Drilling for Gold...(the red kind) or Give till it Hurts

Milea has been "hinting" that with our iron rich diet, that being a guy and as of late not having any accidental blood letting, that I needed to go give blood (too much iron in the blood can cause joint pain and more). So, I had time and went down to the local Red Cross to donate. Everything went well till I got ready to give. (please note: I have a very high tolerance to pain, although I have never given birth- not by my choosing- I have stepped on many nails- as a kid and as best I remember all in my left foot, cut the tip off of my right index finger and shocked the doctor that stitched me up because of my calmness, a week later detached the end of my finger that was previously sewn on- which hurt much more than the original incident, sent a giant splinter of wood though my knuckles pinning my hand closed, I could go on but I think you may have gotten the point. So, I sat down on the chair to start the blood letting... I commenced with my normal banter to break the ice, the supposed nurse AKA (also know as) the pile driver commenced to clean my arm and locate the vein (the future location of the beam to be driven in to hold the future structure). (Please note: I have given blood before probably 5 times without complaint or incident).  Here is a picture of my pile driving nurse.

As she started "inserting" the beam I noted that the angle of the beam was about 45 degrees to the predetermined mark over a vein. (being in construction I am good at seeing angles and possible projections of beams). Seeing that my vein was right below the surface and very predominate, I could tell she would strike "gold" real quick.  She proceeded to insert the beam that appeared to go through the vein and further into the muscle (of which of course, I have an abundance of) and continued to nearly the full length of the 1 1/2 to 2 inch needle. Seeing that I was not getting paid for the blood, I gave her my complaint about the beam going through my arm. She responded that she was very experienced and has been a pile driver for 17 years. After which she removed most of the needle and with a sideways motion inserted it into my vein. Upon which she again commented on her previous experience and said she must have driven the beam to the side of the predetermined correct position noting that I must have been inserting to many previous beams in that location and it was hard for her to get it right. (The last construction project in that location was a year or two ago). After reassuring me as to her experience we finished the procedure. Later in the evening I noticed what must be a bug bite on the back of my arm several inches above the location of the beam insertion but on the opposite side. hmmm

Tick, tick, tick.

This last weekend  my darling wife and I went on a spur of the moment trip,  my inclination is to stay put and relax, hers is to explore, (it is really a strange thing because that inclination is totally opposite of our personalities, I am more daring and she likes safety.  But then, being around me is far from safe, so she must have an inward desire to live on the wild side). Friday morning I asked her if she could get off work, after a  trip into the office to do a few things and me attending to my  gardens, we finally packed and got on the road by noon!  The weekend was full of hiking the woods and trails of Natural Bridge and Buckhorn Lake State Parks, but due to the slightly wet (drizzly) weather on Saturday and Sunday we (I), who didn't want to freeze off my nether regions out in a boat, weren't able to get out and on the beautiful lake. The lake is a man made one, of which this state has many, and rather large (we are not talking acres probably easier measured in square miles), and set in the hills of Eastern Kentucky which are now very green and lush with flowers all over the ground and trees.
Our hikes along the trails were pleasant, even if hilly, with many interesting and beautiful flowers, rocks (excuse me, boulders- Milea seems to have developed a boulder fetish which is yet to be fulfilled in our yard... wondering what to get her for a birthday or Christmas? A BIG rock and I am not talking diamond would delight her...) and trees, oh yeah then there are the small brooks and the chipmunks. Our normal banter and teasing were in full bloom (when we could catch our breath enough to talk).  After our hike on Saturday we went back to our more than ample "cabin" more like a medium sized 3 bedroom house with kitchen, to rest and read. When all of a sudden I awoke with such a clatter, I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter... well I sprang to my feet because Milea did one of her SCREAMS and a movement quicker than I have not seen the likes of since she had dreamed of a mouse in our bed years ago or the last time I made an honest attempt to tickle her feet (which results in not a movement to get away but rather to kill). My (now natural) instinct, to get away (due to the whole kill thing), was slowly being brought into check, due to her being six feet away and on the other couch and I was personally not responsible and in less trouble. What had aroused my heart rate was that she had found a tick crawling up her arm and her quick movement was the flinging motion to get it off her.  "You did WHAT?"  Was my well thought out response to her explanation.  Now I was desperately searching the "wood tick camouflage" colored carpet not to be the hero, but rather not wanting the thing to find me.  As I searched, I instructed her on wood tick etiquette, things like... thou shall not fling ticks upon or towards thy neighbor and other important things like hold them till you can kill the suckers and so on...  Her defense was the usual "I couldn't help myself" schpeel. After not finding it we went back to reading after itching, scratching, checking ourselves over and over and over for more ticks, I at least moved to higher ground. There is nothing like having a tick (or getting a tick thrown at you) to get the mind's imagination working in full gear... here a tick, there a tick, everywhere a tick, tick. After a recovery period and further scratching and checking we went to dinner and came back to the room for further reading, which was rudely interrupted by a yelp and yet another fling and more reinforcement of etiquette instruction, as well as searching for movement in the carpet and my personal space.  After a long while of searching and instruction we went back to our reading and imagining... Thankfully my mind relaxed... after remembering that my personal bug magnet was in the room and not sitting next to me! (Its true, much to her displeasure.  :)  )
A while later I heard a calm "Its crawling up my blanket",  she had needed a blanket because I would not get near her until the bugger was captured and beheaded, (see comment on bug magnet).  I gratefully got up  removed it, beheaded it and praised her for her calmness and NOT FLICKING IT TOWARDS ME!
And yes it was probably the same one...(see comment on bug magnet).  Now we could get back to normal life after more checking and mind imagining.  
As I awoke early this morning one of my first thoughts was what if we had the same response to sin that Milea had toward that tick.  The repulsion, the quick get it out of here and far from me response that holds no, not even a seconds hold on our being...  Sitting here and writing this I realized that sin is a lot like a tick, it tries to attach itself to you and then live by sucking the life of God out of you and possibly infecting you with its own disease.  I repeat...  what if we had the same response to sin that Milea had toward that tick.  The repulsion, the quick get it out of here and far from me response that holds no, not even a seconds hold on our being...

