Seeing light through the mists

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Without God, life can be like being nibbled to death by ducks. The enemies of our soul want to exhaust you and wear you down with distractions, vanities, “rabbit trails” and meaninglessness. Without God, you ultimately crumble, surrender to the fog and become numb within the mists you’ve come to live in. Certainly, this is not the will of God.

But then tonight, it was like a fresh wind from God that blew through the house. We watched the movie about the “Free Burma Rangers”. It’s the story of a man from Texas who was raised on the mission field of Thailand but then felt led to become a soldier. After having become an elite “Rangers” member of the US military, he felt the call of God to use his training and Christian/military background to help the marginalized peoples of Burma.

It specially spoke to me as this man, with his wife and 3 children beside him, has lived a life of zealous Christian discipleship which has been similar to what I’ve experienced at times in my life on the mission field.

This movie touched me on so many levels. While I‘ve not had exactly the same life as this man and his family, I could very much relate to their commitment to the Lord and their willingness to put their lives on the line for Him in very extreme situations in the hinterland of Myanmar (Burma) for years and then in northern Iraq at the height of the ISIS threat there.

It made me reflect on where I’m at now. I’m still amazed at what the Lord has done in the last year to make it possible for me to get the first house I’ve ever owned in my life, against the backdrop of a crazy housing market in central Texas at this time. Plus the Lord has put me together with a couple I met barely a year ago who now rent two rooms from me here who I get along with very well and with whom I share a background of Christian discipleship faith. So “the Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad.” (Psalm 126:3)

At the same time, this movie about these dedicated people at the very front of Christian discipleship in Burma and Iraq helped remind me to not “sit at ease in Zion” (Amos 6:1), as is so normal and acceptable to do here in Christian circles in America. The movie reminded me of my calling and background, my experience and all that the Lord has invested in me and all I can still be used by Him to do, if I will be cautious to not get comfortable and settled in this present wonderful situation I’m in.

Desperation often brings on a clarity that comfort and ease really doesn’t. There’s so much confusion and vanity that every person here in my country is mightily assailed by every day. It’s like living in mists that effectively obscure spiritual realties. So we can end up quibbling about trifles while the starkest realities of the spiritual world mostly escape us in all the Babylonian chatter of our daily lives.

But this movie tonight about this dear, precious man was a bit of a shakeup and a reminder of my calling and life up to this time. Jesus said, “No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62) Or it’s like the old prophet and the young prophet (Kings 13). The young prophet was really going great for the Lord. But then he took time out to rest under the shade of a tree, in direct disobedience to God, and this was his undoing.

One of the greatest dangers to Christians in my country is the incredible surge of sickening swill and sludge that flows at us night and day through every organ of the media. It’s virtually all tainted, brackish and deeply polluted by any number of agendas and outlets, trying to sell you their viewpoint or product.

Strange as it may seem, counter-intuitive as you might think it to be, those dear people in the jungles of Burma or the poor souls who were assailed for years by ISIS in Iraq and Syria had a leg up on many of us here. Because they didn’t have to try to sort out reality from fiction. The enemy was right there, real and clear and in their faces, ready to literally kill them physically right then.

It wonderfully concentrates the mind in situations like that. I haven’t experienced it a lot but I definitely have from time to time in my encounters on some far flung mission fields. It quickens you, clears your mind and mostly gets you very desperate as you are face to face with forces greater than you. And you realize perhaps as much as ever before how very much you desperately need at that moment the presence and power of God. Or you may die in the next minute. [Here’s an article I wrote about when I was about to venture into a city on the Syrian border when ISIS was at its peak and how desperate prayer was a life or death matter.]

But are most people in my country experiencing that right now? No. Sadly another manifestation of Satan assails them and for the most part utterly defeats them: lulling distractions, “the pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25), meaningless political debates and diverse vanities that suck the air out of our lives and the clarity of the Spirit out of our hearts.

It was a real wake up call for me tonight to watch “Free Burma Rangers”. I’d better not get drawn in to the allurements and futility of “this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4), but instead keep my eyes on the Lord and my commitment to His cause.

 

Hindi Video: “इतिहास में भविष्यवाणी की शक्ति”

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I’ve been able to complete in Hindi the beginning video in the Prophecies of Daniel series, which in English is called “An Introduction to Prophecy in History”.

