Chasing the Wind (Part 1)

I talked to my friend Mike about "the List" and he suggested I read Ecclesiastes. I'm happy to say it will be a re-reading as it is one of the few books of the bible that I have read all the way through previously. But it is also a re-reading with new eyes. And I have gathered several great "words" from God's lips.


2:24 So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God.


In other words, God wants me to enjoy my life. And I can do that knowing that all of it is from the hand of God. Even the "trials" that may affect my enjoyment come from God, so I can rejoice in knowing He still wants me to enjoy life.


3:17 I said to myself, “In due season God will judge everyone, both good and bad, for all their deeds.”


No one can escape the judgement of God. So I will enjoy my life and live as if that day of judgement is today.


4:12 And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.


Despite my perceived lack of "best friends", and the truth that I have strong relationships with many, all of my relationships are strong when they are based on my relationship with Jesus Christ. The cord of three was perfectly illustrated by my talk with Mike: there was three of us gathered together: Mike, myself and the Holy Spirit. 


5:4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow.


I don't need to say much on this other than I have failed at it many times. I am working on it, Father God!


6:9 Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don't...Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless, like chasing the wind.


I have been a dreamer my whole life, thus my entrepreneurial spirit. And I could say that I have benefited from my dream of being my own boss: Squngee supported our family for five years. But the truth is God supported our family with Squngee.

The List

I’ve been sensing that God is preparing me for a change. Not sure if it’s geographical, mental, maybe even career-related. But I’m waiting to find out. As yet He hasn’t revealed to me what or where or if it is.


The other morning, during my dawn prayer-time, He asked me to write a list. It was a list of “things” that I have, over the last 2 or 3 years, lost my passion for. The list was something like this:

*My job is just a job; there is no passion or drive to create a career. I do it well, I attempt to enjoy it while I’m at work, but I walk out the door at the end of my shift and it’s out of mind.

*The only people I would consider my “best friends” live in Uganda and I get to see them for 24-36 hours every 2 years. That was last weekend and I enjoyed their visist and now I am “best friendless”.

*I feel like we are on the precipice of financial ruin on a constant basis. It doesn’t keep me up at night, but when I look at Andrew’s teeth, or feel the shimmy in the front end of my truck, I have to admit, it catches my breath. Sometimes.

*I have no relationship with my sisters.

*My two- (three-?) year obsession with writing has dissipated to almost nil. Perhaps the drive to get published has dissipated for I still feel a desire to write. But it can be ignored, unlike last month when I wanted to scream because I could only get 900 words down before life intruded.

*My health is dismal and I don’t do anything about it. And I want to; I feel so much better even 20 pounds lighter. But…

So I looked at the list and thought, “How sad is this list.”

And then I felt washed in freedom! I was free from condemnation, urgency, guilt, dissatisfaction, anxiety. Because God is all I need. He wants me to enjoy life, but He wants me to know in the end, it's all dust in the wind. What matters is Him.

Of that list, the only one I think I might need help with getting free is the financial worries. I’m not asking God to make me rich. I just get tired of worrying every week about the vehicles, every month about the rent, and the occasional "what ifs".

So Father God, please make me rich with the confidence that you are sufficient for all my needs. Your promises are infinitely more powerful than my bills. Amen!

Lessons From The Sky

God was talkin' loud and clear today. We had church at our home, which could have been a blessing or a curse since I woke up feeling less than my usual contented self. It seems like I’ve been experiencing too much “hope deferred”. But I know I’m waiting on the Lord and just need to remember that. Or be reminded of that. And a houseful of Jesus-lovers…took them about ten minutes to push away the dark clouds.

I mentioned to Jill that the day before had been hell at work and I wasn’t expecting today to be much better. When I left the meeting, I made it to the stairway door before Jill followed me out to pray with me. We stood in the hall holding hands and she prayed for a better day at work. I thanked and hugged her and drove to work. One quick stop at the Kwik-Stop for gum.

With the balmy 25 degrees, I shed my over-stuffed coat and enjoyed the brisk Minnesota air! Another one of God's way of speaking to me: fresh, cool air. I love it, in all its "aromas"...especially on my way to a 12-hour stint in a closed building with a phone stuck to my ear.

Walking back to the truck from the store, I heard the rush of wings above me and looked up to see a trio of Canada geese pass over ten feet above me. I started to smile—I love birds and think of them as God’s messengers of affirmation that He is watching over me—until I felt the wet, warm PLOP on my arm. Yep—a goose had splatted me, green and slimy.

And there was another opportunity to choose the blessing over the curse. For the green goo was on my shirt sleeve, right up to the edge but not on the skin of my bicep (not that I’m squeamish – when I was a practicing falconer I had all manner of animal excretions upon me at various times!). But I took the close but no cigar aim of the goose as a message from God. Because a skin shot would have just been nasty on my way to a 12-hour shift. And my bald head was certainly a more visible and satisfying target.

