in my cave

one of my fears
A bystander said, “Master, will only a few be saved?”

He said, “Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention. A lot of you are going to assume that you’ll sit down to God’s salvation banquet just because you’ve been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. Well, one day you’re going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you’ll find the door locked and the Master saying, ‘Sorry, you’re not on my guest list.’

“You’ll protest, ‘But we’ve known you all our lives!’ only to be interrupted with his abrupt, ‘Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don’t know the first thing about me.’

“That’s when you’ll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You’ll watch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets march into God’s kingdom. You’ll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God’s kingdom. And all the time you’ll be outside looking in—and wondering what happened. This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last.”

this has always been a fear of mine. i can read this book and listen to that teaching. i could go to this church or that church, i could think i know the right people, but if i don’t know Him and He doesn’t know me what is the point of anything. can you say that Jesus knows you and that you truly know Him? I believe that right know He is saying “get to know Me”

now i don’t know what to think, who to trust or who to believe, i am finding contentment in my cave…..

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A Mantle of Love….

Joe's Garage Logic

This morning I spent some time reading in First and second  Kings. It is some of my favorite chapters in the Old Testament. If there ever where some people who would have been some badass bikers before motorcycles came around, it would have been Elijah and Elisha. Them guys didn’t take no crap from anyone. for instance,” Elisha was on his way to Bethel and some little kids came out from the town and taunted him, “What’s up, old baldhead! Out of our way, skinhead!” Elisha turned, took one look at them, and cursed them in the name of God. Two bears charged out of the underbrush and knocked them about, ripping them limb from limb—forty-two children in all!”. You just don’t mess with one of God’s prophets. You just don’t see that happening now days. Or this with Elijah,”The king sent a captain with fifty men…

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the life of a perfectionist….

No matter how hard you try, you just can’t make everyone happy. Especially yourself.  You try and you try and just nothing works. You feel a little bit of yourself dying by the way. There is no way to please everyone. The demand from people is so intense that you want to explode, yet you try to remain in a calm demeanor.  You try to do a good job, hoping not to create more work for someone else. The word perfect is tossed around to casually these days. You have expectations out on others, you think you know what is best for everyone else, and deep down, I don’t even know what is best for myself. You look for encouragement, a life line, only to get pushed down deeper and you feel like you are drowning with no life lines. You would like to phone a friend and you find out that you have been abandoned, left to fight this battle on your own. No one to vent to, or someone who does care you end up sabotaging that relationship because it is easier to run away than be vulnerable one more time.

So you live a life of afraid to make mistakes. You beat yourself up when you feel like you have made another one. I tried so hard, I thought I had the paperwork right the first time. I feel like it is just another blow to my self esteem. I feel like, i look more at what is wring than what is right. What a tangled web your mind can weave, only to ending up catching yourself. You just dig that hole a little deeper. One more shovel full won’t hurt. I can still see daylight. I think you finally get to the point where you do not know where to turn or who to trust. Your mind is a constant bombardment of  thoughts you wonder did I dream this or did it really happen. Am I going crazy, maybe I am and this is just some giant matrix and will my team ever win the super bowl. You hang on by a thread hoping that tomorrow is better than today and you find out that Monday just takes off after last weeks chaos and you think that everyone is nuts and you just want to escape the madness that everyone calls reality. Then you realize that this is how society has been for thousands of years and you just want to get away, but Friday is still four more days away.

Then when you do look for help, you see that everyone else is on this sea of madness, and we are on the Titanic and there is an ice berg with our name on it. Each person is caught up in their own little crisis and try to drag you into their chaos. “I need this now”, “I can’t sleep with out i”, “help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”, it’s all you hear all day.  You never here, “how can I help you”, or “let me take some of your burden”, “how can I make your life easier?”. It’s like this giant monster called, “it’s all about me”, is out to get you. It sickens you and makes you stay awake at night. You try to feed this monster and make it happy, but it keeps growing and growing. The bigger it gets, the smaller my self worth becomes, I can’t make this monster happy, no matter how hard I try. I can’t please everyone, and I take it personally when they lash out at you because their hunger isn’t satisfied, and they want to make sure to take it out on you even when it’s clearly not my fault. So they use weapons like shame and guilt to try and get you to do their bidding.