For many people, Biblical prophecy is something they’ve never heard of and have no knowledge of. In the video I try to introduce this phenomenon as it frequently was seen in the history of ancient Israel. This class also sets the stage and background with the history of ancient Israel, against which chapters in Daniel repeatedly foretell the future to come. The video can be seen at this link:

A note on the tenor of the times

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Many of us know just how fast and far things have plunged into darkness. The whole trend of light being called darkness, truth being called a lie and love being called hate has already permeated the society I live in and is almost taken for granted in everyone’s lives.

One example stood out to me tonight, not even that much of a major but I was seeing it as an endemic example of the times we’re living in. I was reading about “fat shaming”, maybe you’ve heard of that. Simply put, someone ends up saying something to someone who has become “morbidly obese.”

There’s another relatively new word. When I was a kid, I had a good friend and his grandfather weighed 300 pounds (about 135 kilos). It was the kind of thing you said under your breath. That was the outside edge of what anyone ever weighed when I was 12 years old. Nowadays that’s pretty much within the range of normal here.

But the issue is that to say anything, to even “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) to someone who’s been unable to restrain themselves and who has become morbidly obese, this effort to say anything to that person is now called “fat shaming”. I don’t know if it has become a felony yet but I could certainly see how that could happen.

Maybe I’m old fashioned but I don’t see it as being wrong to try to find a way, in sincere and humble truth, love and wisdom, to speak to someone who’s been overcome by their physical desires to the extent to which they’ve become vastly overweight. Certainly here in America this has gone on to the extent to which it is not even mentioned or almost even noticed. It’s not unusual to see people weighing 300 to 600 pounds (about 270 kilos), barely able to carry themselves about because of their girth.

Of course for Christians and actually for everyone, it should go without saying that to tease, mock or in any way make someone feel condemned for their looks or their weaknesses, this is not what I am talking about. Jesus taught love and love is totally different from mean-spirited taunting and teasing.

But it’s now a negative thing for anyone to say or do anything to help any of these people to try to be delivered from this dilemma. You’ll be accused of “fat shaming”. Honesty, I don’t even know if this article will survive the surveillance of the internet powers that be as this may be a bridge to far in the way of social/Christian commentary and observation. Possibly therefore it may be banned from the platform. Being “deplatformed” is the risk one runs for making comments like this.

But, are we “our brother’s keeper”? It’s a fundamental tenet of the New Testament that we are.  And we are to speak up in order to be a help to others who are struggling with human weaknesses, whatever they may be. Obesity is a leading cause around the world of a shortened life span.

When someone suffers an early death because of struggles with any number of cravings and addictions, it’s not just the victim that dies. They often have children, parents, brothers and sisters or friends who miss them dearly as their life is snuffed out prematurely through their “flesh”, as the Bible calls it, getting the best of them and ruling their lives.

But in the modern atmosphere, if any of us speak up, we’re likely to be called out as the guilty ones, guilty of “shaming” someone which is seen as a modern aggression, when actually it’s an effort to admonish and reason with someone who’s been “overtaken with a fault” (Galatians 6:1).

What’s the point? None really, but just an observation, a reflection on the deeply perverse nature of this time that to do good, to try to help recover someone from a series of choices and a lifestyle which can easily mean their death, to do that is seen as an affront and an aggression against the poor soul that needs someone to speak lovingly but plainly about how their choices are leading them to destruction.

Quite possibly some reading this know exactly what I’m talking about. What I’m presenting here is not even that much of a big issue. But it just fades into the overall bedarkening of our times where, on the right hand and the left, the Christian voice of conscience is powerfully hushed by the tenor of the times, the mood of “tolerance”, a mood of independence to the neglect of responsibility and of where doing basic Christian good can now be framed as ethical, moral evil, even to the extent of being criminal.

Christians everywhere are being confounded by these kinds of confrontations in their lives to what the simple prompting of the Holy Spirit would lead them to do. Common decency and brotherly love would lead someone to speak up to a friend or loved one to bring to their attention their being defeated by the desires of their flesh. But in these times, to do that is to invite strong censure from the society which tries to frame that as aggressive cruelty, rather than an act of loving kindness. And this kind of thing is seen everywhere.

What can anyone do? For one, they can recognize it. We are our brother’s keeper. Lovingly admonishing another in order to try to help them is the will of God and is a natural product of common, even human love for another.

As the darkness deepens, it will be decisions like these (against the mood of the times) that will be necessary for true Christians to make, if they’re to follow the leadings of the Lord through the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. God help us all.

