"Triumph Over Tragedy" pt.1

“Oh, God,” he whispered, “How can this be? After all she and I have been through, after all our fights, after all our years together . . . How can You let it come to this?”

He waited for a response.

Nothing to break the silence except the softening hum of the engine as he eased off the gas, decelerating behind a tanker he was rapidly approaching. He sniffed hard and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

“Why now? Why can't it be me? Why does it have to be her? Why does it have to be anyone? You're all powerful, can't You save her?”

He'd never been a praying man, but the worst-case scenarios always brought him to prayerful interrogation of God, sometimes to His knees. He never once heard a response. But as long as He believed in a God that was infinitely powerful to intervene, he had someone to blame.

“God? Are you there? Just let me . . . Let me hear Your voice, just this once. Please . . . I need You more than ever right now.”

The downshift and sequential rev of the engine was nearly deafening inside the stuffy cabin as he sped around the tractor.

“God, if You're all powerful and omniscient, then You can see her. Why won't you save her life?”

The grid of buildings grew visibly closer through the hazy evening sky, distorted by wet eyes. Many of the towers had already begun to glow, the tallest ones emitting a rotating beam of light from their peaks. They caught his attention momentarily. He'd soon be inside one of them, by his wife's bedside.

Can't see the forest for the trees, he thought.

Drugs; pro- or anti-legalization?

I'm against drug use because it's illegal, and a crime, and i am against crime. There are other reasons i'll state here as well.

First off, the most common reasonings in favor of legalization that i've heard have been 1) It's not up to the government to tell us what we can or can't do, 2) If it's not hurting anyone else, then what's the harm? 3) The only reason it's illegal is because the government can't track and tax the farming/use/sales of it, 4) It would reduce/eliminate the drug cartels, and lastly, 5) It would reduce crime, lower the amount of money going into the justice system, and increase our domestic product.

Now let me address these ideas;
1) It's not. No, that should be a personal conviction, just like beating the crap out of someone (refer to #2 for why i use this correlation) . . . We should know better than to do it. It should simply be common knowledge and instinct to not do things that kill us, just like with smoking and drinking. But no. There are millions of people who do things their body tells them not to.

2) Again, it should simply be common knowledge and instinct to not do things that kill us, just like with smoking and drinking. If it doesn't hurt others . . . That's the thing, though; it DOES. Just like alcohol and tobacco; alcohol claims 2.5 million lives each year. Those aren't just people who drink, but people whose judgement has been impaired by it. It probably takes less of most drugs to get someone 'buzzed' than it takes alcohol.
And smoking . . . I don't know how many lives that claims. Smokers aren't the only ones who get lung cancer from cigarettes; people around smokers do, too. Same thing goes for most drugs; the smoke/excess of them would affect others. That sense of logic is flawed and, sorry, downright stupid.
It would make drugs cheaper, so anyone could have them . . . That doesn't sound appealing to me, knowing that even more people would be intoxicated or under the influence of some sort of substance.

3) Sadly, that's true. It makes me sick to think that, if it has the same effects as alcohol does, that'd be another 2.5 million people worldwide if it was legal across the globe. And the government's only concern is cash. Revenue > lives. Lovely. It's depressing knowing that the government values you and i just a little less than money.

4) True. It would eliminate them, or at least reduce them. But then, once they were no longer running drugs, they'd run something else, just as has happened since boats were invented. It's human nature to want what we can't have. There have been smugglers since the beginning of countries' borders, and there will always be smugglers. As long as anything is illegal, they will run that product.
And i live just a few hours from the US/Mexico border, and there's said to be families of drug runners in Lake Jackson, a town about 15-20 minutes away from my home. I worry about alcoholics more than i worry about drug cartels. I would worry more about the influx of doped-up people roaming the streets (in vehicles, no less) if it were legal than i worry about drug cartels.

