Oh yes, God still speaks!

Oh Yes, God still Speaks Alright!

Looking back at my Life's Map, my Journey, my Walk with God…it was easy to see how He had been working so diligently in my life and the life of my family. I can not speak for the rest of my family but can say that as He worked in me, He must have been working in them also. For my many lessons of God’s love would be seen by my entire family.

My Mom was put on this earth just for me. For a while that is just what I thought. But as the youngest of five I learned quickly that my mom’s love was to be shared and I also learned that she had more than enough to go around. I can not remember ever thinking that my mom loved one of my brothers or sisters more than me. This was the first destination on my map. God had spoken through my mother and her actions of love. God was telling me and my siblings that He was the kind of God that gave unconditional love and that He had plenty of it. My mom gave and gave to her kids and we loved her right back. We didn’t know much about God in those days although my mom did decide one day that she would take the troops to church. We went several years, my dad never really went and although I had actually become an altar boy. I never seemed to get much out of that experience. God was talking to the whole family, dad included. God had led us to church and I had tried accepting Christ but I never understood what it was I had tried to accept. But this in fact was God speaking, my family and I just weren’t listening.

My Dad was sort of the opposite of my mom. He loved us but that is not why God had put him on my map. I believe that God has used my dad even though he is not the Godly man that one might think God would use to teach others. I had many times where I sat in my dads lap and felt comfort and security and other times where I was afraid of him as the power and ruler of our household. The most important thing my dad gave me was his understanding that he was responsible for providing for his family and that he was to work hard as the man of the family. Now I know God tells us he is our provider but as a man of God we don’t get to sit around and wait for baskets of food and clothes to appear on our door step. I learned through my dad that hard honest work is always there for a hard honest working man. God spoke here and with this knowledge God will in fact provide for my wife and daughter.

Chip, my oldest brother and oldest of my siblings. First I should say that yes I see Gods work in each of my brothers and sisters. They weren’t just there to be stand ins in my life. God put them on my map as I am on their map. Chip, again he is the oldest and I’m not sure if this is law or something but somehow we had a special bond. Not sure if it’s the oldest/youngest thing or that there were three siblings between us or maybe mom just loved us most, oh I forgot I already discounted that thought. I guess it was just that Chip knew without having to be told that as the oldest and a boy/man he was second in command after my dad. That gave him responsibility that he probably did not want but accepted it. As the youngest, I guess it was easiest for me to accept that he had this and I had no problems following his lead. Those of the troops that were older than me I guess had more of a struggle with Chip telling them what to do. That I guess would be our bond. As it were Chip was my big brother, I looked up to him and his seven years of seniority. He could do no wrong in my eyes and treated me like I was special and let me be a part of his special world. For a young kid of 9 or 10 when your 16 or 17 year old brother lets you hang with him, man that’s big time. That was God telling me that I was special and if I think I’m special in Chip’s eyes, I can only imagine how special I am in God’s eyes.

Paula, my oldest sister, Home Coming Queen. She might not like the fact that I remember her this way but I do. Paula was like the Queen of the house. She had her own room and even though others did too, hers was totally off limits. Paula was a girl you see, and boys especially little boys were not to invade her privacy. Since I was a boy, I could never seem to help myself. I was trying to always find a way for her to become upset and call for mom to GET ME OUT OF HER ROOM. I kid mostly, but I learned this and yes God was talking and teaching. In the moments where I could find enough respect for her and her wishes, she was the sweetest and most loving sister one could ever ask for but always remember, it was her rules and if you would follow them good would come your way. You see where Chip made me special just because which was awesome, Paula showed me that earning something and respect for others had value and chance for reward. This was awesome just the same.

Harry, my middle brother. He is a book all his own but I will try and do him justice. Harry was only about three years older than me so our ages were kind of close enough to play with each other but he was also old enough to be bigger than me and stronger which meant he could hurt me just any time he felt like it. And he did just that. What was God teaching me here? We never had hate for one another, reality is we loved and love each other very much. We were boys and this is what boys do. My lesson is and was this, at any time I could have stopped the pain but I chose not to. If he hit me, I was bound and determined to hit him back. Does the word forgiveness come to mind here? If I had once just stopped and not worried about revenge or retaliation, I could have stopped this cycle of pain. I have never and will never have the real need to forgive Harry for anything but none the less this was the lesson that was being taught. Sound silly?      I would have rather learned it this way than a more serious painful heart way. Thank God for Harry.

