I had just come home from morning service at church when I noticed that the dog had made a mess. She had gotten into the garbage and pulled out some stuff that no one would really wanted to clean up. And to make it worse, this was not the first time she had done this. So, I pointed to the mess and said sternly to my dog, “What is this?” She immediately looked at me and put her tail between her legs and drooped her head acting real sorrowful. I decided as I walked into my bedroom and sat down that since this was not the first time she had done this that she should have to wait and suffer being bad for a while before I was going to forgive her and let her be a good dog again.

At this moment, the Lord spoke to me loud and clear, “Don’t you not forgive that dog!”

I should have been surprised that God was speaking to me about my dog, but I was more upset at what she had done, AGAIN, and was not interested in forgiving her at that moment. So, I responded to the Lord, “But God, she made a mess.”

The Lord replied, “Don’t you not forgive that dog!”

Again, I was not happy with this situation. Couldn’t God see that she had again gotten into the garbage for like the fiftieth time and she needed to be taught a lesson. I replied, “But God.”

The Lord interrupted me, “She has come to you sorrowful, repentant and asking for forgiveness, don’t you not forgive her.”

At this point, I should have, I should have listened to the Lord, but I didn’t and burst out almost in anger and said, “But she made a big mess again for like the fiftieth time, she needs to be punished.”

And then the Lord said something to me that hit me to the very core. He said, “The next time you mess up and come to me all sorrowful and repentant and asking for forgiveness, would you like me to not forgive you so you can be taught a lesson?”

Well, that did it for me. With some tears forming in my eyes, I replied, “No sir!”

God added, “Now, don’t you not forgive that dog.”

Immediately, I called her up on the bed and asked her if she was sorry. She licked my cheek, which is what we have established as her saying she was sorry, and then I told her she was a good puppy again and forgave her.

What struck me about this was how much God was serious about forgiveness and how no matter how many times we come to him having fallen, stumbled, and sinned again for even the fiftieth time, he will always forgive us. And he calls us to do the same.

I was sent a message of encouragement which no matter who you are we all need. I recall one time when I got a message for my Pastor and I thought, “Surely he knows this.” And he did. But God kept prompting me and finally I called him and gave him the message. It encouraged him so much because at that moment and at that specific battle in his life he needed that message. And we all need messages of encouragement. This why the Bible says:

So, while I was replying to this brother, I had a thought and it got me to laughing and we all know how important laughter is.

So, I thought I would share what was on my mind that got me to laughing so that all can have a good laugh over it.

There is a quote from my favorite television series of all time.

When I thought of this I just started thanking and praising Jesus as I chuckled. The reason is because I counted the following. Each of my three kids are under attack, my wife is under attack with her health, my health is under attack, my work is under attack, our finances are under attack and to top it off our apartment is under attack from bed bugs (or something like it). By my count that is at least 8 fronts. So the devil must be “heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots” (which we know) to fight a spiritual war against one of God’s children on so many fronts. LOL!!!!!

So, count how many fronts the devil is attack you on and then have a good laugh and tell him to go to hell.

A little bit ago, I posted about Mary and how it must have been to be pregnant before she was married in a time when people were stoned for that sort of thing. I have also been wondering what it must have been like to be Joseph. Not much is really known about Joseph. We know that the Bible tells us that he was a righteous man and a carpenter, and not really much else. We also know that after seeing an angel in a dream, he took Mary as his wife and helped raise Jesus until at least Jesus was twelve years old and then nothing else is mentioned about him. But do we need to know more about him to understand what kind of man he was?

All of my brother-in-laws are carpenters, which affords me a certain unique perspective into the trade. Especially since I can barely hammer two boards together without hitting my own hand or aligning them correctly. In fact, it takes a great amount of skill to be a carpenter and fashion what really amount to sculptures out of wood from ordinary piles of two by fours. However, one of my brothers-in-laws, Raymond, is a bit different. Raymond worked as a carpenter all his life easily excelling at his trade to the rank of master carpenter. Several years ago, he ventured out starting his own business by getting his contracting license and now not only employs several people but also is one of the most sought after people in the whole area. My only complaint is that he is not close enough to us to build us our home.

But what is the difference between Raymond and other carpenters who swing a hammer. I mean all carpenters worth their nails can build a deck or repair a wall or raise a house, but what makes Raymond so different that he gains respect of his workers and garners a loyal following of his customers? I believe the difference is vision. Any carpenter should be able to look at a drawing or blueprint and determine about how much in materials is needed to do the job, but a visionary should be able to look at an empty back yard and see a deck. A visionary should be able to look at an empty lot and see a house. A visionary should be able to look at a small or run down house and not see an eye soar but the possibilities. This is the kind of man that Raymond is and why he is apart from the rest and why he is such a good contractor and businessman and one of the many reasons that I am proud to call him family.

