Living Hazzardously

Little pieces of our journey with Jesus

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God of the good times, is still God in the bad times

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Have you ever had a hard week? Most everyone has had “that week”, I am no different. 

This week I praise God for all the good and for his sustaining grace in some rather uncomfortable and difficult times. I won’t go into these “hard times” but rather I wanted to look at how the God of the night time is still the God of the day time. 

I like music, but I never learned how to read music, mainly because when I was in choir, I was a terrible student. My choir teacher once wrote a comment:  “Charlie is not much use to us!” Not much use? That hit me hard and I never tried again! But instead I whistled, ALOT! My father would whoop me for whistling too much, he hated my whistling.

It reminds me of a movie, I forget the name, where a POW saying something like, “Although they beat us, although they torture us, the one thing they can never take is our JOY! They can never take my joy, I can only give it up!” 

This song sustained me many a day, I hope it brings you joy and hope today. 

In closing, I leave you with some of the greatest lyrics ever penned on paper:

Life is easy, when you’re up on the mountain

And you’ve got peace of mind, like you’ve never known

But things change, when you’re down in the valley

Don’t lose faith, for you’re never alone

For the God on the mountain, is still God in the valley

When things go wrong, He’ll make them right

And the God of the good times, is still God in the bad times

The God of the day, is still God in the night

You talk of faith when you’re up on the mountain

But talk comes so easy, when life’s at its best

Now it’s down in the valley of trials and temptations

That’s where your faith is really put to the test

For the God on the mountain, is still God in the valley

When things go wrong, He’ll make them right

And the God of the good times, is still God in the bad times

The God of the day, is still God in the night

The God of the day, is still God in the night

As the lyrics of the song suggest, God is good all the time.

I hope your Joy today exceeds all your trials and that at the end of your day, you choose joy. Charlie

I hate you!

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Three little words that can not be undone, I suppose after a while it can be forgotten, but like a bullet fired from the muzzle of a firearm, once released, it can never be retrieved. It can cut deep, penetrate quickly and it can also kill. 

I love you! 

Three little words that can heal, aid in the feelings or respect but can also cut deep when used properly. 

I remember a story of a man that was brutally attacked with hatred and unkind words, he responded with kindness and love, those words are still remembered to this day “Father, forgive them!” forgive does not mean to forget, forgive does not mean to overlook, forgive does not mean to ignore. So what does it mean to really forgive? 

I found this:

stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forgive David for the way he treated her”

WWW. forgive: 

I don’t know how to forgive according to this definition, I do know how to implement consequences without delay. I know how to enforce rules. I know how to defend those that can not defend themselves. BUT… do I know how to truly forgive? 

I think forgiveness is about the attitude, when my sons disobeyed, they had consequences to their actions. If they did something like shoot a BB gun and break a window (true story), they had to fix that window… In time they learned to not do so many stupid things… So what was my role as the “forgiver”? It would have been harmful to just “forgive and forget”. What lesson is learned? What growth is taking place? Does this concept of “forgive and forget” teach a boy that he can do whatever he wants and nothing would happen? 

So, how to forgive? I believe forgiveness must flow from a place deep within the heart, a place so private that even your wife has a hard time finding that secret place. It must flow gently, quietly and confidently, without delay! It takes practice… I don’t think a person should pray to God to teach them how to forgive, unless you are really ready to face troubles in life and learn the hard lesson of forgiveness. It’s not a bad lesson to learn but it can be a pain filled path. 

So what should it look like? I think of it this way. I do something that hurts a person, and I should immediately seek forgiveness by honest admission and acknowledgement of the wrong I did. But what of the wrong done to you? Should we seek to enforce the same standard on others that we do to ourselves? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Forgiveness is not to be so cheap that we can not give it without the other person meeting our criteria, forgiveness must flow free, and non-transactional. Forgiveness is “Wanting the best for a person after they commit a wrong to you, and not holding that offense against that person in a manner that is spiteful” See? Super easy!