5) It would reduce crime. Personally, i think the best way to reduce crime is not to give in, but make the punishment so severe that it's no longer worth the risk of getting caught (why should criminals get access to the internet and tvs? Why is the American public paying for their luxuries? Why do the more vile inmates even get beds and chairs? It should be prison, not a stay at a fully furnished second-home). Like drunk driving--i think that should be attempted involuntary manslaughter . . . But that penalty does not exist and is only inside my head. Legalizing it for the sake of reducing crime is essentially surrendering morals because it seems the easy thing to do. It's not the wise choice, in my opinion.
And i understand that money used to have drug users arrested, tried, and incarcerated costs you and i both, but i would prefer some dopehead who can't see because so many of his brain cells have been burned out was sitting behind bars in his zombified state rather than piloting a 4,000 object traveling 60 mph past any combination of my spouse/parent/child/sibling/cousin/niece/nephew/grandparent/aunt/uncle/etc.

6) . . . If you have another reason, please message me on FB or Tumblr, comment on this, or send me an email at jos_h20@hotmail.com (please state in the subject it's regarding this blog or i probably won't even see it), and i'd be happy to discuss it.
If you're looking to argue, i'm not so naive as to think arguing online changes anyone's mind, so i refrain. If you want a legitimate conversation about it, though, just two people discussing it with reason, please do send me a message; i'd love to get more than the stereotypical reasons.

The Lord's Prayer (pt. 2)

"Give us this day our daily bread."

In another verse, Proverbs 30:8, the author, Agur, pleads for only two things, one of which is to have neither poverty nor riches. For in poverty, we may become thieves and "profane the name of my God," whereas in riches we will forget where our hope rests and where our blessings come from.
Not only this, i find the whole aspect of "daily bread" to be quite interesting. It's long been in my thoughts to always have a need, but not poverty. I want just enough, nothing more. I'd prefer a little less than enough rather than a little more, so i have to strive, i have to better myself, and i have to trust God wholeheartedly to provide.
But daily bread; the literal translation of that is "the bread of my portion" (in Proverbs).
Enough, nothing more and nothing less. Paraphrased, that could imply "give us this day [just enough so that we rely on You always]."
But we're not to live by bread alone, but by every word of God. The basics of this world, and the blessings of the spiritual. Adequacy here, and abundance in our soul . . . And our cup will overflow.
¹² 
"And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors."

I'm analyzing these two as the same line . . .
Forgiveness is something we have to strive for from mankind. We have to earn it. Jesus earned forgiveness of sins for us and gives it freely to us, all we have to do is ask.
But to forgive, that's not just an empty phrase. If we say we forgive someone, we should mean it. We should eliminate that wrong from our memory as best we can and live as though it never happened. In Romans chapter 10, it says "For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
Forgiveness is much the same way; to forgive, we must believe in the heart that we've forgiven, and by mouth we utter that the wrong has been washed away. It's an oath to not throw a past sin in someone's face after it's been said that you've forgiven. Jesus was God's oath to us that He'd not hold us accountable after we've been forgiven. By Jesus' blood, our 'debts' against God and man have been washed away. His blood is grace, and we're covered in it. It's not that He can't see our sins, it's that He chooses not to.

"And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one."

God does not tempt us to do wrong, so i've caught myself wondering why we'd ask God to not lead us into temptation.
But it's simple, really. In Romans chapter 1 (i'm using other verses to make my point a lot this go-'round), we can see where God doesn't lead people into wickedness, but 'gives them up to uncleanness'. Their hearts were darkened.How do you darken something? You remove the light. God is the light of salvation. He removed Himself from them, and left them to their own hearts' desires. Without a glimmer of God in our hearts, we revert to things that are unnatural, diseasing (not a word, but its intended meaning should be obvious), and crippling. They professed wisdom, all the while becoming fools. Their hearts became void of God's light.
Romans 1:29-32 says: "being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."See, this shows that it's God alone that keeps us from evil.
To me, "And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one" is much as a plea to have God continue to shine His light in our hearts, which will keep us from evil.