Laura, my little sister. Well, she wasn’t really my little sister unless we are strictly talking about height. Laura was one year older than me but the youngest of my two sisters. Over the years it just always came out as my little sister or youngest sister which seems to imply that I am older than her. Anyway, Laura and I being one year apart spent more time together than our other siblings or at least that is how I remember it. She had her friends and I mine but we shared them just the same. Laura was my buddy and through all the years mostly Jr. High and High School I remember her as being whatever and whoever I needed. If I needed a best friend at the time she was, and if I needed a parental figure at the time she was that too. God showed me through Laura that to be Gods people we need to love one another and offer them what they need, not necessarily what they want. There is a difference. Laura would do this for anyone that she cared for or thought she should care for if they had a true need. The short of it is she seemed to always care or worry about the other person. I learned that from her and from God.
This is going to be a hard part for me and not sure where to go with it in my writing but I feel I should tell the rest of the story of Laura. Not sure if you the reader has picked up on my use of Laura in the past tense but it is due to the fact that several years ago my beautiful sister Laura took her own life. This was a very hard time for my family whom I have just shared with you. We are not sure why, how or what happened for her to make this decision but she did. My family tried to figure it out, we wanted some answers but none is to be found.

Growing up I had many great friends. One in particular was David Goodfellow. He was my best friend although I’ve never really liked the term best friend. Anyway, David was great and for many years has been a strong force in my life. We grew up together through Elementary school and then he moved away for our Jr. High years. Doesn’t seem like much here so far, but to me this was God showing me how he could bring two people together and even after three long years He could put them right back in place. A lot changes in three years at that age and the distance from Florida to California is pretty great. But there it was after all that time he moved back in town and it was like he never had left. God was in control because He knew that there was lots for David and I to do together. It could have been so easy for David and I to have not clicked but we did and this was only the beginning of our friendship being split and brought back together. As we stepped into the halls of big time High school, David and I fell into a small tight group of buddies that helped create and live more stories than one could possibly remember. Truth be told, many of these stories related to girls and partying but as I look back on them I find that many of the individual stories have great meaning to my life or one of my other buddies. This ranges from just how strong friendship is to lessons learned from wrong or sinful doings. As strong as many of the individual stories are the over all theme of this time was about our friendship and our relationship that shaped us as young boys and how that this would effect us in later years of our life. See this happens to everyone. Life has lessons and we can either learn from them or not. These life lessons are from God. God is talking to us, just listen. Think of all your life experiences and how they have helped you in life and more so think back on them and see what you missed and why you did not learn from them and chose not to be a better person.

After High school ended, I joined the Navy and David went to college. Again we were separated and four and a half years later we where back together. Not a miracle but this is God’s work in my eyes. Our friendship and God’s work was not finished, timing is everything with God. I joined David in his quest to run his own business. I invested what little money I had saved up and put it to use on his business that he had already started. We were to be partners and this was an exciting time and the excitement lasted for a good long time till we settled in with to much partying and too much stress from running a business. Turns out that David’s ideas of partnership were different than mine and more so his dreams of having his own company where just that, his dreams not mine. The end result was me getting discouraged and so I told David I was going to pack up and leave. He was none to happy. It was not pretty and he said a few things and I said a few things and that was that, I left and we did not speak for a long time.

Now then, it is important to tell you that up to this time David and I nor our buddies from high school never ever talked about God or religion of any kind. We all had some background of going to church with our families but we never discussed Christianity. Looking at my map I can clearly see that the loudest thing God was trying to tell me and my friends was hey guys you need Christ in your life and without Me you are just wondering in the desert with nothing to drink. God was right, all that time gave me stories but without Payer and no communication with God they would have no meaning. They had meaning to God because they were His, everything is His, but until we accept His love and hear Him they are just times in our wondering life. Today they have meaning to me and now I understand that even though I didn’t get it back then, God laid it out that when I did finally get it and understand what He was doing, it would have meaning. So all this previously wasted and sinful time has given me the Words from God that I am to do all that I can with His help to see to that others do not say me and my friends never talk about Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately I did not learn this until last year which means I had plenty more years of wondering without my thirst being quenched. After I left David and our partnership, I moved to Atlanta with all my belongings and $20 in my pocket. My sister Laura let me move in with her and sleep on her floor till I could get on my feet. God was still shouting for me to listen but I had no clue. I was to busy trying to find my place in life. I found that I had a new focus and put all my efforts in trying to be a man that had a job and a career. After a short time I became a manager at the restaurant where Laura had helped get me a job. This is where I also met my wife Sharon. Is this God or what. Here I was  with no direction in life and had not yet accepted Jesus into my life but God was working just the same. How grateful am I, very much so…let me tell you! From high school to this point God had laid out my map like no other. Turns out that this time in Atlanta was to give me the two most important parts in my life that would bring me to Christ. My job or actually my ability to manage others and my wife. I wasn’t even looking for this but God knew I needed some big time help. At this point He knew that I was getting no where fast and again, am I ever grateful for His loving grace!