Guarding what's yours

As a kid we used to sing a chorus in church and I also remember my mom singing this around the house...  "All the promises in the Book are mine every chapter, every verse, every line. All are blessings of His love divine. All the promises in the book are mine"... Side note:  I don't think I ever heard all the words (interesting). Here is the link to the whole song lyrics  "All the Promises" link
I can't say that this is really the case because some promises are directed at differing individuals or nations or even the Devil (his promises are some I don't want).  However there are a lot of them that are for us. Jesus gave us this one: 
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
So Jesus said it so it is done and peace is always ours, right? Yes and no.  Peace is always there for you, whether you walk in it is up to you.  Look at it this way... (except in an outage and/or nonpayment situation) electricity is always available, but if the switch isn't in the "on" position you will remain in the dark. (Selah)
You can have peace in any situation, even though you may be a storm, you can have perfect  peace inside and out. The question that you must figure out it is... is your peace switch or worry switch in the on position and shining bright in you life?
 Pr 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
This verse holds the key. You could easily translate this verse to say "Guard your heart for from it will come the perspective and manner in which you will live your life".  Your thought life digs the banks in which the river of your life must flow in.  The good news is, you can direct and change, in large part, what course your life takes. (Just looking at this last sentence and pondering on it would help any of us.) What is it that you are continually thinking about?  Is it the problem or the worst possible results of the situation or is it the best?  We all get caught in these situations like: arguments, lack of money, abundance of bills or physical maladies, any of which can possess and dominate our thoughts.  Keeping your peace during a problem or using and possessing any other promise comes down to guarding (or keeping) what you allow yourself  to dwell on.  Fighting is often involved to control your thoughts. 
Here are some clues:
1.What does the Word say about the situation
2. Say these out loud (if possible) and reenforce the truth
3. Who is your god? Is He weak and unable to help and deliver you? Could He be strong and able enough to help you?
4. Sometimes it takes effort, "keeping your heart" can take some of your time.  The battle may be to get rid of the thought patterns that you made (ones of failure or worry).
More later...

