When the pain is blinding.

I have had something like fifteen surgeries. Seven of them have been cesarean section births, two new feet, some corrective plastic surgery, hand surgery, and oral surgery. The worse by far was the parotidectomy. Your parotid gland incorporates nearly the entire side of your face.  One day I found a tumor right next to my right ear.  Everyone told me it was nothing, probably a benign cyst, that I shouldn’t worry, but I knew different. This was one of those times when the voice in the back of your head says, “God’s got a work for you to do. Be prepared, He’s turning up the heat.”

That voice is almost always the voice of the Holy Spirit guiding or convicting us.  Almost two agonizing months after I found the tumor, I lay on an operating table for near six hours while my gifted oncologist, with great precision, removed the tumor which did have some nerve involvement.  Because the nerve was involved, I was supposed be left with anywhere from minor to major facial paralysis. to completely unable to even blink or smile.   Best case scenario would have been Bell’s Palsy as a lasting effect for the rest of my life. By the gracious and miraculous hand of GOD, and complete surprise to all medical personnel, I experienced none of the above.  The story doesn’t end there. After proving to be a stage one malignant tumor, my oncologist recommended daily radiation therapy for a period of six weeks to burn out any remaining cancer cells in the area

I foolishly assumed that the recovery from that surgery was the most painful experience in my life, however, it was a scratch on my cheek compared to what came next. For ten weeks, I endured swallowing razor blades, radiation burns, radiation sores, complete loss of my ability to taste anything, and fatigue like I’ve never known, even after having birthed and raised eight babies. I was supposed to lose all my teeth and very little hair, but GOD had a different plan.  I lost no teeth at all, but half a head of hair. I was bald as an eagle from the middle of my scalp down, but no one knew because the top layer covered it.  I had to walk around with a mullet hair style for over a year, but considering I wasn’t supposed to keep my teeth, I was all too happy to be out of style, looking like that achy-breaky, country artist from the early 90’s. 

 The last difficult ordeal, and I use that term loosely, was pain-med withdrawal.  The fool that I was, about two weeks after my last treatment, when I figured I could stand the physical pain, I just removed the pain patches and threw them away. Let me suggest, NEVER to do that!  I wasn’t interested in tapering down, I was interested in getting back to work and normal life.  The withdrawal I experience was similar to the kind of withdrawal a heroin addict experiences. Now, don’t go assuming I was high and having a ball all that time, because when narcotic painkillers are used properly for pain, there is no high as a kite. There is only pain-relief to a degree, enough to live, but not enough to forget the pain that was ever present.

 All during those months, I had lost sight of the reason for the pain. I had forgotten that it was all for a greater purpose. I grew angry, bitter and near impossible to live with, a time of my life of which I greatly grieve. It’s a funny thing about pain, sometimes it can be so severe and life-draining, that the only thing we can focus on in our daily life is the pain. Everything else becomes a blur, and we think is this the way it’s always going to be?  We wonder what if felt like to not be in pain.  We can’t remember life without it. It drains our energy, saps our joy, and steals any happiness or hope we have for the future. Compassion and agape love are gifts given to us by GOD, some get more some get less, while empathy is an equal opportunity employer of our future work. 

That year my husband and I both survived dual cases of cancer, however, our three decade old difficult marriage did not.  The physical pain was over, but the heart pain was only to get worse.  I do thank GOD for every dark, dreary, bleak, hopeless, despairing, oppressed and painful moment in my life, because good will come from all of this. I’ve heard over and over the amount of difficulties and obstacles a person has to endure is in proportion to the size of the ministry GOD has planned for us after we have survived it all.  I hope that is true. 

