I am anxious now

It's getting real. Dog Walk Talk, my book, is going to the publisher at the beginning of the week. Then the wait begins. Now I have a question....I'm seriously thinking about using this picture for the author picture on the back cover instead of that guy in the orange sweatshirt you see on my Facebook profile (HERE). Would this one lure you into checking the book out more if you were first seeing it and you didn't know me than the one in the orange sweatshirt? My author Facebook page is HERE.

Division

Our hearts were made to move blood through the veins and arteries of our bodies. There are four chambers within that closed container whose sole purpose is to pump that blood. Our blood is no different than the blood of Jesus that ran on that day He shed it for us all. There is, and never was, room provided in our hearts for division and hatred.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Summary of Dog Walk Talk

As reported yesterday, the manuscript is complete. Following is a summary of the book.


Dog Walk Talk: while I’m walking, God’s talking is a collection of anecdotes about a variety of real-life issues written from a Christian perspective. In each, the author presents the issue, sometimes using humor, shares his own life example briefly, and then engages the reader with directed questions about the topic to provide an opportunity for introspection. Each is followed by appropriate biblical citations to provide the reader with further study should they choose to do so.

It is hoped that the book will help the reader see themselves through the offerings, and to embrace their uniqueness in a positive way as they face their own everyday life issues. Further, it is hoped that they will come to embrace any brokenness or messiness in their lives by knowing or sensing that it is but a steppingstone toward wholeness and spiritual growth.

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IT IS FINISHED !!!

The manuscript is completed, so I printed out the hard copy to keep on file in my office. Next step--submit it electronically to the publisher. That will be within days. Then  the wait begins. It's a good feeling to reach this point. It really frees me up to continue to write on book #3.

Todays desk doodle

Bad isn't always bad

This is the first “newish” car that I had purchased in a long, long time. When I purchased it I went into it way over my head financially. Drastically so—but I wanted that car, I had to have that car, I deserved that car. Or so I thought. At the age when I bought it, I was very certain that it would be the last car I would be buying. It was spotless when I bought it. Seven short months later I totaled it. I was devastated. I had killed my baby.

We tend to go through some rather raw emotions when bad things happen don’t we? We find ourselves so absorbed in what is happening in the now of the situation that we often fail to look at the big picture. It is in those bad moments of time when we typically don’t to God for any reason other than help in the immediate time frame. We seldom see the possibility of that bad event as a part of God’s overall plan for us, or protection of us. Almost always those thoughts arise when we retrospectively look back at the bad situation.

At the time that I killed that car, I had just started to think about writing my second book, Dog Walk Talk. Within ten months of the wreck, I had signed a contract with my publisher for the book—a financial obligation that would last just over a year because the payments were tailored to what I could afford. As I looked back over that whole scenario recently, I was bluntly reminded that bad isn’t always bad, that good can and does come out of bad—perhaps more often than we might think. I am convinced that God had His plan for me, and it wasn’t for me to own that car. His plan was for me to write that book and afford to get it published. I messed with His plan when I over-extended myself to buy that car. He took care of that!  I am humbly thankful for that wreck. I am very grateful for the fact that the book will be released in a short while. I can almost hear Him when I bought that car— “Don’t do it Joe, I have other plans for you”. Bad isn’t always bad.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Can't have it both ways

One lifts you up. One pulls you down. They are opposing forces. They don’t work in harmony with each other. You have to decide which one it will be, which one you want, which one is more important to you. You can’t have it both ways. Being in the middle (which is always the case) is an uncomfortable place to be. Ego isn’t referred to as Ease God Out for no reason. Decisions, decisions, decisions—but you cant have it both ways.

Feet to the fire

Do I have the guts to stand firmly in my convictions and principles when the going gets tough? Do you? Do we even know if we would or could, should the occasion arise? One thing is most likely certain about all of us—we would like to think we would, right? What if the going didn’t just get tough, but perhaps a life-threatening situation whereby if we stood our ground, we would surely die as a result, but if we caved in, we would live? The answer to that is the “tell” about just how strong we are, or aren’t, about our convictions and principles. Let’s toss in a word switch here and substitute the word faith for convictions and principles and ask the same questions of ourselves.

If we sneak a peek into the Old Testament book of Daniel, we’ll note that there were three dudes who faced those same questions in their lives. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were offered the opportunity to life if they would abandon their faith in God and worship the ghastly idol King Nebuchadnezzar had built of himself (and ordered all in his kingdom to worship). They refused, and the King, angry to the extreme, ordered them tossed into a fiery pit. The pit was so hot that the Kings soldiers who tossed them in were disintegrated by the extreme heat as they followed the Kings orders.

