January 6th, 2021 - A Requiem

This morning I opened my Bible app to discover it was January 6^th. Though I’d mentally wrangled with this date several times after Christmas, I realize I hadn’t thought about it recently until that very moment.

Christians Are Not Called To A Life Of Ease, We're Called To A Life Of Spreading The Gospel - Whatever That Looks Like

It can be exhausting just trying to stay on top of everything today. 

Rational Thinking In The Midst Of Chaos Is The ONLY Thing That Can Produce Rational Results

This morning I read Psalm 57. David had fled to a cave to escape persecution by Saul and there he sings praises to God. He tells God all the things he's feeling about his situation and how much he loves Him.

Many of us are feeling persecuted right now. We feel helpless. No one in the human high places created to help us in such circumstances seem to want to help us or even acknowledge our persecution as a reality. 

Is The Emasculation Of Men Meant To Destroy Society?

The sight of a healthy, red-blooded, American man wearing a disposable, made-in-China, completely ineffective, pseudo-scientific piece of man-made fiber over his face ostensibly to 'protect himself and others' from a virus so small only a level 4 HAZMAT suit provides appropriate protection (and even that level of protection didn't protect workers in the Wuhan lab where the outbreak started) makes me sad. Why is there such a push to emasculate men?

We Don't Have To Give Up Our Principles To Love One Another as Jesus Commanded

I'm horrible at holding a grudge. Seriously. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t trust everyone who’s acted toward me with bad faith – but I don’t wish them ill or hold hate for them in my heart. This is partly because my temperament doesn’t function that way, but when I find my mind spooled up over something someone has done to me, I use prayer and reason to pull myself out of that trajectory.

In John 13:34, Jesus gives us a new commandment; “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Reading that statement, it sound so easy. In reality the concept stings from the hurts so many of us are faced with daily. Today, those of us who claim the Christian faith are persecuted for having personal businesses in which we choose to express our beliefs, we’re told we’re intolerant and called names like “homophobic” because we hold tight to Biblical principles, we’ve even been forbidden from worshiping together because the ‘state’ says so.

How do we ‘love one another’ and not be swallowed up by those who hate us and want to silence us?

First, we recognize that what Christians are facing today has already been identified by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:12: “We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens.” (Common English Bible). Realistically then, we’re not going to win THAT kind of a battle on our own without some kind of spiritual help. Without entreating upon the name of our Lord and channeling the power He gives us to fight, we’re going to get nowhere fast. So, there’s that.

Secondly, we must realize we’re not the first generation to have to literally fight for our freedom against the tyranny of man. The Bible contains at least 86 verses testifying to the wickedness of man. Without God then, man is but lost. To think humans should somehow rely on humans to do the right things on their own when written records extending back thousands of years speak to us of the history of man’s inhumanity to man, is simply nonsensical. Only God can change any of that (Ezekiel 36:26) – which is why we must pray for those who curse us (Luke 6:27-28).

Thirdly, there are instructions for how to deal with a Christian friend who has wronged us (Matthew 18:15-17) and we should use those instructions because God has given us friends here on earth to keep each other accountable. “Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other.” (Proverbs 27:17 – See also Galatians 6 – CEB). For those who are not Christians – and those who are unable or unwilling to be reconciled with you, do as Paul and Barnabas did in Antioch; shake the dust off your feet and move on (Act 13:5). Scripture doesn’t say to be ugly, or fight with them, or otherwise curse them, it just says, essentially, “move on”. Paul and Barnabas were “bold” in the way they confronted the people, but once the people did not heed their message, it was time to “move on”.

Lastly, fear breeds hate and contempt and every possible bad human trait. If we can’t have faith that, no matter what happens around us or to us, God is with us and has plans for our future (Jeremiah 29:11), we’ll live constantly in fear, dealing with humanity from a position of anger and hate. Anger hurts only ourselves. It puts us in a position where we can’t reason properly and we can’t be victorious over any form of evil if we use only emotion because the “heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

No, the human side of us doesn’t want to love anyone who hurts us, but we’re not talking brotherly, friendship love, we’re talking about the kind of love we have for people because God made us all – a love for HUMANITY. A love that keeps us from descending into a place where lack of reason rules our every move and forces us further away from an ability to see how to push back the evil that presses down around us, but forces us further away from God, family and friends.

Jesus wasn’t ‘friends’ with the Pharisees. He pushed back against them mightily, frequently calling them vipers and hypocrites (Matthew 12:34) – we even saw Him get righteously angry with money changers in the Temple and turn over their tables (Mark 11:15-18). Being Christians doesn’t mean that we tolerate those who try and hurt us. We may act with ‘righteous’ anger, but we cannot allow hatred and anger to rule us. We must act with self-control always and attempt to speak the truth in love – hating the sin, not the sinner. 

Remember, a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:25). In order to do the MOST good against evil, we must do our best to use the Fruits Of The Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and work with others of the faith, avoiding petty differences, loving one another as humans, even if we can’t as friends.

What’s A Christian to Do When Confronted with Drag Queen Story Hour at Tax-Payer Supported Libraries? Apparently Nothing.

