Finding God

If God created the heavens and earth, and if God has been around since the beginning of time, then it would stand to reason that he has made enemies, and there are forces out there that hate him and would wish him ill, forces that are rebellious, and would lead you astray in order to thwart him. 

A Genesis

One night I was out at the bar.  I am out at the bar a lot of nights, but this night was different.  It was a couple days before Halloween, and there was supposed to be a costume party.  I dressed in all black: black button up shirt, black slacks, black belt and shinned black dressed shoes.  I could see my reflection in my shoes.  I decided I was going to be Johnny Cash for Halloween, and as I put on my black sports jacket, I was representing the poor and beaten down, and the sick and lonely old.  I was a Highwayman, and I’ll always be around.    

When I arrived at the bar there were a few zombies, but not many people were dressed up.  I didn’t care.  I started drinking a concoction I created that I call a Tennessee Snake Bite: Jack Daniels Honey with lime juice and a little bit of coke.  I had moved to Tennessee a few weeks before.  It was my promised land, and I was enjoying my milk and Tennessee Honey. 

I was sitting up at the bar romancing the bartender when some hippies come sit near me.  Close to Murfreesboro there is a place called Hippie Hill which is a commune and gathering point for drifters and ramblers, kind of like me, but very different.  The hippies were impressed with me.  I sit at the bar alone a lot with complete confidence and an “I don’t give a damn” attitude.  I am a rock.  The only thing I fear is God.  This brings me attention.

One of drifters is a crazy looking white guy with short hair that sticks out naturally like he saw something that scared him, and a shirt that says “Genuine Redneck.”  He just has a crazy look about him.  He is intrigued by me, and tries to figure me out.  I tell him I am ramblin man, but he says he has never seen a ramblin man dressed like that, in all black, and seems worried by me.  Later, we are talking and I tell him that I am a Friend of God.  He says “I know God.  Do you believe me?” He gives me a mischievous look.   I look at him hard in the eyes.  There isn’t any doubt in his eyes or any reason for me to not believe him.  I say “I believe you.”  He says “I know God and he is a silly bitch.”  Shocked, I retort “He does likes to mess with me.” Crazy guy replies “I know God, and Christ is not my savior if you know what I mean…..”

The possessed hippie and I have a conversation and hangout for a while.  He is sort of obnoxious and is excessively forward in his advances to the female bartender who is in love with me.  He walks a fine line and almost gets kicked out.  The bartender tells him he is scaring people.  He turns and looks at me “but you are not afraid of me are you?” He has a smile on his face like he found a long lost friend. I shrug my shoulders, “I am not afraid of you,” I say while still not giving a damn.  He says “I am not gay or anything, but I have a lot of love for you if you know what I mean.”  I reply in a nonchalant way “Yeah you can have love for another man out of your thumos.”  In a sigh of relief he proclaims “You understand.”  He hugs me. 

The possessed Man becomes enraptured by me, and says I have angels following me.  He gives me a serious look and tells me that I still have a lot to learn.  “I know” I reply.  My mom had always pestered me about reading the bible.  I grew up in a Christian family, but had never had the motivation to read the whole Bible.  I would always tell her “It is not time yet.”  At this point, I don’t know that it was me saying that or God putting it in me because if I would have read it before now it wouldn’t have meant much to me.  Now that I know God the Bible comes to life as I read it.  I feel like Socrates when he says that we already know everything, and we just have to recall it through experience.  I have felt that the Bible was always in me, and as I read it as God directs me, I am able to truly see what it happening.  I do still have a lot to learn.    

The fallen angel starts to worship me.  He kisses my hand.  He is in love with me.  We have endured suffering, and he has a hard time finding people to relate with.  There aren’t very many men anymore. More than that, he sees through me.  He knows by my demeanor and attitude that I had to have gone through a lot to be what I am.   “I don’t even want to know what you have been through” he says worriedly.  

