Service

What is it?

Today when so many are hungry, so many are not part of the War on terror, so many are striving for something more, so many are angered at those who risk all to feed their families, today when the word service is a disparaging term; it seems normal that only the lower-class should be required to fight wars that only the upper-class starts.

At this writing 18 American Veterans are committing suicide every day!  About 15% of American households are “food insecure” which means they are barely surviving. And those are not the real problems in America today. Today, “the hole in the boat”, “the leak in the dike”, “the bad wind on the horizon” is our apathy which is growing by the second.

Everything in nature and history shows us that once a human being is pushed to the extreme, that human being will push back for no other reason than for the desperateness of the situation. We can all avoid that response by simply providing hope, or we can be forced to respond to his/her actions that will never reverse the damages and problems that will occur after the “push back”.

So we can hide our heads in a hole and hope that when we pull our heads out of the hole, that the problem will have just disappeared, or we can continue to pretend that each person is required to pull themselves up by their own boot straps, and if they are not willing to do so they deserve what pain and heartache they experience. The problem with either choice is that the consequences will effect us all.

There has never been or ever will be a life that has achieved everything on its own without help or assistance from anyone or thing like luck, good timing, or just a plain miracle. It does not take a genius, spiritual enlightenment, or massive education, to understand that all life is connected and dependent upon each and every other being in order to achieve a full and lasting existence.

How much is enough? Money, water, guns, ammunition, food, friends, family, land and property, security and so on and so on and so on; at some point a person must understand that unless there is peace and contentment on a global scale there will never be peace and contentment for anyone on earth. There are no happy, content, peaceful, and satisfied millionaires/billionaires (that have a soul) on this planet. one way or another most of us feel the pain of this planet.

Other than a sociopath, only the extremely ignorant could be truly happy in this world today–and it is debatable if a sociopath can be happy. All of us can have happy thoughts, have extremely happy days, and even feel like ones life is about as good as it gets; that does not constitute the state of overall lasting happiness that I am discussing here. Today there are more people of all ages taking anti-depressants, and that says one thing–hopelessness.

I am not suggesting that “happiness” is our single objective while on this earth, but I am saying that while on this earth we will manufacture either peace or war depending on our objectives and actions.

That brings us to the nexus of all this rambling; this world needs hope and that is not going to happen unless it comes from each of us. Hope is not something that occurs through magic or miracle, it happens when one person helps another–which may seem miraculous.

My little anecdote to all this starts with my health going south which has always got me up and walking. This time was no different so on my walks I come in contact with numerous others out on the nature trail, and as I have done in the past, I make eye contact with each person and say hello. At this present time it seems as if I am either to scary looking to make eye contact with (which may be a very good possibility) or people are no longer capable of greeting others. In either case only one in twenty people would respond to my greeting in kind.

At first I had an inclination to just stop greeting and make no eye contact what-so-ever. That is when the Blessed Holy Spirit came into the conversation, and I said, why should I continue trying to greet people if they do not even acknowledge my existence unless it is to give me an evil eye. There were times when instead of a greeting, people would just look at me as if I were some type of pervert attempting to gain there trust just to take some kind of advantage of them! So I asked the Lord, “Why should I try to be friendly to those who dare not and do not care to be?” The Blessed Holy Spirit simply said, “That is exactly why.”

So,this is just one personal step to pass hope onto others one greeting at a time. As simple and maybe ridicules as it may seem to others, this is exactly what this country needs today. We need to once again get to know each other or we will end up going to war against each other.

Service for me begins with a “Hello”.

Filed under: Challenge, Lifestyle, Hope, Trust

The WORD

“In the beginning was the Word ….”

It was there in the beginning, and will be there in the end. The translation for “Word” as used in the first verse of Saint John’s Gospel written in Greek means roughly, “the spoken word”.

In the beginning was the voice of God.

Can you here it?

The reason I ask is because so many people claim to hear “It” clearly, and yet I have read the Book of Saint John more times than I can count, but I still find the first few lines enigmatical at best–as is much of the Bible. I believe there is a reason for this and it comes from God’s request for His followers to be obsequious in not just our public walk with Him, but also in our understanding of life itself.

The biggest problem today, besides greed and selfishness, is our pride, which leads us to our opinion that not only is there absolute truth, but that we are in possession of it! In reality there are so few absolute truths, that one can count them on one hand. When it comes to the Bible we must be adamant in the understanding that it was written for an individual walk with our Creator. Even if we learn Hebrew and Greek so that we can read the Word of God in its original form it will still be difficult to agree on the meaning of every line.