Currently, I am in one of those extremely emotionally painful times where my back is against the wall and there is no way out of my situation, short of the Hand of GOD. There is no easy way out of this one, and sometimes, I get so lost in the pain, I can’t remember the thousands of promises GOD gives us in His Word.  One of them is what GOD gave me the weekend before my cancer surgery. This one is in Exodus, when the Israelites were at the Red Sea, with the Egyptian army closing in on them. There was no way out for them, or so they thought

Sometimes I lose focus, and I look too much at the circumstances, the storm, the waves, and not the LORD who just told me I could walk on water.  Sometimes we fall into the devil’s trap of only seeing and feeling the pain.  This is the time that GOD uses not to test us, because He knows if we will pass, but to prove to us that, yes, we can endure it. We have two choices in pain, grow a deeper love for GOD or withdraw from Him. I choose to grow deeper in love, my husband on the other hand, chose the opposite road. People tell me everyday that GOD would never end a marriage. People who say that don't know GOD very well, because in His Grace, He did.  We were both drowning in a sea of despair. I was on the top trying to keep my head above water, while he was under the water, trying to pull me under with him.  

I thought being free from the trap of a dying marriage would make it better, it only caused more grief, because daily, he is a reminder that it didn't work.  I am in constant daily heart pain from that and a few other heart-crushing events since then, but I march on, or as I tell my children when they are in physical pain, "Kerri-Strugg-it. If she can do a perfect vault and win the gold for her team on a broken ankle, then you can do whatever it is you have to do while smarting a little, or even a lot.“

Recently, I learned that I focused too much on Psalm 27:13, the promise that life would get better and that I would see the "goodness" of the LORD in the land of the living, and that made it worse.  NOW, I focus on the character of GOD, because that is always good, always gracious, always faithful, and always for my good and the good of His Kingdom.  That is where the numbing agent really is. 

STOP Trying to Be Just Like Jesus. 

Go for the Next Best Thing!

I know what you are going to say. There will be those who shoot for perfection who tell us that we are COMMANDED to be like Christ, (which we are not) Or some will say, "That's right, we should be like Paul."    Ehhhhh!  Both are wrong.      You have to know how I think to know who I'm going for here, and if anyone has read any of my blogs, they'll know I'm shooting for David! Let me explain.

Do you think that Jesus knows that we cannot be like him or think like him? (Isaiah 55:8-9) Jesus did NOT have a sinful nature. He was fully human but without a sinful nature. Well, maybe he had just a tiny bit inside just so that he knew the battle. Theologically speaking, many say that GOD put Jesus in Mary's womb because the sinful nature comes from the father. I tend to believe that. Who was called on the carpet first, and who took the first bite? When did Adam and Eve realize they were naked, after her bite or his? Case closed. Now Jesus had to be the seed of a woman, like Genesis 3 tells us, therefore he had to be from an egg in her ovaries. Now, Mary had an earthly father, thus, she had a sinful nature. So, if we are going to get technical here, like DNA and stuff, yes, Jesus could have inherited just a tiny bit of a sinful nature, yet he NEVER acted upon it. This is very controversial, because many say he was perfect and without sin because he was created pure, but Grampie Heli’'s seed was in that ovary, so, he was FULLY human. The point is that Jesus NEVER sinned. It wasn't because he couldn't, as in not physically able, it was because he couldn't in order to fulfill the purpose for which he was sent.

In my personal opinion, and I’m NOT quoting any Bible Scripture, this is just my opinion, although I love Paul as a brother in Christ, if I was going to church with him, we would NOT be friends. You can love your sibling in Christ and not be buddies that hang out.  I surely would NOT hang out with Paul.  I appreciate the fact that GOD chose him and trained him, and used him to write 1/3 of the New Testament, but I think we Christians have taken Paul way out of context and follow him as if he was as perfect as Christ.  Every word he says, we hang on to it as if it were LAW, to be strictly followed, NO exceptions, lest we become heretics.  If you want to be like that, feel free, but don’t expect us to be friends either.  People who attain to be like Jesus or Paul are looking for perfection in themselves and demanding it from themselves and others, thus when they “achieve” as much as Jesus or Paul in them to their own standards, that ugly little pride virus attacks their heart, and it’s damaged sometimes for good.