Since I joined the US Army in 2008 a lot of my free time has been spent in bars….a lot of my free time.  In one month of living in Murfreesboro, TN, which is about forty minutes outside Nashville, I ran into four fallen angels or possessed like the man I am talking to.  Three were men, one woman.  One was a black man, the rest white.  They come in all kinds, and all four of them were lustful and preoccupied with having sex with me, or a woman who loves me.  I know bars.  I know the night life.  I have never seen anything like this.  Nashville and its surrounding area is a special place.  Nashville is music city, music is food for the soul, and that makes Nashville, in a way, the heart and soul of America.  There are forces that would corrupt it or destroy it. 

He didn’t like the Tennessee Snake Bite I was drinking.  He says real men drink straight whiskey and bets me that I can’t take a shot of Wild Turkey 101 without flinching.  I had been man challenged, so I order and pay for a shot of Wild Turkey for the both of us.  Neither of us flinches.  I enjoy the harsh burn. 

Later I am sitting outside smoking my cigar, and he comes and sits by me.  He seems very worried about me as he watches me smoke my cigar in my black suit and drink whiskey.  I share my cigar with him.  He keeps trying to show me affection, but at the time I don’t really understand why.  He starts talking about gods.  I interrupt, “There is only one God.”  He retorts with a smile, “There are many gods.  Gods bring happiness and Man brings War.  Which are you?” 

The hippies he came with are leaving, and he has to go.  As the possessed Man gets up to leave I reply “I am a Man.”  I give him a hard look.  There is a flash of terror on his face for a moment, and then he smiles.  He says he will be seeing more of me.        

It is said that alcohol makes Man more susceptible to possession, and that is true because evil spirits will test you, and while drunk, a Man is more prone to slip.  Any God fearing Man should be careful, but God has had a problem with his watchmen becoming drunkards, so he made sure that I learned to drink from the 82^nd Airborne Division, the world’s largest community of functional alcoholics where if half the company doesn’t show up for their four mile run on Monday at 0630 smelling like a bar, then they must have been doing some training over the weekend.  I can take some punishment and still function and make things happen. 

Since the world was created there have been forces out there that want to claim God’s Glory.  They want to share in it.  They are envious.  When the possessed man started worshiping me, kissing my hand, showing me an abundance of affection, he was trying to treat me like a god.  He was committing idolatry.  Man is God’s Glory, and the fallen angel wanted to share in it.  God doesn’t share his Glory. (Isaiah 42:8) 

When the possessed Man started to be overly forward to the bartender who loves me, he was trying to share in my Glory.  Woman is Man’s Glory.  It is said that in the times of Enoch, before Noah, there were some angels that decided to have sex with human women.  Their offspring became giants which Goliath who David slew was a descendant of.  God punished these angels by cutting them off from heaven, and they are no longer aloud to sleep with humans, but they can possess them.  There are forces, and agents in the world that humanity doesn’t understand or has forgotten.     

Friend of God

I sat there on my Army tuff box drinking whiskey, and enjoying the warm, sunny fall afternoon.  It was October 12 and I had made it.  As I sat reflecting on my journey and life a phrase entered my ear as if in a whisper, “Friend of God.” God was pleased with me.  I started to feel a closeness to him that I had never felt before.  I wanted for nothing.  He was my Shepard and we were buddies to the extent a Man can be Friend of God.  

I looked up the phrase on my iPhone.  Moses, David, and a few of the prophets were called Friend of God in the Bible, but the more interestingly I found a group of Medieval monks that called themselves the Friends of God that nearly became a separate sect of the Catholic church.   These Men endured war, famine, and bubonic plague, and their trials helped them to grow spiritually.  They grew in faith until they were complete, and lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)  They started a renaissance and revival along the Rhine River.  One of their greatest influences was Meister Eckhart who taught people to surrender all to Christ, and to detach one’s self from material possessions, to embrace trials.  That is basically what I had just done.  I left everything I knew behind, and had only my truck, a broken computer, a phone, some clothes, and a few personal items. 

Detaching yourself from material possessions doesn’t mean you should live in poverty.  God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, his pride and joy, and when God saw that Abraham was going to go through with it, God told him to stop.  Because of Abraham’s faith and righteousness God decided to make a covenant with Abraham, and Abraham birthed a nation which included David and Jesus.  If you are willing to detach yourself from the things you love most for God, and live for him, he will give you great power and prosperity through Jesus.  You can make a personal covenant with him. 