Most Christian Conservatives would rather quietly live their lives and let others live theirs, but this one thought process is the ultimate fulcrum upon which societies fail.

Special Guest Post: "How Is Oklahoma GOP Chairman John Bennett Wrong By Invoking The Jewish Star Regarding Vaccine Mandates/Passports"

What follows is a Special Guest Post about the furor resulting from an OKGOP Facebook post July 30th, 2021. 

I'm not including the identity of the Special Guest Post-er at my discretion. 

America, once world-renown for its tolerance of Free Speech and Religion, has nearly thoroughly succumbed to its current Marxist Overlords who are bringing to bear the Power of the State over the sanctity of the Individual at a rapid pace. 

I have no interest in seeing a friend persecuted for an OPINION Americans are to be CONSTITUTIONALLY granted - whether or not our Marxist Overlords daily subvert and spit on the protections found in that document or not. 

For the record, I agree with the author's assessment or I would not have published it here.

When You Are Truly And Sincerely Needing Help, You Have Only To Ask To Receive

Two times in my life I have cried out to Jesus for help in utter absence of an ability to do anything under my own power. Both times I have been answered. One was when we lost our son. 

Chaos Is The Goal Because Chaos Must Be Controlled And Control Results In Loss Of Individual Freedom

No matter what the world says, this is not scientific truth.

If Scripture Is Simple And Easily Understood, Why Do People Make It Hard And Refuse to Understand?

This scripture is exceedingly simple to understand, yet people refuse to understand it. 

Why? 

Because human beings become convinced that their actions have no consequences - they can do whatever they like with impunity and all will be well because "Jesus is love". 

This is absolutely not the case, so let's take the example of sexual immorality.

No Matter What Happens In Life, The Bible Answers 'Why'

The year 2020 was difficult for many humans in many different ways as government and media ramped up global control over our lives. Isolation, illness, income loss and inability to care for ourselves and our families in ordinary ways left few emotions or mental states unvisited as effect.

Like many, November, 2020, left me feeling unmoored from humanity, adrift in a world of questions without answers that shattered the bedrock of understanding I'd formed about my country, politics, psychology and human relations over the course of my adult life.

Oklahoma Senators Lankford and Inhofe Were Not Censured By The OKGOP - What Now For The Party Faithful?

As many know, I'm fond of making lists of my thoughts.  Here is my thought-list about the lack of Censure for our Senators following the January 6th electoral college certification vote.

We Strive Not For Men

Recently I was working in my sun room and stopped to really study this frame and it's contents. Back in 2013, Lynn and Julia and I were asked to speak about Common Core in Canton, OK. We left Oklahoma City in rain coming down so hard that we could barely see - truly treacherous driving conditions - but we always felt that if someone wanted to hear our research on the topic, we'd do whatever we needed to do to get wherever we were asked to go.

Dad

June 17 is not only Father's Day this year, but the 16th birthday of my oldest son. In addition to this confluence of events, I watched the movie “I Can Only Imagine” before bed. Today I am thoughtful – ruminating over something to do with the space between being a daughter and a mother and the long journey from one to the other and the plethora of lessons I’ve learned in between and beyond.

Cultivating Love

Decades ago, I bought a little vase for my grandmother. She LOVED roses and grew them beautifully, caring for them as tenderly as ever she cared for one of us. For years and years, there was simply never a time I remember eating a meal without a bouquet of the most fragrant roses adorning the table for the pleasure of anyone who dined there. Even after she became ill - up to the time she just simply couldn't manage it - she would post a single perfect bloom as the centerpiece for our gathering.

As Christian Parents, We Should Parent As Christians

Unfortunately, this is never a popular type post, but nonetheless, I believe it to be very true, so I hope it will be taken to heart as an exhortation and not an admonition: 

Adopting Children From Overseas Gives Me A Definite View On US Immigration Policy

(This blog was published by the Federalist under the title, "My Family Had To Follow Immigration Law. Why Shouldn't Refugees? 2/3/17)"

I Don't Want To Be Represented By Women Who Don't Represent Me

Seeing pictures of women wearing 'pu**y' hats, and/or dressed as vaginas trolling up and down streets all over this country has sincerely made me sick to my stomach.

So self-centered - with such little concern for their fellow man - these women seemingly can't comprehend that THEY are the privileged few from across the entire world simply because they can stop their whole lives, travel to their state's capitol - or the nation's capitol - and take a day to do nothing but walk up and down a street with signs and goofy clothing.

What We Deserve

 

Some time ago I opened my Facebook page to find this meme. Now, I've noticed this not-so-subtle social engineering garbage being pumped into my Facebook feed for months now, but this today was specifically egregious to me. 

Stepping Off Life's Treadmills

Treadmills. For as well as they can bear us up and move us along they can certainly be hard to spot in our everyday lives. 

 My big "for instance" here is public education. Most parents think nothing about sending their children to their local public school. We didn't. We even moved to a neighborhood with a 'better' public school for our babies to attend when they got old enough. In fact, it never occurred to either David or I there might be another option until our oldest son, suffering at the hands of classroom bullies - including his teacher - begged me to pull him out and school him at home.