Living Hazzardously

Little pieces of our journey with Jesus

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Completed in the future

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Have you ever given time travel any thought? What would it be like to travel in time forward to see what’s already done… coming back from the future and knowing who is president? Knowing how long it will take for that Amazon package to actually arrive? Or maybe knowing what investments will pay out so your retirement is actually able to sustain a comfortable lifestyle into your 90’s? 

Yesterday at our family devotional (our kids zoom a bible study every saturday morning from around the world, just to stay connected) we read in Micah a verse about “going out before them” (2:13) and Spurgon got into his devotion about how God has already beaten your enemy, beaten death for us, we have nothing to fear because God has already accomplished victory for us, we do not need to “fight” as he has already done the fighting…..

What confidence should we have? The creator of the universe has already beaten every foe of ours! HE has won the battles, HE has beaten the enemy, everything that can defeat us has already been neutralized before we even arrive. Every war, Every conflict, Every “thing” is done already in the future… but why do I struggle and always feel like I am losing the battle? Why did my son die if the enemy is beaten, in the future? 

What do we say? What do we know? What is the answer to the question… If God is good, truly good, then why is there evil? Is it because God is not all powerful?… If an all powerful God is not good, that would explain evil… OR… If a good God is not all powerful, that also could account for evil… but an all GOOD? all POWERFUL? God? How can evil be in the world?

Imagine assigning our human limits to God, he would be our creation rather than our creator… would our creation stop all evil? Would evil simply vanish? Would our ability to do wrong suddenly disappear? Would we only be able to make perfect choices? Never sinning? 

Evil entered a perfect creation because we wanted to be “equals” yet we cant be equals, God loves us but he also wants a relationship with us… he could have made us to be little toy solders, doing only what we are programmed to do, can a computer sin? Of coarse not, a computer can only do that which its creator has programmed it to do. Humans are a bit different, we can choose to serve God, we can be in relationship with God. Does any sane person believe that a computer can replace a real relationship? No, no sane person would believe that.

There is a verse in the bible about how man makes his own God, he sits down after cutting a tree, cooking his food with that wood he cut and then taking a spare chunk of wood that is left after cooking and carving a God, well actually he carves a god, not God. Does this fool believe this god is greater than the one who carved it? Does this fool really believe this is a god? Does this fool believe this chunk of wood is somehow formed into an image that is greater than the one who carved it?

Every step of the way in creating “Sam’s Place” we see God blessing us, we don’t see us making this building into a god, we see God’s blessing in this endeavor.

It’s not until we truly surrender our will to God that we can see God in our life, until we step aside and let God lead us, we can’t see how the creator has already won our battles. 

God did not time travel to win our battles, he rather created time so we can see how he has already done great things before the time has come. We can not see this because we are in time, God is outside time, God is so much bigger than our battles, so much so that we can not fully understand the greatness of God.

Speaking of time travel, Its time for me to travel to church now, With great love and admiration I leave you with this:

Do you know God or do you know a god?

Does God know you, or does God know of you?

Charlie

Caution! Doors and wind and cussing ahead.

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As we round the corner of this journey, we see a bit of light… is it the light at the end of the tunnel or is it the headlamp of a locomotive? Jess and I have no doubt this work is manifesting in the culmination of God’s good calling on our life. Even when we get hit, we rebound and things work out just fine. 

Last week we pulled the old door out and found a hole where we needed some bagged concrete in the threshold, so we cleaned it out, formed it up and poured it full. NO PROBLEM! Then a fast moving weather front came into town and we needed to cover the masterpiece of bagged concrete that my puppies decided was the only place to “plant the paws” as they blew past the yellow ribbon blocking any reasonable person from crossing… dogs are not human, they don’t even read… “Caution” 

As the weather front started to roll into town I made the quick decision to cover the concrete with plastic to protect it from the impending rain that would surely transition the fresh concrete into a slurry of gravel. 

BUT! The wind hit with no warning and hit so hard and so unpredictably.. I heard the crash, felt the floor shake and turned quickly to see the brand new door that we had leaned into the corner of the entry, laying in a manner that was so unnatural… I instantly recognized the structure surrounding now looked like a bone protruding from a compound fracture… I proclaimed “SHOOT” but it wasn’t the word shoot that flew out of my mouth… The next day I spent a few hours putting humpty back together… you can still see the scar, but it’s fixed, and perhaps it is stronger than the original? 