These Friends of God in Germany were the predecessors to Martin Luther and the Protestant reformation.  They promoted individual Bible reading and taught that the everyday hardships and labors and trials of the common folk could be used to help develop faith and patience as explained in the book of James.   Jesus was the son of God, but he was also a man, a man who received his pay as a laborer, a carpenter, working under the hot sun long hours a day.  I image even the Son of God needed to be conditioned to endure and to faithfully fulfill God’s plan.  I suffered long the last four or five years.  I guess God helped me tap into something in my patience suffering. 

In Revelation it talks of those who come out of a great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.  (Revelation 7:14)  Being white means being innocent like a virgin bride in her white dress on her wedding day.  God frequently calls the Israelites prostitutes, committing adultery as a metaphor for their idolatry against him.  God allows the Israelites to be enslaved by the Babylonians as a way to punish them for their wickedness, and condition them to do his work.  After seventy years of captivity God calls them back to their holy land, and says how beautiful they are, like a virgin bride on her wedding day.  Through our trials and tribulations we can be made pure and innocent.  Good deeds do not make up for sin, but through patient endurance and suffering we learn to overcome sin, to let go the idols of our heats, to appreciate and have a heart for those who also suffer, and to build faith and patience becoming complete and lacking in nothing.    

Over the next couple weeks God shared a lot with me through his spirit.  I would read something that struck a chord with me in my Bible, or remember something I had learned growing up, and then search for in on the internet or in the library at MTSU.  Every day I would have my mind blown and perceptions challenged by what I was learning.  The enemy’s lies started to melt under my gaze and I started to see the world as it truly is, and especially my past, and how God had been preparing me for this. 

The Hand of God

It was three week later.  The day after I had met the fallen angel at Three Brothers in Murfreesboro, TN, God had given me a message for Sunday.  It wasn’t an easy message to give, but I gave it to the Pastor of the church I was attending anyway.  After I gave the message God’s anointing fell upon me for the first time, and was like a raging fire in my chest.  My leg started shaking uncontrollably, and I had to sit down.  As the gospel choir sang a beautiful song that glorified God, his spirit came full into that church.  For a second I saw a vision.  I saw a hill with three crosses, the middle one higher than the others, under a blue sky, I felt sand and gravel, and I felt the hot air hit my face like I was physically there for a moment.  It felt like stepping off a plane in Kuwait. I put my head between my legs and clenched my teeth for the feeling was intense, and the realization of what I saw was heavy upon my soul. 

For the next full week the hand of God was heavy upon me, like a fire blazing in my chest.  It was both Glorious and burdensome.  I looked as if in pain to those who saw me because I was.  I was tempted to ask him to take it away, but I did not.  I say “I can take it God.”  I bare it.  I have dealt with worse. 

When I was in the Army, and even for some time after, I wanted to die.  For four years or so I woke up every day wishing for death, hoping for it.  Divorce and war are the two most difficult things a Man has to deal with in life, and I did both within a six month period of each other.   Add into that a broken heart, some shattered dreams, loneliness and despair, shame, and a work week that was twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and doing one of the most stressful jobs in the Army makes for a pretty miserable time.  I was hating life.  I felt like at twenty five years of age I had lived a good life, and was comfortable dying.  We would come under rocket attack, and Men would run for cover.  I would walk calmly not caring.  If I ran it is because I had a job to do, a duty to fulfill.  I trudged through this four years by making myself mentally tough.  

There was a good gym at FOB Salerno, Afghanistan.    My favorite thing became running on a treadmill.  I would pick a distance and speed I knew would challenge me, and I wouldn’t stop or slow down until I had finished.  I would actually speed it up towards the end.  I knew that if I ever quit during my runs because it was too hard or a wanted to stop the pain, then I might just quit on life.  Once you quit and let that weakness into your mind it becomes like a cancer that takes weeks to cut out.  

God taught me a lot from running.  When you start running, you set a goal, and you finish your goal.  Children have a hard time with this, and when things become hard they quit.  Finishing through your goals is a sign of maturity.  Sometimes God asks us to do difficult things.  Do you have the resolve to see it through? 

For me there was another lesson here as well.  I would become tempted to do more than what I set out to do.  It is good to seek excellence, but for me, and where God was taking me, I needed to be patient and obedient, and only do what I was told.   