Lies, all lies, and i am the fool for believing them Your poor planning or your inadequacies are not my fault or my problem. Your guilt and shame have no power over me. How dare some people use control and manipulation to try and get what they want, when they want it.  I have had my body broken and bruised, I have been locked up in a cell for a while, I have seen all kinds of people across this country, but what I remember most is those who helped, those who were kind. I may not always remember names, but i remember face, the kind gestures, those who wanted to help when I was at my lowest. Those who offered a kind word, and a hug when I needed one. The ones who didn’t judge or thought they were better than me. The ones who were genuine, the ones who didn’t always have an answer, or tell you how to do something. The know it alls. There are still people who are out there that you can see Jesus in. They may look like outlaws or hoodlums or normal people. You can tell a pure heart. You can tell who is real and who is in it for themselves.

I can try and try and I cannot please everyone. Sometimes you just need to shake the dust off your feet and let them go. I still make mistakes, but the key is to learn off f them. As much as i try to be, I will never be perfect. I never got straight a’s. I wanted to, but could never achieve it.  Maybe by doing well I thought that maybe I would be loved more. If that’s the case how could I please anyone, let alone God. The endless battle of striving to gain love and acceptance is slowly killing me. I can never overcome. I am a bundle of mistake just trying to look good on the outside. Day after day I can bring a wheelbarrow of shortcomings to God and there is still more. He just looks at me and shakes His head, and says, “boy you sure are a mess, you have a lot of problems. Come as you are and we will travel together. I love you just the way you are, even with all your wheelbarrow full. You don’t have to please me, I am already pleased with you. Stop your endless striving and come carry my burdens, my yoke is light and easy”. The way of the world is too hard. There is too much pressure to do this or look like that, or follow this person or that person. How do you know what is best for me, unless you have walked in my shoes. Jesus has, and he wears a size ten. Sometimes He carries me.

mmmmmm……pie

I think i have it all figured out. My dog wants to go outside, in order to do that, I need to put his harness on him. He knows that, but it is much more fun for him to have me chase him around  and around the table while he is barking his head off. Finally i give up and go and take a shower and try again after he is ready to receive what i have to offer.

That pretty much sums up my life. I know what i want, and i can shout my head off and run around in circles and end up with nothing. God tries to give me what he knows is best for me and i pretty much run around the table, being chased by Him, laughing and complaining how much my life sucks and He is chasing me,,”come here, come here” and i am not listening or thinking that He does not care and why is He not helping me. Don’t you see that i need help? one more trip around the table.

When it comes right down to it, i have no one to blame but myself. I am responsible for my own actions. Everyone is so caught up in their own needs. There is no humility any more. We are always looking to blame someone else for our shortcomings. Do people say they are sorry anymore. Why is it always someone else’s fault? People are so good at playing the blame and shame game. Yet we are experts on how everyone else should live their life. Stop and take a look at your own. remember that plank in your eye thing.

As far as life goes, i am no expert, look at me, i am blogging and i think i know something. As far as it goes, i really don’t know much. Half the time i feel like my life is in a tizzy and i do not know which way is up. I feel like i do not have any one to share my misery with. I am not sure where i stand with God some days and if there where an Olympics for worrying, i would win the gold every single time. I feel like I haven’t had a good day with God in years. Yet here i am hanging on by a thread. A sliver of hope. Yet i run around and around the table, barking my head off, hoping that someone will see my needs and help me. I have pretty much given up on people, no ones going to come in and give me a hug and pat me on the back and say there, there there, it’s all going to be just fine.

So i’ll pull myself up by my boot straps, stuff my anxiety in my pocket and put on a fake smile, and pretend that everything is fine, while i listen to everyone’s stories about how they think their life is so grand. I am sick of it. “I am not interested”, i think in the back of my mind as they dribble off into some mindless chatter. no wonder i am introverted, it’s a wall i can hide behind from the outside world. Well today is a new day, i want to be left alone, and in some ways i do not.

