Living Hazzardously

Little pieces of our journey with Jesus

Pages

The ambush at Sam’s Place!

by

I had this verse come across my feed today and I have really been thinking about it:

PROVERB 24:16 For a righteous person falls seven times and rises again, But the wicked stumble in time of disaster.

A righteous man? Who is this righteous man? What makes him righteous? Who is this wicked man and what makes him wicked? 

I believe the mystery of this verse is revealed from within this verse, let’s look around and find out, the verse previous seems to be the contrasting verse and also appears to be the verse that sets the scene for verse 16

15: Do not lie in ambush, you wicked person, against the home of the righteous; Do not destroy his resting place;

16: For a righteous person falls seven times and rises again, But the wicked stumble in time of disaster.

The warning to a “malicious” person to not go against the “good” person, because the good guy won’t quit, he never gives up, he keeps going! But the bad person is happy with not getting up… Happy in the wreckage he has made of his life. 

The term “7 times” is used many times and it can be translated as “The righteous person may fall all his life, but he always gets back up”

The wicked man also stumbles but he is happy in this fallen condition and doesn’t bother to even try to fix his life again…. 

A modern “Sam’s Place” translation might sound like this: Even though the guys at Sam’s Place may fall a thousand times, they keep working on “Getting life back on track”, they never quit. But every so often a guy with a seared conscience will make it into Sam’s Place and that man will try to get every other man to fail… Our guys don’t quit that easy, they keep trying and finding new ways to get life back on track… 

The last few months were brutal, we had a wicked man like that. He worked overtime to make everyone fail. Although he got some guys to “fall” for a short time, they haven’t failed.  Sam’s Place worked extra hard and we finally succeeded at the cure. 

It can take about $5000.00 and three months of time to remedy this. It’s painful, makes me want to just QUIT, but Jess and I know God’s plan is greater. I am sharpening my vetting skills, becoming better at the process. Learning how to separate the tares from the wheat… (Matthew 13:24–30). 

It’s infuriating  to have to do “evictions” but it becomes part of the program. When it is necessary, it gets expensive and time consuming… When I take a chance, “give a guy a break” because I felt sorry for him and missed the fact he is just a  malicious man hiding behind a disability. 

In the end, God is always good and we know we serve the guys with struggles in life, it can and does get messy. 

One day I will write about this ordeal. How broken the system really is. How it protects a very wicked man that is destroying the lives of vulnerable adults. How he manipulated guys that are easily influenced. How I need to pay thousands of dollars to get my rights enforced. How he is “protected from me” while he steals, cheats and destroys the lives around him. How difficult it is to “kick a guy out” after he violates my rights. How the law enforcement agency won’t enforce the law because the county attorney won’t prosecute. How I am forced by the “law” to feed this man, provide for this man, cloth this man, care for this man, as he slowly and intentionally steals, curses me, and violates my rights. How I need to install furnaces, boilers and do service calls just to pay for this man to live at my expense. How my vacation was destroyed. How my wife cried. 

But today I just wanted to write about “NOT GIVING UP” . I don’t really think of myself as a righteous man but according to the Proverb I listed above. If resilience is the mark of a righteous person, then I am absolutely a righteous man. I am not giving up! We will continue to do good and help these men at Sam’s Place to get life back on track… 

Please consider helping us. If you are a Godly man that loves to mentor struggling men, if you are a prayer worrier that loves to spend time in your inner room, if you are rich beyond your wildest dreams, we covet your attention and consideration. 

With a spirit of service to the KING of KINGS, C.

The Haze

by

I am sitting looking out the window at a wall of white, it’s not smoke this time but rather a wall of haze that fills the air. The humidity is “rainforest like”. I search my weather app and look at where my kids and grandbabies are…. Jacob is the worst off of all and Alex has it the best. But not far behind the worst is Chris. 

