Expect The Unexpected

#1782

"We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28 

To know that nothing hurts the godly, is a matter of comfort. But to be assured . . .
  that all things which happen shall cooperate for their good, 
  that their crosses shall be turned into blessings,
  that showers of affliction water the withering root of their grace and make it flourish more
--this may fill their hearts with joy until they run over! 

"As the wicked are hurt by the best things--so the godly are bettered by the worst things!"William Jenkyn

"Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride." Richard Sibbes

"God's wounds cure--sin's kisses kill." William Gurnall

"I am . . . 
  mended by my sickness,
  enriched by my poverty, and
  strengthened by my weakness. 
Thus was it with King Manasseh when he was in affliction, "He sought the Lord his God." 
His iron shackles were more precious to him than his gold,
his jail was a more happy lodging than his palace,
Babylon was a better school than Jerusalem. 
What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! 
These, however difficult, are our best friends! 
They are not intended for our pleasure, but for our profit!" Abraham Wright

This 85 year old veteran, American citizen, committed/concerned/convinced Christian would never have believed, as a child, that he would spend most of his life sightless...in a cocoon of blackness only by faith, not sight, do many of us walk.  (2 Corinthians 5:7)

God forgive me for having so little patience with those around me, family/neighbors/associates who have so much and appreciate it so little.

I was in the depths of Africa, I believe around Goma in the Congo.  I came upon a village where the Christians there were attempting to put a new roof on their church.  The young preacher said, it is a Methodist church.  At one place in Africa, I came across a large "brush arbor" which was a Baptist church.  You know what I was thinking, these destitute Africans doing the best they can with the little they have while I have surrounded my life with people who thought they were doing their best, for our blessed Lord by going to church for 1 hour on a Sunday morning... when they felt like it, living like the unbelieving world the rest of the time. 

I do not sit in judgment of anyone, everyday of my life I pray that God would forgive me for my rotten sins.  The times I have embarrassed him even though I was the bearer of his name even though I proclaimed his grace. 

One day we will understand.  I still remember the day before my own mother died...her body devoured by cancer, in my years as a Army medical officer, doctor,  many hospitals, I still believe the worse part of sickness is the bedpan.  The last thing I ever did for this remarkable woman, my mother,  was when she asked me to put her on the commode... nothing but skin and bones, she must have weighed about 50 pounds, she died the next day, and as far as I know, this Christian woman like her Christian mother before her never did anything but good for her family and everyone else with whom she came in contact. 

The most difficult question you will ever be asked is why God allows good people to suffer.  That is his business... just as he allowed his own precious son to suffer on a cruel cross.

In my long life of world travel meeting and greeting people of every type in almost every type situation, most never "EXPECT" the "UNEXPECTED"... they never think anything bad will happen to them even though 50% of the population have cancer, weather they know it or not, 10% of all deaths are from medical mistakes and 1/4 of all sac atrophic drugs are given to children.  We wonder why so many young people are addicted to drugs, so many commit suicide, so many are not fit morally, spiritually, physically to live around the normal population.  If nothing bad has happened to you, no sickness, no infirmity, no depression, no despair, no disappointment don't get too self satisfied, your day of exposure to the realities of life is on the way.  

Spirituality of Work

#684

Spirituality of Work

Over a long and eventful life, I have owned many businesses, hired many personnel. Every life has a story and every person has a story to tell. With every year I find that prospective personnel become more interesting. Gone are the days of simple lives, simple lifestyles.

Yesterday, a young woman, answered to an advertisement for secretarial assistant initially interviewed by two people, came for her interview with me. In the course of the conversation, she told me she was a single mother with a young daughter... Many things she told me did not agree with her resume. I told her, “I must have people working for me, in my condition (totally blind), on whom I can depend, on whom I can trust. I could write books about employees over the years who thought they were smart enough to take advantage of me, stealing, lying, cheating, thinking their lack of integrity would never catch up with them. She said, “you can trust me. I am a very moral person. I said, “you have already betrayed your morals, you are living with a man to whom you are not married with whom you have a child. Your child deserves married parents, If this man cared for you or your child, he would marry you. There is a sanctity in marriage, the two greatest evils in the world, the two greatest evils recognized in every culture, every civilization, abortion and the homosexual lifestyle, neither of which honors the creator with the greatest creation the human being. She said, “We are going to get married eventually but I want my daughter old enough to be our flower girl at my wedding!” Later she said, we don't get along very well but cannot afford to live separately and support the child. This is just one example of things I run in to constantly involving today's work force.