"For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

By Him, through Him, and to Him are all things; all things were made for His glory, and this is stating that all glory will be properly directed to Him. All power we may gain, whatever strength, ability, respect, honor, or place among men, it is His. He gets our glory, He gets the power appointed us by man, and His is the Kingdom that is established with such power.
The kingdom of God; this universe but a territory. His is the kingdom.
Forever. It's hard to think of something infinite with a mind as finite as ours. Let me put this in a finite manner: The Voyager I Probe was launched in 1977. That's 35 years ago. It's travelling nearing to 50km per second. Each breath you take, it travels the distance it would take you an hour and a half to drive. And it's been going for 35 years. It's 33 hours away at the speed of light. Now picture walking that distance. It would take millennia, and that's 1/265th of one lightyear. Our galaxy is 100,000–120,000 lightyears across. Now imagine walking that. There are galaxies billions of lightyears away . . . Imagine walking back and forth between here and one of them . . . Now picture it a thousand times. And that's a flash in the pan compared to God's eternal glory.
To Him is our glory, and our power (our all), and our kingdoms. Forever.
Amen: to be firm, confirmed, reliable, faithful, have faith, believe, so be it.

Grafted In Christ

This is something i realized at work the other day . . .
In the Bible, i'm not sure where, i believe it says we are 'grafted' into the Body of Christ when we receive the Holy Spirit. When Christ lives within us, He makes us one with Him, and we are no longer what we were, but rather grafted onto Him.

I want to go a little further into this; as most of you know, we have a flower/vegetable/fruit tree section at the feed store. The vast majority of the fruit trees we sell, and off the top of my head i can't think of any exceptions to this, are grafted trees. The rootstock has to be a hardy plant that's climatized to the area, and can endure the heat, the drastic changes from one day to the next, the droughts, etc. What that does is it sets the foundation for what's grafted onto it, so that its immunities and ability to endure is passed on to what is to be grafted. The rootstock pretty much surrenders what it naturally is so that something else can thrive as it would have.

Here's a brief summary of how to graft a tree; when the rootstock is still a young tree, it must be cut off about a foot or so from the ground. It is then split a few inches down the middle. A branch of the weaker tree, the one that would otherwise be fruitless, is usually (not always) dipped in a hormone that encourages root growth, then set down in the split of the rootstock, and then it's tied together so the rootstock can grow over the grafted branch and make the two into one . . .

The rootstock gives what is rightfully its own in exchange for the sake of the weak, barren and fruitless. It is cut off so that another plant, one that, if all was fair, would not be able to grow (or, if it did, it wouldn't produce fruit). The grace shown by the rootstock covers the faults of the grafted branch.
Not only this, there are trees that are grown in nurseries for the sole reason of being cut off so that the weak, frail tree could grow.

Jesus must be our rootstock. He was born to be cut off so that we could be grafted onto Him, so that He could grant us the life that we would otherwise not have, so that our branches may produce fruit. If we give ourselves to His sacrifice, and tie ourselves to Him, He will grow around us, and He will change us into something new.
He will root us in the spiritual, and grant us life in a place we could never dream of existing. We were made for Heaven, but humanity has fallen to the point that we've decided that we're born the the world.
We are unable to, on our own, produce fruit that is good.
Without a rootstock, our roots will rot and our fruit become bitter, or nonexistent at all. Being rooted in Christ through His sacrifice gives us the ability to, once again, produce a fruit that will satisfy, a fruit that will not rot or be bitter or unpleasant.
It allows us to be what we were made to be.

The Lord's Prayer (pt. 1)

I'm going to do a little bit of a dissection of The Lord's Prayer . . .

"Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name . . ."

Our Father. Meaning not just mine, but the Father of all who call on Him; the One who resides in Heaven, above all things. The One who spoke the universe into existence from Heaven, a place beyond this universe. To Him, the Creator, the One who allows us to be the children of the Most High God . . .