I spent some four years in Atlanta and fell deeply in love with Sharon and worked hard to give my best to my job and the owner of the restaurant. Both of these as I said are and were the most influential things that happened in my life. I truly believe that if I had missed out on either of these, my life would have been very different. That’s not to say that I would have never found Jesus but I can say that it would have most likely taken even longer or yes maybe never at all.

Since high school, I had been in the Navy, worked as a cable maker, been in a partnership with David and now manager at a restaurant. This managing thing turned out to be my thing and so far the map of my life led me to this point. I had no thoughts of ever working in a kitchen or ever being in charge of people and their work lives. I found it quite fun and quite rewarding even though I was working more hours than I ever had before. I started to learn that I was a people person even though I had a quiet shyness when it came to meeting new people. But as the manager I was able to befriend and lead employees at the same time. The hours were long and the pay was not so great but it got into my blood just the same. God taught me that I must work with my employees to get the best out of them and that I was not just their boss but their coach, babysitter, big brother, counselor, and teacher. This was a big responsibility and for some reason I was up for the challenge. God put this on me and I didn’t even know it.

From working in Atlanta till today many things took place but I’m going to quickly hop you through time to get to today. I believe that the faster pace shows the more incredible map that was put on my life.

From Atlanta, Sharon and I decided that we knew one day we would get married and would also want a child so it would be best to not start a family in the big city. We both quit our jobs and moved to Florida, the area that I was born and raised. We both found jobs and started our lives in the sun. I grew tired of the restaurant business and sure enough God knew or perhaps planned this change. There was a time that I had laughed at others that worked as a garbage man but here I was thinking it was a good idea. You see God had put a lady by the name of Miss Ann in the same kitchen that I had been managing in Florida and her son happened to be a supervisor for the garbage company. Soon enough I was a driver and a garbage man. I was not very excited but for some reason it seemed right, this was not my big plan but it seemed right. I was no longer in management but my supervisor had told me that if I worked hard and with my experience I would be able to move up in the company. As I said, this seemed right and for the first time in my life I started getting these feelings as things and opportunities came my way, they either seemed right or they did not. I have found that the ones that seemed right ended up being the ones that were most Holy and the ones that didn’t seem right turned out to be bad decisions and or sinful. As these feelings came along, I still had no idea that this was God speaking to me but started to think that there was something to this and I should begin thinking them over. So quickly, I will skip through the path that led me to Clearbranch. I'm going to go fast so try and keep up. After taking the job as a garbage man, I did that for two years and an opening came up for a salesman in the company and it seemed right so I took it. Almost two more years and the position of supervisor came open and it seemed right, so I took it. I wanted to move up again but did not want to stay at the same office, but when the operations manager position came open, it seemed right and I took it. Still in Florida, I got a call from an old boss that wanted me to move to Alabama to work for his garbage company BUT, it didn’t feel right so I said no thank you. One year later he called again and low and behold it felt right this time, so I took it. Slow down time. I must say that at this time Sharon was trying to finish her college degree so the move would be a problem, but she said ok. How cool is that, I believe God was talking to Sharon and me to get packing. We did and for three years I worked as a manager for a different garbage company. At the end of the three years things had come to a head, definitely time for a new paragraph or maybe a new chapter.

Let me go back just a little and fill in a bit. We came to Trussville Alabama from the Beach. Big difference, yes this was culture shock, but we took to it quick. My new garbage job was a big challenge but I was willing to take it on. My mistake was to do it without God. Sharon started pretty quick to find us a church and she did. Clearbranch, clearly different they say and to us it was. They stood and clapped and it seemed that everyone was on the move. We thought about it but after the second time hearing Tommy Gray the pastor speak, we were hooked. This again was God speaking to Sharon and me, so we dropped anchor. Sharon quickly became involved in the church and I let her put my name down for a couple greeting duties but that was it. I was digging the church and all the people but I was still the shy me and still not ready to accept Jesus they way you are suppose to. I was still happy with being the attendee as they say, I like bystander better but that’s me. Potato/potada or whatever that is?