Paul’s words are for sure Divinely Inspired, but they are NOT Leviticus, and many if not most New Testament Christians treat his epistles as if it was the New Testament’s version of Leviticus. (The book of Mosaic Law in the Pentateuch)  Those people drive me nuts, and do you want to know why they drive me nuts?  I will tell you.  It’s because I am a freaking mess.  I am a total failure, a dweeb, a woman subject to my hormones, menopause, which is PMS on steroids.  I’m alone, a reject, been one all my life, therefore, I am subject to the devil screaming in my head that I’m a loser and always will be.  The devil screams but Jesus whispers using the Holy Spirit, that’s why it’s so hard to hear him sometimes.  You know we, like our children, have selective hearing as much as they do with our Heavenly Father as they do with us. We choose what to hear from Jesus, most of the time, it has to be to our liking, or we ad-lib a little and throw our opinion in there.  People have said they find comfort in Paul’s epistles.  Well I don’t, I never have.

People say that Paul suffered greatly, and he knows how weak we are, he knows the trials and temptations of a sinful nature.  (Does this sound like anything you’ve heard before only substitute the name JESUS instead)  Do you see what I mean?  Yeah, Paul suffered, he was brilliant, he had a sinful nature, he despaired at times, (although he barely mentions it), and he triumphed through GOD grace which was sufficient for his weaknesses.  But let me tell you what Paul did NOT have.  He did not  have a XX chromosome.  He has NO clue what it’s like to be a woman, a wife, or a mother.  Jesus does though, because he’s GOD.  I think enough has been said here about Paul, with respect, of course. 

So, who is the next best thing if it’s not Paul?  Duh, it’s David.  The Bible is full of screw-ups that GOD used to prove His grace and power to work through humans who were a freaking mess.  Jacob is my favorite mess, because it took 100 years for him to get it right.  If I was going to live that long, it would take me longer.  David, on the other hand was a bit more of a mess than Jacob.  Buckle your seat belt, because I’m going into the deep dive of David’s sewerage. 

David, besides being an adulterer, and a really bad commander-in-chief, setting up an honorable guy in the front lines in order to hide the fact that he was a man, and well,  I won't go there, but let your imagination picture what I'm thinking, was an adulterer and murderer LONG before Bathsheba, because before he got to Ziglag, on his prodigal road, he already had three wives. He collected more after taking the throne, and even had concubines.  Ask Absalom.  That makes him the adulterer.  Stealing another man’s wife, they makes him a creep. As far as fatherhood, well, shoot, you can’t get worse than David, ask Tamar and Absalom, again.  Well, maybe King Manasseh, but David was a horrendous father.  David fell into despair so many times, we can’t count them all, but the Book of Psalms exhibits quite a few of them.  Thank GOD he wrote those times down, or we’d never make it.  David had a prodigal road, yep, he left GOD.  I know, you don’t believe me. Well check out 1 Samuel 27, the very first verse and tell me what you see.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

David was promised the throne by GOD and anointed by Samuel one of the great ones, and yet, he believed that Saul would kill him so he hid behind enemy lines.  He became a traitor. He was a traitor for 16 months.  He lived with the Philistines, he answered to a Philistine general and he conquered land and goods for the Philistine king.  In our constitution, that constitutes TREASON, and is punishable by death.  But, if you want to know the very very very WORST thing about David, read that entire chapter 27.  Read it very carefully.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

What did David do that was despicable?  He murdered for profit and he made sure that NO ONE was alive who could fink on him to the Philistine general, who was his commander, thus he kept quite a bit of the take for himself.  So, to put it mildly, David was a MASS murderer, killing innocent babies, women, children, and men who were minding their own business, just trying to make a living and take care of their families.  Albeit they were pagans, however, and HERE is the clincher, GOD never instructed David to take over those villages, he was acting up on his own desire to whip up quite the fortune for himself, and to prove himself a great warrior for his PHILISTINE general, and he became quite prideful.  He was so prideful, that he was even to willing to go to war with the Philistines against his own people.  GOD’s people.  Think on that right now.  Considering what’s happening now, and who are the treasonous traitors running their shadow government, who have done their best to overthrow a duly elected and loved by tens of millions, President, the best one we've ever had, where does David measure up?  How do you like those people?  Say, like the Clinton's who are reputed as expert suicider’s.