Not easily satisfied

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Often, we’re not easily satisfied. The general of an ancient king came to a prophet to be healed. The prophet didn’t even go out to meet him. Instead he sent a messenger to tell the general to go wash in a small, muddy local river. The general was incensed. “Is that all?” seemed to be the question of his heart.

Scripture explains the incident like this. “But the general was very angry and went away saying, ‘I thought surely the prophet would come out to me and stand, calling on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, recovering the leper.’”

Continuing his complaint, the general said, “Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.”

This gets to be rather like what I wrote about in “Does God have a sense of Humor?” We can look at it now and smile at the petulant, pompous commander in his fit of pique. What a patient and loving God we have who could have just gotten fed up with the situation and struck the general dead on the spot. But instead, the Lord allowed the general’s servants to admonish and reason with the him.

The Bible says, “The general’s servants came near and spoke to him, saying, “My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? How much rather then, when he said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean‘”?

And it all turned out to have a happy ending. Scripture goes on to say, “Then the general went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan River, according to the saying of the man of God. And the king’s flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child and he was clean.” This is all found in II Kings 5:10-14.

How about you? For that matter, how about me? I’ll admit that I may at times have a little of the attitude of that ancient military commander, Lord help and deliver me. There are times when I want to see some mighty moving of the hand of God in my life or in the world, when instead the message that comes back from heaven is rather like what it says in Zachariah, “despise not the day of small things.” (Zach. 4:10)

When Elijah was on the mountain and it was rent with fire and storm, the Bible goes on to say that the Lord wasn’t in either of those. But then, after the fire and storm, the Bible says that Elijah heard a “still, small voice”. (I Kings 19:12)

Some of us want the storm. I wrote about that recently in “Before the storm”. I don’t think that’s bad in itself. Jesus even named two of his top disciples, “Boanerges” which meant, “sons of thunder”.  (Mark 3:17)

But for all the times in our lives when we are swept up in the mighty power of the Lord, in huge reapings or winings of souls across a nation, miraculous healings, astounding revelations and life changing events, you have to admit that the majority of the time that’s just not how things usually go for most of us.

More often we are to be about our Father’s business in meaningful but simple daily tasks, whether they be physical or spiritual. But it’s easy for some of us to let dissatisfaction creep in. The Bible talks about “patient continuance in well doing” (Romans 2:7). But then we are tempted to “grow weary and faint in our minds” (Hebrews 12:3).

The Bible says, “Moreover it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful” (I Cor. 4:2). But our own wayward heart can find fault in this. We can find the temptation to boredom springing up in the garden of our heart. We can be like the people the Bible talks about who say, “‘My Lord delays his coming’ and they began to eat and drink and be merry” (Luke 12:45).

I wonder if Jesus was ever tempted with anything like this? It says He was “in all points tempted like we are” (Hebrews 4:15). But then I’m struck by the simple adverb that’s repeatedly used to describe the Lord towards the end of His time on this earth, “He set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51)

Steadfast. Not bored, not cynical, not jaded or double-minded, not weary in well doing and fainting in His mind.

Maybe the Holy Spirit is saying to some of us today what the king’s servants said to him long ago, “My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much rather then, when he said to you, “Wash, and be clean?”

We, or perhaps I should just speak for myself, I need to steadfastly continue in all the Lord has already shown me I should be doing, all that He has opened the door for and gotten started already. It’s not smart in any way to get impatient or dissatisfied with the ways of the Lord. It’s good to stay desperate with Him and to desire to stay close to Him. But the main thing is to continue to obey, follow and be satisfied with what He has been directing personally in our lives, as we delight ourselves in Him.

Continue in the things you have known

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Sometimes you don’t know what to do. You seem to be in fog. You become uncertain about your direction and even your vision and goals. I’ve been like that. And tonight I had to really go out and pray about it.

In these times there is a major cacophony of voices and proponents, fervently pointing to what they feel is the way forward. Meanwhile for most folks, it’s like what the verse says about “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision” (Joel 3:14). What really is the way forward? Who actually does have the high ground when it comes to truth, relevancy and anything close to the voice of God and His love, truth and reason in these strange times?

I’ve been troubled and somewhat weighted down by these things for some months. Meanwhile I’ve been very embroiled in the physical side of making a move and buying house for the first time. I know it’s been the Lord and amazing things have worked out.