When one considers how difficult–maybe even impossible–it is to objectively and correctly translate the Bible into English from Hebrew or Greek one can see the need for each of us to read the Word of God and find its meaning on our own. No doubt others will influence your thoughts, yet as long as they are in the end your thoughts that is what an individual walk with your Creator is all about.

Life is learning, and learning can be thought of as applying thought to activity. That is why King Y’shua Messiah clearly told us to consume Him. To have a hunger for everything that is King Y’shua Messiah. To search to the ends of the earth and back again–never stopping your search to discover as much as is humanly possible for who and what is King Y’shua Messiah (John 6:41-66).

Filed under: King Y'shua, belief, Bible

Give Peace A Chance!

WHY NOT GIVE PEACE A CHANCE?

What do we possibly have to lose? Right now at a time when our infrastructure is crumbling under our feet, tires, and tracks we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars each year on wars we are battling all over the world. The majority of political, diplomatic,  and military experts agree that the bulk of our security concerns are caused by our military occupation! Can you imagine what this country could do with just half of what we are spending to maintain the war on the world?

I am certainly not advocating the disbanding of our military–on the contrary. Over half of the military experts interviewed have stated that maintaining this war on the world is destroying our military! How could it not? Just look at the rank of those coming back with career ending injuries or worse–a large portion are officers which are far more difficult to replace. Or just look at how many excellent officers are leaving their first love–the military, due to the immense strain these long arduous deployments place on the individuals and/or their families.

Up to this point I have attempted to stay away from political statements in the blog site, however, after looking at all the young faces in the news paper today of all those who have given their lives in this war on the world–today being Veterans Day, I could not continue to refrain from expressing my views today. As Einstein has so prophetically stated, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

It is only a matter of time before a nuclear weapon is detonated over or in a large city of the world. The worst case scenario would involve a city in Israel, D.C., or Russia; because the response would ignite the exact scene Albert Einstein envisioned. If we do not turn the other cheek today, we will not have either cheek tomorrow.

It must begin with Believers and Followers of God by praying and fasting incessantly. So many Christians today believe that the end of the world is at hand, and that the end will occur with a global nuclear exchange that even those in the upper echelon of our military are following strategy with that ideology. Therefore, along with prayer we should consider joining the debate to stop all occupations and bring our military home where they belong; not out at all points of the globe protecting the interests of corporate America.

We must quickly realize war does only one thing: it causes retaliation, naturally. There is never a permanent winner.

Filed under: Anti-War, Challenge, Faith, Prayer, Survival

WATCH for the Changes

Just finished reading Michael Drosnin’s third book about the Bible code. I have been following his and others work on the code phenomenon for many years now, and like so many others I have found it very difficult to discount the findings just as it is difficult to grasp the possibility of its authenticity. At any rate, the signs in life today all point to a similar future, whether you look at things spiritually, scientifically, politically, historically, or in a combination like I do. That future is not necessarily bad or good it is just going to be very different than what we have been experiencing for the past few generations.

What does it all mean? To me, it means I need to get ready for changes in my life style. I need to find comfort and contentment with much less than I had previously been accustomed to. I will need to be able to find peace within  anxious situations. I will most certainly need far more Faith than I have today. Most importantly, I must be able to allow God’s Love to flow through me at all times, even when those times will be full of hatred–theirs and mine.

Thank God the only thing I will have to do to achieve these changes to my life style is to simply turn to God and allow Him to enrich my life with His Blessed Holy Spirit. However, I must be open to His teaching and leading because He will never force anything on me. I must be willing to accept whatever changes God deems necessary for my life, and it is through this trust and obedience that I learn how to follow God into this new day and beyond.

I do not believe in the theory that bad things happen because God wants to punish people and good things happen because God wants to reward people. I believe that all things, good and bad, happen because that is life, and life happens for us to learn about life. In all this we can and should learn something about becoming a better human being. These years to come will provide us all with exactly that opportunity to learn how to become better human beings.

Is this the end of the world? Not on my calender. Though this may be the end of an era. The Hebrew term End of Days can mean just that–the end of these days. Make no mistake, the end is near for someone every day, but the world still goes on for many others, and probably will for some time to come. However, never stop “looking” for the Lord’s Coming for that is Biblical (Matthew 24:42).

Filed under: Faith, King Y'shua, Lifestyle, Messiah