  There is a LONG list of Clinton dead floating around, and thank GOD we don’t know the half of it.  SO, now what do you think of David?  Not the stellar guy, huh?  So, if he was like that, why should we attain to be like him?  That’s simple, what did GOD call him, “ a man after My own heart,” and in the book of Acts 7:46 it says that David enjoyed favor with GOD.  That’s the ticket for me. 

Every time I feel like crap about myself, and that is VERY often, I take a visit down David’s memory lane, and I shoot for being a woman after GOD’s own heart, knowing fully just how far down in the bottom of the barrel David had to climb back up.  GOD doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, but he did give David a piece of his own medicine when He allowed Ziglag to be burned and ALL of the women and children to be taken hostage.  That’s in chapter 29 of 1^st Samuel.  Check it out.  That was when David “came to his sense,” like the prodigal son in Luke 15. 

So, now after this great revelation, I feel so much at peace, because I’ve stopped making Paul and Jesus my example of how I should perform, and I’ve made David my example of how I should seek after GOD’s heart with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength, because I want to love Him that much. There was one other thing that David had that I have, crazy faith that believes that if I can hold out long enough, I can take down that 1,000 foot giant, because Allen means stone. I've lost a lot of friends over that crazy faith, and I've given up on it more times than I can count. Every once in a while GOD will do something that will fill my faith bank back up to full and over-flowing. 

Cancer,  Death , 
and Good Humble Pie 

~Among Others~

   Eight years ago, I remember GOD calling me to begin a writing career. Of course, I thought that was the most ludicrous notion that I had ever heard. After all, I don't think I received higher than a D in any of my college writing classes. So, I said to GOD, "But GOD, I'm not a writer, I'm not a novelist, I haven't a clue how to do that." I distinctly heard in my spirit, before those frightful words of rebuttal left my lips,

   "Kristina, you are who I make you to be." Oh, yeah, that did it. I had no argument with that.

     You see, we can argue with GOD all we want, but we will never win. Here's the beauty, He doesn't mind how much we do it, until we learn that we aren't going win, and we can trust Him with that which we know we can’t handle. Eventually, we realize that He has been trying to teach our slow brains that we can’t handle it, but He can. 

    Another day, I remember being on one of my five-mile autumn walks, and  I saw in my head in the future, a very successful author who had my face. The terror that ran over me on my walk nearly face planted me right there and oddly enough, right in front of the local library. GOD has a funny sense of humor. That fear gripped my heart because I know just how much of a screw-up I have been and still am. Again, I had a rebuttal for GOD, and before the words,  

    "Oh, no, GOD, what will I do if I am successful. I'm sure to ruin it. That kind of success like that ruins everyone. What if I get too full of myself? What is to stop me from making it all about me?

    Again, the answer was swift and only took two nouns and a conjunction, "Cancer and death." 

   “Oh, yeah, that'll do it." The Bible is clear, storms come from GOD’s permissive and sometimes planned will. The crook in your lot that totally messed you up came from GOD. He may have used other people to put the bend in the road that caused you to crash and burn. He did it because you were probably going the wrong way at warp speed and didn't see the train wreck coming right at you.

   Two years later, I was knee deep in radiation hell, having all pride I had built up in my first book, finished, with “rave” reviews. (I sometimes wonder if there was more wrong with those who reviewed my book than me in the intelligence department.) burned out of me.  So, one book down, another started and an amazing one at that. God gave me a story that was sure to be an epic. Right after I finished the rough draft, I spent the next six months in radiation hell getting the snot burned out of me, literally. 