So, our church experience was off to a good start but my job was rough from the get go. I met some great folks and some not so great folks. I have since learned that the great ones had been God in my life trying to just open me up and at least get me thinking about who God is and why did he send his son for our sins. Well, enough time passed and that is what took place. I started questioning Christianity and God’s ways. Not in a negative way but in a curious way to help me learn. I believe that this is what God had planned. I started to pray and with prayer my insides felt different and I wanted to question people more and more. My job never got any easier but did turn my prayer to asking God if he could some how get me out of here so I could move forward in my life. Low and behold my boss called me into his office and the feeling of calmness that covered my body was like no other experience I had ever had in my life until that moment. I was so calm and knew that this was Gods will, that I began to console my boss because he was so nervous and sad that he was letting me go. You see this was not my bosses doing but had came from the regional level. Get this, I left there jobless and six weeks of severance pay and happy as I could be. Tell me that’s not God. For those six weeks I prayed and prayed. I found a particular job in the paper and since my last prayer had been answered, I just knew this would be perfect. I picked this one job out of the paper and I prayed and prayed about getting this job in God’s name. It worked, I had got the job almost at the same time that my severance pay ended. Tell me that’s not a God thing. One thing I need to tell you, This in fact was a God thing but the rest of that story is this, I picked out that job only because it had big dollar signs on it. For no other reason but dollar signs. I never thought to ask God if this is the job he would want me to have, I just figured he answered prayers and this was great money, more money than I had before, he would surely answer my prayer. Well, again he did answer my prayer only to find out that I hated this job with a passion. God had indeed given me again what I had asked for only this was not what God wanted but he gave it to me anyway and I totally believe that He did this just to teach me a lesson. Yes, I believe that God know us all very well and at times hard lessons need to be learned. I learned this and I became very humble to God and his Almighty Power. This was a very sad time in my life. This job was not hard and the people were actually very nice, but I hated it because it was not me at all. I dreaded every minute of going to this job and dreaded every minute being at this job. I knew that I had made a mistake, I had been greedy and worst of all, I had used God for this selfish gain. Wow, lesson learned. After a month of this job I began to pray again and ask God for forgiveness and prayed that I wanted what He wanted for me and my life. I prayed every day and became as humble as I could and asked that he open the door that was his door and not one of my choosing. He did just that after about four months.

There I was sitting in my car eating lunch when my cell phone rang and it was a good friend of mine from my last job. Allen Stokes is his name and he answered my hello with a hey buddy what are you doing? I told him how miserable I was and he quickly said well we have an opening at his new company. This was very unbelievable to me at the time. He told me about it and I told him I would have to think on it. I hung up the phone and thanked God. Immediately this felt right, it was God in action. I prayed to God that I only wanted to get this job if He in fact had opened this door. Long story short, I got the job and had never been more happy to be back in the garbage business. The one thing that I thought was a set back to this job was that I had to commute 62 miles one way to work and that seemed a bit much. I found out later as I made the drive many times, that this was God again giving me ample time and no excuse not to talk to him in length. My hour drive in and my hour drive home became Our time. Me and God talking away. I became up close and personal with my Lord and savior and man did it feel great. I learned to talk to him out load which had always felt strange to me but now it felt right. I’ve heard this before but now I understand it when people tell you that God wants us to talk to him just like he was a friend, a brother and most of all as our father.

My job was going great, I had met many employees that were Christians and everything seemed right. I was schedule to go on an Emmaus Walk which is a Christian retreat. It lasts four days and up until I went I really did not have any real feeling about going other than my wife had gone on hers and I knew that many others from my church had went and they loved it. Well, the weekend had finally come for me to go on my Walk and I did. At first I was my typical self and that’s to be shy and to myself. It didn’t take long to realize that the thing was set up that being shy was not an option and so pretty quickly I was on my way, meeting new guys and making friends faster than I thought possible. By Saturday night I was into the Walk and praise and worship was great. That night we went into the prayer chapel and had communion and asked Jesus Christ to take our sins from us. This was it, I had become completely broken and stripped  down to the deepest part of my heart and soul and asked Jesus Christ into my life and heart. I finally understood after all these years what it meant to be born again. I had been talking to God for a long time and Believed in Him and His Holy Bible but was still not born again. Now I was and talk about something feeling right, well this was it and the calmness that I had felt when my boss had called me to his office to let me go was only a small taste of what I was feeling that Saturday night. I knew that I wanted to feel this way all the time. I wanted to have the Love of God all the time and I wanted to give it back to him ten fold. 

I have now pretty much gotten you up to date with were my map is currently. There are of course many things and many stories that I have not shared. On the one hand I believe that I have told this much so as not to go overboard with my average every day life. Don’t get me wrong, I believe my life is special. It has to be for God gave it to me and there is no one more special than HE. The broad picture is that everyone’s story is special and for a purpose. Our job as Christians is to share what we know and how God has moved through each of us and what impact he has had on our lives.