But it gets to be a little like what the apostles said in Acts chapter 6, “It is not right that we leave the word of God and serve tables.” (Acts 6:2) There are times when every person is called to just simply take care of things and of other people physically. But usually the Lord doesn’t want that to become our preoccupation. He has other things that are more pressing for the work of the Kingdom of God for us and I’ve certainly been feeling that.

Sometimes we just lose the thread, lose the rhythm and the pace of our lives , lose what we feel the Lord is really leading and doing and what His highest and best is. It’s been that way for me for a while as I try to turn back to more of the will of God overall after months of consolidating this new housing change.

If you’re used to trying to maintain a relatively close link with the Lord, trying to abide in that place where you feel the Lord is leading you presently and specifically, then it can be a troubling thing to feel you’ve not heard clearly from the Lord for some time about what exactly He has for you. Of course some Christians, perhaps many, have never really been taught to try to have that kind of relationship with the Lord.

But for those who’ve had a lifetime of Christian service, you just take it on board that you need to do what you can to maintain a continuing link with the Lord through prayer, where you feel and know you’ve really continued to hear from the Lord personally, His answers coming back to you in response to your desperate prayers.

There are so many verses on this. One of my favorites is “Call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you know not.” (Jeremiah 33:3). I was in a new Sunday school class last week and there was something in the lesson that opposed the idea of “name it and claim it” when it comes to Scripture. So I felt led to pipe up and say that actually there are times when we can and should claim and appropriate Scripture, bringing it before the Lord and claiming a verse in His Word that it will be fulfilled in our lives.

So I personally believe and live by the knowledge that we can get personal answers to prayer, directions, response, feedback and basic communications personally from the Lord to lead our lives and answer our prayers and needs.

That’s what happened tonight. I just really needed to get some response back, some direction from Him as He has done so regularly in my life for decades. I was looking for clarity, direction, some setting of the tone, some flash of lightning on what has been becoming an increasingly dark night.

And the Lord responded. Nothing shocking or profound but as is often the case, rather reasonable and what was almost common sense but also filled with wisdom, peace and strength. It could be boiled down to the verse which says something like “Continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of”(II Timothy 3:14) . The Lord was telling me that I should just continue in all He’s been telling me to do for months and years now. All the projects that He has gotten me started on but that are far from finished, all the articles, all the videos, all the leadings and new directions which He’s already set me in motion towards which I’ve not in any way finished.

“The slothful man roasts not that which he took in hunting, but the substance of the diligent man is precious.” (Proverbs 12:27) I’ve got a lot of stuff like that. Unfinished videos, nearly done, which could be a help to so many people, in over a dozen languages. Articles unfinished, directions that Lord has pointed me down, all of which are like “half baked cakes” which means there is still plenty more to just do what the Lord has already shown me to do for some time now.

It was refreshing to get this feedback from the Lord. I need to continue in what He’s already shown me to do. I don’t have to have some new revelation at this time. If I’ll just continue with all the Lord has shown me already, all that He’s done already, then I will stay on track and continue to proceed towards these visions and goals.

“Then shall we know if we continue on to know the Lord.” (Hosea 6:3) This was a help to give me a little nudge and encouragement to continue to go forward with all the truth, love and direction that I have had already from the Lord. And probably, further down the line as I go forward for Him, He will show me even more. I feel better now, ha!

Just a little false

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The devil fought me for hours. I was asleep and kept having these strong experiences, not really terrifying but just false. I knew it was some alternative reality that was upon me and I resisted it. I even quoted Bible verses to defy the things my mind was seeing in my sleep.

Yes, you can quote verses in your sleep and you should if you need to. But this just kept happening and coming back. I’d wake up and quote the Word to resist and wash away the things I’d seen in my sleep. Then I was so tired I fell back asleep and there was a new alternative reality, almost like a rabbit hole I fell down. It wasn’t really super bad, just that I knew it was false.

The Bible says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) So much truth in that verse. But sometimes you have to keep up your resistance. You have to keep fighting, keep praying and keep quoting Scripture. This went on last night for quite a while with me.

And the funny thing is, it wasn’t just all blood-curdling, heart-stopping terror. It was just a false reality that was mixed with confusion that kept trying to take over my mind, my heart and my sleep, very persistently.

Finally some hellish imps appeared in my dream. They seemed like people but they were taunting me and challenging me. I had to fight emphatically in my dream and I thrust forward towards one of them as I called on the name of Jesus and quoted Scripture. Of course they disappeared and were defeated. And then again I woke up.

