Category Archives: Basic Christianity

16 tons, what do you get?

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When I was a kid, there was a pop song whose words mystified me. My dad explained that it was about an American coal miner trapped in debt slavery to the mining company he worked for. The company owned the grocery store where he bought food, and his wages were set so low that he could never earn enough to escape his debt.

The refrain went like this:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go—
I owe my soul to the company store.

My dad’s explanation was a real eye-opener for an eight-year-old. It was an inflection point in my growing awareness of basic economics and the harsh realities of this world. The singer laments that Saint Peter shouldn’t call him home to heaven because he still owes not only his bill but, in a sense, his very soul to the company store.

Bonded labor in that form no longer exists here in the United States, as far as I know. But severe poverty, often driven by heartless mercantilism, has been a reality for people throughout history. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, written in 1939, was a blistering critique of the conditions farm workers faced in California at the time—working for 25 cents a day, barely staying ahead of starvation.

In recent months, I’ve learned about a man in his late forties who has essentially been enslaved for the last 27 years. He works in a brick-making company, often putting in 14-hour days. He earns just $3 a day, in a country where that amount buys very little.

Like the song above, he owes his soul to the company store. Legally bound to his employer until his debt is paid—a debt he can never repay at such wages—he lives in a hopeless cycle. He has a wife and three children, is illiterate, and his health is failing. He is also a Christian living in a non-Christian country.

And here I sit—my air conditioner is humming, my stomach is full from a nice lunch, and I just finished my afternoon coffee. Yet my heart is troubled, because the gulf between my comparative wealth and this man’s crushing poverty feels like an unspeakable unfairness. We often say, “We live in a fallen world,” and sometimes we catch a glimpse of the depravity and injustice that are all too common.

So, what can I do? What do I plan to do? First, I can write this and share it with you, my friends. I can ask for your prayers—not only for me, but especially for this exploited man and his young family. You don’t need to know his name or his country to lift him in prayer.

And for me personally: please pray as I research and take steps toward finding ways and organizations that can help this man pay off his debt and free him from the hopeless bondage he has endured for so long. It can be done. There are ways. True, it won’t change life for the hundreds of thousands of similar Christian families trapped in the same system of “bonded labor”.

But I can still help this man and his family. I’m sure not rich but I do have enough to try at least to buy this man out of utter literal slavery and into some form of labor that will lift them up to a more endurable daily existence.

The Bible says, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so. Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Go, and come back, and tomorrow I will give it,’ when you have it with you” (Proverbs 3:27–28). And of course, there are countless more verses that carry this same truth.

I personally believe in both a social gospel and a personal gospel. Jesus “went about everywhere doing good” (Acts 10:38). At times, I feel overwhelmed and crushed by the injustice and falsehood that seem increasingly pervasive. Yet the Lord continues to show me things I can do personally—things that matter and make a difference.

Maybe I can’t right all the wrongs that glare at us daily.. But I can still do what I can. As the Lord said of one woman: “She has done what she could” (Mark 14:8).

 

You live and are dead

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It was dead. The summer heat of Texas had killed the tree I’d planted in my yard. All the leaves were brown after not being watered while I was away for a few weeks. I was both mad and sad—not only because of what it had cost me to have it planted, but also because I’m “a tree person,” the way some people are cat or dog people.

I kept watering the other new trees after I returned. But the dead one I simply forgot about. Then, after a few rains, to my surprise I saw green shoots poking out of its trunk, below where the main branches had been. Evidently there had still been life in the roots underground, even though everything above ground was completely dead. That really surprised me.

And I couldn’t help but see a spiritual parallel. Jesus of Nazareth said to some people in the book of Revelation, “You have a name; you live and are dead” (Revelation 3:1). Can you be both? How does that work?

I believe this sadly describes the condition of many people. They appear to be utterly dead spiritually—no leaves, no fruit, seemingly lifeless to the things of the Lord, even if they were once alive in Him to some degree.

I know a lot of people like this but I won’t name names. They give every impression of being estranged and indifferent to anything about God or Jesus. Often, they’ll even make sarcastic remarks if the subject comes up.

