April 2010
...every single thing
Ever since I said it... my brain has been going non-stop... it's hard to get to sleep at night... so much running thru the tree tops... especially since I said this a couple days ago ....
"... but today… I know… that He sovereignly works all things… as in every ugly horrible messy thing… together for good… according to His purpose… not my purpose."
"... but today… I know… that He sovereignly works all things… as in every ugly horrible messy thing… together for good… according to His purpose… not my purpose."
...back when I was an earthling
I had this idea way back... back when I was an earthling... that somehow things were always going to go the way I thought they should go... I was living in the land of miracles... I asked God to do things and He did them... wow... God was in my box of crackerjacks.... all I had to do was open the box and let Him out to do my bidding... shazaam... totally a done deal big guy.
...sojourning
Not a word we earthlings see very often... sojourning... it takes us aliens to understand that sojourning thing... an alien like Philip understands that he just sojourns through this life... the definition for sojourn is:
... the only involvement we need
All this stuff about getting myself involved in a good church someplace...? That whole thing is one of the ways that God's enemy gets us distracted from the only involvement we will ever need... our involvement with God Himself. That is not an oversimplification...
trying to get involved....
I was... I really was... I was trying to get involved like Henry had told me I needed to do... to get involved in a "good Church"... except I wasn't having much success... there was always something... mostly it was either the denial that there were any further experiences to be had in God.... just go to church... make sure you get to all the meetings... read your bible every day... pray every day ... witness every day to somebody to get them "saved"... but...
the first place I got involved
After praying the "prayer" with Henry that day 42 years ago... and suddenly experiencing things I had never experienced before... that peace that settled over me... that voice that spoke to me... throwing my addiction to nicotine out the car window... realizing how something pretty dramatic had happened when miracles became a daily happening... impossible things just disappeared...
then everything changed....
I've told bits and pieces of my story in the 500 some odd postings here since I first began writing in 2007... everything changed for me on June 24, 1968. That experience with God turned my life upside down. I was told that my search was over... I had found God... and basically... now that I knew God and loved Him... I had to serve Him...
...the next step
I was involved in little theater in Northern New Jersey for over 15 years. We rehearsed and performed on the stage of a Unitarian Church. It was like having your very own theater.... without the expense and upkeep... and I spent lots and lots of time there over the years. One day I decided to see what the Unitarians were all about and went to a couple of their services. It was quite different from the Baha'i folks. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the two religions...
...looking around
When I discovered that my problems with the feminine form... those UFO's I mentioned a while back... those problems were not only keeping me from the priesthood.... but that getting married did not resolve the problems... I was totally frustrated. I also was convinced that I was totally depraved... at least for a while... until I discovered that all the other guys I knew had the same problem... I no longer felt I was depraved...
the three cultures revisited
My life has been broken down into three segments... the first 32 years were my years of total commitment to the first culture... the World's Culture... I tried to do everything that the world told me was important to do... and I worked very hard at it...
The second segment was my involvement in the Religious Culture... which took me through the next 32 years of my life.... I now tried to do everything that the Church told me do... I gave my total commitment to it... I worked very hard at it....
The second segment was my involvement in the Religious Culture... which took me through the next 32 years of my life.... I now tried to do everything that the Church told me do... I gave my total commitment to it... I worked very hard at it....