   Sadly, though, GOD had more sense-of-self I needed to be rid of, because having bounced back beating cancer and surviving radiation hell, I still had a garden needing to be weeded after a longest winter of my life. So, he ruffled up the garden paradise of my home and family life. With a stroke, dual cancers, a few days past the pain of radiation hell, I was basking in victory. With no real warning, none that I paid attention to, because I never thought divorce could happen to me, my husband informed me during the last few weeks of my cancer treatments that he was filing for divorce when my treatments were over after twenty-nine years of marriage. 

    A year after that, another major heart crushing rejection came along to seriously send me under the bed hiding behind my cat afraid to even come out of my room, lest something worse happen. Rejection is one of GOD's greatest tools, not only to protect us from those who are not good for us, but to protect us from ourselves and that ugly human disease called, P-R-I-D-E. It is so sneaky. Even in all that, it still snuck up on me. You'd think I would have had my fill of humble pie with my family shattered, dual cancers, divorce pending, and a crushed and broken heart should have humbled me, but nope. He had one more lesson. Vindication!

   You see, the Bible promises us that He will vindicate us from those who do us harm, even if sometimes He was the one who sent them to do just that. Boy, I surely needed some vindication, or rather thought that I deserved vindication. Do you see it? Pride entered even through my brokenness. I was so broken by those who GOD sent in my life to hurt me, on purpose, to keep me humble, but now as the "victim," I felt I deserved some Heaven sent vindication, and some serious justice to feel satisfied. There is a difference between seeking justice for a person’s well-being, and seeking vindication for our bruised egos. When we plead for justice, it must be with an attitude of needing deliverance from something that is oppressing us, with the Father-forgive-them-for-they-know-not-what-they-do attitude and heart behind it. When we seek the self-satisfying kind of justice and vindication, that is usually nothing but pure anger and bitterness coated in pride.

    Now, I am cancer survivor who is well aware that just like the winter, cancer always comes back, especially the rare kind I was gifted with, even if it takes decades. Yes, cancer was a gift, and anyone who drew closer to GOD during theirs understands that. It is, however, a permanent, unwelcomed guest that never really leaves, but lies dormant in my cells, ready to leap at a moment’s notice, and all just to keep forcing that humble pie down my throat. 

     

  So, here I am eight years later, working on my eighth book, (eight meaning new beginning in Hebrew numerology) Google-able, yet, still a nobody. As a mother of eight in a small town, my house isn't all glass, but still too much of it is. I can't walk down main street without one of my children's friends letting them know that they saw me tripping over my own two left feet on that sidewalk, again. Failure in obscurity is fine with me. After eleven years in the fiery furnace of affliction, with the heat turned up to broil, I've learned that failure is the flour in humble pie, and it is way easier to deal with, and much more preferred than success. I know how to do failure very well, but I've never done success. Believe me when I say this, I'm scared to death of it! PUN intended. I'd almost rather fail my entire life, and let my work succeed after I am gone. That way GOD gets all the credit, all the glory and I'm just a stone in the ground. After all, Allen means stone!

God does not fix what's wrong with 

His people, He starts all over again.

        Jesus did not have a mortgage, and he did not incorporate. He did not have office hours, nor did he assign his Apostles as CEO's, telling them to register with the emperor, and be ready to have all their financial records ready to be audited annually. Jesus never asked for money, he healed for FREE. He never pressured his followers to give toward the mortgage fund or a building project so he could expand his ministry. He did not hire a marketing firm to teach his disciples how to be good stewards. He did not initiate a fund raising campaign to increase the size of the campus, so the corporation could expand, and create more programs, branches, and differing kinds of ministries. Jesus did not rely on programs. Jesus did not seek converts, he taught disciples. He certainly did not have super-conferences with guest speakers and a ticket price upwards of near 100 talents.  He even kept the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven a secret from those he knew were in it for only how it filled their bellies.  In Matthew and Luke he said, 

     "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more will shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore, I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand."