For believers, this can be discouraging—especially if they remember what that person used to be like. There’s just something heavy about death, even when it’s in “the living dead,” as Jesus described in Revelation 3.

But I’m convinced there’s often more going on than what we see. King David wrote to God, “Where shall I go from Your Spirit, or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in hell—behold, You are there” (Psalm 139:7–8).

I think some of these “dead trees” believe they’re utterly separated from the Lord. But God is  bigger than us—older, wiser, kinder, and far more powerful. An obscure verse in the Old Testament says that God devises ways “so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him” (2 Samuel 14:14).

It’s tempting to give up hope on people like this, just as I gave up on my tree. Even Jesus told the parable of the barren fig tree: after three years without fruit, the order was given to cut it down. But the gardener pleaded, “Leave it alone for one more year; I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine. If not, then cut it down” (Luke 13:7–9).

That tree in my yard has been a lesson to me about the goodness and greatness of God. “If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things” (1 John 3:20). Our own hearts condemn us because of sin, but God is greater than our sinful nature. Even though my tree looked dead, unseen life was still in the roots. And by God’s hand, it sprang back.

I believe He can do the same with people. Scripture is full of stories of those who were spiritually—and sometimes even physically—dead, yet returned to life through God’s mercy. The prodigal son was, for all intents and purposes, dead to the life he once had. But when “he came to himself,” he returned to his father, who welcomed him with open arms (Luke 15:11–32).

The lesson for me is simple: Have faith in God. If that dead tree in my yard could still have life hidden in its roots, then those who are “alive yet dead” can also be restored by the undeserved, overwhelming, omnipotent power of God. “With God, nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

Thinking about El Salvador

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I’ve been thinking about El Salvador. Anybody else? The huge prison there and the hundreds of those recently deported from the USA to prisons there, with possibly more to come. Jesus said that He was “…in prison and you visited me.” So folks said, “When were You in prison and we didn’t visit You?” And Jesus answered, “In as much as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40)

But some would say, “Mark, those are criminals! Gang members!” And others might respond, “They are someone’s son, brother, or dad.” There’s just something about the love of God and the truths of Jesus. They strongly call us to something higher than the present putrid stench of politics that too often drags us down to the worst in humanity, no matter our race, nationality, or status.

So I’m wondering, does anyone know of anyone in El Salvador who has any ministry in the prisons there? It could be local folks or foreign workers. There’s no doubt that those deported to that prison are really suffering there. Has anyone tried to visit? To bring whatever aid and cheer they are allowed to?

I’ve worked in prisons and refugee camps in Eastern Europe and did programs there for the prisoners. They are rough places and the degradation is often unspeakable. But “the greater the darkness, the greater the light.”

I’m reminded of someone I’ve worked closely with in recent years, who has been vital to my video ministry, who was in prison in their country some years back. Then they were visited by some local Christian workers while in prison. They had a miraculous transformation through the grace of God and they’ve gone on to a very beneficial Christian ministry in their non-Christian country.

Right now, the world feels so overwhelming that many of us are tempted to freeze in fear and consternation. But of course the Lord Himself doesn’t freeze up. Instead, He continues to guide and prod us along towards worthy actions that we can take to be like the woman Jesus referred to, “She has done what she could”. (Mark 14:6)

And certainly at this moment, with all the thousands of people being extradited abruptly out of America, often to prisons abroad, it just seems like there should be some of us making an effort to visit those folks, to render Christian love and aid at a time when those poor souls must be bewildered beyond belief.

So, I just wanted to share what has been on my heart. But, honestly, does anyone out there know of any prison ministry going on in El Salvador currently? If there was ever a time when the love of God should elevate us above the Godless, Christless rancor of the political present to where we could try to be the only hands and the only feet that Jesus has in this world, to get in touch with those poor young men and to show them the Love of God, well this seems to be that time. God help us, “the best ability is availability”.

Commune with your own heart

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I had a rough night. Woke up at 5 AM and started thinking about current dilemmas I’m in. I was soon wide awake and thinking hard, as well as also praying and looking to the Lord. At length I got up, took a small amount of a sleep aid and went back to bed.