I believe that Joseph was just such a man. After all, he had a dream in which he was visited by an angel. Now, I realize that it was not an ordinary dream, but it was still a dream and from that he got up and trust Mary. From that, he got up and believed that the baby was the Son of God. In order for that to happen, Joseph had to be a man of vision otherwise it would have been far too easy to dismiss the angel in the dream as nothing more then a fantasy. Think about the best most real and exciting dream you have ever had and then remember it was still a dream. The Bible tells us that it was a dream that the angel visited Joseph in and yet it changed him and I believe that was because Joseph was not an ordinary carpenter, he was like my brother-in-law Raymond, a visionary. In short, Joseph was the right man for the job, the job that God created him for.

In life, God calls us all to do things that he has created and called us to do making us the right man or woman for the job. When that moment comes, will we step up to the plate like Joseph did or will we shy away. Many times, just like Joseph, that moment may not be an easy one to walk through, but it will be the right one and remember that God walks through it with you.

I have been thinking a lot about the following verse:

The Bible tells us that God is love and I think that this is very important if not the important thing that we need to understand and realize about God. The reason begins with understanding that the Bible does not say that God just shows love although he does. Or that God just has love although he does. But that God is love. In other words, God’s nature is love meaning that it would be impossible for God to be separated from love. It is like the fact that we are humans. We are never not human and every minute of every day we are humans. Nothing we ever do will ever separate us from being human because it is in our nature it is in our being it is who we are. The same is true with God being love. It is in his nature it is in his being it is who he is. Therefore, God is never separated from being love. Every minute of every day, God is lover. Put another way, God never ever does anything without doing it in love.

For some of us that may come as a bit of a shock to think of God as always being and acting in love but that is the truth. We may not always understand how God’s actions relate to love at the moment we are in them, but they do. Take Mary, the mother of Jesus for example. When we think of her, we hold her with the highest of respect and reverence as well we should for she was chosen from all women from all time to carry the very son of God. Think about that for a moment, God looked down on the Earth throughout all time because God was not limited to a specific time and found Mary because, as the Bible says, she found favor with God (Luke 2:28-30) that alone deserves our respect. Then God placed his only begotten and unique son within her to carry and raise on this earth until it was time for him to be revealed to everyone who he was and what his mission was. But before Jesus was revealed think about what Mary had to go through. Sure today, we give reverence to her as the mother of Jesus and the great miracle she got to carry and raise, but think about what life was like for her after the angel left her. Think for a moment what the conversation with Joseph must have been like. Teenage pregnancy has become fairly accepted today in our society over two thousand years later, but think about what it must have been like way back. Heck only forty years ago women would have had to drop out of school and had been shunned with almost a scarlet letter pasted on their chest imagine what it would have been like over two thousand years ago. This is one of the reasons that the Bible tells us that Joseph had “being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.” (Matthew 1:19) The second reason would be that the punishment under the Mosaic Law would be death (Leviticus 19:20) because we must remember that in the time of Jesus’ birth a betrothal was seen to be just as binding as a marriage contract. So, in the eyes of the Jewish law, the Jewish society and even in the eyes of God, Mary and Joseph were for all intent and purposes married and if Mary had been with another man she under their law should be put to death. Now, we know that she had not been with another man, but that God supernaturally placed Jesus inside her, but whom do you think would believe her. If that even happened today who would believe you? And today you would have the benefit of at least the fact that it happened once before, but back then it had never before happened ever and here comes Mary, who was pure and innocent by all regards favored by God, telling her husband to be that God was the one who placed the baby in her belly. There is not a man that has ever lived who would have believed her prior to receiving the vision from God. In fact, Joseph would have had to be quite the man to not have blown up at her right there on the spot. And I am not speaking physically, just shouting at her at being a harlot for lying with another man because by all accounts in his mind she would have had to be with another man and the story about an angel was a cover. No matter how convincing she sounded, he would have felt betrayed and hurt and angry and yet this pregnancy was done out of love. But do think when Mary was standing there after explaining this to Joseph and having those condemning eyes staring back at her she was able to remember and hold on to that? Perhaps she was and perhaps that was why she was so favored by God, but I can saw it was not easy.