It’s not the first time this has happened; it doesn’t happen much but I suppose it’s the price of being on the wall of discipleship for the Lord, that from time to time the enemy will try to break in and attack us when and if he can. I’m not certain I really prayed over my sleep last night before I went to bed, as I should have and usually do.

Also I’m about to launch out on another activity abroad and I’m sure the devil doesn’t want me to. So, it comes with the territory. Those of us who are trying to be fighters for the Lord, part of the spiritual army of the Lord, living for Him in this world, can just expect to experience opposition, even the kind that comes with spiritual attacks in the night.

Then today at the end of the day, I had a really funny thought. I was recounting how the experience in the dream was before I woke up this morning and the nature of it all. And I remembered that it actually was not just some kind of horrific deviltry and gruesome wickedness I was seeing in my dream. It was just definite falsehood. It was some kind of alternative reality that I recognized as not having the essence of truth to it.

And tonight it dawned on me, “Well, that’s the way things are now in many ways.”

Here in the “civilized” West and North, we are not experiencing what the poor people in Syria or parts of Africa are experiencing, the violence, the anarchy, the collapse of civilization and the prolonged mayhem that grips many parts of the world.

But on the other hand, we here are strongly, persistently attacked every day by vehement falsehood, parading as some inside information, some “truth” that only that source has access to. Like my dream last night, it wasn’t horrific, just definitely false. And if I had not fought it and resisted it, it would have been the reality I would have accepted.

But I knew in the deepest place in my heart, even though I was asleep, that something was wrong with it. It didn’t have the ring of truth that I knew from many years of experience in the Lord’s service. It didn’t even have the elements of Godly dreams when the Holy Spirit can open our eyes and mind to His truths when our spirits are more sensitive when we are asleep.

It was just blatant falsehood. But very persistent. I had to keep continuing to resist it and to not accept what I was seeing in my night hours. The Bible says, “The Spirit bears witness with our spirit…” (Romans 8:16) We just get “the witness of the Spirit” sometimes. Or we don’t get the witness of the Spirit. And if we are in tune and experienced in these things, we notice that we don’t get the witness of the Spirit.

That can happen in your sleep or when you are awake and perusing the issues of the day and our times. Some of it is not really horrific, it’s just false. It is not confirmed by “the Spirit of Truth” (John 16:13). But if you are not paying attention to the checks you are getting in your heart, you can miss the signals of the Lord and not recognize that falsehood is before you and trying to take a place in your heart and mind.

So watch out for plain “not-so-bad” falsehood. The devil shouldn’t have to show what you think is his very worst before you recognize it for what it is. We should have enough of the presence of God in us to recognize falsehood, even if it “isn’t so bad”. That seems to me what is before so many of us in these times.

The need is very great for greater discernment and a willingness to not accept falsehood, even if it is pretty polished, kind of reasonable and is even selling itself as trying to expose some evil. God help us to recognize the attacks and devices of the enemy and not accept counterfeits or substitutes for the truth and reality we have within the Word of God and the life we have in Christ.

 

From Atheist to Believer

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Here’s a 20 minute video where I share about my early life and a near-death experience I had in university that God used to deliver me from entrenched atheism. This filming was done impromptu and unscripted so in places I jump from one thought to another, plus some parts are still difficult to talk about or explain. I hope it is a blessing in some way.

 

Friends

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Friends. I’ve never really thought deeply about that word. We say it, use it, but seldom deeply look into it. Churchill’s friendship with Roosevelt was a bedrock of the alliance between Great Britain and the USA which were able to overcome Nazi German nearly 80 years ago.

That’s all mostly forgotten in these times. But so often it really did come down to the friendship, trust, and accord between two men of that time that radically and utterly changed the course of history, without which many of us, if we were even alive, would now be speaking German or Japanese. Really.

Churchill repeatedly stressed his personal friendship and camaraderie with Roosevelt in those times and, from reading Churchill’s 5 volume tomb on the history of World War II, I utterly believe that is true. In a very personal telegram from on March 18, 1945, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt, “Our friendship is the rock on which I build the future of the world, as long as I am one of the builders.” Roosevelt passed on to his heavenly reward less than 4 weeks later.

Who examines friendship? Who studies it or delves into its being or interworking? I can say I’ve never read much about that. I’m a Christian and I often revert to the words of Jesus. He said to His 12 followers, “I have called you friends.” (John 15:15) Honestly, I’ve never in my life really thought about that. I’ve just taken that word and concept for granted as something we all understand.

