Boys and Their Toys

God’s Thoughts to Me

My child, listen when your father corrects you. Don’t neglect your mother’s instruction (Proverbs 1:8, NLT).

To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction (Proverbs 12:1).

Introduction

Today I am honored again by a special friend, Floyd Samons, who  is sharing dearly acquired wisdom from the school of life.

Floyd, thank you for all your support this year, helping me to keep my blog going when I was to ill to write. You are truly a brother of my heart.

Floyd blogs at The Regoi and I can assure you that his place is a treasure chest of wisdom and just plain good old common sense. To visit him, just click on his photo. Over to you:

Gifts from Christmas Passed

 

As another Christmas rolls around I, like everyone else, remember the ones from my past and especially the ones from my childhood.

I remember the presents, the food, the gratified looks on my parents faces regardless how lean the year, and the words at Christmas.

I recall the old black Bible with spider web cracks in the leather from use and age that my dad opened to Luke and read from every year before any of us impatient kids could yank a bow or rip a wrapper.

They were the words of God offered by my dad’s gentle voice. I fall into thoughts and lessons from just one of many I got from the man I miss dearly and  remember with honor at Christmas.

Money was burning a hole in my pocket, but it was my money to burn, or so I thought.

“Me and Steve want to buy a boat,” I announced to my dad.

“A boat?”

“Yeah, like a canoe only better, we can fish and stuff,” I explained.

“How you gonna get it to the lake?” my dad asked casually.

“Steve’s dad will take us out there,” I answered, trying to hide my disappointment in his lack of enthusiasm.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, son?” he answered and I knew was the beginning of a long way around the bend where we would eventually arrive at “no.”

As a last resort I threw out the desperation declaration, “It’s my money!” My dad took it in stride and while I can’t recall his exact words, I do recall they had something to do with it indeed being my money.

Yet, it was his responsibility to not let me blow it or do something that didn’t make good sense… Like buying a boat twenty miles from the lake as a freshman in high school with a football buddy as my partner…

The four hundred bucks that I’d worked for was safe and out of my complete control as I poured sweat and some blood into construction jobs in Arizona.

For the next two simmering summers I saved my money for the best thing ever in the history of the whole wide world, even better than all the Christmas gifts combined; my first car.

Add that first muscle car and the freedom that comes with it to the sweet taste of gratification that comes from earning something at great sacrifice, and a kid has the ingredients and discipline that they can use for the rest of their lives…

How does a person learn self discipline and self control if they haven’t been taught how it works? How does a person learn self respect if they don’t learn how to respect others?

I remember being so angry with my dad that my throat ached… Here’s the kicker; I knew he was right.  Even at the time of indiscreet ignorance, I knew it was, but I didn’t care about tomorrow… I wanted to live for that day.

His lesson taught me that waiting and using discipline returned dividends that taste much sweeter than quick fixes for a greedy and impatient flesh.

The lust of our flesh can’t ever truly be satisfied without wisdom from our heavenly Father to keep in check.

For now, only God knows which of us was more proud the day my dad drove my car for the first time with me riding shotgun…

Funny thing about wise people, they never have to say things like, “I told you so.” They say things like, “This is a nice car, son… I sure am proud of you…”

Wishing you and yours the best gifts and treasures this Christmas season, the kind that can’t be calculated by a number, the kinds that are stored in our minds, hearts, and eternal souls.

Merry Christmas, God bless you.

Floyd

P.s. Thanks again, Floyd, you are a dear precious friend!

Sweet blessings xx

Mia

I am linking-up with the ladies at my Tea Time and Link-Up page.

The Twilight Zone

God’s Thoughts to Me

And He said to His servants,”The wedding feast is ready and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor. Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see” (Matthew 22:8, NLT).

Lost In Transition

Lady Truth and her sister, Wisdom, are standing at the crossroads of every lonely life;  every heart lost in the maze of this cruel, dark world.

They have been instructed by King Jesus to draw and woo every widowed and desolate soul to Him for the invited guests have declined His invitation to His wedding feast.

King Jesus, the King of Eternity and Truth, has invited new guests from all the corners of the earth to the love feast of the Marriage of the Lamb.

He Himself is the penman of His blood-written invitations softly scribbled on delicate fragrant rose petals.

He has tenderly sealed every invite with a tear of His mercy and compassion and wrapped it with ribbons of colorful grace.