If that was not enough, imagine what it must have been like to be Mary. After the first three months of staying with Elizabeth, we can only assume that she returned to her home obviously showing. Whether married to Joseph at this time or not, you know that she was now know as the woman who was found to be with child. People then are as people are now and people will talk especially when there is gossip to be had and while I am sure that Joseph, a righteous man as the Bible declares, probably said the baby was his, people still murmured and rumored and whispered. How Mary must have felt as people constantly spoke behind her back and whispered and pointed towards her. Even after Jesus was born and they returned to their hometown, the people speaking and point as Mary had to endure because she knew in her heart that this was not only done out of love and that her son would save the world. Yet, how many times did it not look like it when she had to walk out her day to day. How many times did she have to hold on to the angels words and the things she treasured in her heart because of the way the enemy attacked to attempt to hide the fact that God was love and was moving on the face of the Earth in love. It must have been tough, it must have been unbearable and insurmountable and impossible to achieve on her own. But thank God that we never walk this walk on our own.

But look at how Mary was seen and treated after Jesus began his ministry. See how his disciples treated her as if she was the queen mother herself because after all she is the very Son of God, who is the King of Heaven’s, mother. Today, she is respected and revered and even in some circled unfortunately worshipped which is far more then God ever intended because for all she was she was never more then a servant of the most high God. But she did serve and no matter how hard the walk she had to face was she remember one important face as she walked and that was that God is love and that he never does anything apart from love because that is his very nature. That fact alone allowed her to walk through the darkest of valleys when the times were the toughest and people were the cruelest because she could see the light of love shining brightly in her spirit and in her heart and later in her son’s eyes. Oh, how we need to hold on to the very same things that Mary did and remember that everything that God does he does in love and hold on to that and see the shining light of Jesus’ love in our spirit as we walk through whatever he has called us to walk through.

I pray that I would be able to see that light of love as I continue to walk through what I am presently walking through and I pray that you can do the same.

The idea of being broken is bittersweet to a Christian because we know that when we are broken before the Lord that we are truly open to be his, but we are also shattered to our self and what we perceived was the plan for our lives that it is hard sometimes to see the light of day. This is why whenever we have to walk through a time of being broken again it is a time of pain and yet renewal, a time of sorrow and yet revival, a time of hurt and yet joy, a time of great introspective and great learning. And this is a time that I am finding myself going through again.

There are times in our lives when we come to a point where things are going smooth. We think we know all the angles on everything and have everything safety planned out. We know where we are and where we are going. Everything is neatly on course and we are happy. However, it is in these times that we often fail to see that we are standing in the middle of a frozen pond and the ice is cracking. We should be hearing the sound of the coming disaster as the ice melts, but we are too busy arrogantly telling ourselves that we have everything under control. Then as the cracks in the ice move in, our pride takes hold of us and we refuse to acknowledge what our eyes see and cry out to the Lord for help and instead, we run seeking our own answers. Looking for patches of solid ice on the pond as if we really had any idea at all what was going on when the reality of the matter is we are a sinking ship in the middle of desperate situation over our heads. Finally, everything crashes around us and we fall and shatter into a million pieces.

No matter how long we have walked this walk with the Lord, the fall always comes as a surprise and always causes us pain. I think it is because there is no real growth without some level of pain associated with it even though one would think that as the years go on one would get used to the flow of the Lord’s pruning shears. One would think that after years you would get used to the Lord’s way of raising you to the next level, but then if we did would we really grow, would we really excel and would we really ever fly and soar like the butterfly I mentioned in my last post.

After we have fallen, the father comes and gently sorts through the pieces that are left. Finding some that are no longer needed, he tosses those away. Others, he careful picks up and places them in new positions while adding new pieces that he specially fashioned just for us making a brand new mosaic that was more brilliant then the one before. As his Son shines through us and illuminates the world, we never looked so good and it is then that we realized that it was all worth the cost and wondered why we ran, why we questioned and why we didn’t embrace the brokenness that God wanted us to go through.

I don’t know if I will ever embrace the brokenness like I should, but I know that every time I am broken before the Lord, be builds me up better then before.

This weekend we visited a church that had a guest speaker from Germany who spoke about the subject of a butterfly or more specific, the cocoon. Before the butterfly can soar high above the ground and go from flower to flower dancing across this great landscape the God created, it’s begins it’s life as a lowly caterpillar crawling along the ground. Seeing nothing but dirt and grim for a time that only God knows and then decides to create the protective shell of the cocoon where it will undergo a miraculous change.