This got me thinking about how we live our lives, in a haze… ya, we are so blessed in the USA, I think of my many friends and readers in China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hongkong, Belgium, Oman, UAE, Israel, Brazil, Peru, France, UK, Canada and about 50 more. I wonder how they find my blog, what they think when they read it and how a world of HAZE can still show the light. The truth and honesty of a God that loves us so much he gave the ultimate gift so that he may spend eternity with us…. We are all going to be somewhere for eternity, I’m glad I know I will be with a good, loving GOD. 

The haze is so thick, I can’t see across the field today. I wonder what is beyond the edge of the haze… is it a bear looking for some rotten smelly snack? Is there a fox trying to sneak up on one of our hens? Is there a skunk that is wandering the woods looking for a big juicy grub? 

I think of my life, I wandered so long, looking for significance, value and meaning… I see our Guys at Sam’s Place, looking for the same thing I was in search of… wanding around looking for something to fill our cravings, never finding the food that satisfies forever, but finding a quick grub or skinny chicken, or a forgotten road kill… never satisfied for more than a day, and back at it, on the search again…

I see the growth of some of our guys and the desire of others to destroy the lives of themselves and anyone around them. I was once that rotten soul, bringing anyone around me down with me. I sold drugs and I supplied enough “ill-repute” to destroy many folks that struggled… but I was not the first, this chain of destruction that ended with me came from a long line of people “hell bent” on destruction. 

We get guys like that every so often, perhaps a lie from them or perhaps the facility where they currently reside in.. They want him gone so badly that they are willing to “leave out certain information” in order to get them out of their care and make this guy “someone else’s problem”… But the truth be told? We have a fantastic group of guys now! Believe it or not, the influence is not from within Sam’s Place but from outside Sam’s Place. Just because we have a zero tolerance for alcohol, marijuana and other drugs, this doesn’t mean our guys are strong enough to resist the forces that are lurking in the back yard. 

As soon as we get one “source” dried up and secured, there comes another. It’s almost like the world wants our guys challenged daily, tempted always and I cant even tell you how many outside of Sam’s Place remind us “BUT ITS LEGAL” … legal does not mean healthy, safe or good…. When you are in the battle for mental health, one joint can mean the difference between getting a job or getting a bed in Anoka state hospital. There is no safe level of substance use. Only zero!

The haze might make it hard to see the truth but listening to God’s voice is never skewed by the Haze. Don’t get me wrong, you can be “tricked” to thinking what you hear is truth. But if you listen long enough, intently enough and don’t believe the lies, it gets easier every day to hear the truth of God. For some of us, it’s just harder. We have listened to so many voices and so many lies that it becomes hard to know the truth from the one in the next bedroom that is tempting you every minute, every day and every way… “Hey man, I see you are having a bad day, I can help, take a hit!”

To know the truth is to love the truth, to listen to a lie is to live life in a haze. In the haze it’s harder to know what is really going on. The smokey haze of life is like the smokey haze of substance use.

We all have a haze in our life, some is from the drugs we use and some is from the life we choose.

Today? Surrender to truth, but HOW?? Well, if you don’t know Jesus, ask him in the quiet of your heart for him to reveal the truth to you. He is there and he is GOOD. Why are you fighting his goodness? And if you “know” Jesus, what are you doing for the guy living in the haze? Have you done everything you can to help another person? Does that other person know who Jesus is? Go for a walk, beyond the limits of this hazy world and find another that is alone in that haze and help them hear the truth of God’s Love. 

In service of the one that clears the haze, C.

When sadness turns to joy

by

Google says this: A lament is a passionate expression of grief, sorrow, or regret. It can be a deep emotional feeling, a spoken complaint, or a formal artistic work like a mournful poem or song.

A passionate expression: Vivid, heartfelt articulation of intense emotion. Deep love, Fiery anger, or Unwavering zeal. It transcends calm, everyday speech, using vibrant vocabulary, body language, or art to convey a sense of fervor and profound commitment. 