The King had a problem on his hands, however. The three dudes didn’t perish in the extreme heat. They survived, and when the heat eventually died down, there they were, alive and kicking, none the worse for wear. Obviously, old Nebuchadnezzar was, well, astonished, and couldn’t quite understand. Once it dawned on him that God had spared the dudes, he acknowledged the error in his ways and declared that their God, our God, was the one true God.

Those three dudes—their feet were put to the fire, and they didn’t cave in. They didn’t waver in their convictions and principles. Their faith never wavered while they faced eminent death by roasting. They had no trouble answering the above questions in the manner we would like to think we would answer, were we to be faced with them. They didn’t dilly-dally around deciding. I’m pretty sure they may have simply said something like, “Well, it looks like we’re toast.” I’m not so sure many of us would jump on it that quick if our feet were held to the fire. I’m also guessing that our capitulation regarding our faith is in evidence during routine days as well, perhaps more than we may realize.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Hawks

Vigilant

Cautious

Diligent

Focused

Alert

Prepared

Watchful

Persistent

Patient

Dedicated to purpose

Have you ever sat still long enough to watch hawks? They are a study of all that we, as Christians, should be. They exhibit each of those qualities every single day of their lives. They must, or they don’t eat. Watching them bears that out. They will sit on a pole or in a tree for the longest time using every single one of those ingrained traits while observing all that is around them as they await the rodent that will be their next meal. Their traits enable them to get the reward—their food.

We all have those same traits within us. But when it comes to feeding our spiritual lives, we don’t use them quite the same way the hawk does for its food do we? And yet, the food for our spiritual lives is every bit as important isn’t it? And isn’t our ultimate reward far greater than the hawk’s rodent? Perhaps we are much more lazy than the hawk, even though our reward is so much greater.

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Silly flies !

If you ever watched a fly, you may have come to the same conclusion as I did the other day when watching one—they are silly. I watched a fly for perhaps ten minutes as it kept flying into the glass on a window trying to get out. The operative word there is “kept” because it did it for probably a half dozen times before it seemingly decided that something was in the way of its forward progress to the outside world that I assume it was looking at. Then it went to another nearby window where the process repeated itself. Silly fly. It just wanted to be free.

Watching the fly reminded me of me. Perhaps that tale may remind you of you as well. I looked back at the time in my life when I could see something better for myself, a better way of life, a deeper meaning, a longing for a sense of being real, of being free. That was a dark time in my life, and I just kept beating myself in the head trying to find that freedom—from the me that I no longer liked. I was that fly in the window—I saw it, I knew it was there, but I couldn’t get past the self-imposed stumbling blocks in my way. All I wanted to do was to be free of the crap in my life.

Freedom came in the form of one thing. Surrender. I had to surrender myself to One greater than myself, God. In doing so, my window to a better self, a brighter future that was predicated upon spiritual health, and freedom was opened. Not by me, but by God. This fly was able to finally get where he longed to be—free.

Are you one of those silly flies that keeps running into the window? You don’t have to be.

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Check in the lost and found

One definition of the word awe is “wonder that is inspired by the sacred”.    Psalm 65:8 addresses awe in this way; “They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs; You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.”

Because of the never ending routineness of our daily lives, in combination with our inherent brokenness, isn’t it pretty darn easy to have a diminished, sporadic, or dulled sense of awe (or lose it altogether)  for all that God is and what He represents in our lives? Sure, we may witness a beautiful scene, or a particularly special act of kindness, or anything—and our sense of awe goes off the charts. But I’m of the opinion that most of us do have a diminished sense of awe about God.

When you first came to Christ, weren’t you excited? It was something special, and you most likely felt a strong sense of awe about all things God—for a while. Be honest, did that feeling last? Is it the same now as it was then? To help understand those questions, let’s move briefly to an earthly parallel for comparison; do you still feel the same sense of awe about your spouse that you did in the months before and perhaps a couple of years after your marriage? How is that awe fire now after perhaps quite a few years of marriage?

In either of the cases above, our sense of awe 1) doesn’t have to diminish (it does because we choose to allow it to), and 2) it can be recaptured if it does (if we choose to recapture it). It’s all a matter of choice. Our choice, and ours only. What is the result of making that choice for awe in our lives? Simply, more joy.