Inside the cocoon, the caterpillar grows it’s wings, changes from a ground creature to an air creature and has it’s purpose completely reborn. In many ways, this is like the born again Christian whom after receiving Christ becomes a new creature. This is also often the process the God will bring us through when he is preparing us for something new and often greater level of service in his kingdom. The cocoon is a wonder and needed life altering process where only God knows the proper time spent within incubating. Too little time, and the new creature would not be formed and strong enough to face the challenges ahead. Too long, and the new creature will be embittered and battle worn before even have flapped their wings for the first time.

While in the cocoon, the caterpillar drastically alters its physical appearance making crucial the protective shell that is spun around during the transformation. Keying the perfect harmony of nature that God created around us as I realize that I am in a cocoon. I feel the pain of changing from one thing to another. I feel the tearing from one way of worshipping to another. I feel the pulling of communing with God in one way to another. I feel the suffocating claustrophobic tightening of the shell that God has encased me in as I transform from what I was to what I will be. As I am cleansed and moved from what I used to be to what God wants me to be so that I am ready to do what God has called me to do.

And I am afraid and excited, terrified and relieved, horrified and anticipating. For the first time in a long time, I can’t see the future. I can’t see where God is taking me. I have feelings and impressions of where I am going. I have had visions of where I believe I am going to end up with no idea of how to get there. It is like the caterpillar that deep down knows it will be a butterfly and knows that it will fly by instinct, but when it is in the cocoon has to rely on God because all it can see is the cocoon. That is where I am. All I can see is the cocoon. I know that I will fly and by instinct I know I am a butterfly, but all I see right now is the cocoon and I have to trust in God that he has all the rest under control.

The other night while reading my devotion I was overcome with emotion. The reason was because I realized that I was heartbroken. The devotion was concern the topic of finding yourself not where you’re expected to be through nothing of your own doing. In other words, you did everything that was expected of you, at least to the best of your human abilities at the time, and some how you still failed and wound in a place not of your choosing. This is exactly where I am with everything that is going on in my life right now. The devotion said that this is a time to just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep on going. I know that is the right thing to do, but as I began to pray about this it dawned on me that I am missing a very important and I think helpful component, friends.

Oh, I know a lot of people, but I really don’t have any friends. Not the real kind. Not the kind that would come over and just sit with me when I am down. Not the kind that I can call when I need an ear or when I need a shoulder to cry on. Not the kind that stand by me and speak those needed words of encouragement in times when the world crashes around you for no reason at all and all you want to do is crawl under a rock and scream. I realized that I have a lot of a acquaintances but no real friends. I realized that I know a lot of people, but I have no real pals and because of that at times like this right now in my life when this world is dealing me a lot of pain from all corners (medical, financial, even church) there is no one there to help pick me up.

Now please don’t get me wrong, my family is here. My wife is the most wonderful woman on the planet. However, she is woman, and very skilled at helping me be the best man I can be. But she does not know how to reach in and make me a better man the way a man can. There is a reason that God wanted men to help other men and develop men’s groups like women develop women’s groups. There are just some things that my wife for all that she loves me can not help me with because she just does not understand or have the references to see it the way a husband and father does. It is the same with my children. They are great kids, but they do not see it the same way that I do and therefore in many ways cannot help me. They cannot speak into my life they way the men friends would be able to.

This is why I am heartbroken. I have spent almost eight years living in this area and I have known many people, but none of them have had the time to become my friend or pal on a level where they could help me at this time in my life. Yes, some have gotten to know some things about me and some may even call me friend, but when it gets down to it, I sit here in the dark alone with no one to call who would come over and just let me cry on their should and scream.

Last night we had a bunch of storms come through our area and we lost power. Sitting by candlelight between lightning flashes, I began to be marveled by the power of the human eye. It got me to thinking about light and dark and about how much we can really see.

The human eye is really something to be amazed about. Think about it for a moment. It can see in the brightest of days and the darkest of night with very little time to adjust. Imagine for a moment that you are outside in the middle of the day. The sun is out and there is not a cloud in the sky. You eye doesn’t have to work hard to see what is around. Walk inside where there is shade from the sun, but plenty of light and within an fraction of a second your eye adjusts to the level of light allowing you to see in lower lever of ambient light. As the day progresses on, and the sun goes down, your eye makes adjustments however small to make sure that you can see until finally the sun goes down. Inside your home, lights will have been lit in order to see where you are going. Slowly as the night wanes you turn one light off and then another until finally you turn off the last light all the time your eyes adjusting to the new light levels so that you can see. Sure you can see as good as you could see at the previous light level when it was brighter, but you can still see all the way down to almost no light at all. When I sat there with one candle lit in our dinning room flickering, I was amazed at how much I could see and yet at each flash of lightning I was reminded of how much I could not see. If the candle went out, there was still a very small amount of ambient light coming from only God knew where that my eyes adjusted to allowing me to see shadows and silhouettes. I could barely see anything but again I could at least see something again demonstrating the amazing power of the eye a marvel of God’s design.