Before I joined the Army I was a 279 pound Offensive Tackle at Eastern Washington University.  I was never a distance runner, and running long distance for a time was the thing I hated most about any of the training I did.  By the time I came home from Afghanistan, I was running four miles in 28:28 which is very good, and running became almost religious to me.  Whoever I was before I joined the Army died in Afghanistan.  When I came home I was someone completely different, and it took me two and half years to figure out what happened.  

After what I had been through, God’s hand upon me was harsh yet bearable.  God wants us to know, and have faith that, when times become tough, that we will not quit or back down.  He knows what is going to happen, but we don’t.  We have to develop faith.  When we see injustice and things that are wrong he wants us to speak out against it.  Not because it is easy, but because it is right.  God’s way isn’t always easy.   Without realizing it, God had started training me in Afghanistan. 

God started sharing insights with me.  Every day he would share wisdom with me through his spirit, and my entire perceptions of the world would be challenged.  For example, it is custom in traditionally Christian countries to remove your hat when you come indoors.  It is a custom that we have been neglecting.  Man needs a hat to keep his head warm in the winter, and to keep the son off of it in the summer, but when Man is indoors he might pray or prophesy, the Lord says that Man is God’s Glory, and he wants Man to shine, and any Man that prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors God. (1 Corinthians 11:4)  Man has forgotten God.    

Know Thy God

"The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits" (Daniel 11:32).

Eternity is a lonely place.  God is lonely.  God feels and he has a heart.   He made Man in his own image, and gave Man a sovereign will and freedom so he can choose.  The Lord is an intelligent designer and everything he does is wise and has purpose.  He gave Man life so that Man can prove himself worthy to spend eternity with God, to be an instrument for his praise.  He wants to be a proud father.    

God shared his loneliness and his heart with me.  There is a Bible verse that makes me laugh and want to cry at the same time: 

“I have trodden the winepress alone; no one was there to help me.  In my anger I have trampled my enemies as if they were grapes.  In my fury I have trampled my foes.  It is their blood that has stained my clothes.  For the time has come for me to avenge my people, to ransom them from their oppressors.  I looked but no one came to help my people.  I was amazed and appalled at what I saw.  So I executed vengeance alone; unaided, I passed down judgment.  I crushed the nations in my anger and made them stagger and fall to the ground.”  Isaiah 63:3-6

When I first read that verse I actually laughed out loud.  I know God’s fury and vengeance and have experienced it.  When fools test God and bring his vengeance I laugh as one who knows what they are going to experience, and at their foolishness for bringing it upon themselves like a man might laugh at a youth who puts a fork into an electrical socket after he was warned not to, but then I read it again, and started to tear up.  God doesn’t want that.  He loves us.  He wants us to be happy.   I wept because I know God’s loneliness and I felt for him. He doesn’t need help, but he wants Man to choose him and be a companion and friend.     

A few years ago I found myself at the Ugly Stick Tavern in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  It was a large outdoor bar with a couple stages, and there were a lot of people and a band playing southern rock music.  The bartenders would occasionally get up on the bar and start dancing.

I sat by myself and drank for a few hours enjoying the music, my drink, and watching people on a warm North Carolina summer night.  I didn’t have anyone to go out with.  I had moved to the area because the Army told me to, it was my duty, and everyone I knew was over a thousand miles away on the other coast.  The soldiers in my unit were all married, in a different phase of their life, or of a lower rank then me, and it would be against regulations for me to drink with them.  I had a choice between sitting alone in my barracks room being depressed and miserable, or going out to the bar and enjoying the North Carolina summer.  I went out to the bar. 

Towards midnight, I would see all the happy people enjoying themselves, dancing, drinking, and flirting and feel completely and utterly alone, and on the outside of everything going on around me.  There was no one there I cared to talk to, and no one took much notice of me.  I had little in common with anyone.  None of the women interested me, and none of the Men seemed like anyone I would like to know.  In the middle of this crowd of people I felt alone like I was in a bubble.  This loneliness I felt was intensely complete.  It was horrible, it would happen quite a few times.  I felt a depressed, angry pain.  Depressed because of how alone I was, and angry that I couldn’t find anyone to relate with.  I would swallow my pain, pay my tab and leave.  Eventually, I learned to accept this loneliness, and be comfortable with it.  God’s spirit became my companion.   

