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image:2227275-75%}    "Prompt: What will you do to work on improving your relationship with God in 2022?"This is a tough question because I honestly do not know. For one thing, I have found that there is nothing I can do to change me into what God requires to begin with. My righteousness to God is like a used tampon. My best behavior is appalling to God so I am beyond human help. I must depend totally on God and He will change what needs changed. I often wish He would do so more quickly because I am an expert at self-condemnation. I know what I deserve and cannot lie to myself about that. I have sin in my life that no matter what I try I find myself entangled in. I know God will removed it in His time and His way. We have these preconceived notions that all we have to do is pray about a sin and God will immediately take it away from us. I do not believe that is how God works. At least that has not been my experience. Sometimes I struggle with sin for ages before God removes it. Does that mean the sin will send me to hell? I do not think so. I believe Christians exist in two states of being: The first state of being is our saved state. This is the state God always sees and it is the state of being covered by the blood of Jesus. Then there is our actual state which is our lives. We stumble and trip along the way and God works with us to slowly, ever so slowly grow us toward perfection. In this state He prunes us and removes this or that sprout to allow the top branches to thrive. He prunes us in His time and may allow an unwanted sprout to grow for a very long time before removing it. We often have the misconception that a Holy God does not tolerate sin. All we have to do is look around us to realize that God not only tolerates sin, He permits it to continue. Why do I say that? I say that because He lets the world continue to go on. He has allowed the world to continue on for thousands of years. He therefore allows sin to continue on. He does not like sin and absolutely never indulges in it, but He permits it. The sin in our lives is the same way. He permits it and will remove it in His time.  Today's star appeared out the port viewer during the third shift. Baloney Bill   writes about dreams and window shopping in
My dream is to live to be a ripe, old age. I am 60 years old and just about to finish up my Master of Divinity degree and a second bachelor's degree. I will then have two associate degrees, two bachelor's degrees, and a master's degree. I plan to go on to post graduate school and pursue my doctorate degree, either in psychology or ministry. I plan to use my degrees to help others. Exactly what form that will take is yet unknown. I am guessing that I will volunteer for a substance abuse agency. I say volunteer because most such agencies cannot afford to pay me what my education is worth. Besides, as a volunteer I can carry out my pledge that started in my recovery. I was a drug addict for nearly three decades. During that time I allowed others to convince me that I was somehow mentally handicapped to the point that I could not compete with "normal people". I guess by today's standards they would have said I was autistic at best and possibly brain damaged or something. Anyway, since this was coming from people I trusted such as my mother, father, siblings, and professionals, I believed them. Since I believed them I never tried. As a result, I was on disability for nearly 30 years, during which I occupied myself by writing and doing drugs. In 2009 this all began to change. I entered recovery and the first principle I was taught there was to be brutually honest with myself. I was also taught to reexamine everything I had ever believed about myself and more importantly, I was told to start over. I eliminated all of my former circle, including limited contact with my family. I developed new relationships with new people and eliminated anybody from my life who told me I was "different and could not". I surrounded myself with people who believed I could do anything I wanted to do in spite of anything against me. My first order of business was to make amends to society for believing the lies and not trying to succeed. I also wanted to make amends for being a drain on society and living on disability for decades. Volunteer jobs allow me to give back to society. Volunteering is a part of my amends. What are my dreams? My dream is to use the rest of my life getting enough education to make a difference in the world I leave behind. Perhaps I will write some ground breaking research paper or positively change the life of a future leader. I do not know how I will change the world. I just know I want to positively impact my little niche in it. |
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