Each letter is a calligraphic master piece of excellence and written with His kisses of delight and anticipation.

His five messengers are the winds called Sirocco, Sarayu, Mistral, Alizé and Calina. He has tenderly wrapped each invite in an envelope of raindrops.

But the world is dressed in a cloak of twilight; the cloak of the Mystery Woman, called Babylon. She solicits ignorant youths in the streets, markets, alleys and dark corners.

She seduces humanity with her pretty speech, enticing and mesmerizing them with her honey sweet flattery of venomous lies dripping from her luscious lips.

This woman’s house is a place of death and the road leading into her deception is  the road called religion.

Her palace is governed by a den of thieves who revel in luxury and opulence by fleecing their flock. Her lovers are the monsters called Pride and Power.

But on a hilltop along this road, Lady Wisdom takes her stand and showers the raindrops of love on all who are lost and walking this doomed road to destruction.

She is showing every childlike one with ears to hear and eyes to see the Way called Narrow … the Way of Truth … the way into His Loving Embrace.

Much love and sweet blessings xx

Mia

I am linking-up with Lisa-Jo and all the gracious hostesses at my Tea-Time and Link-up page.

A Monster called Fear

God’s Thoughts to Me

To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey (Matthew 25:15, NIV).

The Gift of Grace

I am well acquainted with a monster called Fear. Like a giant octupus, this species has not only eight, but seventy-times-seven tentacles.

Each one reached deep into the remote corners of my heart, suffocating the last bit of life, breath and hope of the little one hiding from the world.

The Master Creator also equipped us with the common-sense-kind-of-fear to enable us to survive in a world lost in chaos and darkness … a world without a father’s hand to guide, steer and love her.

The check-the-traffic-before-you-cross-the-street kind, the don’t-do-handstands-on-the-edge-of-a-high-cliff kind of common sense, the kind my oldest son lacks completely.

My Fearless Son

Murder, rape and abuse are the order of the day. But there is another kind of invisible rape … spiritual rape! In my opinion, the worst kind, with the perpetrators usually the “authorities” responsible for the care of our souls.

Blaise Pascal once wrote,”Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction”. I am a victim of this truth!

Fm/CFS researchers report that it takes up to 4-5 years to diagnose a person with this disabling disease. I was no exception and I’m well aware of the stigma attached to this illness. We are labelled as lazy hypochondriacs who do not have all their marbles.

But even worse, was the treatment I recieved from the religious community. When I became ill and was diagnosed with that between-your-ears disease, I went to see my pastor and his wife, urgently needing help to get rid of this nonsense in my mind.

The Sunday before my visit, he preached a sermon on the talents. According to him, the talents were the Gospel we needed to spread. You can just put two and two together and see where the poor soul who buried his talent underground was doomed to go!!

I was devastated and angry at our Pappa and my visit to the pastor nailed my suspicions on its head. For before I could say much, they diagnosed this illness as the result of not serving in the church ministries.

My Pappa God, in my mind, was a cruel, uncaring slavemaster kind of fellow, demanding the impossible or if I didn’t perform,  sending me to hell. Quite a catch 22 situation.

At that time, when this cruel thing happened, I believed my heart was raped and to my mind, my Pappa was the rapist. Didn’t He see how very, very ill I was? I could barely take care of my myself or my family. Now I had to spread the gospel and serve in church; otherwise, I only had a one-way ticket to the hot place.

To make a long story short, I spent hours spreading the gospel and tried to do as much as possible for whoever had a need I could fulfill. I recall experiencing my family as a burden, standing in my way to serve this God who had His knife in for me.

Until the day arrived I became bedridden for a long time. All the fear, stress and hard work caused this illness to become much worse.

That was when I seriously started seeking my Pappa and trying to understand the Scriptures. I was unable to read the parable of the talents without getting a panic attack!

But our Pappa owns all the time in the world and patiently taught me the true meaning of the talents. I discovered the work of Mr James Fowler, an excellent Bible teacher, and his explanation of the parable brought light and love to my heart.

The talents our Pappa dispenses is the costly grace gift of our Lord Jesus Himself. Two of the servants who received the talents, were guys with open hearts to receive the availability of Pappa’s grace.

Through their grace-filled endeavours, they expanded and multiplied their initial supply and received grace upon grace upon grace. They functioned the way humans are designed to live and were led into the joy of their Pappa.

The other servant was like the religious Scribes and Pharisees who viewed our Pappa as an exacting, tyrannical bookkeeper; fearing the day of the Divine Audit.