God feels this loneliness when his creation turns away from him; however, instead of becoming depressed and leaving like I did, he becomes enraged.  We are his creation.  He gave us instructions and commandments to follow, and he should not have to feel that loneliness around his own creation.  He created Man so that he could work to be like God, to be righteous and just.   As a leader, he set the example, and shows Man how to live, how to be prosperous, righteous, and bring Glory, yet, in our foolish ignorance we forget God.  The Lord is a Man of War, and his anger is slow, but if humanity doesn’t correct itself and repent when it falls into idolatry and wickedness, God starts stomping.  Don’t make him have to do that.    

After experiencing this loneliness, and after moving to Tennessee, I have this urge to make family.  To find a good career, and young women to marry, and to have as many children as I possibly can, but not just to have children, but to create something special.  To have family, companionship and to teach those children values so that they can lead and show others how glorious life can be if they choose the path of righteousness.  I want to be, in a way, a creator so that I don’t have to ever feel that loneliness again. 

 Modern Christians tend to forget God the father, the Old Testament, and focus just on Jesus.  Focusing on Jesus even to the point where they create a cult around him.  That is dangerous.  Jesus is important.  Jesus is our savior, but you can’t forgot the one who sent him, the one who sent the flood, who destroyed Saddam and Gomorrah, the one who led the Israelites our of Egypt, the one who lead the Israelites in many military victories, God the Father.  It is hard for modern man to appreciate him because his way is very different from the humanists and the lies and morality they project.  It is easier for modern Christians to ignore God the father, take false idols into their hearts, and live easy lives just getting along because they don’t want their feelings hurt.  That is not God’s way.

The Lord is a Man of War. (Exodus 15:3) The Lord will march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal; with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies. (Isaiah 42:13)
The Lord is not just any Man of War.  The Lord is like a Great Warrior King, a Warrior King like King David or King Arthur from English legend.  Like a Great Warrior King he works to establish his Kingdom here on Earth where he will establish Justice and Peace and Golden Age of Glory.  Like Solomon was to David, Jesus is God’s son, and will be your King of Kings, the Prince of Peace over this time of Glory. 

God is Man of War and Love Both.  He is the Alpha and Omega.  The First and the Last.  When it comes to God, go big or go home.  He doesn’t like luke warm believers because that leads to complacency, decay, and sin.  God wants Christians to be like David and stand up to Goliaths.  He wants man to love woman in such a way that songs would be written about it like Solomon and Abishag in the Song of Songs.  God loves Glory.  When what you want meets up with his will at Glory, he has your back. 

Everything he does is just and has reason and purpose.   His anger is slow.  He gives his creation time to repent and come back to him, but he stores up your sins in a jar, and when that jar overflows, so comes his judgment in the form of Conquest, War, Famine, and Plague.  His creation goes through tribulations.  Like a Drill Sergeant in the Army forcing recruits to do pushups and physically and mentally challenging them, God both punishes and conditions you if we allow society to fall into idolatry.

Idolatry is the sin he hates the most.  His number one commandment is do not follow false idols.  Idolatry is what leads mankind into other sins and wickedness.  God judges the false teachers more harshly, and false teacher are those priests and prophets who instruct his creation in sins against him.  Today we have a War on Drugs in America.  God doesn’t chase after the drug users, he goes for those who sell and produce those drugs, and those that know of the evil and allow it, watch it, doing nothing for such is sloth; however, those drug users, those idolaters sometimes need to be purified.  To be made white so they do not lead their children, his little ones, and neighbors into the same sins, but their punishment and conditioning will be far less than those false teachers who will know his everlasting Wrath.    