As I lay today in physical therapy, I was struck by how our lives are very much like the eye. When we accept Christ, we discover that our lives are fresh and clean by the blood of the lamb and that we are cleanse. It is like we are standing in the sun at noon with the brightest of light around us. But slowly as time goes on, we let some shadows in here and there and our lives, like our eyes adjust to the darkness being there. An unacceptable picture here, a bad word there, an inappropriate scene in a movie, shadows dance and darkness slowly creep in over time ever so slow and again like our eye our lives adjust to the new level of less brightness of Godlessness. After a while, the brightness of our salvation and joy of Christ that used to shine like the sun is barely shining like a single candle in a room. Lightning will flash as we hear a sermon or see something convicting us of our faith reminding us of how bright we once were not to condemn but to point a way back to the father. Tragically, many just let the candle go out and become consumed by the darkness around them.

However, it does not have to be that way.

God does not want anyone to walk in darkness one minute more then you have to. If you have found yourself in darkness all you have to do is turn back to God and call on him. He will meet you right where you are with loving open arms and welcome you back into the kingdom of light, his kingdom. Just ask him today.

I think one of the most amazing things in the universe is that God is love and that is something that has really been hitting me for about the last nine months.

The Bible tells us that God is love.

It is important to realize that God is love. That is that God doesn’t just show love or that he doesn’t just have love, but that God is love. That means that you can never separate God and love. That means that God always operates with love because God’s very essence is love. For many of us, this requires a paradigm (a way of thinking) shift. I know it did for me. I was raised to believe that no matter what happened to you good or bad it was God who did it to you as a way to rewarding you or punishing you for being bad or in a sick way kind of beating you while you were down. This idea is not one that I had alone. When I became a Christian, I learned that God loved me and that Jesus came to make a way to heaven for me, but I really didn’t change the concept that all the bad things that happened to me were God dealing out punishments and temptations and beatings. When you realize that God is love some thing has to change because no longer can you believe in a loving God and see him beating you or tempting you. No longer did the two fit together. I had to change what I thought about God to fit what I learned about God being love.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a concept of tough love. However, what is tough love. Tough love is not beating your child or tempting them with things that would hurt them. No, tough love is when you have to withhold from them a reward they did not deserve because of their attitude in the hopes of correcting bad behavior. God does this in much the same way. God is ever ready to give us rewards in the form of blessings whenever we chose to follow him. When we chose to sin, we effective make the choice to cut God off and God uses tough love to not give us the blessings (some of the time because he does operate in grace and mercy as well).

Although we may not understand it, God never operates without love. Everything he does, he does in love because he is love making it impossible for him to be without love. Furthermore, when God loves, he loves with his whole being because he is entirely love. A revelation for another time. I will finish with this thought. No matter what we may think of God, he is never without love because God is love.

Sometimes you really think you understand something then you learn a new concept about it that kind of blows you away. Take a look at what I recently learn about what part of what being a prophet is about.

Most people when they think of a prophet think of the person who sees the future or sees into a person with divine inspiration and speaks about what they see for the building up and edification of the person or the body of Christ. However, not all that the prophet sees is for the body and this is what I recently learned.

Not long ago, I saw a vision that I knew was from God. This vision had the picture of many people in danger that I knew were traveling. I began to pray and I could not shake the feeling that the danger was not going away. I got my wife and we prayed together and eventually the feeling went away. Later, I discovered that at the time we were praying together, the van, which was pulling a trailer, had jack-knifed on icy roads and was about to plummet off of a bridge and into a frozen river. The people in the van and the van following them said that the hand of God reached down and picked them up and placed them back on the road because nothing they did saved them. I realized that it was not my prayer that did it, but it was God and that God sent me the vision not for me but so that I would pray so that he could move to save them.

When we pray, angels move in the spirit realm. A prophet will often times see into the spirit realm and see the ebbs and tides of things happening and needs to know that is his or her cue to pray and not there cue to run to the nearest mountaintop and proclaim how great they are that they heard from God. I have made that mistake many times in the past and hope that I have learned and grown from it so that in the future, I can pray effectively and accomplish much.