But right now in what I’m reading in Churchill’s history, it is at an extremely pregnant moment. It’s early 1945. Allied forces have already crossed the Rhine River into Germany and are focused on reaching Berlin to end World War II. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin have met in the Crimea to discuss the aftermath of WWII and how the world will be governed afterwards.

Suddenly a dark cloud appears in the earlier relative camaraderie and unity that existed between the leaders of Britain, the USA and the USSR. Poland in particular is falling more and more under the rule of what Churchill sees as utterly Soviet puppets, “the Lublin committee” who were totally in the Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist camp. These ones rejected any other group but their own being a part of the new Polish government, something totally at odds with the agreements between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta in the Crimea a few months before.

In what could be considered a measured desperation, Churchill kept sending communications to Roosevelt, his trusted and true friend, to try to head off what Churchill could see was happening. But something had changed. Evidently it was a result of Roosevelt’s steeply declining health at this time. Churchill came to realize that the communications between him and Roosevelt were not the same as before and he felt that what he was hearing back was no longer really and truly from Roosevelt personally.

Like a movie where 75% through it the plot suddenly changes and there’s a deep twist into the unforeseen and the unfortunate, Stalin of Russia turns from the agreements between the 3 men a few months before. Churchill implores Roosevelt to intervene, to try to get things back to what the three world leaders had agreed on at the Yalta conference.

But it was not to be. As the German Nazi menace moved towards a final defeat, a new danger and darkness arose, not totally unforeseen but certainly hoped against as Churchill had gone the extra mile over and over again to try to establish a friendship and trust between himself and Stalin, as well as the Soviet foreign minister Molotov.

But it was not to be. Stalin, following the self-interest of Soviet, Marxist/Leninist doctrine, did not stay true to the agreements made with Churchill and Roosevelt at Yalta. And Roosevelt himself was entering into the last months of his life. Churchill writes that he felt an ominous chill upon his soul at this time to foresee what was arising before him, even as World War II was reaching its conclusion.

I’ve been struck by how much weight and significance Churchill put on friendship as being a rock for him in the war years.

He and Roosevelt really liked each other and enjoyed each other’s company. They mostly saw eye to eye on the affairs of WWII and Roosevelt truly respected Great Britain and Churchill in how Britain, led by Churchill, almost single-handedly stood up against Hitlerian Germany all through the early war years, when basically only Britain was left undefeated in Europe and the USA had not entered the war yet.

It’s an incredible read and I never saw how much it came down to friendship, the friendship and trust between Roosevelt and Churchill and even the bond that was able to be forged for a while at least between Churchill, Roosevelt and to a surprising degree, the leader of Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin.

Maybe I need to appreciate friendship more. Evidently Jesus certainly did. He said, “I have not called you servants but friends.” We can’t comprehend this. The very Son of God, having come down from heaven, saying this to bumbling, uncouth fishermen and the “unlearned and ignorant men” (Acts 4:12) who the Lord chose to be His followers.

I think I’ve never really thought about friendship as much as tonight. Winston Churchill was having the truth dawn on him that his dear personal friend, the President of the United States, was quickly fading from relevance as his health rapidly declined. And Churchill’s bond with Stalin was also unraveling as Poland, Romania and other countries increasingly came under the dictatorship of Soviet Communism even before World War II ended.

How many know that Churchill was the one who coined the phrase, “the Iron Curtain”, the most well-known axiom for the annexation of eastern Europe by Soviet Russia at the end of World War II? Churchill’s “Sinews of Peace” address of 5 March 1946 used the term “iron curtain” in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. Church said,

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

In my growing up, “the Iron Curtain” was heard in the news almost every day. To Churchill, it must have been a real and unforeseen nightmare that he did all he could to withstand.  But his coalition of friends which he worked so hard to forge and keep together unraveled in the last months of World War II.

Friendship. How deep and important it is. How unappreciated, how unstudied, how foundational it can be in the most significant affairs of each of our lives. What a shocking tragedy it is when it unexpectedly ends. Jesus had His Judas. We hear of Quisling of Norway or Benedict Arnold.

Or Ahitophel who turned against king David of Israel. King David said,

“My own familiar friend in whom I trusted. We took sweet council together and walked into the house of God.” (Psalm 41:9 & 55:15) The psalm goes on to describe the treachery of this friend of David

What can we say? Hopefully we can appreciate our friends, love them, value them, cultivate them, cherish them. That’s what I’ve been learning from the unfolding of events and the ending of the relationships between Churchill , Roosevelt and Stalin at the end of World War II. Churchill called his ending book on the history of World War II, “Triumph and Tragedy”. How truly fitting that title is.