Hallowed; honored, revered, seen as holy. Hallowed be His name. His name, how we call on Him, it's a sacred thing, and to be used for Him alone. Jehovah, Yahweh, His name is Holy. Even the utterance of His name is not to be taken lightly.

"Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven . . ."

His kingdom come . . . This is praying that He establishes His kingdom here, among us. That the world become His. In a kingdom, there is the patriarch, then those who abide in it are the subjects. Praying that His kingdom comes is praying that mankind as a whole becomes subjects of the King of kings.
Praying that Heaven be made on Earth, that the world comes under His rule, and His protection. When a kingdom extends its borders, whatever it encompasses becomes the property of the kingdom. This is asking Him to extend the borders of Heaven. He's fulfilled His side of the blood oath; we must die to the world to live in Christ; we must lay down our lives in servitude to Him to fulfill our end of the deal.

His will . . . This is a really interesting part. His will . . . In another verse, it says something along the lines of all things working out for those who love God. That is His will. His will is for us to get up, and go out and change lives for Him. He is our Shepherd, we are the sheep. When one sheep goes astray, if all the other sheep are doing as they should, the stray will realize it's safer within the group that trusts the Shepherd.
Not only this, it's forsaking our own will, our earthly desires, and surrendering ourselves to God. We instinctively believe ourselves to know what's best for us, what we want to happen in our lives, and to want the simplest means of achieving those goals. But we're finite. And we can't comprehend the infinite, so it's hard for us to trust the One who is. But He has a plan for us all. His promise to Jeremiah about knowing him from before He formed Jeremiah in his mother's womb, that He had plans for Jeremiah to prosper and to be blessed; that does apply to us, too. It's our will that gets in the way of those plans and blessings. Leaving every aspect of our lives up to God is hard to do, especially when we see a way that seems painless and quicker, but God uses our struggles to our advantage. He teaches us patience, hope, faith, and contentment. We learn to appreciate what blessings He gives us at the end of our struggles.
His will is perfect. When working a puzzle, you need to see the front of the box in order to know what goes where. Try assembling a puzzle with the blank side of the pieces facing upward, and with no idea of where anything goes in the end . . . We need to trust that there's a big picture that we can't see, and that He knows what it is and can see where every piece fits independently of the others.

In Heaven, God has absolute rule, everything in Heaven cries "Holy", and praises Him. All those in Heaven succumb to His will, never doubt, never stray, never look away from the perfection that is our Father.
I'm not saying He's not all-powerful in this realm as well, just that He gave us, out of love, the freedom to follow Him or not to. He doesn't change our minds for us, He doesn't force people into a certain train of thought.
On earth as it is in Heaven means that we're crying out for all things and all peoples to, make themselves His. The only way for this to happen is for Him to change us first. With willingness, we can ask Him to change our hearts, and He will. By the transforming and renewing of our minds, so that "[we] may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
To have His kingdom come and His will done on earth as it's done in Heaven, the change starts within ourselves, not by asking others to change.
They'll know we're disciples of Christ by our love for one another . . . They'll see something in our lives they want to have in their own, and they'll seek it out. But still, we are commanded to go out into the world to spread His Word. And to let our light shine like a city on a hill that will not be hidden.

Not A Change of Heart

Across all the Abrahamic religions, one thing remains constant aside from God having created the Earth. That's Moses' righteousness. Islamics, Jews, Christians, Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses; we can all agree that Moses was righteous in the eyes of God.

In Exodus 32, God was going to destroy the Israelites. He didn't because Moses pleaded with Him to spare them.
A mere mortal, a single man -in comparison to God, man is less than an insect is to us- asked God to do something differently, despite the fact God had already made up His mind. And He relented.
God, the One who confounds the wise even in His foolishness, the Sovereign, the Almighty, the All-Knowing; He changed His decision not because He's fallible--quite the contrary, he did so because He is infallible. Because He is love. And, because love is understanding, He listened to the plea of His child. He met Moses half-way because He loves.