A while back at a worship service at my church called Exit 148, I had the joy and pleasure to speak after the service pastor, Ted Amey. I spoke for a while and then shared some of my stories as to how I had gotten to stand up and speak to the group. When I was finished Ted got up and closed and asked the group to find someone and partner up and share things in their life. The new friend I had paired up with told me how much she had enjoyed my talk and that she didn’t have a story like mine. The reason she felt that she had no story was that she had been raised in a Christian home all her life and had accepted Jesus Christ early in her life. At that time I was stumped as to what to say. Since then I realized that most likely her story is just that, her story of being a Christian all her life and how great it is to have been raised that way. Reality is that this is one of my biggest hopes for my daughter and so my hopes will and are that her story will be basically the same as my friend. This is my point, no matter who you are or where you cam from, you have your own map and your own stories. God gave them to you because he has been talking to you each and every day of your life. Talk to him, accept Jesus Christ and you will begin to understand the words that He has been speaking to you. Once you get going good on your Walk you must understand that this is just the beginning and now it is time to share with all that you meet. Use your stories and of course use the stories in the Holy Bible. I don’t think that this is a coincident. God gave us the Bible stories so that we would understand how things and events happen in his children’s lives. It’s not just and Old Testament thing.

Whoya, A Seal taught me that.

A few days ago I found myself telling my buddy from work a story that I have told many times since it happened. Let me first say that my buddy Jeff was at first a person that when I first met him I would have told you that he is not the kind of guy that I would spend a lot of time. Nor would I have many real conversations with for the simple fact that his personality and mine were totally different. This is not to say anything bad but I think we as humans tend to judge people too quickly and really do not mean anything by it except to say two people are different and therefore will have nothing in common. I will still say that in general Jeff and I are two very different people but through Gods work I have found that the tie that binds Jeff and I is Christianity. Even though Jeff and I only know and converse with each other only at work we do so most every day and on a very deep level. His job as the shop supervisor and my job as the Operations manager allows us to have this extra free and flexible time to talk with out interfering with our jobs. God did this, no other way to explain it. Anyway, the story I was sharing is one of many that I got from my time in the Navy. It was when I was in training at BUDS. This stands for Basic Underwater Demolition School, which is the training you go through to become a Navy Seal. This is a very physical and mentally demanding training program. It has been 20 something years ago and most of it is a memory blur but the just of it is fresh in my mind. I was telling Jeff just as I have told many others that the school starts out as a two week pre phase in which you are told that you can not quit until the two weeks is over. Then after the two weeks if you decide that the training is too much for you mentally or physically then you may quit no questions asked only one requirement is that the symbol for quitting is to ring this big brass bell three times and put your helmet down on the ground in a row next to the others that have quit or given up before you. This symbol I learned for me was a way to show those that were still going through the training that you did not want to be one of those that had quit or given up. I did not get this feeling myself since I had in fact rung the bell. But the story is before the bell sound. I made it through the pre phase and then several weeks go by with a lot of running, swimming, paddling and basic physical and mental abuse. These weeks are filled with all that training and then some. Finally they have what they call Hell Week. This is a full 7 days of Hell in which you do more of the same training only its accelerated and 10 times worse. During all this you are not allowed to sleep at all not during the day and not during the night. It in fact lives up to its name as Hell. I need to go back just a bit. From the beginning of training one of the many things the instructors taught us over and over was that the training is all for a reason and that reason is they have to know that whom ever finishes the training they will be confident that they will be Seals that are ready for what lies ahead and it wont be training any more. It will be for real and you wont have the opportunity to get up out of a swamp or desert and say I quit and I would like to ring the bell now, please and thank you. This is what they told us over and over. Dig down deep inside yourself and ask the question, Do you really want to do this or did you just have some fun idea of being GI Joe or Rambo. So, it’s time for Hell Week to start and they put us out beside the barracks and set us up in a big tent with all our gear. They tell us to go to bed that night and they will wake us when its time to start. Well of course we had been with these instructor for many weeks now and of course did not trust them one iota. The group of us stayed awake and ready to go. There we were huddled inside the tent then some time late at night all at once there were rounds being fired in the air and smoke bombs being thrown in our tent and percussion grenades going off everywhere. We here yelling going on outside and we ourselves were screaming and starting to freak out. Then from a megaphone we hear that we are to leave the tent and form up in the compound. We could hardly see where we were going. Smoke was everywhere and it was dark from the night. Finally, we made it to the compound and as we stood at attention all lined up they started to soak us down with fire hoses. They then asked why we were wet and commanded us to go put on dry clothes. From that point on I settled down and realized just how ridiculous this was and started to enjoy myself. This