Does anyone have God’s email?

God,
Please show me the light. We are on top of a mountain right now, but instead of gazing up into the stars, I feel like I am staring down into the valley. You obtain what you see, Father. I want to see the stars, yet I am fearful of the next valley. The last valley was so ugly, and for sometime I thought I had lost sight of you in the thickest part of the thicket. And still, Lord God, you carried me out of the thorns, nearly unscathed. I do not want my heart hardened to my Savior.

– Amen

Dancing in place with the Devil

When you think of HELL, where does your mind take you?

A pit of fire? Perpetual fire beneath the earth where the wicked are punished after death? Sweat? Unbearable pain? Walls burning around you? Screaming? Earth? A spiritual realm of evil and suffering…. When you think of HELL… What crosses your mind?

To define Hell is to say the lack of love. No love. Imagine a world without any love at all. Hell is a place where all the love leaves the world. Where helping others is not a priority… ever. Not a thought that crosses anyones mind. Only getting to the top of the top matters. Survival of the fittest. Surviving for nothing. Family doesn’t matter. Men do not protect woman and children. Murder. Rape. Woman abandon their children on the side of the road to grow up and survive on their own. Hell is not a fictional place written in a book where lava flows at your feet, as you are dancing in place with the devil.

To define Hell is to say the lack of love. No love. Imagine a world without any love at all. Imagine your world without any love… without Compassion… without Forgiveness… without Service… without Friendship… without Companionship… without Trust… without Sacrifice… without Commitment…

…without God... Then you are truly imagining hell.

A Sinner’s Perspective

Does God bless you for making the biblically moral choice ? (even in the ‘smallest’ of decisions…?)

Today, I broke the law. In my head, I justified my criminal behavior, from a sinner’s perspective, by saying “it’s not that bad.” Now, I know what you are thinking… (or do I?) “Who did you kill?” Oh! I mean, “What did you do?”

Well, since you asked; We have overstayed our welcome at a certain apartment complexes parking lot, and were asked nicely to move. Not once, but twice by two white stickers pointing out “Your truck tags are expired”. They even offered to tow our truck to the nearest impound at our expense! How nice of them! Well, I decided I would save them the hassle, by moving the truck myself. Now, I have AAA… and towing is free. Yet, I live just across the street from said apartment complex. From there, I weighed the time commitment (of waiting for a tow truck) to the consequences (slim-chance of getting pulled over while driving a vehicle with expired tags) … and the Consequences won out. Whilst driving said truck, a question crossed my mind, backed by my little knowledge of the Bible… “Does God bless you for making biblically moral choices… even in the ‘smallest’ of instances?” The reason I ask, is because while driving the truck across the street “wasn’t that bad”, the bible states (in fewer words) to submit to civil authorities and obey the laws of the land... (1 Peter 2:13-17) So from there, I wondered to myself, “Am I disobeying God’s will for me because I chose immorally?”

So I leave you with my thoughts, would God have blessed me if I had chosen the more righteous path? and the answer… Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. (Psalm 106:3)

(Does this mean I am going to hell… No! Because thank Jesus Christ, God’s only son, who came here to carry my burden, and unjustly die on the cross, to defeat hell, and rise again so that sinner’s can have a relationship with God)

Celebrating Our Steps with Christ

*This is an old writing that I am publishing on the blog. The message itself is still relevant.

I am so happy that throughout my youth I never had the desire to test drugs. Specifically speaking, the hallucinogens.

“Why?” You ask.

That is a very good question. If I were to have experimented with said drugs, I probably would have ended up in a mental hospital. You see, I have a very vivid imagination. So vivid, in fact, that sometimes I have a hard time discerning what is reality and what is fiction. Let me explain to you how I have concluded this fictional scenario, in which I would have sent myself to a mental hospital if I had experimented with drugs during my youth.

Last night I decided to drink an entire cup of coffee; 150mg of caffeine. Caffeine; a white, crystalline, bitter alkaloid, C 8 H 10 N 4 O 2, usually derived from coffee or tea: used in medicine chiefly as a nervous system stimulant.

Since I had surgery to remove my appendix, to cope with the pain I have been taking lora-tabs; may cause drowsiness, dizziness, blurred vision, or lightheadedness. In other words, for me, it knocks me out cold. I, innocently enough, mixed two very opposite drugs.

When I was finally able to fall asleep, let’s say, around 1am, I drifted off into a world that I was not familiar with. I began dreaming. (I am going to rabbit trail for a moment, and tell you this dream because it was really quite terrifying)

There were two ‘main’ characters in my dream.

A boy, who was depressed and suicidal, probably in his early 20s, living at home with his mother. This boy felt he had nothing to live for, and began to develop schizophrenia. The only person he ever talked to was a girl, she had shoulder length brown hair, and she didn’t really exist. The boy somehow managed to get a girlfriend, she had blonde curly hair. But she was more of a bystander in the dream.

In the same town as the boy,  there was a man named Lyle, who was quite a vile creature. Lyle spent his days selling drugs, importing over illegal foreigners to sell his drugs, completely destroying the town. Lyle also raped a girl, continually, throughout her entire life, and unfortunately, throughout my entire dream.