Go to your window if you must…..

So I want you to get up and take back what belongs to you. The enemy has been trying to steal, kill and maim you for years. He whispers lies into our years and we believe his crap. He is just out to mess you up and make you miserable. He will use whoever and what ever. He will distort the truth and use scripture to mess you up. What do you believe and who do you believe? Who is praying for you and what are they praying. Who do you trust? What are you going to believe?

Take back what is rightfully yours.  Jesus died so you could have freedom.   Life is too short on this earth to put up with crap.  You are a child of the Most High King. Take authority. What you bind in heaven will be bound on earth and what you let loose in heaven will be let lose on earth and vice versa. A terrible paraphrase but you get the point. You have authority. You can do it. If you have the faith of a mustard seed and you believe you can do it.  I am tired of feeling like i am being beat up and downtrodden. I am tired of seeing those I care for be beat up.  Jesus came so that i could have life, not go forth in pain and suffering. Just hoping to get by and hoping that tomorrow will be a better day.

I am settling for mediocrity anymore.  I believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ, out Lord and Savior, The Holy Spirit and the Forgiveness of sins.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.  He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. ”

So the next time i feel like i am on the battle field.,i am going to look for the table to sit at and the  waiter to comes around and ask me if I want sausages or pizza, i know that i am always in his presence and that God is with me. When I am sitting at God’s table, He always brings His best. His Goodness is always there. I am going to see His goodness. Daily

humor me??

Well another week done and it;s just another Friday night of sitting at home. i have come to the conclusion that this is it. I have updated my privacy settings and found out that blogging posts are no longer automatically shared on facebook and twitter. I have contemplated being done. It is a good place to vent and rant and rave. I am pretty sure that i am probably just forgotten anyway, I will just probably fade away into obscurity. I am not a very good people person. I am too critical and judgmental.  Things don’t go the way i think they should anyway. I think i have turned into the person i don’t want to be, I wonder where i am at spiritually now days and I am looking for some nugget or direction. Please someone, tell me something good, something i don’t know. I am still saved and i feel that’s about it.

It’s easy to withdraw and be a Monday morning quarter back. I can see how things should go and i guess in a perfect world it would be fine. But this is not a perfect world even though there are thousands who say “Perfect” at the end of every sentence. People are pretty much the same where ever you go. It is guaranteed that they are going to do what they want to do even tho you may say different. Then there are those who use shame and guilt to get their way. “don’t you care that I am dying?”, is the most popular one. Then when it comes to paying out of their own pocket, they don’t care. Everyone wants what they think they are entitled to, but wants someone else to pay for it, and doesn’t care what it may cost someone else. So all this negative waves is kind of a bummer.

So i have been on this downward spiral. I may look good on the outside but deep down i do not know where to turn. I feel like crawling into a cave and hibernating. I have to belly for it. I could hide for the winter. But every morning I drag myself out of bed, drag myself up the stairs and hobble through another day. I often wonder why so much soreness and pain sometimes. So i proceed to work with high hopes and come home exhausted. Drained by helping people and taking the brunt of some people’s degrading comments. People are mean and cruel. Some don’t apologize and just chew you up one side and down the other. I must be full of grace to keep going like this. I look for relief and try to smile. God must gave me strength and endurance to withstand this. I pray daily that God will help me.

It;s not so much that i ask God to get me out of this, but come and be my strength. I have compassion and like to help these people. I might be the only ray of sunshine that they will ever see. I keep trying and realize it is not me but Him. I don’t know if others see it like i do? Being introverted does’t help either. I tend to take things personally and wear my heart on my sleeve. Maybe I am  too sensitive? Tomorrow is a new day, and thank God i get to try again.

Just Worship….

Well you can choose how your day is going to go. Right now i am thinking that I could have a crappy day or I could just step back into my spirit and reflect. I could think about all the things I could be thankful for. How far God has brought me and how He has blessed me through out the years. How He has helped me even though i do not deserve any of it. Then there is the flip side.