This poor soul would not even allow for the slightest operation of grace, but rather buried his portion in the false security offered by doctrines, creeds, rituals, morality, church attendance, etc.

The followers of this false security can only dig up the archaelogical remnants and theological tenets. They become master hoarders of religion and bury the Gospel of Grace deep underground.

Oh, the freedom our Pappa brought to my heart when He revealed to me the truth of His master plan of redemption, “God saved you by His grace. and you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8).”

He showed me that just like Adam and Eve, I was deceived by the serpent’s lie, which told me that I could be like my Pappa, able to save myself through all my religious efforts.

He was not in the least offended by my terrible accusations against Him. In fact, He told me that  He also would not have served a monstrous deity such as the one I had painted in my mind.

He enabled my feeble heart to receive His grace, mercy and compassion in abundance;  new every morning, and allowed me all the time I needed to heal while resting in His Loving Embrace.

Much love xx

Mia

Linking-up with

Wisdom: Sanctified Common Sense

God’s Thoughts to Me

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault (James 1:5, NIV).

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you (James4:8, ESV).

A God Who Gives Generously

For a long time I have laboured under the potentially destructive religious teaching that we can be the masters of our own future, our prosperity, health and so forth.

Wow, this sounded too good to be true, but I lacked Godly wisdom to discern the truth at that stage of my walk with God. If this was true, my selfish self was definitely not going to miss out.

We only needed to speak positive words and blessings daily, into our and our loved ones’ futures. And that would ensure health, wealth, financial prosperity, career success for yourself and your children, and so the list of blessings went on and on and on.

What a time consuming blah-blah-blah this turned out to be. Common sense then, seemed a rare commodity in my life. Looking at the verses that birthed these teachings makes it look all so plausible and possible.

I remember how I cringed when my husband would use the saying that he was killing himself laughing.

Or even worse, when he would tell me how ill or discouraged or tired or just plain fed-up he was.

I am ashamed to admit that when he needed me to lean on, I would secretly try to break all the curses he was declaring over himself.

I think we are all familiar with the “Blessings and Curses”, the “Speak Life, not Death” teachings and the whole enchilada.

Oh, and don’t forget the angels eagerly awaiting Pappa’s children to speak His words, ready to fulfill our every wish, protecting Pappa’s honor by ensuring that His words will not return void (Isaiah 55:11)!!!

How can we be so gullible? Our Lord Jesus and the Apostles repeatedly warned us against the savage wolves in sheep’s clothing, shearing the sheep for their own profit and gain.

But we eagerly gobble up every teaching that does the religious rounds with no concern for discernment, let alone a bit of common sense.

Yes, we are repeatedly warned and encouraged to test the spirits, but only a few of us do! We are advised over and over not to believe every spirit we hear and that looks can be so deceiving.

And the famous teaching that was created by misusing verses like Proverbs 18:21, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit”.

I know of a lady who was an alcoholic and received the good advice from her therapist at the clinic where she received treatment that if she wouldn’t stop drinking, she would die.

A highly respected and sought-after teacher and deliverance fundi in the religious community where she lived, told her, on the other hand, that the therapist had put a curse on her life and tried very hard to break that curse by speaking “in tongues” that not even he could understand. That lady was me.

With all due respect, I don’t think our Pappa God understood either!

Needless to say, when I came to my senses, and that only through the grace of my Pappa, I knew I needed wisdom. Not just any wisdom, but the godly kind that I could only find by living and abiding in my Lord Jesus.

The letter of James gave me so much hope about a Pappa who loves me unconditionaly, a generous Pappa who would give me all the wisdom I needed, without finding fault!

And through experience, I found fault-finding and favoritism rampant in the congregations I attended. Yet, there are no black sheep in my Pappa’s family!!

Well this to me, sounded, and still do, like very good news! For I was very, very ill and needed to consider this trial a great and joyful opportunity to have my faith tested and refined in our Lord’s refiners fire.

I had to allow my endurance to develop and grow, to become perfect and complete in my dependence on my Pappa for every breath I take.

This secret was unlocked through that wonderful invitation from the same letter, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

I have found that drawing deep into the life of our Lord Jesus, allows me to feast from the Tree of Life … to quench my thirst at the Fountain of Living Water … to hide in the shade and safety of His love … to rest in His Loving Embrace.

Much love xx

Mia

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