Coughing up the Holy Spirit

Had this dream the other night:

Minda and I were on our way "somewhere"- not sure where but we needed to bring food. So she had a plastic bag of burger patties. But some were pre-cooked and some were raw (big deal for me, the food-borne illness neurotic - ask Minda!). 

The dream was real disjointed so it jumped to the next scene where we were apparently squatters in a building (it seems like there were many families there). In our "apartment" I was brushing my teeth over a dirty utility sink and 

mulling over a recent custody hearing for "my other son" (what other son? I don't know!). In the hearing I had expressed my interest in taking custody of him as my "ex" was about to move to another state and have another baby so why not? She seemed agreeable. 

Then I noticed a little frog swimming around in the detritus of the sink and thought "I'll give that frog to Andrew". When I finished brushing my teeth, I coughed into a kleenex and knew I had coughed up something. When I looked I had coughed out a white feather. I actually examined it really close - part of it was bent.

And then I woke up.

I asked Darrell if he had any insight into the dream and he did:

I have an impression that this whole dream has to do with your old life and your new life (your old life in the flesh and your new life in the spirit). There is a lot of mixing of the two in the dream, when really the old should be discarded.

For example, the good hamburgers represents the word of God (the bread of life), but it is mixed in the same bag with the bad hamburgers, which should be discarded, rather than tolerated and saved because they seem “OK”.

The apartment was not your true home (in the world not in kingdom of heaven) and was not where you should be living. Nobody else that is there belongs there either.

Your ex represents your old life in the flesh too. Your other son is the fruit of that old life. Again, you are half heartedly grasping for the old life.

The dirt on the sink and the debris in the sink is your sin that you find disgusting. You don’t like it around but you put up with it. The frog in the sink is your sin that you kind of like because it was somewhat enjoyable. You are tempted to pass that sin on to your son.

In all of these, you are not aggressively pursuing the old life, but you are agreeing to hang on because it seems reasonable or you are just going with the flow. Instead you should be eagerly discarding the old. Throw out the bad hamburgers, move out of your worldly home (and don’t take the frog with you), leave your other son with your ex.

The white feather that comes out of your mouth is the spoken word, from the holy spirit, coming out of your mouth. It is coughed up because you resist speaking it, but it comes out anyway despite your resistance. So the word of the spirit will come out you, but it is easier for you if you go with it, instead of resist it.

Vitamin Doug!

Interesting dream the other night.

I joined with a friend (no one I knew in my real life) in an undercover effort to expose a "vitamin-sales" scam. The highly successful scam was run by my friend's friend and was overseen by the "godfather of vitamins" Ricardo Montabon (?!?!).

So we met with the guy at his "estate" who told us he was making "$700  a day. A day, man!" selling these multi-paks of bogus vitamins that ostensibly helped people lose weight. He showed us a pack and the vitamins looked like large caplets of blue-green liquid with a red "booster dot" on the side of each caplet.

We settled in for a stay at the estate, pretending to just be visiting while we gathered info to bust the scam. At one point I was lounging in the sun by laying on a cot on the side of the road in between several vehicles and a construction dumpster. A truck approached and I had to move my cot out of the way so he could haul away the dumpster. (Very strange mid-dream interlude).

Later, my old falconry mentor, Michael, showed up. We talked falconry and kids - I showed him photos of my TWO kids (Andrew and a daughter). He didn't have any photos and was acting friendly but "cool". I sensed something odd but couldn't tell what it was. Like he was "playing friend".

I told Mike I needed to run upstairs for a minute and as I started up the stairs, he said over his shoulder, "Hey buddy, do you want lose some of that weight?" I turned and spotted his "vitamin-selling kit". Sure enough, my friend was part of the scam.

I sub-consciously rolled my eyes (as in "I hate it when my friends get pulled into multi-level marketing schemes") and said "Sure, I'll be right back and we can talk." I jogged upstairs to the den and found Doug F there, ministering to a young child. I felt total relief wash over me and locked eyes with Doug as I walked in the room. I said, "I need your help." And then woke up.

Freedom!!!

God speaks to me through others sometimes and yesterday was a good example. At fellowship, Josie brought a message that was meant for me (if for no one else). She described both how she has been struggling with certain emotions and how the human brain creates "cell memories" (in a very scientific yet understandable explanation!) of certain responses. These memories are actually a physical build-up of nerve cells that are activated when hit with a certain trigger, causing an automatic response. (Think about driving the same way to work everyday; if you head out on the weekend and end up at your employer, you have been a victim of automatic response caused by cell memory.)