repeated four more times until all our clothes were sopping wet and that’s how we stayed for the remainder of time that you lasted in Hell Week. So, I’m relaxed and started to enjoy the fun of being hit with the fire hose and being yelled at and doing other stuff that the many instructors were yelling at us when at some point I started to laugh and when I did the Lieutenant had seen me and he called me to attention and then proceeded to take his right forearm with all his might and hit me across the chest putting me to the ground. As I looked up he asked me “Peterson, do you find this funny?” which I replied, “No Lieutenant!” From that point on I never did find it funny and started to think about what they had been saying all along. Was this for me and is this who I really am to become? That night seemed to last forever and some hours later they had marched us across the base and had us strip down naked and had us tread water in the bay. Now this training was in California, but don’t go thinking that the Pacific or a bay running off the pacific is warm. And if you have never been to California, don’t go thinking that the nights are warm. They are very much like being in the desert. Anyway there we were the first night floating naked with a bunch of guys, freezing and trying to tread water. I learned quickly that my kryptonite is the Cold. After what seemed like forever again, I swam over to the ladder and climbed up to the pier where several of the instructors were standing. The first one to come to me was Instructor Hollywood. This was not his real name but that’s what he told us to call him so of course we did. Instructor Hollywood asked me just what in the hell did I think I was doing and I quickly told him I was to cold to go on. He replied by saying no this is not what you want, get back in the water. I again told him I was too cold and I was ready to quit. Now keep in mind that this whole conversation is going on while the rest of my company is down below treading in the cold and I’m up top shivering uncontrollably completely naked having a conversation with Hollywood. He finally yells down to the company and says who here wants Peterson to quit tonight? No one responded. He then asked do you all want him to get back with his company and the entire group of freezing naked guys yelled for me to get back in the water. So I did just that. At that moment I needed encouragement, I needed more than my own mental state could handle. You see at this moment I wanted to quit cause I was cold and nothing else. Mind over matter was another lesson the instructors were trying to teach us and the second part to that was, if you don’t mind, it don’t matter. Always liked that saying. So, I went back in the water and the night went on into the next day and on into the third night. Now we as a group were very tired and had lost many guys from the ringing of the bell. I learned later that the instructors really didn’t like guys quitting the first night, so lucky me. But after the first night guys started to drop like flies. So there we were the third night and we had just finished a 10 mile paddle. Paddling was a big part of our training. The boat we used was called an IBS, this stands for Inflatable Boat Small. Not sure why they did it in that order but who am I to judge. This boat is actually pretty big, it’s about 6 or 7 feet across and probably a good 12 to 15 feet long filled with air so three guys sit on each side straddling it and the boat captain sits on the back to steer. We paddled the boats most every day of training as also we did swimming since the hopes were to be Seals and Seals and water go together. Back to the third night and at the end of the paddle we hit shore and again they were telling us to think of why we were really here and is this what we wanted. The instructors then put us at the edge of the surf stripped down to our underwear to lock arms and be pounced by the ocean surf. There was our company, much smaller in size freezing cold and singing songs as if this was going to make us feel better. That was it, my mind finally clicked and I broke the locked arm chain and went out of the surf to one of the instructors which his name escapes me and told him I was ready to ring the bell. I told him with confidence that I was through for sure this time and he looked at me and said well the bell is 10 miles away so I guess you will just have to go back in the surf and do it later. I was done and I was most definitely not going back in the cold water and very strongly told him no. He looked at me and said ok then we will have to find you something to ring. He went over to the fire and grabbed the lid off a large cooking pot and a 4 ounce ladle and he held up the lid and gave me the ladle and said here you go. I clunked the lid 3 times and that was that. He loaded me up in one of the pick up trucks and drove me back up to the compound and neither of us said a word. When we pulled into the compound he told me to grab my helmet and lets do this the right way. So I ran over to the tent, got my helmet and walked up to the shiny brass bell and rang it three times. I walked to the end of the row of all the other helmets that had been laid down before me and set mine down. The Lieutenant called me into the office were several of the other instructors were hanging out and as I stepped in, as a group they all started to say things like man Peterson we thought you were going to make it and wow this is a shock to me. When I had heard this at first it made me feel good but also wondered why they hadn’t said this before, but of course they could not cause that wasn’t part of the plan. The plan was to be tough as nails and be able to back the other guys first before they back you. After that they assigned me to a temporary barracks on the other side of the base until I got new orders. This took a couple of weeks which gave me the ability to see the guys from my company go in and out of the chow hall and also see the rest of the guys that rang the bell after me. Ultimately I made the right choice for me and who I am as a person but the statistics of those that start BUDS and finish the training make me feel pretty good. My class had started with a little over a 100 guys and by the time the school was finished for my class there was only about 8 that graduated. So yea, I don’t feel so bad.