God the Father

One day I was hiding under our family boat that was parked beside my childhood home.  I was eight years old at the time.  I was afraid of my father.  It was a warm summer day with sun shining high in the cloudless sky.  My family, along with some neighbors, were all sitting in our backyard in lawn chairs around a small kiddy pool enjoying the sun.  I don’t really remember what I did, but I know that I was wrong, my father was angry, and I didn’t want to be spanked.  I ran and hid in complete terror.  He came to find me and asked what I was doing.  I immediately said I was sorry and repented, and pleaded the best I could with tears in my eyes.  My Father didn’t spank me that day because he saw that I knew that I had done wrong, I truly was sorry, I wouldn’t do it again, and more punishment wasn’t needed.  I am thankful for that lesson because our relationship with our fathers reflects our relationship with God.   God is father to us all. 

Growing up my parents only had to spank me a small handful of times, and from then on the fear and threat of being spanked was enough to keep me relatively well behaved.  Spanking and corporal punishment is frowned upon now even though the bible says spare the rod spoil the child, and parents can even be arrested for child abuse for spanking a child in public.  There are a lot of dinguses who claim that spanking is bad for children, and abusive, and those that are against spanking will cite research that was motivated by their false idols.  This is a serious issue.    

“Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.” Deuteronomy 8:5

When you read through the entirety of the Bible, Old and New Testament, you can piece together God’s personality and character.  The God of the Bible is a father, a creator, and we are his children.  God is love, and he loves you, but as in any loving father you should fear him, and going against his will.  The Israelites would often forget this, would forget their covenant, and God’s commandments.  The result was God punishes them.  The Israelites are a proud and rebellious people, which is part of their national character as seen in the bible, and throughout history, and God has to punish them over and over.   Having a fear of God is a healthy thing just like it is healthy to fear your physical father.  Fear of genuine authority teaches man boundaries, obedience, and keeps him and his family safe and prosperous.  To be without fear is to be complacent and to be complacent is to invite tragedy.  Only fools test God.

Building Men is tough.  This is the central theme of the Old Testament.  God has to punish and condition the Israelites over and over again in order to keep them on the right path.  Like a Drill Sergeant in the military forcing his recruits to do pushups and flutter kicks, God will punish and condition his creation if it cannot govern themselves justly, and forgets him and his commandments. 

There is an episode of “The Cosby Show” where Bill Cosby and his son are arguing about his son Theo’s  future.  Theo wants to be mediocre, and doesn’t want to try hard in school.  Theo says “If you (Bill Cosby) weren’t a doctor, I wouldn’t love you less, and instead of acting disappointed because I am not like you, maybe you should just accept me and love me anyway because I am your son.”  This is a rebellious attitude.  Children often want to go and do what they please, but they have to learn obedience.  It is part of growing up and maturity.

In 2014 it is acceptable for children to be rebellious, to do what they please, and parents are supposed to just accept it.  If a Man’s daughter does pornography and becomes like a prostitute he is just supposed to accept it and love her anyway.  If a Man’s son decides to live in a homosexual relationship he is just supposed to accept it and love him anyway.  Since our relationship with our parents mirrors that with God those same children are saying “God I don’t want to obey you.  I love you God, and you should just love me in the same way regardless of what I do.” That kind of attitude won’t get you very far with God. 

In reply to his son, Bill Cosby exclaims “Theo, THAT IS THE DUMBEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE!  It’s no wonder you get D’s in everything.”  Bill’s son wanted to accept mediocrity as many children who go their own way do.  He wanted to be less than he could because that is what is easy.  It is every loving father’s dream that his children will be able to live up to their full potential, and bring him Glory because those children were created by their father and carry his name.  That is what God the father wants for you too.   

Man in his design is meant to shine.  Man is supposed to be a beacon of leadership, justice, and comfort for people to flock to, but men are not born, they are built.  Building men takes time and societies commitment.  I have met some sixteen year old Men and some forty year old boys.  A man that produces nothing and cannot make things happen for himself is worthless.  There are forces that would keep Man from shinning, and make him dependent instead of self-sufficient and beautiful in the sight of God.    

This little light of mine,
I’m going to let it shine,
Let it shine,
Let it shine,
Lord let it shine.

In Jeremiah 35 there is a family called the Rechabites.  They came into Jerusalem seeking shelter against the Babylonians, and were with Jeremiah in God’s Temple.  Jeremiah offers them wine, but they refused it.  Their ancestor Jonadab instructed them to drink no wine, to plant no seeds, build no houses, and to live in tents so that their days may be many.  This was not God’s instructions, but God was pleased with the Rechabites, and their faithful obedience to their ancestor because our relationship with our fathers models that of our relationship with God.  While the Kingdom of Judea was on the verge of being destroyed by the Babylonians because of Judea’s sins, God blessed the Rechabites. 

