A Pointilist Prairie View…

For Mindy and me, our differences in our approach to things are like this:

I prefer designs like a Frank Lloyd Wright window… structure, balance, artistic with color adding to the structure and balance and art; Mindy prefers pictures like a Van Gogh or a George Seurat and pointilism (as above), where the color IS the structure.

Two methods of seeing things. That’s what makes marriage such an adventure… and beautiful.

Increasing Knowledge…

A lot of knowledge is coming forth in these last hours of the End Times.

Old prophecies from Rabbi’s from long ago are coming out… The Copper Scrolls which have been found since the ’50’s but are only now coming out into the public knowledge pool… and many more that I can’t point to here. The simple fact is that in these last hours, God is not silent and He is letting everyone know of the situation. Remember, all the Earth of Noah’s time would have known about the man who was building an ark in the middle of a dry field and claiming God was bringing a flood… it took Noah about 120 years to build it… people everywhere would’ve heard about it. Today, we don’t need that much time to know about God’s intentions.

Interesting to note that even the secular world is noticing that something dire is at hand, if one pays attention. And I don’t mean the climate craziness or the “let’s kill off the people to sustain our planet” bit touted by the world’s self-proclaimed Fabian leadership such as UN, Bill Gates and that ilk. I mean the average person who has noticed a significant, dire change in everything around them which has been recognized in movements such as the true Tea Party which began in 2007.

The world, itself, is altering too. Earthquakes, tsunamis, and famines and food and water supply stresses… all are indicators for us to get our house in order… for Christ will return, but before He does, serious, serious things will take place.

Which brings us to Faith in Christ. You see, all of us who personally know Jesus Christ and are led by His Holy Spirit, know how to understand the times we are living in now… we also know what the meaning of these things are… and we know the outcome of them as well. We are not deceived by claims of “Peace, Peace” and “prosperity will return”, for we know that it all gets worse, there is no “better” until the Second Coming of the Messiah. The charts you read about concerning the economy and the informed opinions you read and hear about point to this knowledge of these final hours.

Beloved… the patience of God is salvation for those who have not yet recognized and believed Christ as their Saviour and for us who know fully Who He Is and call Him Lord and Praise His Holy Name, it is a time of throwing off every impedence to our witness of the Living God. Stand and deliver His Message to the dying who don’t yet understand. Bring them to the Law of God and reveal to them the Grace that He has given at the Cross. Live a life that exudes the wisdom you have of your great salvation in Christ and let us not succumb to complacency in these waning hours.

Pray for and support the Jews in Israel. Pray that many will come to Christ now and that those who are left behind will have the God-given strength to endure all that the times of Jacob’s Trouble will see.

We have time that can be calculated in hours before the first Scroll is opened… (only 8,760 hours in a year after all)… so let us pray fervently in the Spirit, let us interecede for the lost, let us work in the full armor of God and let us rejoice continually as we give thanks to God in Jesus Christ for His Salvation!

The Hopeful Blues of God’s Patience…

I’ve been reflecting, again, on the enduring patience of God. Extraordinary… enduring… patience. Cebu is a wicked place on par with the voodoo-plagued Caribbean. It is not only a place where every year a garishly dressed, antique, burned babydoll idol is lifted up and given homage and reverence, but it’s one of the world’s main source and transit points for human trafficking and “sex tourism.” Yet, Cebu is still here… and it’s growing in size. God’s anger burns against it, yet His enduring patience continues. Of course, it doesn’t last forever, and one day enough will be enough and His wrath will be made manifest. And because He exhibits patience, people view it as if He doesn’t exist, yet His patience is giving them not only time to repent, but reveals His great love.

And, of course, we are here, ministering to the Deaf in Cebu and Mactan and Cagayan and Manila and Baguio while His patience endures. If He ended that longsuffering this moment, we would, like Jeremiah in Egypt, face His anger towards the wickedness of this place… yet covered by His Precious Blood, thankfully.