Hard Bits

There are areas of the Christ-like life that are not all that hard for me to do (I will think of one in a minute here... well... lets move on... I will get back to this in a minute).  Then there are those that require a slight bit of effort.  Depending on the situation... ahhh... here is one that can be easy, I knew there was an easy one (I think it may be to early to really think)... -don't commit murder- (most of the time anyway, sometimes a little harder, there has been A time or two when I wanted to get very violent towards someone and it was an option I really entertained... like when a guy came at me with a shovel... I also did put my foot through a pickup topper one time because I was so angery.  Don't worry... it wasn't my topper).  Okay back to the topic at hand... a moderate one... ohhh!  I just got another easy one, for me anyway - not to worry about tomorrow- I can handle this one a vast majority of the time maybe even 99+% of the time, a real yawner, no problem...  oh yeah, moderately hard - love your neighbor as yourself, which is closely related to the thought "what credit is it to you to love those that love you".  This one may vary depending how big your sphere of neighbor goes or who qualifies for your list of  being neighbor.  (To ease your wondering and wandering mind, I didn't hurt my foot on the topper.)  Now for a little bit of a harder one (at least for me, I think we all have weaknesses that vary, so one that is easier for me to live out may be harder for you) It comes out of 1Cor 6 and verse 7.  Here Paul is talking about law suits, but it goes along with 1Cor 13 that "love bears all things",  he wrote "Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?".  It is keeping a right attitude and forgiving even though you may never bring the incident up to the other person.  Lets say, someone does or says something wrong to you, my inclination is to avoid withdraw myself from them, internally and/or externally (I think it is a natural self preservation reaction... just staying away from danger).  There are people that we or in this instance I have to deal with that makes forgiving and completely moving on an absolutely necessary thing, like someone you deal with at work constantly or even a spouse (whether they ever know of the offense or not). Then there are those that you go through the same process of forgiveness, but they are "toxic".  They are the type that can "go off" at anytime. (BTW <by the way> the topper was on the ground and not on the pickup.  Although I can physically do a lot, kung fuishness is not one of them.)  This is one area that I am dealing with.  Do I keep my distance to avoid conflict or withdraw only when I see the timer ticking down to avoid the explosion? Or am I required to stay and always work through the coming conflict?  Do I stay away so the explosion goes off with me not there and it is then not my problem?  Do I keep myself back and keep just a less than casual relationship with them?  Again this is one I am working through.  (The topper had been left by the previous owner, so technically it was mine to do as I wanted to and at the time it was a lawn ornament.)  What is it that makes things hard?  Probably the number one issue would be the level of your flesh at the moment.  What to do for the hard bits?  Call on the grace of God!  "Father, HELP! I need your ability NOW!...I take yours and give you mine (see I'll give you $100 U.S. for your $100 of Monopoly money blog).   In the end, with a big hole in it,  the topper was removed and the grass grew better, don't worry about this incident...I was wearing boots at the time and probably happened 20 years ago.... and God has dealt with that anger issue, Hiii YAAAAA!

Just try me...

Psalms 26:2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
Examine = investigate
Prove=assay, to test like silver and gold to determine the purity level
try= cast, melt, purge away
reins and heart=mind and soul, every bit of me
What David is expressing is for God to do a complete and thorough examination and anything that does not meet up with His standard (Jesus) is to be burned away in a hot fire so that there would be no flaw within himself..  In this day of self worth and if someone were to criticize a flaw it is viewed as an attack on your very self.  You are made special and you are valuable (look at the price paid for you)  I am not in my last few posts and I think one more to come trying to advocate everyone to become exactly like each other but instead lets just get the shovels and sometimes picks (depending on how thick and hard it is) and get the manure out of the stalls.  You and I are being watched more than we know.  I know this may upset a few people  but each one of us has ares that can use some tweaking or even complete destruction (are you ready for the shocking part?) even.............(can I say it) even........me.  I had an incident the other morning in a Lowes parking lot. A man came from the side cutting across the parking rows without looking back to see if anyone (in particular me)was there.
Now this is something I practice when the lot is empty (often early in the morning) but I usually go slower and check a bit more than he did.  He came very close to hitting me and I laid on my horn pretty good (which he did need and deserve).  He parked his truck at one end and I proceeded to park closer to the middle to the other end .  I noticed that he was walking my way as I approached the store.  I got a little concerned but kept going as he was a smaller guy.  As he got near he said, "You didn't have to lay on your horn at me as much as you did."  I was a little shocked... even though there was a slight admission to his guilt he was criticizing my hornmanship.  I remained quiet while I quickly analyzed this...God quietly said "He is right"... "But he cut me off!"...  By this time we were entering the store... I lightly put my hand on the back of his shoulder and said "Your right"  and then we parted going our separate ways.  What was God doing? Grabbing another shovel full or two and cleaning out. Was he wrong in his driving? YES.  Was I right to honk? YES.  Was my attitude right?  No.  This incident was no big deal, but it made an adjustmnet in an attitude that was developed or developing within me.  Three days later an SUV tried to t-bone me (to hit a vehicle on the side with the front of their vehicle) within 50 feet of the last incident.  My reaction?... To swerve and no horn (not even a polite honk).   I was protected and today that is good enough for me.