I have talked with the largest employer in this city (regional hospital), the 2nd largest employer in this city (school system), large or small, every person will tell you... Including a staffing service in one of my buildings... That the greatest problem in America today, and one reason we are going through this depression is a lack of integrity in the work place. Everyone wants to get paid but very few accept the responsibilities of a job (watch the finger pointing at any congressional inquiry. Whether bankers or oil rig operators(BP etc.), without exception whether a CEO or specialist, like children on the play ground, they always blame someone else) . From the time of the caveman, through the industrial revolution, right on through the horror story of child labor practices and the in human practices of union bosses there have been inequities in the work place. David Rockefeller, world manipulator of the worlds money system, world manipulator of eugenics a member of every world power tribunal said, in his biography, “Some men are born to rule others to be ruled”.

I have traveled through every communist country, supposedly everyone on an equal playing field (conrads). Early, you find there, the bourgeois (poor and middle class) and the dictators who run things.

Mexico has been swallowed by an evil mindset, the country is an absolute disaster, wealthy beyond words in resources, because of crooked politics and insane drug trade, war fare among the people is bringing on disaster there as well as USA. The most dangerous city in the world is Juarez Mexico, even the mayors of border Mexican cities live in America traveling back and forth across the border each day. The sophistication of the tunneling systems above and under the 2000 mile border is beyond comprehension. The new saint in Mexico boreos is called the Grim Reaper. A recent movie called “ Machete”, a recent Arizona search law, a recent mantra of news involving illegal migration, the fact that 30% of all federal prisoners are illegal immigrants, and just looking down the streets in any town will cause any person with economic reasoning to know that something must be done about the “wetback problem” (a term used by President Eisenhower”).

For every need there is a seed. Do what is in front of you. There is nothing more honorable than work. There is not a civilization in the world that tolerates laziness... One of the seven deadly sins. Never once, Never have I heard a person brag about his father being lazy. Never once, never have I heard a man or woman brag about the sorriness of their mother. Their mother may have been a prostitute, their father may have been the village drunk, they chose to block this out of their thinking. It makes no difference where you came from, you are not stuck where you start. When you study the genealogy of Jesus, you will find that Rahab, the harlot, is in his genealogy. When DNA was discovered by Watson and Krick in 1953, I was in college. This greatest discovery of the 20th century gives every living person “a reason to bask” in the verisimilitude of his ancestry the quantum of knowing the trillions of cells comprising his body ( The Temple of God) gives one and exacting historical account, each cell with a potential of thousands of pages giving the marvelous 23 thousand genome in the experiment from god, invested in your creation.

There is not one minuet doubt in my mind that I was chosen of god before the very foundation of the universe. In his divine providence, he placed my unique DNA, into his divine caldron of Omnipotent perception. There are over six billion human beings living on earth today, and about 6 billion have lived previously since the great flood of 5,000BC. No two persons, with the same DNA, the same finger prints, the same iris flex in the eye, the same voice, the same inner man, mental wiring. Your are a unique individual, and if chosen by god, an internal being.

One day, in my office, a young man came in a pharmacist, who had been sent by someone at UNC CH. I said to him, After looking at his address and other vitals, you appear very familiar. Do I know any of your family”? He said, “my father died young, my mother remarried and I was adopted by her husband, now my father and I have his name”. I said, What was your biological fathers name? Where did he live? He told me, I went to school with your father, I knew your grandfather. I could tell you much about your great grand father from what I have been told. I have never recognized such stunned silence. He said, no one has ever talked to me about my fathers family, please tell me what you know. I told him about his father, what a fine hard working man he was. That his grand father was one of the finest men, anyone, anytime,any where anyone could ever know. I told him what I had been told about his great grandfather... large land owner...great church man. Before this young man left my office, he said, this is one of the greatest days of my life. My life will never be the same again. Sometime later, his wife called me that he had been killed on his own private plane. She said, “He so admired you, I wish you could participate in his funeral.

Every action, every attitude matters. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”( Romans 8:38-39). No more can we be separated from the love of God and Christ Jesus than we can be separated from our genealogy. There is honor in work just as there is honor in our servitude following our creator. The saints sang the old hem, “Work for the night is coming, when mans work is over”