Discouraged

Jesus said in Luke 18:8...

I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

So much of Christianity out there is trash.  The devil is really throwing hooks out there that look just like real food, and the Christian body is greedily snapping up the bait and getting hooked.

I don't put myself above it, as I've fallen for deception before.  But I think all of us must be extra careful about pursing our relationship with Jesus as the time grows near, as there is a lot of deception and stuff that looks like a relationship with Jesus that isn't.  And a lot of our brothers and sisters are getting caught up into them. 

In the past couple of years I've joined a home church that I realized was N.A.R. and had a hard time reconciling what God was doing with me there.  I recently joined a prayer group (which I kind of has misgivings about) that immediately started posting some NAR related content.  The whole Q psyop and false Bible prophets are kind of merging and playing off each other to deceive a lot of people. On facebook some friend of my wife's who is a Christian befriended me, and then I see him posting Hebrew roots movement stuff.

Jesus, stop this train, I want to get off!

For me, it seems like in the short term I need to focus on Jesus, read and study His word, and maybe cut off quickly the sources of where deception can creep in (be that relationships or whatever).  I need to focus on Jesus and Him alone.  I need to get better grounded in the real Jesus.  I don't want to get deceived again, and better grounded I can better help those who are.

Be careful out there.  Not everything wearing a Christian hate is a Christian. 

Grace Under Fire

I just wanted to capture some ways in which God is helping me through this latest round of sickness.

1. Even though I'm doing the usual sleep/wake up ever 10 minutes, except for the first day of sickness I've been able to function to do what I needed to do for work, taking care of my son (though at a minimum level).
2. I also haven't had any real panic attacks.  I can feel them wanting to kick in, but so far they have not.
3. My nose issue, amazingly hasn't been a problem.
4. I got the idea of trying to sleep sitting up rather than lying down.  I ended up going back and forth, but sitting up helped.
5. I'm out of sick and vacation time (or almost out) but work doesn't seem to care.  They also let me take an extra day off and when I came back I wasn't asked to do anything.
6. I kind of had an idea of how the progression of this cold would go...and so far it has roughly followed that progression.  If it keeps on I should be able to start getting at least a few hours of straight sleep followed by intermittent sleep to operate at a higher capacity, with hopefully being able to get a near full nights sleep soon.  
7. Because my immune system is down, I got a bad case of thresh.  It is nasty but it doesn't bug me, and that is a blessing as another thing to add pain into the mix would be bad.
8. My stomach was bad...probably what triggers the sleep problems.  It was about as bad as it could be without me going to an ER.  I did go to a clinic and got some meds to calm it down, they helped and after day two my stomach would only give me problems after eating (of which I haven't been doing much of).
9. I just happened to buy a lot of yogurt for my son, which I drank most of it and it was good having it around.

There are probably more ways but there are the highlights.  God did not spare me the sickness and a bad run with it, but he kept the symptoms from compounding too badly which they easily could have which would have put me in the hospital.  Also God allowing this sickness to be as bad as it was is reminding me I really do have to make some life changes in the way I eat, plus I need to pursue some surgeries I need but have been putting off because the recovery is pretty tough.  

Thank you Jesus for your kindness to me.