I could dwell on how it has been a hectic week. How one asp after another has been bombarding me at work with their selfish guilt ridden rants. How things are my fault and blame me for their shortcomings. How I am called every name in the book. What book this is I do not know. The dictionary? Some of these words might not even be in that book.  I can never understand how this kind of behavior people think that they will get what they want. By degrading and shaming me that I will give in and meet their demands. There are evil forces at work in this world and some have chosen the wrong side. I am stronger than what most may perceive. Some are just not worth the effort to argue with. If you are going to be an ass, then be one, but just take it somewhere else. I have been through too much over too many years and know some things are not going to change. Being an introvert is a gift i guess. A defense mechanism that protects you from bullshitters that seem to spring up all over this country.

In the middle of the day the anxiety was starting to set in. The phone kept ringing, people coming in demanding service, emails popping up and people listening in on your conversation and the Ipod playing in the background. A familiar Newsboy’s song came on, “It’s all God’s children singing,,Glory, glory, hallelujah,,,He reigns, He reigns,,,It’s all God’s children singing,,,Glory, glory, hallelujah,,,He reigns, He reigns”, I stepped back and took a breath and worshiped Him in the mix of all the chaos. It was quiet in the middle of the distractions, i whispered in my spirit that i was thankful and grateful to be saved and be loved, that He was my strength, and His goodness and mercy was going to last forever in this temporary moment of sheer whirlwind of insanity. I just smiled and knew that it would all work out in the end. Five o’clock was just around the corner and i could escape to the solitude of my bat cave.

People will never change unless they come to God. There will always be greed and selfish ambition as long as this world is spinning. You can see goodness and kindness if you look for it. You can actually be a part of it. I have read the end and we will still triumph. God has already won.  I have been kinda hungry and desperate for a word or a sign or something. I was thinking of Gideon, God asked him if he wanted a prophecy and what else could Gideon say but, yes, So God said go into the camp of the enemy and I will give you one. Gideon went and he got a word, and then he worshiped right there in the enemies camp. I believe that word now is, just worship. We are in the enemies camp now, so just worship. Everything can come out of thankfulness. when the going gets tough, the tough worship. So if you are going through some crap, worship. If there seems to be no end, just worship. The enemy won’t follow you into God’s presence, so just worship. You can change the whole atmosphere of any situation by worshiping.

So i would like to tell you that things got better, but they didn’t, but i was able to feel strengthened and had an internal fire that can only come from being in God’s presence. The crap didn’t seem so bad and I didn’t let someone’s attitude bother me anymore. There are always going to be people like that, that try and ruin your day. They don’t know any better. they are just pre-saved and who knows  what God has in store for them. I still believe in the power of prayer, if you know what I mean,,,wink wink nod nod nudge nudge…..

 

what if……

What if i really wrote what was on my mid and my heart? Would you run away and shy away from me? Would you ignore me like the rest of the world. A world demanding answers, attention, a world that only wants their needs satisfied. A world that thinks that they know what is best for our country and everyone it. Does anyone really know all the facts in which they judge with. Take me for instance, i answer the phone day after day and deal with people’s problems, one complaint after another, my bill is too high, i didn’t get my needs satisfied, I want what is advertised on television, me me me me me. I can’t satisfy everyone’s needs, yet here I am wired to want to help people and make them happy. So the depressing thing is that I can’t. Then no one gives a crap about how I feel on the other end of the phone or how my mind will wander at night and I struggle with that fact. Is there really anyone who gives a crap anymore and who will set me free from this?

So as of late I have been an unhappy camper, no one really knows, i have become an expert at hiding how i feel over the last fifty plus years. I just nod my head and say yes just like the rest of the world, go home and hide in my house and know that there is a great big world out there and i feel like i can’t change a thing. What if i make a mistake, what if someone sees my faults, what if some one does’t like me? So I am afraid to even take a chance anymore, or wonder why bother trying. Maybe I complain too much or worry about what someone will think about me. Do I smell, am I weird, what if i just like being alone? God uses weirdos in the bible, maybe i should become one, or maybe i am just crazy and need to be wearing a funny jacket in a padded room. Maybe I am the problem. Maybe I expect too much and i just take things off in some wild tangent in my mind that ends up paralyzing me back into my safe zone. Yes I am very good at selling myself short. I feel that there is a constant whisper in my ear that i will never be good enough and no one cares, they just say that they do.