A Bible verse I often think of is, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21) In World War II, Churchill, Roosevelt and even Stalin banded together to do just that, to not be overcome of the Nazi evil but to overcome it with the good of their united stand, based so much on the bond of personal friendship between the three of them which at least lasted long enough to overcome the indescribable Nazi horror of those times.

On a Personal Note

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Maybe I should write an update about my personal life. Lots has been happening. I last wrote a post about personal matters when I was in Brazil 2 years ago. Back then I was on a trip to Rio and Sao Paulo to do recordings in Portuguese for the Prophecies of Daniel videos. The first Portuguese video I did went on YouTube in the fall of 2019, a very fulfilling milestone for me in the work I was doing to get these into foreign languages.

But a funny thing happened. Around that time I felt prompted from the Lord that I should begin to turn back towards completing the Prophecies of Daniel series in English, doing videos in English on Daniel chapters 10 through 12. I had last done videos in English when I completed the second video on Daniel chapter 9, back 5 years earlier.

Then as I prepared to film the Daniel 10 video in early 2020, I began to go through what the whole world was experiencing at that time: the impact of the global Corona virus pandemic. Although some dear friends of mine got sick with it, even friends who lived very close to me, I’ve stayed healthy through it all and I personally know only a handful of friends who’ve died of the virus.

One thing the pandemic did was to increase the social isolation that I’d been experiencing for the last 5 years or so. And maybe I should tell you how that affected me as I don’t want to make this just about what’s been getting done but also what’s been happening in my life, even my personal life.

Through 2020 I was concentrated on getting the 4 videos done that would complete the Daniel series in English. I stayed very focused, possibly too focused on getting these done, including all the myriad details that go into each one. And the Lord blessedly raised up some dear friends in the Houston area who were able to do the filming on the videos, which they did well and the end product was coming out nice.

By the fall of 2020 I was filming on the third of the 4 videos that were to be done. But inside I felt like I was drying up. Between the Corona virus restrictions and my own super-focused work on finishing the English videos, I just felt like something, perhaps many things were missing in my life.

So one afternoon in Houston, I guess I sort of “had it out with the Lord”. I told Him I felt like I just couldn’t go on with the regime and pace that I’d been having and that I needed a more well-rounded life, more social interaction with real people, not just in cyberspace, and a better balance between work and all the other aspects of life.

It was almost like the Lord had been waiting for me to pray that prayer. Immediately I got the strong impression that I should finish the rest of the English videos on Daniel and then make a real effort to move back to Austin and get my own place. I’d been living rurally for nearly 5 years northeast of San Antonio with some dear friends, renting a room from them. But I had established very little in the way of a personal life there and what I did have still revolved around visiting Austin, well over an hour away up the freeway.

In January of 2021, the last video in the series, the Daniel 12 video, went up on YouTube. It was the longest one I’ve ever done and one I enjoyed very much. Then, right after that, I turned my attention towards what the Lord had pointed out to me was my next step: moving back to Austin and getting my own place there. And, truly amazingly, in 5 months time I was moving into this wonderful house that I now live in.

Even in normal times that would be pretty quick but any of you who are familiar with the Austin housing market right now know what a marvel that is. Prices in the area are so high now that it’s becoming a regularly reported subject in the news in the States. But the Lord raised up a very helpful real estate agent from the Sunday school group I’ve known in Austin for years and she really came through, helping me navigate all the hoops and hurdles.

It’s been incredible to get the place I have in the circumstances and conditions of the present. I don’t say “it’s just right” very often but I do think this is appropriate here. And just to show the Lord’s love in all this, the property is covered with trees and I’ve always liked gardening and things like that. Back in January I put a request out to friends for their prayers that the Lord would provide a good house for me; thanks so much for the many of you who prayed for this.

So, “the Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad.” (Psalm 126:3) Meanwhile, I haven’t visited my kids and grandkids in Scandinavia in 2 years, because of the pandemic. And efforts in recent days to see if I can now visit over there haven’t gone well, mainly because the travel restrictions to Norway are still very daunting and I’m literally not allowed to go there, even though I have been vaccinated. I’m hoping and praying that there will be a easing of the restrictions soon so that I can see all of them again, including a new grandson who I have never seen.