Well, that’s one of my stories and what does it have to do with God? This is a good question and that is the question everyone should ask of their stories that they tell over and over. For me this story has many lessons that God has given me. First, I went into the BUDS school only because I thought it would be cool. That’s it nothing else. I have never been a fighter, never cared much for guns or weapons and never liked to be cold. So here I was making this great big decision and had not even thought it through. See, when I first joined the Navy I had thought it through, I was joining since I new school was not my thing and had I just stayed in my home town with no direction I was just going to end up a local bar bum. I had also thought through what school in the Navy I would go to, electronics this is a good career field and then was scheduled to go to dive school. That was my original plan. Now I had not prayed about this but I believe God had help me think clear on this path and things would fit who I was as a person. But no, in boot camp the Navy Seals came along and gave us this big promotion on wanting any of us to join their team and how great it is and there it was hook in mouth and I was signing up for something I had not even put thought into. Lesson learned and it has served me well, thank you God.

So why is this a God lesson? Well for me this ties in directly with the thought process that I should have and now do have when it pertains to decisions that need to be made in my life. Simply put, think before you act. My daughter and I learned that line from Mulan. Cute story with a miniature dragon in it but a good lesson none the less even for a grown up. Think before you act, this is for many things. First and for most to know: anything you decide and anything you do can only be best performed with God as your first step. Pray about what you need and what you are wanting to do in your life. This is for the big and the small things that are in your path. My Seal training experience would have been totally different had I put God first in my life. From God we must know to think things through, this is not to say that we should take so much time that we never accomplish anything. A simple question that I learned from my buddy Ted was to ask “Is it Holy.” This is so simple but sure helps eliminate a lot of complications in life. It does not fit every situation but when it does it sure simplifies right from wrong. To sum up, if we pray and ask God for help, then ask ourselves Is it Holy and finally think it through with reasonable time. We should have a somewhat smoother Walk in our lives.

Little less story and a little more what I think. This is not to say that anything I think or believe be implied that I know more or am wiser than anyone else. That, I am not and just ask anyone that knows me and they will agree. I just think that some things that I think about are also others thoughts and if they are not for some at least maybe they will make you think. They might even agitate you and thus make you think even more. That is what usually happens to me. Some guy or girl tells me something interesting and if I tend to agree with their thought process then a good deal of the time I think hey that’s cool and move on. But, if someone tells me something interesting and I strongly disagree with them, then I tend to put a great deal of thought into the who, what and why of their process. This may not always be the case but many times yes.

My short list starts like this: A) I have always been told that you should find the time every day to pray to God. This I’m sure that every one will agree with, I hope. But what seems to always come with that is that we should find a particular time of day and pray to Him, whether it be when we first wake up or before we go to bed or maybe when we first get home from work. I’m very cool with this except to ME, this implies that this is good enough. Not sure of anyone else but good enough is not GOOD ENOUGH for God. Not that he says that or that he told me that but I’m saying 24/7 as I’ve used before means just that. The bar should be that high each and every day. If we fall short of that well then I believe God can and will except that our daily goal was to be with him all day but our crazy and busy lives got in the way a bit but we can try harder tomorrow, because we love Him so much. Does this make sense? Let me go back, if we set out our plan for the day and we set only 15 minutes or even an hour aside for God and then we fail at that well man oh man did we ever fail. Look at it another way, one hour out of a 24 hour day we say hey lets set this aside for God. Weak, that’s all that comes to my mind is weak. We sleep for at least 7 or 8 hours and so that leaves about 16 or 17 hours and again only one hour set aside for God. Now then, if what we really mean is that this one hour is a more deeper devotion to Him and the rest of the time we will still stay in contact with him and try and find little bits of our day that we can be quiet and maybe even bow our heads then super. But that is not the impression I get when I hear about or think about when I hear pastors and people of all kinds giving the advice of just find an hour or so that you can commit to God. Does this seem hard of me? I don’t think so, and I’m sure some of you that do think I’m being hard or going over board mean well and wanting to say hey hold on what if this is a new Christian and they are new at the whole practice of Christianity. Well, I say to the new Christian or even the unchurched, what you need to know is God is with us all the time, so we need to be with Him all the time. This also brings to the table that some say being with God all the time does not mean you have to pray to him all the time. I guess this would have to be your definition of prayer. Mine would be simply that when I talk to God I am praying. I think this is the way to end the first thought on my list. What is your definition of Prayer?

