I haven’t been doing much writing, but I have been doing video. Here is the last one I posted on my new channel.
Tag Archives: Christianity
A New YouTube Channel
Hello, friends.
It’s been nearly 2 months since I last updated you about anything, and for that I apologize. However, today I want to introduce you to my new YouTube channel, Edify.
Below is a link to my latest episode (for Sept. 22). I hope you like what I’m doing.
Filed under Christian Maturity
At Least VWs are Getting Built!
As I begin to write this, I am looking up to where it says, “Add title.” But I’m not sure what it should be. I am going to have to wait till I write a little more, I guess.
Two things have brought me back to the old keyboard: my new friend’s question and my questioning of what’s next.
My New Friend’s Question
If you read my last post, you’ll know who I’m talking about. There’s a sharp young man where I work with whom I’ve had some conversations. It was he who, while standing beside me in the “micro market,” asked, “Are you OK?”
Now, it doesn’t happen very often, as you probably well know – someone actually asking if you’re OK. I mean, it’s totally common to have people casually ask how you’re doing and not really expect an honest answer. And they shouldn’t expect it, either.
You and I do the same thing, don’t we? In passing, like an amplified “hello,” we ask, “How’re you?” without really wanting to receive a detailed response. All we expect is an obligatory, “I’m fine, how are you?” To which we always intend to say, “Fine.”
But this morning was a little different. My new friend asked if I was OK. He actually wanted to know! How strange! In a place with 5,000 people on any given day just trying to make it through their shift, here you have a guy who actually cared! So how did I respond?
Well, I don’t remember my exact words (his were more memorable), but I said something like, “I’m not that great.”
That’s when he told me he had noticed my lack of on-line activity (writing here, that is). So, here I am.
Questioning What’s Next
That brings me to the second of the two reasons I am writing this: I don’t know what’s next!
Here’s the thing, folks… I’m worn out. I’m tired. Primarily physically, but also emotionally. Everything from my new job (the main reason) to uncontrollable events, all have drained me so much that I have nothing to squeeze out. It’s literally taking reserve energy to type this.
If you want to know how bad things are, consider this: I am probably (90% sure) going to back away from the whole watch thing. Why? Well, for several reasons:
- I’m too tired to make videos. It would help to have a dedicated, undisturbed studio, but I don’t, and everything has to be set up fresh each time I record. Then comes all the editing.
- It takes time and money, neither of which I have much extra.
- Even though I enjoy new watches, my last new one sucked the wind out of my sails when it exposed that I really didn’t want what I thought I wanted as the ultimate watch.
- The economic suffering my friends in Pakistan are enduring made thinking of a luxury watch feel sickening.
So, if not watches, what? Back to painting? I wish – and hope! But again, with no dedicated place to set things up and leave them, it takes too much energy out of me to even get started.
And then there’s that whole “energy” thing. Did I mention that I worn out, tired, exhausted?
I don’t even want to study, which is the most tragic thing of all. Even though I have the opportunity to schedule speaking engagements, the thought of picking up a phone tires me, not to mention the mental fatigue that accompanies preparation.
Lastly, because this is already too long, I’m spiritually drained and feel like I can’t refill. My faith is under attack from several fronts and the battles are taking their toll. I’m not losing my faith, per say, but I do find myself wondering if I’m fighting the right battles.
If I could get more sleep, I would. But that’s a subject of its own.
But I’ll tell you this, at least some dadgum Volkswagen Atlas SUVs are getting built!
Filed under Uncategorized
Would You Share My Introduction?
Hey, friends!
I recorded this short introduction. Would you be kind enough to watch and share it?
Thanks a bunch!
Filed under Christianity, ministry, Pakistan
How Time Passes!?
I know that what I am about to write, and you are possibly about to read is a tad disturbing and possibly a bummer. However, stick with me for a few minutes and try to follow my still developing thought.
On this day 32 years ago, my father passed away at work. He was 46 years old; I was 24. He died from a massive heart attack while working third-shift security.
This morning before Bible study began at church, several of the men and I were talking about our ages. One of the guys told me with a grin, “I can guarantee I am older than you.” He was wrong – I was two years older than him. I was older than all four sitting at that table… and I also thought they were older than me!
Age is a funny thing, for our actual age and how we feel are more often nowhere close to each other. I still feel in my 20’s, like time stood still when my dad died. I don’t feel 55. Yet, here I am, older than my father was when he died, even older than his father, my grandfather, when he died (age 53). My dad was 24 when his father died, so I wonder if that was the age he felt when he died.
It has now been longer since my father died than I lived up until that day. That feels weird. It also feels weird that I always think of my dad as older than me, no matter how old I get. Time stood still for him as well as it seems it did for me.
That leads me to think about heaven. What will it be like when we see those who have gone before us when we were young, yet now we are adults? The Bible does briefly address some of the question in the last half of 1 Corinthians 15. There, Paul talks about there being a difference in the body we shall receive compared to what we have now. Earthly attained age will evidently have little to no relevance.
Therefore, in conclusion of this thought, at least one thing will be true when we see our loved ones again in Heaven (if we trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior): the saying that “time will be no more” will have as much to do with age as it does the clock.
Your thoughts?
Filed under General Observations, Life/Death, old age, maturity
I Need Help
Hey guys, I hope you are all well. I’ve not written for a while, but I’m OK.