And I’m not really finished with the videos yet. I have 13 foreign language videos which were recorded in my travels abroad between 2015 and 2019 that have not been finalized. I still have a lot of work to do just to complete these ones that are already well along the way.

This move and recent events have all been a major “sea change” in my life, one that has been very needed and also rather surprising in how well it has all gone. Sometimes the Lord does “exceedingly abundantly, above all we ask or thing.” (Ephesians 3:20) I’ve got a lot to be thankful for.

Before the storm

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Some of us are like water drops, before the storm. We’ve been in storms before. Now, we’re just floating around, tiny droplets who before were parts of mighty storms. But only God can do it. Storms, when they’re from God, are good. They bring rain and wind, they clear the air and actually shake things up, something that’s so often needed.

Then what? The storm passes and the clouds recede. Often calm returns. I don’t know if water drops have thoughts like this, I suppose they don’t.

But maybe somewhere someone wants to be part of a storm again. They have the vision for it; they feel it’s what they’re created for. The calm and mundane bore them and almost get on their nerves. They long to be part of the storm, part of the change, part of the shake-up, part of the revelation and part of the exposure of drooping, languid regularity that so often leads to lethargy and lassitude.

That’s how I am at least. I’ve been a part of storms all my life, often some really big ones. It was a storm of God that brought me to Jesus, the “Jesus movement” that was so powerful when I was in university and was an integral part of how I came to salvation.

I’ve seen the good they do, the stupor they shock, the indifferent indolence they overcome. “The Lord has his way in the whirl wind and the storm.” (Nahum 1:3) I wrote a blog article about that verse after a tornado passed directly over my parents’ house where I was a few years ago. You can read about that here.

But if we just go around trying to be storms, we’ll make a fool of ourselves and amount to nothing. The Lord has to do it, we can’t do it ourselves. He has to stir up the wind, He has to define and ordain the times.

Our part is to be in the right place, at the right time, in His will. Then we’ll be available, ready and willing when the circumstances are right and the Lord brings the storm. Perhaps, meanwhile, we’ll just be part of some scattered showers here and there. Normal little rains are also very needed and they are more prevalent than storms.

So, like the little local rains, we Christian water molecules will keep being part of the rain. “You, Lord, did send a plentiful rain whereby you did strengthen your inheritance, when it was weary.” (Psalm 68:9) The best ability is availability. Maybe we won’t right now be part of a storm but we can at least be available to be the rain. We can witness the Lord’s truth and love to individuals here and there, the ones who will hear it and even those who don’t.

But if you’re like me, you long for the storm, to be a part of something that’s bringing major change, ordained by the hand of God, that really stirs things up, that brings clarity like lightning does on a dark night.

The lightning of God strikes, illuminating all around it, profound, direct, unstoppable, unquestionable. And we little droplets of the waters of God are swept up in the mighty acts of God that move across the nations, affecting all before it and bringing the mind of God again to this befuddled world.

But God has His times. Sometimes the best is to just keep looking to Him, looking for opportunities, being faithful in season and out of season. Let’s face it, that’s how it has been for most Christians, down through the centuries. They haven’t been a part of the storms some of us have. They “despised not the day of small things.” (Zachariah 4:10) They “did what they could.” (Mark 14:8)

Nevertheless, we can pray. We can hope and look to the Lord that He will yet send another storm. Some of us feel that this is what we are ordained for, this is what we find our destiny in. As it was said to Esther in the Bible, “You are come into the kingdom for such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14)

But we are not the generals, we are not the Lord of hosts, the captain of the armies of God. We are just His soldiers who’ve fought for Him in campaigns in years past, having seen His mighty hand, having seen His mighty victories and rejoiced in the amazing light and clarity that was a part of those storms, those battles. United with other droplets, we are part of something greater, used of God and rising above to be a part of that moment when God is sweeping the world with His power, might, truth and love.

Maybe that will never happen again. Maybe we’ll just continue to be part of the showers that fall locally from time to time. Or just be the dew of the morning. And if that is His will, then His will be done.

But for me at least, I hope there will be another storm. I hope the Lord will bring the elements together, bring the wind, bring the magnitude of truth that He pours out in the times of mighty change that comes with His storms. And I pray that I and my many friends who’ve been a part of the storms of God in the past will yet again be swept up by His mighty will to bring refreshing, truth and change to this deeply confused and bewildered present world.