I’ve been attacked online, physically and emotionally many times, and (this may be hard to believe) I have also needed to be forgiven many times. How we respond is invaluable, we must really check our pride and try to see it from another perspective, we MUST not retaliate against the other person, we must find it in our hearts to forgive…. But sometimes, we should not forget, sometimes? We must build a wall, form a boundary and create distance, maybe for a time? Maybe forever… sometimes it is all we can do, but we must protect our heart from bitterness…. Trust me, I lived a bitter life, I held on to the pain caused by another person so many times that I was consumed and forgiveness seemed ridiculous to me.

Bitterness is the completion of “un-forgiveness”

Joy is the completion of “forgiveness”

Withholding forgiveness does not make a wrong into a right, it only makes a person hurt and bitter.

Today, practice “forgiveness” and see what fruit comes from it, it may be more “violation” but stop and find forgiveness so that wrong does not rule over you any longer. 

God Bless, Charlie.

Monsters under my bed

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Do you remember that book “monsters under my bed” I can like it was yesterday, but I’m not talking about imaginary monsters, these monsters are real!

I was watching some reels today and the theme of monsters kept coming up. One monster was explained from the book “Dante’s Inferno” where hell has “levels” and one level above Satan is betrayal… betrayal is the opposite of established trust. 

I am hard pressed to think of a monster more destructive than betrayal. 

The man who loses a son to a kidnapper, never seeing him again, recalling the night 40 years later. 

A botched abortion where the child is left to die on a cold winter’s day in the open window of a hospital. 

The woman groped as she served her customers in the restaurant.

The grown man discovers he was put up for adoption because it was “inconvenient” to his parents. 

Trust, betrayal… What makes a person betray the trust of another? I’m not perfect, and I too have a story of great betrayal of a friend’s trust. I am guilty of the worst type of betrayal, I know that side, it comes so naturally. I also know the other side of betrayal. I know the feeling of a friend stealing $20.00… I trusted this friend to buy me some “dope”, he simply took that money and avoided me… sounds petty? Well, betrayal comes in every form, and every time it hurts. Every time it sears our conscience, regardless of the roles we are in at the time. 

I stop, I pause and I think, what’s the worst form of betrayal? A friend over money? A co-worker telling lies or “twisting the truth” to advance his own status at work?  A law enforcement officer that doesn’t pursue ticketing of a pretty girl driving too fast but not letting that girl’s husband go as he is trying to get to work on time after the baby puked on him as he was headed out the door? 

Each of us have our own story, each of us have our own journey, each of us have our own “monsters under the bed”. How do we move past betrayal? How do we rebuild trust? How can we be trusted again? Should we….?

After nearly 19 years of a hard marriage, the man found underwear under his bed, they were not his, he knew what that meant, he was no fool. But he decided go on, believing the story that it was her brother’s underwear that got mixed in from the hunting season… . This man I will call Joe, knew in his heart what this meant, he decided “one more chance”… is he a fool? Over two years of cheating, it caught them both in the act, how many more lovers had there been. Joe counted at least 6 others, starting in the first of nineteen years.

 

As I learned of “Joe’s” story, I felt my heart break. Joe was not a perfect husband, he made many mistakes, he knew those mistakes all too well, but one thing Joe held on to after all those years, he said “I never gave up hope! I lost trust, I was betrayed by my closest friend, I did some stupid and hurtful things, but I never quit, I never gave up!”

I still talk to this man I call Joe, I still see him from time to time, but he is a new man now, he has learned to trust again, he has learned there is more than the past that makes a man, he has learned the value of serving others without restraint.

Monsters try to eat us, they lie and tell us “there is no reason to go on living”. Monsters don’t care about you, monsters devour everything. If you looked under your bed and find a monster, know there is hope.

Monsters might hide in the closet, running out the door when nobody is looking or they may blend in under the bed. The point is, monsters only have power when we give them that power, take that power back, give that power to Jesus, start living for the one that never betrays us. 

Jesus said  “Everything is possible for one who believes”.

Monsters, only you can feed a monster, but Jesus can feed you.

With great love from our father in heaven, Charlie