B) Before I was Born Again, I spent many years actually believing in God, Jesus and the bible. I think the world is filled with a very large population of believers yet have not been Born Again. This was in one of my stories a few chapters back. I think that some Christians might take the stand that you either do or don’t believe in God. I disagree of course since I have already said that this is how I was until that one Saturday night. There are many things that I believe in but just don’t understand. Like most all of science, all of science is pretty much way over my head but I believe in it. Not all of it but that which I have seen with my own eyes or heard tell that other respectable people have seen it with their eyes. Silly maybe but here is my example. I believe that an all metal aircraft carrier that is 3 football fields long, carries 6000 plus people and 90 something aircraft can float in the ocean with no problem. I believe in that since I have not only seen it with my own eyes but I rode on one for three years. This is real but my mind always tells me that there is no good reason why this big hunk of metal doesn’t sink to the bottom like a rock. Again, silly you may say but I don’t see it silly at all to have believed in God for years because I had hope that there in fact was one, believed in God because the beauty of the world told me that only something Almighty could have created all this nature and believed in God because the Love I had and did feel from my family and friends must have been created from a Power that in and of itself was Love. The only missing part, the major hold back being that I and many others see ourselves as simple humans of the world and that keeps us or kept us from crossing over to acceptance of Jesus Christ our savior.
“A” and “B”, yes this is a very short list however there is so much that goes with these two. The idea that prayer and talking to God is or isn’t the same depending on your view. How prayer and talking to God should be viewed and lived out in our daily lives. Seems that I’m repeating the same thought now over and over but this is me thinking and hoping that I am making you think. Most to those in which have said or actually do think that the one time a day deal is more than enough. There is just too much that goes on in our lives and too much evil that is against us to even think that a one a day vitamin so to speak will do the trick. To tie this “A” together with “B” is to say that our prayer life and speaking to God(same thing) is to help those that have not been Saved come to now Christ sooner than later and those that have been Saved not find them selves caught back up in sin and becoming Of the World because they did not speak to God throughout their day. Now then those that are Christians must also take all this and not shun any one that says they believe but are not committed to Him. They need not say it’s one or the other but ask them how they can help and ask them what are their questions that keeps them from Jesus. Also we as Christians need be careful that when someone says they believe in God, that we don’t assume that they are Saved. I have no statistics but I believe this is the greater population that attends Sunday service and walk the streets every day with no one to talk to most of all God. Only because they have tried the one hour deal and it just didn’t work.

Repeat…All along I have been saying that God is in Fact talking to me and if you will listen He is in Fact talking to you. I have a thousand more stories that I can use as examples of this but if I don’t simply stop I would be writing till my dieing days. And we don’t want that. If you are the Christian that has taken the time to read this well I hope you are saying yes I have many stories and you know what I’m going to start sharing them with others. If you are the ones that believe in God but have not accepted Jesus into your life as a full commitment, well I hope that this reading has inspired you to think of your stories and start to seek and search for God in them. I know you will find him in time. God is 24/7. Last but farthest from the least, if you do not believe in God now or ever, I hope this reading has been enjoyable even though you might have cringed every time I said God or Jesus. I hope beyond that you would still take the challenge to revisit all your stories and ask yourself are they just stories and nothing more? Is it just that sad. I believe it is sad to think that one might look back at the history of their life and think of all the things that has happened to them whether you are 20, 30, 50 or even 85 and older and the stories are nothing more than memories. Sure memories are great to the point that a picture is great but at the end of the day it’s just a piece of hard paper with color on it and not the real thing or person. Our stories should and are more than just our brain having memory like a computer. The memory and story should mean something so deep that we can and do see God in it and with great purpose. Enough, I’m rambling to the point that I’m saying things over and over only trying my best to say it differently so as to drill my point home. This is how I have become as a born again Christian, that is to get so excited when I’m talking to someone that is un-Churched or has no belief in God what so ever. I just don’t get it any more even though I had once been one myself. The idea that we simple humans are just here to do our best and then just fade away to dust is just sad as all get up. If one can not see the complexities of our planet, solar system and our bodies and not think WOW, a God that is Almighty created all this and me…well then, at this time I might say I give up. But, God’s by my side and He is 24/7, so no giving up. I want to sit down and hash it out over and over and over till they get what I got, till they see what I see, till they hear what I hear and most of all, till they are Loved how I’m Loved from God!