Now, with those two characters being stated… Who would really want to continue to participate in this nightmare? The problem was, every time I tried to wake up I would “wake up” but I would still be sleeping. I was dreaming in a dream. And when I would ‘wake up’, I couldn’t move. It was almost like I was suffocating… and I would try to reach over for Adrian, but I couldn’t move. And I would grunt, and try to cry out, and I would hear Adrian acknowledge me tiredly, “Are you having a nightmare?” But I couldn’t get out of this dream like state. And above my bed was a man, a demon like man, with the most terrifying gray eyes. He wrestled me to be quiet, and I couldn’t move. I was sure I was suffocating… Then I would drift back into ‘sleep’.

The town had no real authority. There was a main bar, ran by Lyle, where street thugs with big guns ran the show. Across from the bar was a gas station/mechanic repair shop where Lyle and his drug dealing thugs hung out. The boy was losing his mind in this very messed up town. The non-existent girl told him to go into the bar and start killing people. So he took a gun, and headed for the bar. But the boy didn’t want to hurt anyone. The imaginary girl was insistent that he start shooting people… But the town was filled with innocent people as well. He aimed his gun at the imaginary girl, and he shot her. And when he pulled the trigger, the ‘cops’ showed up, but they were too scared to get out of the car. Since the cops showed up, the thugs pulled out their big guns. The boy couldn’t believe he shot the girl (even though she didn’t really exist and no one else could see her), so he shot himself. The thugs went crazy with the blood lust, and began shooting everywhere. They sparked a fire, that caught on some leaked gasoline from Lyle’s gas station, and the place blew up. Lyle and all his thugs died. The girl that Lyle kept hurting was free. My dream then told me everything happens for reasons that we just don’t understand. But it was sick, and twisted.

Then I ‘woke up’ again, I couldn’t get away from this demon and his gray eyes. He was suffocating me. It was so real.

Now I can see it on your faces, “What on earth does you having a nightmare have to do with taking steps with Christ?”

Finally my twitching woke the real Adrian up, and he drew me up from my sleep. But I couldn’t close my eyes. Every time I tried to close my eyes, I saw those gray eyes. I was sweating, and I was scared. It was so real. I couldn’t calm myself. I kept trying to say I know God is with me, I know his good angels are here protecting me. I even prayed out loud, which is hard for me to do. Begging God to please take away these doubts, and these gray eyes. I was in tears, I was so scared.

Adrian said, “I really feel like God is wanting me to tell you this, ‘Give your thoughts and vain imagination to God.His warrior angels are here, and they are protecting us.‘” My prayers for help were heard by God, and he spoke through Adrian for me, with that verse, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ“; 2 Corinthians 10:5 

I felt the Holy Spirit, I felt him washing away my fear of the man with gray eyes. Feeling the Holy Spirit is huge for me! Before I couldn’t even think of the demon that was haunting me without shivering in fear, but now I could think of him and it caused me no fear. In my head, I decided to celebrate! I wanted to be quiet because I knew Adrian needed his rest. I was pretending there were balloons everywhere, and I was nodding my head back and forth dancing. I had taken a step with Christ, I trusted God to take away my fears… and even though, at first, there was doubt… God spoke to me through the bible verse, His word… and my fear was gone just like that. I celebrated, and decided I was going to continue celebrating. It felt good celebrating the step I had just taken with God. Usually I don’t give the steps I have taken a chance to really manifest before I start worrying, “Well where is the next great feeling? What do I do next? Am I not worshipping right?…” etc

Admist my celebrations, Adrian woke up to tell me, “I had a weird mini dream. I think it was Jeremy, but someone handed me a piece of paper. And when I opened the piece of paper up, it said Paid.”

(Not to much later we received a letter in the mail, the entire $60,000 medical bill was paid for. God is Good.)

Is it the end, or just the beginning?

So that’s it, right? Finished the drive over to New York. Enjoyed visiting family in between Seattle and Albany (some for a second time). Picked up the car. We’re done, right? I guess we should just go home from there.

But we didn’t.

Stopped to see friends in Baltimore. Stayed in North Carolina. Thawed out in Jacksonville. Since we had gone so far, we might as well finish the drive down to Miami, right? Maybe even chase a sunset to the Keys!

So we did that too.

Stayed over in the Orlando area, and enjoyed family there. Since this has been quite the adventure, we thought it might be wise to have a vacation from the adventure before we headed back to work.

Cedar Key was recommended as our layover spot, and it was perfect! We stayed at the beautiful Cedar Key Bed and Breakfast. Rode around on a tandem bicycle. Just had a good, restful night.

Our drive was going to take us right by Adrian’s dad’s house. So we decided to stay one night there. On the way there we passed a guy pushing a giant globe! So we had to ask him what he was doing! (www.worldguy.org)

Got to Baker, had a great time. Told them about our adventure.

Then we locked keys in car.

Again.

A friend drove up to unlock our car. There was just one problem – we couldn’t find the keys. So we were stranded in Baker, but at least we had good company. It took us three days, but we finally found the keys we drove home.

Home is where ever I am with you.

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