God wants your obedience in the same way your father does.  He cares about you, and wants you to be successful.   He wants your obedience so he can lead you and the rest of mankind to Glory. 

Walking on Water

Miracles happen at the intersection of faith and reason.  God, being a Man of War, loves Glory.  He is Gluttonous for it.  When David accepted Goliath’s challenge, David must have looked crazy to everyone.  To David, his decision to accept Goliath’s challenge was completely reasonable.  God was his reason. 

David learned to trust God working as a shepherd.  He would defend his flock against both bears and lions with only a club.  If God gave him victory against the fiercest predators of the wild surely he would give him victory against Goliath who challenges the God of Israel, and he did.

Before every battle David prays and looks for direction from God.  God gives him victories.  The Templar Knights during the crusades blindly charge into battle expecting God to follow them.  They get slaughtered to a man.  God doesn’t work that way.  You can’t control him.  He controls you if you let him.  If you want to lead you first have to serve. 

I started learning to follow the spirit like a compass.  I grew to depend on it so much that I would even ask what to have for breakfast.  At first the spirit and I were aligned in what we wanted, but soon it felt like it was overbearing, and at times I couldn’t get a clear bearing on what it wanted.  It was like I was a slave, but a willing one.  There were times where it would confuse me and I would become anxious and panic not being able to get a clear direction.  I felt like a slave.  I almost cried for freedom, but I endured. 

Walking in Faith means learning to not look down.   God wants us to move with his spirit, and Glory in where it is taking us.  If you learn to move with the spirit, you might just find yourself walking in the middle of a lake.  Don’t look down. 

God said that the Israelites would number like the stars and David just had to count them with a census.    David looked down.

When you run on a treadmill, your natural inclination is to keep looking at the time.  Your soul is stressed, and the mind wants you to stop because it hurts.  What happens if you train your soul not to look, and to just enjoy the run?  Jesus taught us faith.  Socrates helps us with reason.  Jesus is reason.  How do you feel about walking on water? 

When Peter walks on water he is focusing on Jesus, and glorying in where he is going.  He walks out on the lake towards Jesus, and the wind hits him.  The air hits his senses and worries and doubts about walking on water reach his mind.  He sinks.  To do miracles, one must train the mind to ignore everything on the outside, and just focus on God and Glory. 

I was walking to campus to bible study which was about a mile away.  It was raining outside, and I had a full sized bible with me, so I decided to put it under my coat.  The rain was slow and gentle and I hear a voice that says, “Don’t worry.”  My heart was full of the spirit, so I grab my Bible and walk with it swinging at the end of my arm with no worries.  I don’t look down or even think about it.  My mind is on God.  As I approached an intersection I started singing “No bodies fault but mine” by the Dixie Hummingbirds.  I am white and rarely even sing at church.  I don’t look to see if anyone saw or heard.  Don’t care. 

By the time I reach the Bible study my Bible is dry.  I don’t even think about it.  What does it matter anyway?

As I am walking back from the Bible study and it is raining much harder than before.  I notice that the rain doesn’t touch the hand I am holding the Bible in.  I walk 100 feet and notice the water isn’t touching my other hand either.  Doubt enters my mind.  What if my sleeve is what is keeping the rain off my hand, and not God?  What if my Bible is getting wet?  I felt my Bible.  At first it was dry, and then it became wet quickly.  I had looked down.  What I did was reasonable in the context that I fear my Bible getting wet, but God had told me not to worry.  Let him be your reason. 

I walked the rest of the way home with the Bible under my coat.  Some devils start to plague me.  “Look at this prophet.  He is shamed.”  I tell them “I am learning. I am only 29 and I have time to get it right.  Look how far I have already come.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

The Devils tempt me, “Why don’t you take the Bible out of your coat and walk again? If you are so powerful it won’t get wet.”  I tell them, “My faith has been weakened, and I won’t make God suffer for my weakness.”  God was pleased.  Although I looked down, my mind stays on God, and my hope is unbending. 