But I was troubled and searching my thoughts and heart for a solution. After a while an idea kind of rose to the surface that I’d not thought of before. I was hoping for something more of a direct revelation that I could be sure was straight from the Lord.

Hours past as I eventually went back to sleep and woke somewhat refreshed. The new idea had come to look like at least a reasonable possibility which I want to try to put into action today.

But the real kicker came later this morning, after my daily devotion time, when I went out for a little prayer. A verse came to mind, “Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.“ (Psalm 4:4) It wasn’t until I got to the second part of the verse that I realized how closely it matched my experience a few hours earlier. I had been communing with my own heart upon my bed.

That realization astounded me. I guess I had never thought of it that way—that simply searching my heart in the quiet of the night could be a form of hearing from God or at least a space where He could bring ideas to mind. But that’s what had happened. And then, as I was walking outside, the Lord brought that very verse to me—an obscure one, yet perfectly fitting.

Of course there were so many “knock on” effects to this. There’s nothing more encouraging than knowing the Lord has spoken to you, even in a quiet, unexpected way. It’s easy to feel like “it’s all over now,” that your best years are behind you, and there’s nothing left but to be put ‘out to pasture’ by the Lord. But getting something from the Lord helps to dispel thoughts like this.

And then there was more. When I went back inside to add that verse to my memory system, my eyes landed directly on Psalm 4:4—already written on one of my memory cards. I had evidently memorized it some time ago. But today, the Lord led me to look directly on it as I was going through my memory system, bringing it back a second time in such a personal, unmistakable way.

Well, God’s little miracles. I really needed this. Since returning from Uganda three weeks ago, I’ve faced some intense battles in my ministry. I know I’m at a major crossroads, needing to move in new directions, but many things still feel uncertain, and I’ve been wrestling with “the big picture.”

So I just wanted to share with you this little thing I got from the Lord and how “communing with your own heart upon your bed” can be a way sometimes for the Lord to bring things to your mind, answers from Him, even though it can almost seem like “leaning to your own understanding”. (Proverbs 3:5)

Sometimes the Lord can use our good common sense and gifts of the Spirit like wisdom and knowledge, instead of any outstanding revelation, thundering down upon us from heaven. May He continue to bless us all with His presence and whispers. He’s the one who’s way out in front and knows what’s going to happen and is able to lead us and guide us and show us what to do.

“For the Lord your God, He it is that goes before you.“ (Deuteronomy 31:8)

Me and USAID

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I woke up before dawn today, reflecting on my experiences with USAID. I was at the western tip of Indonesia twenty years ago today, in the aftermath of “the Christmas Tsunami”, which claimed the lives of 155,000 people in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province.

At the time, I was an aid worker at a large, makeshift refugee camp north of the city, alongside three friends. We were doing what we could as translators for a group of Korean doctors who had just arrived to assist in the chaotic aftermath of the 9.2 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck the Acehnese coast.

I had brought a video camera with me and was capturing footage while I helped at the camp that morning. I later compiled a video of the events, which you can view on YouTube here. I recommend jumping to 15:02 in the video. The next 2 minutes there shows what I experienced with the United States aid agency USAID that day.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of excitement as people pointed to the sky. A large helicopter, with no markings, began circling low over the camp. It then landed about 100 yards away and began unloading boxes. In the video, you can see dozens of Acehnese people, along with a tall Texan friend of mine, rushing toward the helicopter to investigate.

I’ll never forget the overwhelming sense of pride I felt when I realized it was a US Navy helicopter, stationed on an aircraft carrier off the coast, unloading boxes of supplies from USAID. Young men from the camp began collecting the boxes that had been dropped from the helicopter and bringing them back to the main tent. Camp elders later distributed the aid to families of the thousands of survivors who had gathered there in their time of need.

The helicopter had no markings because Aceh province had been embroiled in a violent civil war for years. I assume the US forces wanted to avoid being identified or misunderstood in their motives. However, the aid boxes were clearly marked with “USAID,” making it evident that the US military and government were working to alleviate the suffering of the people.

