his sometimes troublesome family.  She was a lovely lady and we miss her in many unforeseen ways.  Following that, as the summer got under way, there was seemingly a mass invasion of ticks in our back yard and I got bitten a few times.  A couple of weeks after that, I got sick with an unconfirmed case of Lyme disease.

By that time, I was beginning to feel abandoned by my Father and was wondering what in the world was going on.  It was hard to maintain a spiritual outlook through all of these situations, but in each difficulty I felt the Lord saying, Trust me.  Especially before we knew the limited extent of the fire, it was hard to calm my emotions and say, Okay, Lord, I trust you.  However, in the end each difficulty turned out to be a blessing.  You hear that a lot from people, but I can only affirm that it is true.  We all know Ro 8:28 which says that “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called, according to his purpose.”  Trust me.  What does it mean?  It means more to me now than it did two months ago.  It means: I trust you Lord with my life and the life of my family members.  I trust you that no matter what happens, you are working constantly in my life.  Every minute of every day, you are leading me to situations that are helping me to get closer to you.

Years ago, my dad used to fly a single engine airplane sometimes.  On one particular occasion, I flew with him from a Midwestern state to the east coast.  As we started off that day, the weather was completely foggy.  My dad had his instrument rating, so we were able to carry on with the planned flight.  We took off in a total fog.  The fog continued for the entire flight.  We were completely surrounded by clouds.  I was terrified to be in such a soup without being able to see a thing.  Soon, I felt my muscles tense up.  Then I heard a small and calm voice inside of me saying, “Trust me.”  I said, Okay, and I tried to relax myself and trust God that all things would be okay.  However, a short while later, I found myself completely tensed up again.  Again came the voice that said, “Trust me.”  Okay, Lord.  I again tried to relax.  Three times that happened and three times I had to force myself to relax.  In the end, we made it to our destination in one piece and that experience has stayed with me all of these years.  God reminds me of it sometimes when things get troublesome.

Life can present some serious challenges to each one of us at times, but through it all we have a rock upon which we can trust our very existence.  The same one who stilled the waters can calm our troubled emotions and lead us back to the shore.  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the  midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.  Selah.”  Ps 46:1 – 3.

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August 25, 2011

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Time is a blessing

Time: Time is a blessing that some do not receive and yet others are blessed amply with it.  My own parents are now 90 years old and have been much blessed with time.  When they were little, the world was in a great depression.  If we could transport ourselves back to that time, we would be able to feel how people felt then.  We would see through our own eyes that the grownups then did not know how long that terrible time would last.  The only thing that they could do was to live through it and persevere.  It took faith to make it through those days.  It took faith for that generation to help those who were even less fortunate than they.  It took faith for them to know that even if they gave away some of what little they had, things would work out.  Many of that generation took huge steps of faith to make it through those days.  They sent children off to live with relatives hoping that one day they would be able to bring them home.  They continued living their lives, keeping hope as a candle alive and brightly lit in their hearts.

From that period of time, we pass on to the days when that generation was finishing high school and the world was plunging headlong into a world war.  For young people, the future is everything and yet as young people that generation did not know if they even had a future.  What kind of world would practice murder on such a grand scale?  Would all of their loved ones survive such a massive war?  Again, if we could transport ourselves back into that time, we would know that at that time, there were no answers available.  There was no way of knowing the future.  There was only hope and again, faith.  It took faith for them to carry on with their lives, to marry knowing that their young husband would soon leave to fight a war on another continent.  It took faith to hang on during those long years of separation.  Finally, the war ended, loved ones returned and hope was fulfilled, but not for all.  Somehow the world carried on and the post war years seemed like a happy respite from trouble, although even then, nothing came easily.  Faith continued to sustain the people of that era as they navigated their way through the tumultuous years of the sixties.

Through the years, nothing has ever been certain, nothing one hundred percent guaranteed.  However, faith carried many of that generation through and brought them to a lovely green pasture with a beautiful view of all of the fruits of their labor.  That is the blessing of time.  A person is allowed the pleasure of seeing his or her life dreams fulfilled and the hardships of life resolved.  Children grow up and encounter their own troubles in life.  Parents look on and hold on to their faith.  As time passes, situations work out somehow and you can see the marvelous hand of God and stand back in awe at what He has done.  Grandchildren arrive, even great grandchildren, and so the cycle continues, each generation needing to find their own measure of faith to hold them through troublesome times.  It is an outstanding blessing to live long enough to see new generations find their way, enter into constructive careers, begin happy marriages and take the first steps into their paths of life.  Yes, time is a blessing.  What a blessing at the end of a life to see life’s troubles resolved and multitudes of difficult situations resolve themselves in happy endings.

We all love stories with happy endings and faith will carry you through until you can see it with your own eyes.  However, even in the Scriptures, not everyone is given the blessing of seeing the end of a matter.  Many a servant of God could only maintain his or her faith through until the end of their part of the grand picture, leaving this world in faith, hoping that the eternal purpose would one day be fulfilled.  Sometimes we feel as though we are in the midst of Psalm 23.  “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …”  Yes, surely we have all felt that way a time or two as we walk along this road.  Faith continues on with the second half of that verse: “I will fear no evil.”  It takes faith to continue walking and fearing nothing.  The lives of faithful servants offer hope to new generations of young people, that though their times of trial are just beginning, if they just continue on in faith as the previous generation has done, they too will come to the day when they will see the fruits of their labor and see the resolution of their life’s trials.   Living examples of faith from the past are an inspiration to us and offer us a very real hope.  The cycle continues and we become those living examples, passing on the faith from generation to generation.