I’ve been weeping and interceding to a heightened degree again for this place called Cebu. The Lord needs me to do that and, although not pleasant to do, I give Him my heart to do what He wills. I do not want to see His wrath visited upon these spiritually dead, poor and sad people. Oh, how I would hope that all would come to repentance and seek Christ alone!

Recently, I became aware of a young woman named Katie Spotz who is twenty-two and currently rowing a boat solo across the Atlantic to raise awareness and money for water purification for Africa (www.rowforwater.com). She is blogging as she goes via a satellite linkup on her boat and I thought it would be interesting for our kids to watch her progress and hear from her as she makes the long and dangerous journey.

Today, Ms. Spotz gave a post about her entertainment on-board. And I was once again brought face-to-face with the enduring patience of God. She has stated, in previous blogs, that she finds looking up at the magnificent stars and at the humility of being a speck on the ocean in a universe that’s so huge… yet gives no glory to The One who created it all and gives her breath and ability to do such a feat. She is listening to audiobooks about Zen-Buddhism and giving it laud for helping her through the difficulties of the trip. Yet God continues to endure it and has given her good weather on her trip at least up to this point. She gives a list of movies she has on hand, “All Harry Potter movies, Twilight, Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Two Towers, and Sex and the City.” One would imagine movies of overcoming obstacles (e.g. Chariots of Fire) or at least The Blue Planet would be somewhere on the list. Sadly, no, only movies that glorify the purient and the base are on the menu.

She is certainly given leave to do whatever she wants, as God has given that ability to her… at least for a time. My comment here is not Ms. Spotz particularly, but on God’s Grace to all who live on this planet. His unmerited gift to allow us to choose evil over good, for so long, is something that boggles the mind. I can only opine that a true, amazing gift has been given Ms. Spotz… she will see things that most of us never see… have an adventure most of us will never have… have an extended time alone with her own thoughts that many of us will never be granted… and my prayer and my great hope is that if these gifts are not understood now as being from God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and piques an interest in her, then later she will seek to find the God who made all this wonder and find His Son who died that she might live forever. It took me 33 years… I hope with such a gift, it will be sooner for her.

And I am always reminded that if He had decided to remove His hand from underneath me and let me fall one second before I repented and accepted Christ, then I would be eternally dead. What enduring patience You have Lord God and all of us who know you say, “THANK YOU!”

A Vacuum Conundrum…

Our kids have been asking questions about storms and wind. I’ve explained to them in simple terms that ‘more always goes to less’ and it’s that transfer of dense, cold air into hot, less dense air that creates wind and can produce rain and storms.

“Nature abhors a vacuum” is the common adage. And so it does.

In a wiley thought process this morning, I’m looking at the calendar and on 3 January, I have been a baptized believer in Jesus Christ for 12 years. Then I thought of our new church plant, New Life Deaf Fellowship, and when we could have our first baptism service… thinking how it would work at the church room we’re in currently… a tub, maybe… then a hose out the window afterward to drain the tub… and it hit me.

Everything works on a ‘more goes to less’ basis… except… money.

Money is the only thing that rarely – or automatically certainly – goes from more to less.

… something to think about isn’t it?

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I perchanced on a Bloomberg interview with Max Levchin, a co-founder of Pay Pal and when it was bought out by Ebay made Mr. Levchin a multi-millionaire… but the part that made me sigh was after Pay Pal he apparently didn’t know what to do with himself. He explained in the interview how one day his new wife told him to “go rent an office somewhere and figure out what to do next.”

So he rented an office in San Francisco just to go and “figure things out.” Nice.

Truly, I was happy for him… but it struck me how great it would be if money flowed like cold air into the hot hands of, say, a missionary family looking for a way to start a simple deaf learning center for a measly couple of thousand a year (smile)… Mr. Levchin couldn’t think of anything to do so he rented a $1,200 a square foot office space and “figured out what to do.” (incidentally, he figured out the next wave on the internet is virtual worlds with virtual economies… that’s right, he explained that people are now willing to pay “real money for virtual products.”)

I say again, money is the only thing that doesn’t flow from more to less… well, that and maybe intelligence (smile).