Later, I learned that US helicopters were continuously ferrying doctors up and down the coast, as nearly every bridge had been destroyed by the tsunami’s three 90-foot waves.

This morning, as I thought about the current controversy surrounding USAID in the United States, those memories came flooding back. There’s a massive shake-up underway in Washington. And while I believe much of it is necessary, I also find it personally relevant, given my own experiences abroad as a Christian aid worker, often in refugee camps and orphanages.

I vividly remember the pride I felt when I saw my country’s military providing crucial aid in the wake of one of the worst natural disasters in the last century. It was a moment that reminded me of what I hope my country stands for: genuine, selfless altruism and “loving our neighbors.”

The Bible is full of calls to this kind of action. And I don’t think I’ll ever forget seeing my country represented in such a profound way, both on the ground and in the air, at the moment when help was needed most.

My belief is that the activities of USAID should not be eliminated in the ongoing government reorganization. Whether on an individual level or a national one, caring for the poor and those affected by disasters should be a fundamental part of our lives. You don’t have to be a Christian to believe in this.

In the Bible, God told Jeremiah to “root out, pull down, destroy, and throw down.” But He also told him to “build and plant.” My hope is that in this new wave sweeping our country—and even the world—we won’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. In our zeal to eliminate the bad, we mustn’t stop loving our neighbors, even sacrificially. Jesus said that the greatest among us are those who serve others.

Make America great again? I’m all for it. As Jesus said, “Whosoever will be great among you shall be your servant.”

(An added afterthought from a few days later)

Perhaps a major factor is that my experiences in Indonesia with the USAID happened 20 years ago during the time George W. Bush was President. In recent times Progressive wokism has evidently permeated the organization and skewered it into something totally different from what it was.

 

Eclipse coming my way

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I’m expecting 4 minutes of total eclipse here at my house in less than 3 days. I don’t really know what will come of it. A half million people are said to be travailing to my area to check it out and there are plenty of scare mongers who are telling everyone to stock up on groceries, gasoline and water. Actually, very many Texas counties have declared a state of emergency already in preparation for the event.

It does make sense that there could be really a whole lot of people parked on the side of the road that goes past my house. Full total eclipses are rare and that’s what will be happening here. And folks in these parts can rather easily get pretty free and rowdy so it all just remains to be seen how this will play out.

Meanwhile, the weather forecasters are saying it will be “nip and tuck” as to whether there will be clear skies enough for anyone to be able to view the eclipse. It’s supposed to happen in early afternoon and it’s not certain at all that there will be clear skies to see it. One way or the other, day will be turning to night as the full eclipse passes over here so at least we will be seeing “darkness at noon”.

I’ve thought a lot about what if anything I should write about this event that will be here where I am. Forty years ago, right at this time, I was going through perhaps the greatest “eclipse” of my personal life as my own family fell apart. And, strangely, there was a pop song that was popular right around that time called “Total eclipse of the heart”. It really somehow struck me so deeply what the words of that song said as it summed up what I was going through, so unspeakable and mostly unbearable.

I was going to make a video from my house here, linking this upcoming eclipse to my “eclipse” at this time in 1984. I decided not to do that but instead write something since so very many people in these times are going through their own “eclipses”. The light of their lives suddenly leaves them, their dearest loved one, mate, child or whoever is suddenly just not there and they’re plunged into darkness, just like a total eclipse in the middle of the day.

When that happened to me, I cried every day for 5 months. I woke up in the mornings and was crying in ten seconds. Why am I sharing this? To somehow reach out to anyone, and there are so very many, who are in a personal, mighty “eclipse of the heart”. If that’s not you right now, then perhaps you know of someone who’s life has collapsed, whose dearest loved one has left them, or their family has turned against them and they are suddenly so alone and without light or love in this world that many just give up and die.

I’m so glad I came through that time; it took around 13 months before the vast shadow that was upon my life began to lift. Maybe that’s you just now. Or someone who’s near to you in your life right now. Folks, there is an epidemic of loneliness, despair and spiritual darkness that’s descended on many millions of people around the world in these times.

