Praise to God for Not Taking My Dad

I've been praying about my Dad's health lately...that God would not take my father and that death would be held at bay until my Dad is saved.  Well my my Mom left for the day, but suddenly her plans got cancelled (God cancelled them) and she came home to find my Dad unresponsive.  My father was rushed by ambulance to the hospital.  He is OK but if my Mom's plans weren't suddenly cancelled my father might have died.

I thank you God for mercy to my Dad and me by not allowing him to die.  Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I pray Jesus that God would continue to draw my Dad to you so that before his time on earth is up, and the sooner the better, my father would be saved.

So You Want to Know How Deep The Rabbit Hole Goes

So you want to know a little bit about how deep this war for souls goes? How the enemy uses people in ways that many of you had not imagined?  Here is a good start if you wish to go there.  Pray first, not for everyone.

Discovering the Truth with Dan Duval [Link] is currently doing an interview series with Dr. Preston Bailey. If you want to know about demonization, mind control, alter personalities, satanism, psychotronic weapons, and other parts of the ugliness in the spiritual war raging around us, take a listen.  As of this post there are 7 episodes, each varying in length from one hour to two hours.

Recommended, but with all things any truth that is presented here that doesn't jive with what you have read in the Bible should be challenged.  The thrust of these episodes is to shine light on things that are happening in the darkness so that people can be lead to the savior who heals, not to glorify the forces of darkness and their methods.


Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Something Worth Crying About

Short post.

I am the only one in my family that is saved (meaning I have put my trust in Jesus's death and resurrection as payment for my sins).  I used to try to witness to my family but backed off.

I've been praying a lot for them.  My parents are getting old.  I love them tremendously.  If they died without Jesus it would wreck me.  So maybe out of that selfish motive I emailed them a short email last night, telling them again about putting their faith in Jesus will guarantee their eternity, and then I wouldn't have to worry anymore.

It fell on deaf ears (at least, for now).  My father told me to get a grip, that I scare him sometimes. Both answered with kind of vague God is love answers.

I don't cry much. But I did a little bit then.  And I do whenever I think of them and their eternity.

Jesus's Blessings

My wife and I went on an anniversary tip recently. God blessed us in so many ways. His finger prints were all over our trip. So I want to publicly say to Jesus, thank you! And I also want to leave this as a reminder, so when I doubt that God cares for me, I can look back on this.

• As we were leaving, I checked the mail, inside was a happy anniversary card with some money in it from my very generous parents (and I thank them too).  It turned out that the check was just enough to allow us enjoy our trip.  
• I was hoping we could take a scenic route to our destination rather than going through a big city.  We were able to do so and it make the trip much more enjoyable.
• A smaller highway we were traveling on ended up being completely blocked, and it would have cost us at least an hour to back track and go a different route. But some quick thinking by my wife she asked a construction worker if there were any dirt roads we could take.  He kind of looked at us.  I said we were from the Midwest and had plenty of experience on dirt roads.  He slyly told us about a dirt road down a side street.  Hour saved.  I thank him as well.
• We found a very unique hotel room and a great place to eat on the beach.
• We didn't have a lot of money, but we picked two things to do on the first day that ended up being much more fun than more expensive items.
• The weather on the harbor, previously foggy, magically cleared for us like in our honeymoon trip in Chicago when we did a boat architectural tour.  The harbor tour was awesome, perfect weather.
• We checked out the Midway carrier museum, and we got lost inside reading about all the placards about how the crews lived on the ship.  We didn't even make it to the top deck which was where I wanted to go, but the time we spent below was well worth it and very enjoyable.  We have a reason to go back too.  Great museum.
• When we got to our second hotel, a room my wife and I spent a trip in before we got married (don't ask about that), we had gotten a great room but it was big and had a kitchenette.  We ended up downgrading to the original room we had our trip in, very romantic. We even saw a sea lion (or another that looked like the original) camped out at the hotel like the last time we were there.
• We has an excellent anniversary dinner at a casual place that had excellent food for relatively cheap.
• The next day we ended up finding a tide pool on a naval base / national park and had a great time splashing around with a bunch of other tourist and kids for a few hours.  We also were able to tour a monument that was fun and free.  
• We made it both to San Diego and back with no problems, just enough money to bail out our dogs, and have a very blessed time.

Thank you Jesus! I know your finger tips were all over the trip, as they have been in passed trips.  Thank you for being so generous to my wife and me.  We appreciate the gift.

The Big Crisis

All my life I've gotten help.  Just even recently my wife went to the emergency room and I had to take a spot loan out from my parents so I could afford to get the car my wife had left hours away on the side of the road.  I've been very blessed by many people in my life as I've faced hardships.  Yet I'm thinking one day I will be forced to face the ultimate hardship alone.

It is amazing to me how quickly the American church by in large is growing smaller and having less and less impact on our society.  I think 2013 marks the first year where out and out persecution of Christians has begun.  The government has been flirting with the idea for years, but now judges are starting to rule that Christians who live by their faith must adapt to the society instead or pay a price.  I expect this to get rapidly worse.

My parent's salvation is unknown.  Even my wife's is at this point.  The few friends that I have are scattered far away, and most of them are not Christians either.  I can stand with my fellow Christians that I go to a Bible study with, but I think when persecution happens it will be every man and woman for themselves for the most part.

I don't want to be persecuted. I don't want to face troubles while those that I love stand by and watch with actual approving nods that I'm being punished somehow for what I believe.  But I am almost expecting it at this point.  It will be both a really sad day but also a great one as I will put all my trust into my Lord Jesus.  By Him I stand or by Him I will fall.  It will be just He and I as I go through what I am called to go through, just like it was just Him and the Father when Jesus chose to go to the cross. I hope that day, when and if it comes, will bring me closer to my Lord in a more intimate way than ever before.  I hope Jesus's nearness to me will help me wither the sorrow of being alone and at the same time bring me hope for future Glory in His presence.

I don't know when this time will come, it could be years maybe even a decade or more away, but I hope that if and when it comes, that God will see me through and I honor Christ by forgiving my persecutors and witnessing and praying for the unsaved until my final moment.

God Answers Prayers

One of the things I wanted to do with this blog is to keep a log of prayers that God has answered.  One dramatic one was answered just recently.  My wife works night shifts, I work days.  I can't really do much on the days that she is sleeping while I'm at home because I wake her up (yard work, cleaning, dishes, etc...).  Plus she works one weekend night and is usually exhausted the morning of the other, so our weekends together are almost non existent.  I really missed our time together on the weekends as in the past we would go for little day trips and would have a great time together.  So I told my wife she should push for day shifts.  She just started her new job and is the low person on the seniority latter so she just laughed.  So I prayed that she would be able to work days.

Well God answered my prayer.  The company my wife works for decided that they want to make her a lead person at night, and she isn't quite strong enough to do that yet, so they are going to move her to days for a few months to get her where she needs to be in order to be a strong lead person on the night shift.  Coincidence? I don't think so.

It won't be for a long time, but it will be enough for us to spend time together before Winter, get our affairs back to what I call a "zero point" or in a maintainable state.  I'm very thankful to God for this.  Jesus is cool, thank you.

Family

I will never abandon my family.  I owe them too much.  But they can't provide me with the love and respect that I need sometimes because I have become so distant from them.  Fellow Christians can.