Have you lost your sense of awe? Perhaps if you checked in the lost and found box you might find it. If you do, why not choose to allow it back into your life?

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

The cupboard of our mind

I was once contracted to paint a kitchen in a very nice home for a long-time customer. One afternoon the owner told me to get a pop out of the refrigerator. To my amazement, the contents of that fridge were lined up so categorically and neatly that I am sure it was a significantly better display than in any high-end grocery store. Later, it got to the point in the job when I had to remove the cupboard doors. That day I fully discovered what OCD is. Everything was perfectly placed, all labels to the front, all by category, etc. Here is some full disclosure—it was nothing like the cupboards in my home, nor, I would bet, many, many others.

The insides of my kitchen cupboards are vastly different. If one were to look, he would see disorganized clutter, random “what is that’s”, some stuff way past their expiration dates and thus completely useless, and other gems of uncertain origin and use. There is absolutely no trace of OCD there. None of that stuff which really doesn’t belong there for obvious reasons (yes, we do go on a cleaning binge occasionally) interferes in any significant way with anything. It just gets moved around every now and then during our need to find something we do need.

The point of this is that each of us have cupboards in our minds. We store everything in those cupboards, often a lot more than we need to store. Useless stuff like past shame, past hurts, past anger situations, past lies about ourselves and others, past guilt all of which takes up perfectly good space. The problem is, however, that it doesn’t just take up space. It affects us in many ways and the troubling thing is we aren’t always aware of it. That junk, as I call it, is often at the root of how we react to situations, and more importantly, to people. That junk, when it is (knowingly or unknowingly) in the driver’s seat, drives how we think about all things life. Most importantly, Satan is keenly aware of that junk and uses it to make us less than we can be as people, so the junk messes with our ability to grow spiritually. Finally, we often seem to just plain enjoy holding on to that junk.

The more we are open to allowing God to enter our lives, so that He can clean out the cupboards of our minds of that junk on the back shelves of it, the more we will grow spiritually. He won’t be OCD about it, and neither should we. We just have to get rid of it.

Your own personal WMD, and more

We each have one. No one is immune from using it. That would be our own personal WMD, weapon of mass destruction. That, my friends, is as certain, as the saying goes, as death and taxes. You see, we all have mouths. Now mouths, in and of themselves isn’t a bad thing—in fact they are quite necessary. We must eat. We must communicate. But that’s where the problem lies. Inside of that mouth is that not so little weapon, our tongue—the same tongue that James in the Bible compares to the tiny spark that starts big fires. Our tongues are ever so capable of starting huge fires, even firestorms, when we choose to use them wrong. What often spews out of our mouths, even unintentionally, can literally kill another’s spirit, right? Most likely, volumes have been written about the damage that can come from the tongue and the mouth that houses it.

So, allow me to throw another spin on our personal WMD. Not only can it, and often is, a weapon, but its also a blessing blocker. Look at it this way; how are you to know if you may have just been hugely blessed by something someone was going to say to you but didn’t because you were wagging your tongue too much. How many times have you missed a blessing because you just wouldn’t shut up? How many times has your interruption of someone caused them to just clam up and dismiss you emotionally? How many times has your impulsive desire to be heard (and by rote, not to listen) eventually broken a relationship or caused it to chill? We are all guilty. We all place a high importance on being listened to. We all like to talk. The trouble is, often we simply talk too much, and when we do we stand the chance of missing out of truly being blessed by what that other might have said. Don’t allow your WMD be a blessing blocker.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Red, only red

Color of skin: not important, not an issue.

Shape: doesn’t matter if we are large or small, short or tall.

Ethnicity: Nope, not a concern.

Status:  Of course not.

Influence: We are all equals in the eyes of God.

Creed: See the above.

Title: See the above.

Culture: all the above.

The ONLY thing that is important is the condition of those red hearts each one has in the eyes of God. They all matter to Him.

It’s time to stop with the labeling. We are all people, just people, with red hearts.

Living with Lucifer

Did you cringe when you saw the name of this post? Do his favorite numbers, 666, cause you to cringe? Do you get creeped out by either of them?

The raw truth is, folks, we live in proximity with both Lucifer and God. That may surprise some. I realize, and I’d almost bet, that there are those who would say “no way”, I’m solidly grounded in the Lord. The fact remains, Lucifer is alive and well in this world we live in and will be until the end times when he will ultimately be cast into unending torment.