Who am i, do I matter, can I make a difference, do I have something important to say, and are we friends are questions that have plagued me for years. People say a lot,but I tend to watch what they do. I seem to never get straight answers or question people’s motives and sometimes get sent into a tailspin and feel like i am being used. Is anyone genuine anymore and does anyone really give a crap what I have to say or how I feel? I can be an expert at feeling sorry for myself, fall into a funk and watch people and see that it doesn’t hop on them like some plague. I guess we all have good days and bad days.

What if i am normal and everyone else goes through the same motion and are unwilling to talk about. Pretending that life is okay when it is not. Thinking that they have their shit together, but deep down inside their sock is falling off and they don’t want anyone to see them pull it up. What if we all have faults and some of us just wear it on sleeves better than others. What if we are all just looking for a friend that will come along side and tell us that we are okay, that we matter and that we are important to them.I pray a lot, I turn to God for the most trivial things. I ask for guidance and wisdom, i may not seem like some spiritual guy, but we are more together than I think. I wish I had better answers, or a prophecy or even cleaner ears to hear, but I trust Him. Who else is like a friend than He is? Even though with all my quirks, weirdness and faults, He over looks that and loves me in the core of my being, He doesn’t judge and has a way of guiding. Sure sometimes the answer is no, but He is still guiding. He is not like us, but compels us to be like him. He is my friend and I wish that I had more like Him.

There I go, turn the page…….

Ever feel like you are at a new chapter in your life? You get older, look at life different, an accident here and a trip and fall there and you wonder when it’s going to end. After a week off and some work around the house, you sell your motorcycle and you realize that a piece of yourself is gone. You are moving on to something new, A new chapter perhaps. I felt the Lord prompting me that it is a new chapter.   A new chapter, what does that look like I think to myself.

What does a new chapter look like? who knows, it wouldn’t be a walk of faith if I had all the answers. If I had my choice I would have avoided the last couple of years, a motorcycle crash with a bonus helicopter ride, and a broken ankle with a bonus on nine screws and a plate. How about other chapters, things that haunt your memories and things that you wished you would have done and not have done. A constant barrage of would have, should have, could have. What if they were just chapters to help you learn, or mold you into the person that God calls you to be.

There are days I even wonder if I am still walking in faith. I still pray and believe, is that enough? Am I still in, am I losing my salvation? Am I going to hell in a hand basket? I am sure that there are those who are faithful church goers that i am a backsliden on an escalator to hell. But where are these people, no one comes over anymore. The Jehovah’s witnesses have been around more than those I used to fellowship myself with. I think I have pretty much alienated myself from everyone, including Facebook. At times i feel like I have made a lot of wrong choices,maybe i have withdrawn too far?

Maybe I am just fading away. I don’t feel the urge to write a blog anymore. I went to a concert the other night, a bunch of hair bands from the eighties. It was good to rock out again. I found myself thinking about getting old.  Enjoying life, and not letting crap stress you out anymore. Thirty years ago this music was something of my youth. Now I am older and grayer. I like naps and going to bed by nine. I like my lawn looking nice and i have to put things back in there place so i can find it again. Sometimes i don’t remember what I went into the other room for. It takes longer to recover after a few beers some mornings. and it is harder to lose the belly fat. You are happy when you are regular, and worried when you are not. So a new chapter, I have had many of them and a few I would like to tear out of the book, but it helped me become who I am and appreciate what I have got.

So a new chapter is on the horizon, what does it look like, who knows. God does and I trust Him. After the last few years, I feel like it is going to be one to smile about. Good things coming. A lot to be thankful for. When you feel like you are far from God, it is not true, He is always with you. You will see the goodness if you look for it. Sometimes you need to go through the crap so you know what the good is. No matter what God is good all the time. As far as the bike being gone, it is okay, there is something new on the horizon.

what I am is what I am…..

via what I am is what I am…..