I don't think God changed His mind or His heart. I think that, because God is love, He chooses to do the merciful thing, despite being infallible. Love is patient, love is kind. Love never fails.

But Moses, not standing up to God but standing up for what he believed, though it was contrary to what God had decided, was how Moses respected God.
Moses didn't dishonor God by asking Him to do differently. Moses was honoring God by doing so. Backing down and saying "Okay" when you feel someone might be in the wrong is dishonoring them. Saying "Here's what i believe, and it doesn't line up with what you believe" is actually honoring them.

If i was infallible, i would have no reason to listen to anyone else's opinion. But i'm a human--i am fallible, just like all of you who may read this, yet i still can't get out of my own train of thought to see things how another would. A fallible man with a finite mind set in what he believes to be an absolute is usually in the wrong. I'm usually in the wrong.
I want to learn to love, so i can understand things from another's perspective, even if i am fallible, finite, and absolute in what i have decided.

Vanity or Glory?

I've been working out for the last few weeks. Getting in better shape, building muscle, getting my heart beating a little better, stuff like that. A lot of the driving force behind it, to be honest, is appearance. It's altered my appearance, though very slightly, and that's not a bad thing. It's quite encouraging. It wouldn't be all too unappealing to look handsome and muscular and all that. 
Vanity.
Where's God in my reasoning?

It says in 1 Corinthians 10 that, whatever we do, we should do it for the glory of God.
If i'm working out to appear attractive, i’m not doing it for the glory of God, but for human/earthly reasons. That's wrong. That's as bad as the opposite end of the spectrum, gluttony, of which i've been guilty of so much it's not funny (i'm down to 200-205 from 245lbs)

Also, in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, it says that my body is a temple to the Holy Spirit. It’s referring to sexual sins; all other sins are outward sins, but sexual sins are inward sins. But despite the context it’s used in, our bodies are temples to the Holy Spirit. We should have them at their best for that reason.

Even if a church is purified because only those who have been made righteous attend (Romans 3 says none are righteous, but i believe that living in a pure way for God and having Jesus in our heart makes us righteous to God, because 1 Samuel 16 says that the Lord looks at the heart—if Jesus is there, He sees righteousness, not our sin; He sees perfection, which makes up for our imperfections) … 

Getting back on course, If a church is pure inside but has an exterior that’s not kept up, it’s hardly a shining light. It's not really shining if all the light is hidden within. It needs to attract the unrighteous to lead them to righteousness in Christ.

The body is a temple; we don’t paint graffiti on the walls of a temple. I’m not saying tattoos are a sin, because i honestly don’t have an opinion on them, but i’d never get one for that reason. We don’t put holes all over it and fill them with flashy decorations. Again, not saying piercings are a sin, just something i’d never consider.

We keep the walls of the temple clean and healthy, well maintained, and pure.
What’s more important than the walls is the structure. Keeping our body pure for God is the structure i’m speaking of. Without a proper structure, the walls prevail against little more than a breeze or a light shower. A storm would tear it down to its foundation; sand.

God's opinion of us doesn't change because of our appearance. 1 Samuel 16:7. It's man who sees the appearance of fellow man. God can cast out a handsome or pretty person and instead use someone who society has deemed unattractive. God sees us all as beautiful creations; His children. We are all beautiful to Him. It's society that messes with our heads and definition of beauty.
But to be an example, to bring glory to God, we should be encouraged to maintain our temples, and to keep them in as excellent shape as we can. God doesn't look at the walls--people do. To do our best to bring people to Christ, i think we should make ourselves more appealing to them. Not for vanity's sake, but for the glory of God.
Different means to the same end.
So many things can have the same end, but it's the reasoning behind it that changes everything. And so far, i've had the worst of reasonings. Vanity. Vanity. Vanity.