Here it is as I see it, and I’m certainly not a theologian or a very studied man. In fact, I’m a rather simple man; Lucifer (Satan) is “alive” and well just as he has been since the beginning. He comes in the form of temptation, lies, deceit, and sin. And, we are all, being inherently broken people, are fair game for him daily REGARDLESS of the strength of our belief in God. Some folks don’t like to hear that. Be as it may, Lucifer is an unwanted guest in our daily lives, just as much as God is when we make the choice that we want Him in our lives. The more we make that choice and live accordingly, the less the impact Lucifer has on us—but he is never not around us.

Perhaps if we more willingly understood that we live with Lucifer, instead of alluding to the fact that he is all around us, we might better prepare ourselves to withstand his influences on our lives, influences that will and do occur.

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Reading the red words

Did you know that the Bible contains roughly 750,000 words? I said roughly because the word count depends on which version one reads. That is a whole lot of words. I recently finished authoring my second book which is in the 33,000-word range, and that was a lot of writing.

Many never read the whole Bible. Many folks have never read it at all. Others simply regularly gravitate toward those parts of the bible that speak to them the most. Some just read randomly in terms of what they read and when they read. To each, though, one thing is the constant—it’s a big book, it has a lot of words, and some of it is simply tough to read.

I got curious the other day because a friend of mine share with me that out of all his bible reading, he loves reading the red words—the words Jesus spoke. He shared that while all the story lines in the Bible speak about Jesus’ time on earth speak volumes about Jesus the man, the red words, he feels, are those words which Jesus is saying directly to him in a personal way.

I found that the word count for what Jesus directly said in the Bible, those red words, ranges between 1,026 and 2,024. The higher end number is derived from including duplication of His words in the first four books of the New Testament. Of all those words of His, the most often used by Him are the “I aim’s”, the “come to me’s”, the “follow me’s”, and the word “love”.  That speaks to me.

Perhaps if you are unaccustomed to reading the Bible in any regular fashion, you might consider finding and reading those red words to see how they may relate to you and your relationship with Him. Then perhaps you may feel a bit more confident in your ability to read those other 749,000.

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This guy was so instrumental

This was Duke. He was a rescue, a geriatric rescue. We adopted him so that he would have a loving home for the remainder of his time. He gave us four of the most beautiful years we ever had. His love for us transcended by far all of the love we heaped on him in that time. I couldn't begin to guess the amount of miles we walked together in that short time, but it was during those walks that I got so many of the thoughts and inspirations for my soon to be released book Dog Walk Talk. I can read some of the things in the manuscript and pinpoint where he and I were at when I got that particular brainwave. He was a keeper!

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An unopened gift

Have you ever given someone a gift and wondered later if they had even opened it? Perhaps the person you gave it to forgot to open it, or left it in their car or at work, you may have wondered. Worse yet, perhaps you thought that they simply didn’t like it or appreciate it. No word of thanks, no nothing. You are left wondering, and perhaps puzzled—or worse yet, angry.

Have you ever received a never opened gift that you forgot about? It may have gotten shuffled off to the side and forgotten, you lost it, you left it somewhere by mistake.

Either way, whether you were the giver or the receiver, any of those explanations could be plausible, right? Perhaps unlikely, true, but it could happen. The truth is, it does happen, and it happens a lot unfortunately. As Christians, it happens to us much more than it ever should, and God grieves.

I’m talking about our spiritual gifts—those gifts bestowed upon true believers by the Holy Spirit. They are gifts, not just to be received, but to be opened, nurtured, and used for the furtherance of Kingdom work. And yet, so many “Christians” sit on their laurels, perhaps even talk about their gifts, but fail to use them. Those, folks, are truly unopened gifts….and God doesn’t just wonder—He grieves.

Is your gift(s) opened?

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Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Two Old Men

A beautiful song

Six years ago I was writing lyrics for songs. This was a prelude for my switch to authoring books. Of the roughly 150 songs that I wrote, this one was officially published and rests in a catalog at some record studio in Nashville waiting for release to some artist somewhere. The same sense of feeling and passion that went into this song, went into my first book, A Better Man, Husband, Father (available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble) and in my book due to be released in March, Dog Walk Talk; while I'm walking, God's talking.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

One of the songs I wrote

One of the 150 song lyrics I wrote years ago got published. The great guy who put the music for it together and produced it (and made the demo) was really struck by the song, as have most who have listened to it. He was Justin Morgan, Pearl Snap Studios, Nashville, TN. I am so grateful for his talent and wonderful being.

Listen to it HERE ON YOUTUBE.

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How often do we forget that all are children of God and we act inappropriately?