       He then went on to quote the prophet Isaiah, because Jesus knew intimately what was written in the Old Testament. He not only knew it, he understood it because he inspired it. I once heard an associate pastor at the church I attended say, "The Old Testament is so hard to understand, it's a difficult read and so harsh. Besides, that’s the Law, we are under grace now, so none of it really applies." When I picked my jaw back up off the floor, I gathered my flock, went home and never went back, to any church. His answer was not out of the ordinary, it's what I hear all the time. He is a New Testament Christian, or what I call a carport as opposed to a garage with a brick siding, a foundation and a solid roof, one that does not blow off with a strong wind.

       I’m not any kind of expert in the Old Testament, but I’ve studied it for eight years now, inside, outside and upside down. (A little Dr. Seuss humor there) You know what my friend, in my humble opinion, I actually find MORE grace and mercy in the Old Testament than the New. The Law and the animal sacrifices did NOT save the Israelite's, nor did it cleanse them of sin, it was the grace behind the obedience of the practice of the Law. The sacrifice was supposed to be a reminder of the curse and damage that sin does, and how much GOD hates sin. It was a reminder of Whom they served and Who saved them, as opposed to other pagan religions.

       New Testament Christians say, "We are the church, the bride of Christ, GOD will never abandon us" just like the Jews said, "This is the temple of the LORD, this is the Temple of the LORD, and they thought GOD would never leave it. SURPISE, He did.

       If someone tells you that he/she is a New Testament Christian, well, then you know that you are talking only to a carport with no walls, no foundation, and an aluminum roof that can easily be blown away.  Do not bother to argue with them, because they have their minds made up, and everyone else is wrong. Their pastor told them to be that way, to stand their ground under their carports. We can try to educate them, but most have unteachable hearts from anyone but their CEO/pastor. They are loyal to their corporations, that's for sure. After all, they have invested much of their funds into this capital venture.

     

      The more we understand the history of GOD's people, the more we can see GOD repeating Himself, over and over, again. The book of Ecclesiastes, lately, has become one of my favorites, because basically it says, “Don’t expect GOD to do anything He has never done before, because there is nothing new under the sun that GOD hasn’t already done.” Yes, you will have to get your Bible out and find that passage, also. The purpose in doing that may just help you find some wisdom GOD wants you to have before and after those verses. GOD's people throughout all generations kept becoming too corrupt to reform or repair.  Over and over again GOD pulled out a remnant and started all over again. 

     As the metaphor Mama that I am, if you need a picture, I have a good one for you. The church today is like flour. There is all-purpose, there is self-rising, and then there is this “whole-wheat,” that’s really not whole or in it’s original form. No, my friends, the Remnant is the whole grain, straight from the ground, exactly how GOD made it, in it’s original form. It’s not bleached, it’s not ground into fine powder that just becomes dust, rather in it's natural state, it has all the nutrients needed to feed the flock. 

      Where does wheat grow? Does it grow in a building, on a huge cement campus, in programs, does money grow it? It grows where the gospel was meant to go, in the fields, outside where the Wind can take it where the Wind intends for it to go. The pure Gospel is the protein in the whole grain, it’s the muscle that makes the Remnant strong. It’s not supposed to be holed up in four walls and a ceiling, keeping it contained. Jesus said "Go and make disciples," not "gather and convert people." Beloveds,  GOD made sure that the Temple was completely destroyed in AD 70, because the Temple was now the Holy Spirit living in us, and the Temple is meant to have arms, legs, and wheels, and it is supposed to be moving at all times.

    Satan entered the church in the very first century to begin the corruption.  Paul and Peter and Jude all mention false teachers and prophets. The doctrine of Balaam is alive and well and has been since the days in the wilderness.  Corrupt within, because an outside attack is not effective enough.  Christianity today is an offshoot of the corrupt religion invented by  Constantine.  He created his own brand of Christianity, one with the political advantage he needed.  He was just another false convert, using thw work of Yeshua for self-advancement.   He wiped clean any signs or practices of Judaism that GOD Himself ordered and commanded and outlawed all the appointed feasts and the seventh day Sabbath.  Imagine an emperor so bold as to take what GOD instituted and outlaw it in the name of Christ.  Constantine incorporated pagan practices, slapping a Christian name on them, and the corrupt papacy only added to this man-made deliniation of the Word of GOD. 