But I do need your help. I’m trying my best to raise awareness and support for a ministry that is near to my heart, but I keep hitting brick walls. How do I get the word out? The only way to raise support is to get the word out to more people, but I’m at a loss on how.
I would appreciate any help or advice. God bless.
Filed under fundraising, Pakistan
I Should Be in Hell: My Pre-Salvation Testimony (on video)
I’m going to go ahead and tell you something upfront – this story has a twist.
If you have not already read the post I first published a few years ago, then this will REALLY be worth watching.
But even if you have read the post on which this video was based, I would still ask you watch it and share it. Thanks 🙂
Filed under Christianity, Faith, Witnessing
The Doctrine of Separation (Video Version)
What I did was take the text from the paper I wrote years ago, which I also turned into a post and a page on this blog and do a video version of it.
There were a few places that could have been and should have been updated, but I left things mostly as they were for simplicity’s sake.
Filed under baptist, Christian Unity
The Benefit of Darkness
Some people will insist that a Christian should never go through a dark time in his life. The idea is that “joy unspeakable” should empower a perpetual smile even in the middle of imminent doom.
What’s more, it’s the people in the Church who most often criticize the discouraged and depressed, treating them like whatever is bothering them could not be bad enough to challenge their faith, that is, if their faith was genuine.
It doesn’t help, either, when the rest of the world’s problems are weighed in the balance with ours. It’s like, “There are people being burned alive for their faith and you’re having a spiritual identity crisis?” It’s no different than saying, “If you think YOUR pain is bad, you should feel MINE.”
There’s songs and sermons galore about persevering through the storms of life and coming out stronger on the other side. There’s even much talk about joy in the midst of sorrow, about peace in the midst of spiritual attack. But what I don’t think I’ve ever heard is a recognition of the value or benefits of the “dark” times we may experience.
When I say I’m in “a dark place,” what does that mean? For different people it can mean different things, of course, but what do you typically think about? What do you associate with dark places?
I’ll tell you what I’ve seen in the dark places: anger, regret, sorrow, resentment, bitterness, resignation, self-doubt, self-hate, weariness, loneliness, helplessness, worthlessness, and a “deaf heaven” and “bootless cries” (to borrow from Shakespeare). It’s probably not necessary to tell you of the thoughts that accompany such darkness.
So how could there be any benefit to such darkness, such despair? How could there be any value to such moments? Well, I’ve wondered that, myself. Yet is our God not sovereign? If truly redeemed, am I ever out of His hand?
There exist rare and refined elements which offer solutions to problems yet to be discovered. In other words, there are things that, until they were discovered, we didn’t even know we had a need for them. Sometimes these things are discovered in the remains of previous failures.
I have come to believe that the strongest faith is produced in the dark, when all appears lost, when all efforts have failed, and when there’s nothing solid left on which to stand. Faith is then the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
The strongest faith can only be found, not in just weakness, but when there’s no strength at all.
When I’ve messed up so much and so many times that I’ve not even a single seed to plant in a dry field with no rain in sight, faith is the evidence of the crop to come.
The benefit of darkness is the failure of myself and the hope of Him who will not let me go.
Filed under Depression, Faith, self-worth, Struggles and Trials
Five Things I Expect from a Sermon
Not long ago my wife and I visited a particular church for the first time. I don’t want to tell you where it was or who did the preaching because what I’m about to write is not flattering. And should I tell you where we went, you might think what we experienced was the norm, when it might have not been.
Believe me, I know what it is like to be judged by one poorly delivered sermon. Heck, I’ve even been misjudged by an expertly delivered and totally biblical sermon! Therefore, I don’t want to disparage a pastor after hearing him only once.
However, what I expect from a preacher is rarely delivered these days. Honestly, it’s like every time a new preacher steps up to the pulpit, the voice of the Dread Pirate Roberts whispers in my ear, “Get used to disappointment.”
What I typically receive is a topical sermon based on a topical series that starts with a text and only comes back to it when mentioning the sermon title.
Sadly, what I have grown accustomed to are “how to” sermons loosely based on biblical principles but often drawn from Scripture verses taken out of context.
But what is it that I expect? Not much, just five simple things.
- WHAT I EXPECT… are sermons that exegete the Holy Word of God, even without artistic and often unnecessary alliterations.
- WHAT I EXPECT… is a preacher who will take the Bible, read it, explain it, then make application, not the other way around.
- WHAT I EXPECT… is to be wowed and amazed by the wonderous, Holy Spirit-inspired, inerrant Word of God, not the delivery of the one tasked to preach it.
- WHAT I EXPECT… is a sermon that treats passages from the Bible as revealed Scripture, not just supporting references.
- WHAT I EXPECT… is nothing more and nothing less than what we read of in the book of Nehemiah. There we read of when Ezra built a “pulpit” of wood (a raised place from which to be heard) and, along with a few others, opened up the long-forgotten Law of God and read it to an attentive, standing crowd.
So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.
Nehemiah 8:8 KJV
If the above verse isn’t clear enough, the CSB renders it, “They read out of the book of the law of God, translating and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was read.”
When you add application to the above formula, that’s when you get good preaching.
That’s what I expect.
Filed under General Observations, Preaching
The Recovering Legalist 