Her point was that just because she has realized she is under the sin of a particular emotion--envy, say--and has acknowledged it, repented and moved on, her brain will easily bring it back up the next day, or the next when triggered. Reason being, her brain has developed a memory of how to respond to the triggers, even self-consciously. In order to get past the envy triggered by a certain person or thing, she has to not only repent and move on, she has to do it again and again in order to build a new cell memory of the new response--loving and celebrating the person's accomplishment instead of envying and cursing the person.

What struck me was the fact that, after I confessed my "slug secrets" to several friends (including Josie) six months or so ago, I was on an emotional high of freedom and relief, a cleansed spirit. And it lasted all of a week before I found myself falling into the same patterns and responses to triggers: distrust, deception, hiding my feelings, embarrassment at the tiniest thing. (Example: I don't trust people's motives if they are friendly to me or seem to like me. If someone expresses an interest in me or in some accomplishment, my first response is to wonder why--as opposed to thinking they truly find me interesting.)

Of course I had two-and-a-half decades of cell memory built up. It might take a while to build new ones. But the message God delivered to me through Josie was, it's time to get started.

And the way to build new responses to old triggers is to repent from these reactions, pray for a new response (and respond differently, even if only on faith) and renew my belief on a daily basis that I am a beloved child of God, not a corrupted, worthless sinner. I have been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ and that covers everything from past sins to future sins, to my responses to triggers, and to every time, from twenty years ago to twenty years hence. I am free.

Truth

I had this dream one night:

I arrived home to find my wife and her friend visiting, drinking coffee, doing whatever two best friends do. I had brought home one of our favorite treats—a seedless watermelon. I decided to serve the two of them a slice. So I took a large knife, cut the watermelon in half and covered the one half with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

When I turned back around to slice the other half, I was shocked at what I saw. In the center of the melon were two squirming slugs, a small one on the top surface and a larger one deeper in the red flesh. I threw it away and retrieved the other half. I pulled off the plastic and there were two more slugs, one large and one small. I was speechless and stood dumbfounded for a moment before I woke up.

Once again, the combination of incomprehensible aspects and vivid detail in the dream, not to mention the fact that I remembered every little detail, told me that God was speaking to me. And after thought, prayer and talking to a trusted friend, I arrived at this interpretation:

The watermelon was fruit that I wanted to and attempted to share with my wife and her friend. But the fruit was tainted, unworthy, and defiled by two ugly secrets from my past. Bottom line: these two secrets, one small and one large, were preventing me from sharing spiritual fruit with my wife and friends.

The message was clear: God wanted me to rid myself of these secrets. And until I did, any fruit of the spirit would not be received by those I wanted to share it with.

The secrets were shameful and painful and I had hidden and guarded them so well for 25 plus years that even I had grown oblivious to their damage—damage to my relationships with friends, family and especially my wife.

The small secret, lying on the surface, was something my wife knew a bit about, as I had revealed parts of it to her when I first realized its truth several years earlier. And, being the perceptive woman that she is, there were aspects of my personality that she could see through to their root. Duh!

But my friends, my spiritual family, they knew nothing of my childhood abuse. And yet it colored my ability to trust people, make friends, love freely. And affected—and still affects my relationships with them.

And the larger secret, the one hidden deep inside me, only added layers of silence and deceit to the protective shell in which I had sealed my heart.

I wrestled with God’s message for a few days, and then told my wife. She accepted the truth behind the secrets. And then I told a trusted friend, and then another one. With each telling I felt freedom wash over me. Freedom and cleansing.

The bump in the road came when my wife told me several days later that she was struggling now. Not with the secrets, which like the small slug on the surface, were to her small and already surmounted in our lives together. The truth of my past was a part of me, the man she loved and couldn’t imagine life without. What bothered her was the fact that I had not divulged the secrets to her earlier. That after 12 years of marriage I didn’t feel I could trust her. And this hurt her deeply.

And that’s when I heard God’s true message: It’s not the secrets that harm; it’s the keeping of them.

And by the way, true to her character and God’s calling, my wife forgave me. And she still loves me! It truly is amazing how much "collateral healing" can be accomplished by healing.

I was sexually abused as a young child by a person unknown (small slug) and it happened again in my teen years by someone I knew and trusted and could have stopped (big slug). Those are my secrets. Am I less a man or less a beloved child of God for having those secrets? No. Am I not a strong father, hard worker, decent human being because of what happened in my youth? Do my talents, capabilities and skills wither to insignificance because of my secrets? Of course not.

The big question is how much better a son, husband, father, brother, worker, artist, friend would I have been if I had not buried those secrets for most of my adult life? What heights might my empathy, confidence, success, and potential have reached? I’ll never know for sure, but I can guess.

What we secret-keepers need to fear—and resolve, is the damage done by the hiding and protecting of our secrets at all costs. Because that lifestyle wears a heavy pricetag.