    I'm sorry to say, but evangelism has been the downfall of the church.  Satan always takes a little bit of truth and slides in his brand of lies to convince man that he is doing the right thing  Today, the church's recipe for salvation is NOT Biblically sound.  Just saying a prayer saves no one.  The only one who can initiate salvation is GOD Himself.  He decides who becomes His true children.  

John 1:

13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 6:

“Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.

63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. 65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

 

Matthew 16:

16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

Romans 9:

11(for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls),

14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

       My friends, we do not ask Jesus into our hearts.  In order for it to be a true conversion, the Holy Spirit enters our hearts before we know what's happening to us. Grace enters us in the form of conviction of our sinful state long before we invite Yeshua into our hearts. 

 

Curiosity doesn't kill cats.  

     Contrary to popular believe, curiosity doesn't actually kill cats, as a matter of fact, it saves souls, breeds life, and give hope to the despaired. It educates, seeks out truth, opens the mind, eyes and expands the horizon for the curious fellow who needs to know. For the research junkie like myself, it's my bread and butter. Curiosity cures what ails us the most, ignorance and apathy, the two worst plagues that divide humans and breads discontent.     As we have experienced these past two years, it is so much easier to believe a lie we are told over and over again, because it takes too much time and effort to search for the answers ourselves. As faulty humans with faulty reasoning, we just choose to believe what we've heard a thousand times from who we think are reliable sources. It makes sense to us, because they are experts at sounding like experts, when in all actuality, they are just propagandists.

     Many times, we are looking for someone to validate our point of view, so we will seek out only those who agree with us. We don't want to take another persona's view in mind and consider it, because that might require effort, humanity and worst of all, humility. GOD knows how much we hate to admit that we might have been wrong. There is no one who hates doing that more than yours truly. I've been stuffed with more humble pie than your average middle-ager, because I'm particularly stubborn, a trait my late mother gave me, thanks a lot mom!   It goes against everything human to swallow a dish full of humble pie, let alone an entire bakery's worth. I do not presume to be right all the time. I'm sure that I am wrong a lot. Because I've been wrong a lot and stubborn, I expect my readers to fact check and double fact check my blogs in regards to the Bible. I will include Bible passages in these blog, however, I expect you to go find them yourself. I'll give you the estimate GPS, but you will have to actually drive to that location with your fingertips. You will have to read the passages before and after to make sure that I've used the Scripture in context. In that way, you will learn the context.

   That is how I learned the Bible so well. I always wanted to prove someone wrong, so I would check out every passage I read in a blog or a book. I checked out the passages before and after, and then I checked out the historical context. That's a research junkie's curse, we can't help ourselves. We cannot learn the Bible by being lazy just taking someone's word for it, or let them spoon-feed us passages.  By not understanding the full context and historical context of the Bible, one may end up following any whack-job that calls themselves a prophet. Believe me, there are millions out there who do. One thing I have learned is that if a person is a self-proclaimed prophet, then that indeed is all they are, self-proclaiming and not GOD ordaining.

    GOD has put it on my heart to write this book, and I have stubbornly refused. Because of that stubborn streak in me, He keeps sending "spankings" from Above. If GOD spanks you, consider it a compliment from GOD. He doesn't spank those who He knows will not be humble enough to learn, or who will refuse to say those words we fight like anything to avoid, "I was wrong, now I apologize, will you forgive me?"  I hope that my blog blesses you. It is my second attempt. I had a blog for three years which got a lot of exposure and over 130K readers, and in one of my usual toddler-temper tantrums with GOD, because I couldn't get what I wanted my own way in my own time, I deleted it. So, here I am, again, starting all over, again. I plan to use much of what I wrote before, because I got the same response from people, over and over.  Please feel free to comment, good or bad. We never know how we are doing until someone either rebukes us or commends us.