Answers to difficult questions

Gabriel! Yes Father? I have a job for you. His name will be Rob. Rob will be a bastard son of an alcoholic mother. In the first five years of life, he will experience neglect, abuse and abandonment. Father, will your mercy have me bring him home early to avoid more pain? No Gabriel, my plan is to humble him. But Father, are not the circumstances of his early life humbling enough? Humility will allow him to respond properly to the conviction of sin in his life. Father, I fear he may not understand your plan and may turn away from you. Gabriel, a plan that includes all of eternity can not be fully understood by anyone limited to a finite understanding of their surrounding. But Father, You have given him an ability to question and make conclusions. With his finite limitations, how will he be able to accept that which is not visible, reasonable or able to be proven. Faith! Father, I fear his faith will not be sufficient to prevent him from despising you and blaming you for the circumstances in his life. Gabriel, the design and the implementation are infallible as is the architect and the builder. I will love him unconditionally and bless him in everything he does. I have written his name in the book of life. If he chooses me and my sacrifice on the cross, all his sins will be forgiven and he will spend eternity with me in heaven. Now go, and prepare his wife and children for him and all the other blessings I have prepared.

Thank you God for loving even me

Not even as good once as I ever was

Visualize fantasize sensitize
Hypertension deflation frustration
Separation depression contemplation
Reassurance endurance concurrence
Struthious oblivious unpretentious

Where is the glamor?

Mov'n on up used to be my goal. I looked at my boss and the boss of my boss and began to covet what I perceived was power and prestige. Now hear I sit in a lonely hotel room missing my family and watching mindless TV. I have moved up to where I thought I wanted to be only to be disappointed in the lack of satisfaction.

But wait, don't I get to travel to Europe and South America and many States in North America? Don't I get to fly in airplanes and enjoy nice dinners on the company dollar? Don't I get to participate in intellectual conversations? Don't I get recognition and rewards for my accomplishments? Yes, I get all of those things and some of those things are nice.

I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I still don't feel like I am doing what God wants me to do. I continue to fail on the same areas of my life. I do not spend enough time in prayer with God. I do not speak my wife's love language often enough to make her feel appreciated and loved. I don't spend enough time reading God's word. I still lose my temper too often with my children. The list goes on and on. It is a shame I can't make the same salary spending every day working on my life's short comings.

Have you seen the movie Temple? Some would say she was challenged because of her disability. I say she was blessed. She saw the world through pictures. She knew her purpose and had the focus to go after it without being distracted by looking at what others had. God gave her talents and withheld "normal" human behavior from her. Look, now I am coveting a person I don't know that had autism. What a sad excuse I am for a person.

God, please forgive me.

Liar, Lunatic or Lord?

Main line denomination Churches are wondering why their membership numbers are dropping. They are initiating programs to draw more people to their churches and to revitalize their existing congregations. I do not think they will be successful in this endeavor unless they get back to the basics.

I must start my argument with a foundational premise. I believe the bible is fully human and fully Divine at the same time. Just like Jesus who was fully human and fully God at the same time. The Divine element kept the human element from making any errors. If your theology doubts the inerrant nature of God's word, you open the door to doubt the divinity of Jesus Christ. After all, He is the word made flesh. Seminary professors and students are doing exactly what God warned us not to do in 1 Cor 3:18-19. "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God". Professors in the main line denomination seminaries are teaching the the bible is full or errors and that many miracles written in the scriptures are merely stories. This type of nonsense is making it into the pews as well. I overheard one of the elders in my church say that Genesis is mythology. In my opinion they are allowing the modern world view of faith to creep into our churches. We are not to love the world or the things of the world. We are to be different and separate from the world. Yet main line denominations are trying to "fit in" with the world. Accept everyone and accept everything, do not discriminate or you are teaching hate. This leads me to my second argument.

I believe that salvation can only be received through Jesus Christ. While the invitation is for anyone, to be saved a person must receive Christ by faith. Thus we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ ALONE. It's not like Jesus didn't make this very clear. Just read the first four chapters of John. But then again, if you believe the bible is full of errors, maybe you do not believe Jesus said this. So, this is the tie in to the title. I can not claim it, I heard it in a study of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. When the children doubted Lucy the uncle asked them if they thought Lucy was a liar. Was it a normal behavior for her to lie. They said no. Then he asked them if they thought Lucy was a lunatic. Was her normal behavior crazy? They said no. The uncle then concluded that Lucy must be telling the truth. The same argument can be made for Jesus. The life He lived as written in the bible does not represent a liar or a lunatic. Therefore, if He said He was Lord, He is the Lord! If He said that He is the ONLY way, He is the ONLY way!

I believe we are to love our neighbors, I believe we are to care for the widows and the orphans. I believe that the greatest commandment is love. I believe that if we do not have love, our efforts are worthless. Allowing people to believe a lie is not loving. If we allow people of different faiths or no faith to believe that there are other ways to salvation besides faith in Jesus Christ, we are allowing them to believe a lie! Yet here again is an example of what is being taught and preached in main line domination Churches. I heard a statistic the other day on Christian radio. The Presbyterian Council, Championed by the Presbyterian Church USA, reported that 36% of the Presbyterians they surveyed, did not believe that Jesus Christ was the only way to salvation.

Do you want to know why your membership numbers are dropping off? If you don't believe in the book that you read out of every Sunday, and you don't really believe the words that you recite in your creeds, and you don't truly believe what Jesus said about himself, then why would anyone want to come to your Churches? If there are many ways to salvation, then maybe I can be saved by watching sports center on my TV Sunday morning. I can go do nice things for people in Louisiana, I can go feed people at the shelter, I can go build houses for the homeless without being a member of an organization that in all appearances is completely hypocritical.

Failing but not giving up

Eve is a complicated creature. God really made her difficult to understand and impossible to master. The ways you show caring may not be what she wants at that moment. Those efforts are lost. Just let them go. What do you really know about caring anyway? When you are at your worst (clueless to her needs) is when she will need you the most. You will fail. The lack of effort will not be forgotten. Your ways are not her ways. Her ways are soft, sensitive, shy, yet strong. Your ways are hard, abrasive, bold, yet worthless. Don't give up even if you know you're going to fail. Your better with her, your better because of her. Besides, living in a cave and killing things with sticks is no longer legal in most states.

It ain't rocket science y'all

After working as an Engineer in the chemical industry for over 13 years now, I have come to a conclusion. Being recognized as a "strategic" thinker is not necessarily a good thing. Especially if your true personality leans more towards tactical execution. I like to get things done, not talk about all the possible ways things can get done in conference rooms and in sametime meetings. Sure, I think there is value in considering your options before jumping off, but do we really need to spend more resources and time discussing the options than we will solving the problem?

Look at the six sigma craze in our industry. This didn't just come out yesterday. Yet there are some who are pushing it around like the great new concept in industry. As I recall, my college studies taught me to define the problem and measure it before I analyzed it. To then make an improvement based on data that could be sustained. Now six sigma organizations within companies are forcing Engineers to use these cute little visual tools to prove they followed a DMAIC processes. For those of you not possessed by six sigma, Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control.

In some companies, six sigma has become like most government programs. They start out small with a specific target. With a little success, these programs grow into huge empires that spend more time and resources justifying their existence than solving problems in the company.