But eclipses don’t last forever. Mine didn’t. Perhaps a secret for me was that I knew God and His son Jesus. And They are able to deliver us from the lowest hell. It was that faith, that God was bigger than my circumstances, that gave me the grace to just hold on and keep praying through a time like I’d never gone through before.

If it’s you, or someone you love, the secret is to hold on to faith in God. This coming eclipse to my part of the world will pass. We all take that for granted now. And I can tell you personally that if you’re in a total eclipse, a sudden darkness unlike you’ve ever seen before, then hold on. You say you can’t hold on because you don’t know God or Jesus? Then it really is a great time to get acquainted with them.

God is in control of the world and He can bring you through and out of whatever you’re going through, just the way He will bring us through this darkness that’s soon coming to my neck of the woods in central Texas. Hold on to the Lord, He can do what no other can do.

And I might add, back when I was going through my “total eclipse of the heart”, there were a few very dear friends who remained friends with me when it really looked like to most that I would shrivel away and die. But they encouraged me and did what they could to help me through that time. Would to God that all of us would remain steadfast and true friends to those we know who are in a place of darkness at this time. “A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.” Proverbs 17:17

Miracles in Europe

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Coming from an atheist background, the miracles in my life have been beacons of personal experience and sustenance. In this second audio recording, I’ve included 3 events that happened to me in the years I lived in Europe where the miraculous hand of God got me through dangerous, virtually impossible situations.

I’ve found that it’s a much quicker process to do audio recordings like this, compared to doing full 30 minute videos as I have been doing for years. So my plan is to continue to produce more of these.

I hope you find these accounts to be an inspiration and uplift to you in your life. I’d be glad to hear any feedback or reactions to these recordings from any of you. The link to the recording on YouTube can be found below.

All the best to you, your friend,

Mark

So, Mark, are you religious?

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“So, Mark, are you religious? Do you think that religion will solve the problems of the world today?”

You’ll hardly every find me using that word, “religious”. I think that word is only twice found in the Bible. I’m not religious, but I found out by severe experience that there is a spiritual world. That Satan, Lucifer is real and so is the God of the Bible.

You don’t like that? I know how you feel. But when reality and truth raised their strange heads directly into my life, then the wise thing to do was to just accept it, whether it was my former viewpoint or not.

That’s how it is for me. There is a spiritual world. The most severe, taxing, words-fail-me-to express experience of my life involved coming to find that there is a spiritual world, inhabited by good and bad spirits. And I had to make an immediate decision at that time as to which group I wanted to align myself with.

That wasn’t religion; please don’t demean me and minimalise me by using that now-hated word. But truth it was; the most fundamental battlefront and expose of truth that could happen.

I don’t come here to discuss religion but to tell you what I found from the most existential personal battle I ever experience in my 70+ years of my life. Don’t talk to me about religion. You are seriously missing the point. It’s the spiritual world I found was real and which I love to talk about, whether it be the miracles I’ve experienced or the fundamental truths I’ve based my life on since I was 21.

Face it. You are trying to trivialize me and mock me when you talk about religion. If there is a spiritual world, and that is what I found, then YOU may find that YOU’re ill-prepared and on shaky ground, if you’ve no knowledge or experience of that realty.

And probably a little “PS” needs to be added. It’s possible that someone reading this might think, “Why did he get so upset? Wasn’t that just a simple, innocent question Mark was asked?”

What I wrote above was the result of a conversation and experience I had with someone. In that situation, it was clear through the tone of voice and overall demeanor of the person I was talking to that it was not a sincere, seeking question but a snarky, veiled attempt to hang the “religious” label on me.

I can see how that question asked by someone else, seeking to understand me better and what I stand for, might have said the same thing. In that case, it would be easy to hear the sincerity in their voice and in that situation I would have answered completely differently.

 

Going to hell

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The pinnacle experience of my life was going to hell when I was 20. I’ve shied away from talking about it over the years because it was so unspeakable. But perhaps I shouldn’t.

Near-death experiences are rare and ones where the experience is a horrific one seem to be even more rare. But that’s what happened to me.