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August 16, 2011

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A Word Fitly Spoken

Recently I went to a family reunion for my parents’ 90th birthdays.  About a month after that we went to a family wedding on my husband’s side of the family.  Giving each event a perfunctory glance, one might say it’s all about food, flowers, music, cake, cookies and a lot of chatter.  However, there is so much more going on.  The Scriptures encourage us to get together with the family of God.  Why?  These experiences with my natural family made the answer abundantly clear to me.

On the surface, a white bridal runner, home made Italian cookies piled high on the dessert table, luscious carrot cake with ivory frosting, champagne toasts and many clinkings of glasses while the young couple reward us with a kiss.  But beneath the white roses (with just a hint of pink), wishes of congratulations and happy smiles runs a current of issues: hearts that ache due to broken relationships.  Faces marked by rivers of tears now slightly dried from their recent rivers flowing down.  Hearts bruised from life’s fiery trials, looking for answers, praying for hope.

Amidst all of these hidden hurts, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver (Pr 25:11).   We have in our hearts and tongues the power to heal a heart and give someone hope.  A measure of friendship lessens the depth of the creases where tears have worn deep crevasses.  One young life looking for direction, another looking for hope.  Even a quick prayer costs me nothing but my time and yet the results are enormous.  How can we know of these situations if we don’t get together with our brothers and sisters?  When we see each other, so much is going on.  Where the threads of our relationships have been torn, they are being stitched back together.  Patches are sown over places made bare from the daily wear and tear of life.  Restorations and connections are happening even under the surface.  God is not idle.  If we give Him just a bit of our time and effort, He’ll run with it and stretch it out to last a lifetime.  Especially in difficult times, much is accomplished.

Hebrews 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

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July 24, 2011

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The Handwriting on the Wall

Our civilization as we know it is no longer sustainable.  You don’t need to look far to discover this sad fact.  Our system of education is imploding.  Our government can no longer govern properly.  Our system of agriculture is killing us and is causing massive pollution and erosion of precious topsoil.  If you examine every section of our modern society, it is corrupt and rotten.  Isaiah put it best in chapter one when he said, “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises and putrifying sores…”

We have to ask ourselves why and even so the answer is staring us blankly and yet accusingly in the face.  We are at fault.  God created this earth a beautiful paradise, but in a few short years (compared to the length of our planet’s existence) we have destroyed it and are coming close to destroying mankind from it.  Again, we can look to Isaiah for the reason: “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.”  It’s true that we, the human race, have devolved.  Most recently we have produced monsters that prey on innocents, that kill hundreds of people and call it God.  How can these things be?  It is disheartening and disturbing.

However, rather than go on about the deficiencies of our modern life, we need to look for solutions and find a way out of what has become a society ready to plunge into great darkness.  Perhaps we can’t save the whole, but we can save ourselves.  We can individually turn back to God.  We can live by His laws.  He did not give us thousands of laws.  He gave us ten and then gave us one that encompasses all: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  I would not like people to gossip about me or hurt me in any way.  Let the change begin with me.  Each individual can only do it for himself and pray that it catches on and others will see that such a life is bountifully blessed.

I can begin to respect God’s creation and live in harmony with it.  Yes, it is mine to use but to use wisely.  God said, “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.”  He did not say to steal its riches and deplete its resources until there is nothing left for future generations.  God put the man in the garden to dress it and KEEP it.  We have not been good stewards of this gift of the earth.  The only solution is to acknowledge our fault.  We cannot put the blame on anyone else.  We have done this thing.  Then we have to turn to God for the solutions.  He has an answer.  He is really willing for us to make it.  And, if God be for us, who can be against us?  No one.  No thing.  We can do it.  There is a little time for us to change.  Let’s change now!

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March 14, 2011

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The Solution to our environmental problems

A friend recently posted a very heart wrenching video on youtube about the environment.  As I write these sentences, more and more of the Amazon rain forest is being destroyed.  More of the world’s oceans are being polluted.  The runoff from the large industrial farms in the American midwest is producing dead zones in large sections of the Gulf of Mexico.  Right now, nuclear power facilities in Japan are in jeopardy of failing.  So much of what God created is being destroyed.  Many species of plants and animals are disappearing from off this earth forever.  The question is: what can be done about it?  Why don’t we try to stop it?

If you examine these problems and try to understand what is causing them, you have to see that they are all eventually caused by greed, selfishness and hate.  The greed of large corporations for more profits leads to a lot of our global pollution and environmental destruction.  However, it’s too easy to put all the blame on large corporations or some nameless face in the corporate world.  The greed starts here at home.  How am I still greedy?  How am I still selfish?  How much hate do I still have resident in me?  It’s hard to look at myself and see all of those things that I hate in others, but that’s where it starts and, as the famous phrase points out, ‘the buck stops here.’

Jesus told us to get the beam out of our own eye before we try to get the mote out of someone else’s eye.  How can I see clearly unless I get that thing out of myself?  Ultimately, I have no control over others.  I can’t force them to change themselves.  The only one I can change is me.  However, if we all take that step to get rid of the things inside of us that are in opposition to God’s heavenly kingdom, then that kingdom can be established on this earth.  Then we will see the deserts blossom as a rose and the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror.  I’m asking him to change his ways and no message could have been any clearer.  If you wanna make the world a better place take a look at yourself, and then make a change.”  It’s too easy to sing the song and think that those are pretty words.  I think Jesus would agree with that, but he would say, Go out and DO that.  GO and sin no more.