Seek wisdom, seek love, seek happiness, seek forgiveness, seek all that life has for you, expect good things,except the bad with the good, talk to God everyday, try to follow his plan for your life, don’t run from who you are and what you were made for, have one friend in life that excepts you as you are, carries no judgement, who can talk to you, guide you, and call you out, in love, when you are wrong, be a blessing to someone, give until you can’t give anymore, take time for yourself to recover, forgive those who hurt you, know that someone loves you, do good and do not do harm. These are the things I wish for you.
Category: Uncategorized
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Too Many Mind…
So I have been out of town for a time but while away I re-watched* the movie The Last Samurai. It is one of my favorites primarily because I really like the culture of that time. As I am watching it again, one part jumped off the screen at me. I won’t go into all the details of the movie so if you haven’t seen it, do, but here are some background details for context.
Tom Cruise plays Captain Nathan Algren (the movie is set around the time era of General Custer). He is hired to train the Japanese Army in modern fighting techniques. During the first battle with a Samurai clan he is captured. During his time in captivity he writes and studies the people, culture and their way of life. He eventually tries to learn their fighting techniques.
In this particular scene he is trying to learn sword fighting techniques. He has a wooden katana sword (bokken) and is up against an empty-handed opponent. There are people around watching. He goes to attack the opponent and gets the sword taken from him and he gets thrown to the ground. That is when it happens…
One of the Samurai warriors comes up to him as he is sitting on the ground and says, “So sorry, Too Many Mind.” The Captain says, “Too Many Mind?” and the warrior says, “Mind the sword, Mind the people watching, Mind the enemy, Too Many Mind…No Mind”. So the captain repeats again, “Too Many Mind” and the movie goes on. Later he uses this lesson to see what is going to happen before they happen. It also allows him, in another scene, to react without thinking and destroy the enemy. ” No mind.”
I thought of this and the movie scene during a worship service at our church one Sunday. “Too Many Mind”. I mind the sword (the gifts and weapons He has given me, I mind the people “watching” (even if they are not) and I mind the enemy (what he is saying about how messed up I am). This prevents me from seeing things as they really are. It also prevents me from reacting with the truth as I know it without thinking and to destroy the enemy of my soul.
Now I am not talking about emptying your mind in an Eastern Culture meditation kind of way. That allows the enemy to come in all the more. I am talking about emptying your mind of the distractions that prevent us from seeing things with God as they really are. If you are His then you have relationship. He is always there “I will never leave you, nor forsake you”. It is up to us to lay things aside which distract us from that fact. Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”.
If you are His, He will give you the gifts you need to accomplish all He has for you. If you are His, He will give you the weapons you need to fight the enemy. If you are His then He will show you things as they really are. If you are His then He will show you how to react without thinking, thus destroying the enemy. If you are His…
Now when I try to enter His presence and get distracted, I will hear a gentle reminder saying, “So Sorry, Too Many Mind…No Mind”. Or as we say in the military, “it’s mind over matter, if you don’t mind, it don’t matter”.
*Re-watched is probably not a real word but I am known for making words up and it fits so…
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A time for everything…
As I get closer to a mid-point in my life I reflect on all that I have been through and accomplished. All the love and mercy and grace that God has shown me. And the times of His patience with me. All of the times He has walked with me and guided me even when I didn’t know it.
These are my life verses. I believe them now more than ever…
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven –
A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and time to build up.
A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace. -
Preexisting Condition
If you have seen the news recently, you know there is a lot of talk about the Health Care System in America. The media is all abuzz about cost and the political aspects of the new reform that was recently passed. One area of Health Care that I particularly interests me is in the area of “Preexisting Condition”. My wife Emily and I recently had a battle with our insurance company as they tried to deny coverage for some doctor’s visits due to what they determined/tried to determine as a “preexisting condition”. I was disappointed because I thought this is why I pay for coverage. We even had to go so far as to contact an attorney (an advocate) to get the bills paid. We contacted someone who had more knowledge than we did. Someone who could use his authority to make sure we were covered. That made me think, don’t we all have a preexisting condition?
Ever since Adam sinned by disobeying God in the Garden of Eden, man has been born into sin. Sin is a preexisting condition. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. I heard a Pastor say all means all and that’s all all means. So we all have this condition and like the insurance companies, God in His holiness must deny us coverage. We owe a debt, we have a bill we can’t pay and when we turn that in to God our way and He must deny the payment. However, unlike the insurance companies who just expect payment and continue to deny your coverage, God, has through the Lord Jesus Christ, provided a payment and the ultimate coverage. A payment for a bill we could never pay. Payment for our shortfalls, coverage for our preexisting condition. We have an advocate in Jesus who argues our case because He paid the bill for us. He uses His authority to make sure we are covered.
Are you covered today? A coverage that money can’t buy, that you can’t earn? Coverage for your preexisting condition? Oh, you have one. “For all have sinned”. Romans also says, “that the wages for sin is death”. You will, after this life, spend eternity somewhere. It will either be in Heaven with God or Hell eternally separated from Him. The choice is yours. Your bill has been paid. Your coverage is fully able to protect you but you must choose it. Romans 10:9-11 “…if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation”. For the scripture says, whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed. Believe in Him, remove your disappointment, get coverage for your preexisting condition.
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Healing in the Blood
Last night as I sat in my chair our cat Mocha came up and got in my lap. It is not usual for him. He likes to lay on my chest as I recline and watch TV. He lays there as if to say, “I trust you have all of this under control and I want to be next to you”. Now Mocha has an interesting quality about him. Really he is skittish. He easily freaks out about things like sudden movements and noises. He can go from relaxed with not a care in the world to crazy in less than a second. Well as he sat in my lap I got the feeling he was going to move so I tried to shift around to make it easier on him, and stay away from his claws, but when I did he “freaked out”, no surprise there, and stepped on my hand as he leaped to the foot stool nearby. Of course a cat has claws and that caused two ugly looking scratches on my hand. I couldn’t get mad at him because, one it wouldn’t do any good, if you have ever owned cats you know what I mean and two his actions weren’t outside his nature. My hand of course, started to bleed so I went to the bathroom and rinsed out the wound. As I watched my hand bleed, I was reminded that, there is healing in the blood…
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Ok back to one part
This morning I was working on a post that I thought would take two parts. Turns out it didn’t.