Tales from the woods

On a different hunting trip to the U.P. of Michigan, than the previously discussed excursion (this time with my two "other brothers", Jon and Dave), we found ourselves a bit bored...  Being bored on a hunting trip is a dangerous thing.  Boredom often requires several elements, when combined can produce an undesirable effect that can impact the course of mankind.  The main ingredients of boredom on an hunting trip are: extra time, cold weather, sharply pointed weapons, bad food and no bagged game (any of which by themselves is not good for the average person but being the quality person that I am ,<we are> the pressure built to effect even me ...<us>).  After one morning of successfully freezing my feet and rear end off and downing a less than adequate breakfast (to restore the frozen bits) I retired to catch up on the missed sleep from the night before during which it had snowed and my small tent was worse than cold.  Upon waking from my nap I decided to take some target practice, as up to that point I had nothing of note to shoot at,  I had passed up shots at several June Bugs (hopelessly lost due to the cold) and the occasional snowflake (basically because I was concerned that the release of the bowstring would snap my frozen fingers off).  By the time I woke up and decided to take some target practice the sun was shining and warming up the air to a balmy10 degrees.  My stirring had apparently woke up Jon and Dave who were also trying to recover (apparently the screaming of others moving frost bitten limbs causes sleeplessness)  and seeing me demonstrate my accurately placed shots at a clump of grass they decided to try and show me up.  Unable to match my marksmanship, as my target would often change clumps according to where my arrow had landed, Dave grew increasingly agitated.  He decided, in his elderly wisdom, to add an equalizer to maybe get back some of his machismo.  He proposed to shoot the arrow upwards to see who could get the closest to the target that was 30-40 yards in front of us.  It was a wonderful twist (with the added benefit of learning to shoot accurately over trees and other hunters to get at the deer) with the arrow almost disappearing before coming back down.  Our accuracy was quickly improving as we shot, so to keep it competitive Dave would move the target closer, 5-10 yards at a time (which would enable us to shoot those wily deer, which would often stand behind a tree in an obvious infraction of true sportsmanship). As the target got closer our ability to follow the arrow near its apex diminished.  On one almost fatal shot Dave lost sight of his arrow... we panicked and scattered, obviously we all still had frozen limbs because there was also no lack of screaming... only to find the arrow about 20 feet behind where we were shooting from!  Needless to say we quit practicing and left that shot for use under real and ideal circumstances (fewer people around and equipped with our army helmets).
A lot of us live lives as close to sinning that we can get... losing our temper repetitively, demanding our own ways, looking at and "considering" the opposite sex, letting our thoughts wander and so on and so on....
"What, I need to change and go in the opposite direction?"...  "You mean I need to live a life of blessing and caring for others instead of cursing them? You don't understand... they are jerks!"
Why do we try to keep as many of our bad habits and attitudes as we can and still get into heaven? Living a life with God is one of change and it is not on His part.  Selfishness is at the center of the old man, keeping your habits and attitudes is an act of selfishness to keep the old man ways.  Blindly shooting and hoping you make it is a surefire way to lose your life... the wrong way!

Getting down to the nitty gritty

Toe stepping time...  Being a christian is not going to church services,  it is not "praying",  reading the Word on a regular basis or even saying "the prayer".   It is the invitation to have God actually come into your life and you partaking His life and Him partaking yours.  There will be change and probably a lot of it.  The longer you claim to be a christian (a little Christ, or Christ like one) the more smooth your "edges" and actions and reactions  should become.  To put it more simple for you all to understand...  if you claim to be a believer and are acting like a bitch and either have not changed out of that mindset or have not pleaded with God to change you or or at a minimum asked Him to show you when you are, so you can apologize to those you were a "B" to, or at least gone to someone close that you can trust, like a spouse and say  "Okay I recognize my short comings and need help.  When I get that way, say the word 'lavender' ." (and may I add. when they say 'lavender' don't take it out on them),  I don't believe that you can be a true believer  (because you are not changing or morphing into the image of Jesus).  You are are still sitting in your poopy pants, sucking on your thumb and looking ridiculous.
Here is a good (really its bad) one,  ever been around someone that gets mad or bitchy for not having things their own way and then in a matter of minutes start talking about Jesus?  Later they complain about how hard you are and wonder why you haven't gotten saved and/or become like them?  You are not required to be perfect in the flesh but transitioning toward perfection  and accepting correction is.  We all have our faults, you may be lazy, obnoxious, bossy, irritable, a perfectionist and expecting everyone else to be just like you, you may demanding and expecting everyone to behave up to your standards and there is more... ( you may be manifesting every sin of the flesh but a true believer will be changing and accepting change.) Are you in the process or still in your diaper not wanting change? I heard recently that our elected office holders are like diapers... if we don't change them frequently, they tend to stink.  If you aren't changed regularly your witness (or representation of God) will stink too.

IMPORTANT ADDENDUM
If you think that I am pointing this at you, you are right! Although this is not "at" any one individual, it is toward everyone!   I have heard a recent stat that showed that 80% of the youth in the "church" never come back and/or some find other religions that "meet their needs".  I believe that there are two things going on...
First, there is the hypocrisy that you and I portray for them (as shown above), without the proper repentance toward God and man (people really can look past our faults if we can be real enough to admit them), because we have not truly met the Master (with the meeting comes change.  See also the prior post on meeting angels).  Secondly, we give them the history and info about God, but not the reality of relationship or lead them to have their own meeting with Him.  DO NOT BE THE STUMBLING BLOCK THAT KEEPS OTHERS OUT OF THE KINGDOM.  YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE IN THIS LIFETIME.  (No, I did not accidentally hit the cap lock....) I AM SHOUTING!!!