The deceiver works in two ways.  He will make the lover of food gluttonous and fat, and then when that person decides to diet and exercise, the deceiver will make the same person anorexic and sickly.  Following God’s spirit takes reason as Socrates teaches in order to find the healthy medium and balance.   

The next day I go to the gym and run on the treadmill.   I set the goal to run four miles at an 8:00 per mile pace which is pretty good.  I put Godly themed music on my Ipod that keeps me motivated.  I also decide that I am going to train my mind to not look at the time, and I am not going to cover the time with anything so the temptation is there.  I make it for about two miles before I start to get a little fatigued and start looking down.  I only look down a couple of times, but those devils come back to mock me.  I block them from my mind by calling myself a bad prophet.  I am so bad.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.  I’m still learning.  By putting myself down in a positive way, I learned how to block out the deceiver. 

This happened in late January 2014.  I had found a way to make God my reason, and to block the deceiver.  The spirit of God became really loud, and my head was exploding with revelations and knowledge.  I was on fire.  I blew up my facebook account with my zeal over my growing faith until I made an interesting prayer.  I prayed something like this:

Lord God, I am your slave Adam, and I am a sinner.  I thank you for all the blessings you have given me despite of it.  I know that you love Justice, and you are Justice.  You are absolute.  I know what it is like to live in hell on earth, and I know what it is like to be imprisoned unjustly.  I would pray that if there are any Christians of faith unjustly imprisoned, that I could take their place.  Here I am, send me.  IN THE NAME OF JESUS.   

My body was in a sweat and my legs were shaking from the spirit.  I felt like I had gained some sort of victory in the heavens.  I wanted to just sit and relax, but God wanted me to celebrate.  I put on my black suit, grabbed my bible, my Army dog tags, and an empty flask.  I start walking towards the bar.  As I am walking I get the feeling that there is some sort of battle being wages around me.  It is around midnight.  A car sees me and honks about scaring me to death.  I keep walking.  As I walk I hear a loud thunderous noise like that sound of artillery.  I keep walking.

When I get to the bar I lay my bible on the bar and open it to Mark 14:25 and then I lay my dog tags and the flask on top of it.  I order Jack Daniels Honey on the rocks, and sit back and relax.  A bartender comes over and asks “Hey Adam, what’s happening?”  I reply, “I don’t care.”

There were not many people in this bar, most were next door in the dance club.  I sit and enjoy my drink, and I see some smoke that appears to be coming off me.  This is a non-smoking bar.  I continue not giving a damn.  I finish my drink, and the spirit tells me I have done enough, so I get a shot of Wild Turkey to go.    

An Army veteran stops me as I leave.  He sees my dog tags I am wearing.  We talk for a minute about where we served, and then I grab my dog tags and say, “Did you know that God is a Man of War?”  He says “Yes” with a depressed sigh.  I reply, “But he is also love.”  He sees.  He says “He would have to be to forgive me of my sins.”  He is excited and happy.  He asks what Church I am part of.  I reply, “What does it matter.  I lift my Bible eye level, “This is all that matters.” He is pleased with that answer.  We shake hands and I tell him to be blessed as I leave.    

I stop at the cigar shop nearby and smoke a cigar on the way home.  I still have a feeling that there is a battle being waged around me.  The song “When the Man Comes Around” by Johnny Cash pops into my head.  I only remember two line, “Come and See and I saw, and behold, a white horse,” and then “100 million Angels singing.”  I told the angels to sing as I turned the corner towards my apartment, and then told Michael to go.  I’m not sure what that did, but the spirit tells me that it was good. 

The next day I had to remove my facebook account.  My brother had been reading it, and had told my mom about what I had been doing.  They give me no honor.  Jesus did few miracles in his home town, and my hometown was following me through the internet.  I had to pray for both my mother and my brother.  I didn’t want to, but they left me no choice.  I prayed like this:

Lord God, I am your slave Adam.  I am a sinner, but I thank you for all the blessings you have given me.  I love my family, and I know you do as well, but both you and I know that they can’t keep dishonoring me like this if I am to continuing growing.  I pray that they learn to joyfully endure trials as I have, so that they can find you and be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.  In the name of Jesus.