Grief, Sorrow or regret: Emotional response to loss and mistakes.

I think of this when I read the bible about the days of Noah, when God said 

Genesis 6: 6 The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.  

God’s Lament was not over his mistake, perhaps a loss?… The pain, the sorrow… His creation had turned away and due to man’s desire to sin, caused harm to self… The very creation that was given to man to steward! 

I see the world today through a different set of eyes than I did as a child, and rightfully so. I remember walking past “Venturas Gym” where Jesse “The Body” would pull in to park his 280 Z. A huge man in a tiny car… This reminds me of a cartoon where an oversized “Brutus” is squeezed into a micro car. The “MONSTERS” that worked out there as I shuffled over to Fritz Rubers bakeshop to wash the day’s baking trays. I remember “Marjorie” driving her AMC Pacer. I remember the day me and my “buddies” slipped into the basement window of that bakery on 44th, into the bathroom located in the basement, up the stairs and eating day-old doughnuts because we were stoned and  I was looking for trouble.  

I remember the unkind words we “kids” would yell out at Ventura whenever we saw him pull up in front of the gym he built. The stories of steroids, sweat and Iron… I believe it was a Domino pizza once, no clue what’s there now. Across the street was the Baskin robins, 31 flavors ice cream where I had the most profound experience with paranoia. The police stopped in and ignored the kid freaking out in the desk by the window, moments earlier this kid was almost hit by a car as he stumbled across 44th… my “friends” had given me something, without me knowing, I ignorantly smoked it.

I wish I could say that day started my road of Lament, but I had so many more years of struggles in front of me. 

That corner holds some of the most powerful memories in my life, most are filled with Lament, in-fact, I can not remember any that are not reasons for lament. 

But why do I bring up “Lament” today? I was talking to my brother about the repeal of a ban on “Bath Houses” in MPLS and I remembered as a young man of maybe 16-17, walking down Lake Street after taking the 5 Line from the northside… I was on my way to attend a drivers training course (pursuing a Drivers License). I walked past a “bath house” as a few men stumbled in and out… My naivety was rich and I strolled past as if all was well… one man asked if I wanted to join him inside, I thought it was odd but had no idea what it was about… I do now of course. 

Nameless, faceless, strangers… desperately,  lust driven adults attempting to coerce a young boy for one purpose, ignorant to the world’s desire to destroy my life… I strolled on and gave it not a second of thought until years later when the memory flashed back during my days of driving a garbage truck serving the south side… I can still see that building with windows boarded over and a neon sign saying “open”

I lament now but I wonder what could have happened if I was stoned or drunk that day… God brought me through and I was never inside that dark building, but years later I had to fix an AC system in a different building, a building that was also locked up, boarded up and only entrance by escort of a BIG DUDE!! I went to the basement and it was an easy fix, all went well… but I never forgot the faces I saw, the sounds I heard and the feeling I got in that place.

I lament over much more these days but I also feel God’s hand on my life.

I know I have seen more than most. But I have also know God preserved more than most. My Life is filled with God’s protections and the prayers of many, including my mother. 

Needless to say, I am saddened by the city of Minneapolis moving forward to bring back the bath houses in the city I grew up in. This is not an improvement. As Joe Soucheray said on his podcast “I don’t know why any young person would stay in Minnesota” 

When the founders came to this land, they were not looking to displace anyone, they were not looking to take advantage of anything there was available, they were escaping the tyranny of an oppressive and persecuting Government. They escaped looking for freedom, now years later, that same freedom is soaked up in the sewer of lust, in a land that despises the creator and worships the creation. 

Although I have little hope I will see a revival and a submission to the Lord of our nation in my lifetime, I feel blessed in knowing that every knee will bend in humble submission to the King of Kings. 

Lamenting the loss of truth in our nation, hope is found in Christ alone and He will reign in the end over everything… For he created all there is that has been created.

Hope and joy to you. God Bless, C.