Many scoff at the idea of hell. I smile when I see things like that. Through that experience, I was delivered from severely entrenched atheism. Back then, I was an “evangelist” of atheism; I found joy in defeating weak, vacillating Christians in debate. But entering the spiritual world, utterly naked and without any protective covering that salvation in Christ gives, I experienced the full onslaught of the afterlife outside salvation.

I don’t know if I’ve ever really described that experience. Perhaps I should. You may not be able to relate to it, it may seem like gibberish to you. But life after death for someone without salvation in Jesus is going to be a very, extremely, strange world, as it was for me.

Without salvation in the afterlife, I was like a person without diving equipment, 150 meters (yards) below sea level. There was no oxygen. It was a strange, foreign world. There were beings there that were in their realm while I was not in mine. I was in extreme panic and in great confusion.

But worst of all, there was no way back. It was too late. The level of fear, confusion, despondency and utter hopelessness defies explanation in words we have in our present realm.

It’s an incredible thing to enter the spiritual world. One thing I saw so clearly is that it’s really “all by faith’. We say that glibly here in our realm. But in the spiritual world, faith is utterly the coinage of the realm. And I endlessly gasped for even a whiff of faith.

Everything there was inside out, compared to this present world we live in. Materially things there are completely secondary, if they register at all. Elements of the soul and heart are the substance of that realm and your spiritual condition is the only thing that matters.

Jesus talked about the man who came to the wedding feast without a wedding garment. (Matthew 22:12) That’s how I was. I didn’t have the garment of salvation, the transformation that makes life in eternity possible. So I was utterly unprepared to experience the spiritual world.

Did I understand all that then at that time, as I somewhat do now? No; really, really I didn’t. I was in a prolonged terror, experiencing things that I totally didn’t understand and didn’t even have words to describe what was happening to me. I had virtually no understanding of what I was experiencing or the words to describe it , which I came to find after becoming a believing Christian and reading the explanation of life that the Bible gives.

Time, as we experience it here, ceased to exist there. I was in eternity. But also in utter confusion, utter hopelessness, utter lack of truth. I do believe that this is within the element and range of what the unsaved experience in the hereafter, in hell.

The apostle Paul talked about, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord…” (II Corinthians 5:11). No, Paul was not in hell in Acts 9 but he was suddenly face to face with the Lord, who told Paul, “I am Jesus who you persecute.” Paul was utterly on the wrong side of the Lord and that was his introduction.

You don’t find many preachers talking about Paul talking about “knowing the terror of the Lord.” Talking about hell in these times is very passé. It’s just not done. It’s not cool.

Be that as it may, I feel I should speak up more about how that is what I experienced. For me, it was totally what I needed to stun, shock and sear me out of my unbelief. Nobody could talk to me. I was always the smartest guy in the room, at least in my own eyes. So the Lord let this happen, in His mercy, so that I could get a real glimpse of how very far away from the truth I was.

And truth was actually what I’d been looking for all along. So God gave me this experience, outside any contact with others, not a pastor, not my grandparents, not a church, but just me alone. And it worked.

I was so stunned, shocked and almost in unbelief that I was able to return to this realm where we all now live, after experiencing so horrific a place, that it was like some kind of Sci-Fi movie where someone comes back to this earth and world, after a prolonged absence. That might sound like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.

If this is just outside your realm of understanding, I can give you the text to two songs that rather well articulate the atmosphere of Hell. The Eagles wrote in the last words of “Hotel California”, “You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!” That’s how hell works: you can never leave.

Similarly, Bob Dylan sang in one of his songs, “There must be some kind of way outta here, said the joker to the thief, there’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.” As the song says, you look for a way out but it eludes you. Meanwhile, confusion engulfs and consumes you. Snippets and dark glimpses of hell, brought into contemporary music.

I’ve been happily encouraged through the years when I’ve read of others who’ve had near-death experiences, that they too have had very similar feelings to mine. They don’t even want to talk about it. They don’t think anyone will believe them. They struggle strongly even to find the words to describe what happened to them. It’s a very personal thing that often their friends and family can’t believe and it makes them estranged from their loved ones, since it all seems so farfetched.