We waited another day before moving the new door into position, just to give the repair time to cure. The installation went well the next day and I was so grateful for the help I had as we guided the door into its final resting place. 

As I reflected on how quickly my colorful expletive slipped out of my mouth, I remembered where I came from and how my father would have screamed and cussed for hours after something like that. I remembered how he would have thrown tools, smashed anything in his reach, “spanked me” for not preventing this tragedy… Stuff would fly and cussing was normal. The wake of terror I experienced whenever my father was around created more havoc and destruction in my life than I could have imagined and it haunts me still to this day… I remembered I learning how my grandfather would have likely beat my father in this same situation… Looking back and realizing I may have thrown out a cuss word, without restraint, but my legacy, like my father before me, was coming from a long line of abuse. I should just thank God we have come so far from where my grand-father was to where my sons are… Legacy is all I can leave behind for my future family.!  I know I will never even meet many of my future family members but as My father never met my sons and I never met my grandfather, I can still honor them with my legacy… I Pray this trend upwards will continue for many generations. 

I am hoping to start painting no later than Wednesday. God willing, I will have help. But early this coming week, I have to focus on a few items for work. I wish I could just go and paint, but I do have other obligations. So like Nehemiah, we will continue to work on the things I am called to do and praise God for all the help we are getting.  

There is a time, turn, turn, turn…

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I believe everyone has an “Attitude” and that attitude is a window to the soul.

Mornings are my favorite time of day, but why? Well, the morning holds a promise of joy and things to come, the evening brings reflection of struggles that brought joy and perhaps a discontented and joyless day. The coming day is always filled with hope, mornings are never a disappointment, rather a hope for joy. 

What a week! We worked very hard and got so much done, we still have a long way to go. Just to recap the week:

Monday & Tuesday were set into play for the preparation of Wednesday… A friend from church loaned us his scaffolding on Sunday and we set it up Monday, Tuesday was more prep… and finally Wednesday… As I struggled to find hope of success for the day and false discouragement was nipping at my heels, I discovered God’s renewed hope like the first light of daybreak. Noon came with a flow of guys showing up to replace the windows, and it all went so very well. Eleven windows from noon to four or was it five pm. I lost track of the time as my body started to feel the results of the hard work on a hot day but the results are from GOD, like a well tended garden, we can not make the garden grow but we can plant and water the garden.. And today was that day of growth. 

With Wednesday behind us, Thursday opened a renewed perspective that led to success, 5 more windows for a total of 16! One more to go in this phase, but this one must wait for the right timing as we have a few other obstacles to deal with to gain access. 

Besides a five window day, we had the guys from Northome DAC come over and fill the dumpster with yet another load of junk from the previous era. Four guys that are so happy to have a job, Four guys that understand having purpose and value with the work of their hands!!

At Church we are going through a study on Ecclesiastes,  this book of the old testament wisdom literature reminds me that purpose and meaning in life are things to strive after in every situation and season. It reminds me that everything under heaven has a “time”, or perhaps you remember it a “season”… Either way, you may remember it, most folks recognize it as a song… But is it true?  “A time for love and a time for hate?” The day after Donald Trump was shot, do we still believe there is a time for HATE? If you understand hating evil in this world then you do believe there is a time for HATE… I hate that the man behind Trump died, I hate that I see people suffering, or killing their children… I hate everyday, But that doesn’t mean I hate the person that shot and killed an innocent man that was in the line of fire, nor should you. 

You see, it makes me so sad that another person can only find hate in their heart that they would wish for another person to die, yes, I said wish… not even try to kill another person but rather to wish harm on another person… we are all created in the image of our creator and so hating another person is kin to hating oneself, as we are all in the image of God, we are not GOD nor will we ever be GOD… yet there it is, “A time to hate” 

All things in the proper order… We couldn’t install windows until first the old windows were carefully removed and the correct preparations were made, to allow for the next “TIME” to happen… “A time to install windows and a time to remove windows”

So I leave you with this note: A time to die and a time to be born… Although this man behind Trump was devalued by the shooter to the point the shooter didn’t care about collateral damage, that man is loved and missed forever. I don’t know all the details, but I do know this.. There is a time for every purpose under heaven and we should never waste the time given to us, we can never purchase our wasted time back and reuse it for good!

Thank you for all the help with windows this week and let me not fail to mention the guy that started making the old stairs and deck disappear before somebody got killed using them… more about this another day. 

God Bless and may His hand guide your steps today.

Charlie