I’m glad I’ve been able to put this on paper, so to speak. Experiencing hell was what it took to lay a foundational event in my life that prepared me to receive the message of salvation from young “Jesus People” a few months later. And it was this experience, that the spiritual world is fundamentally the real world, that made the decision to follow Jesus and to take up my cross in service to Him to be the only “common sense” thing that I knew was the high will of God.

This was all when I was in my early 20’s, long ago. But looking back, I see again how pivotal that experience I had in the spiritual world was, even if it was in the dark side of it. I was there, thrust there by God, because of my hardness of heart and repeated resistance to the Holy Spirit which was trying to reach out to me.

I hope this is somehow a blessing to someone. The spiritual world is real. Unbelief and atheism are your worst enemies, at least they were mine. There is no depth that God in His mercy cannot reach to find us in our worst condition and to lead us back out of that blackness, even virtual insanity, back to the glorious light that is in Him.

 

 

What has the Lord already done?

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So often Christians pray but the Lord’s already answered. Moses was almost overwhelmed by the calling he was given by God and he knew his own weaknesses. But God told him, “What is that in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2)

In Moses’ hand was his own old, personal staff. But when Moses cast it to the ground, it turned into a writhing serpent. The lesson is, so often the Lord has already given us what we need for our calling and battle. But then we don’t recognize it or even see it.

It’s just so fundamental: you’ve got to see God. In this case it doesn’t mean to see the Ancient of Days in His glory but you really do have to see what the Lord has done and is doing in your life. And I think almost all of us Christians are somewhat deaf, dumb and blind to a degree in the things of the Lord.

In one of the greatest crisis of my life, in the aftermath of my divorce, I was so much groping for understanding of it all and desperate to be free from the bitterness and hurt I felt. I knew I had some deep problems but I couldn’t find the way forward and really get any kind of handle on what the Lord was doing.

In abject desperation I looked again at the only really clear verse in the Bible that talks about bitterness, Hebrews 12:15. “Looking diligently lest any man fail the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” I had reviewed that verse so many times and so many people had shared it with me that I was almost sick of it. But still I was floundering .

Finally I thought to try to go back and squeeze that verse again, like if you do a second or third squeeze of an orange. Was there some juice in that verse I was missing? I looked again at it slowly and deeply. “Looking diligently lest any man fail the grace of God…”

What does that mean? How in the world can you “look diligently..”? But the verse goes on to say that if you don’t “look diligently”, then that is when you “fail the grace of God” and a root of bitterness springs up. Therefore it must mean that the antidote and prevention of bitterness is to “look diligently”.

It came to me that it means that you have to see God in things. You have to look and believe that there is something there from Him for you, a lesson, a way of escape, some “grace of God”, as the verse says, that can be missed if we don’t look diligently.

So I realized more deeply than ever before that we have to “see God”. We have to see the Lord in things and what He is doing, in spite of what it really looks like that people are doing. Joseph in Egypt told his brothers,

“You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20) An incredible verse and possibly one of the best examples in the Bible of someone not getting bitter because he truly “looked diligently”.  Joseph really saw the hand of God in his life, regardless of what his brothers had done to him.

We just have to do that. We have to see what is already in our hand, what has God already given us, or what has God allowed and His hand even ordained, even though it looks in the physical and temporal to be totally against us and even contrary to God’s will.

So one of the greatest things we can do or strive to try to do is to see the Lord in things. The story is told of a man in the flood, on his roof as the waters rose. Some locals came around with a boat to rescue him but the man refused, saying “No thanks, I’m trusting the Lord!” Two more times that happened and then the floods rose and the man drowned.

In heaven the man was questioning God. But God said in return, “What do you mean? I sent that boat around 3 times!” The man didn’t see what God was doing and very often we don’t either. We don’t recognize the hand of God in our lives, or His input, His answers, His provision, His outstretched hand with the answer to our needs.

God help us all to have seeing eyes and hearing ears. He’s so often already answered prayer, already answered or is answering. May He help us all to be spiritually awake enough to recognize it and to go forward with his answers and provision.