I watch The Dodo on the internet. It is always encouraging to watch the rescues. A dog, found in a dump, covered in mange, bones showing through cut and damaged skin with other possible injuries and complications. The rescuer moves in to help. The dog growls, bares his teeth and cowers with all the visual signs of terror, anger, and defensiveness. Bit by bit, with food, soft tones, and various indicators of kindness, the rescuer moves in and lures the dog into capture, putting it in a cage.

The next step is heading to the vet. The vet examines all the injuries, malnutrition, and other issues. Now, prescriptions in hand, the rescuer takes the dog home to begin the treatments and therapies. Soon, the video begins to show the progress.

The dog now has a name, is eating regularly, and beginning to look like a dog instead of a four legged disease. Fur begins to sprout to a point where you can identify the dog’s coloring. Two primary changes have taken place. The dog is regaining trust and no longer fights the rescuer but has identified him as friend, or better, as the most favorite friend. The dog is put in the company of other pets and begins the restoration of relationships. His identity has changed with his health, and his world has changed with his rescue.

This is simply what the video shows, where you look. But what do you see? I see the story of salvation. I see a creature, crushed by sin and devastation, trying to survive on the refuse of a broken world. I see Jesus come on the scene. I see how the sinner responds to the rescuer, how I responded to Jesus when I first sensed his approach. I cowered, was antagonistic, and struggled every way I could against the help I was to receive and desperately needed. The first stages of walking with Jesus were similar to the dog’s. I felt I was caged, poked, prodded, and put through all kinds of therapy that I found unfamiliar and frustrating.

My relationship with my rescuer changed. I went from total avoidance to desire for presence. I entered the church and began building friendships. My friendships were now with those who also trusted the rescuer. I passed the initial stages of the rescue and have established enough of the basics of Jesus and Godly relationships to strengthen me and equip me for the rest of the journey.

The Holy Spirit teaches us to see Jesus. We can see Him in anything our eyes behold. All creation testifies of His presence and Lordship. Our eyes determine where we look, but our souls interpret into seeing. I lived and survived in the devastation of this world which was everywhere I looked. Jesus taught me to see the rescue, hope, life, and joy that He intended and would bring into my life. I may be living in the same world, but I’m not living in the same dump and in the same way.

My vision has become much clearer. Is it humbling or inappropriate to see myself as a dog in the story? No less or more than being compared to a sheep in the Lord’s parables. If pride needs to take a hit, I encourage it. Humility is like prescription lenses. It helps the eyes work right to see clearly in the direction you are looking. Look and see because the Lord is working all things in all directions to accomplish His plan and bring us safely home in His salvation.

Disaster can become an intimidation of exaggerated proportions. It is only the first step in a devastating process of life injury. Good things can be disasters in disguise, like winning the lottery. Check out some of those stories if you are into the horror genre.

Withdrawal and hesitation can follow the disaster as the second stage of intimidation. Conditioning to expect pain, like from a disaster, can cause all the survival strategies learned to surface and go into full operation. For many, these strategies are types of withdrawal and avoidance. For others, hyper-aggressiveness which intensifies the disaster. For others – who knows, except if it doesn’t include getting close with the Lord, you can guarantee it is contributing to the problems of the disaster.

Humiliation, the shame, degradation, and dread following withdrawal and/or experienced during the disaster can be the scarring which creates a lifetime of negative behavior begun with the disaster. Healing is required to overcome and get out of the recurring negative consequences.

The outcomes of these three can damage the way we view ourselves and self relationship, damage the way we relate to others and damage the way we interact with the world around us. All layers of this connect with, and can shape (for good or bad) our connection or relationship with God. I’ve seen many in this process turn to God and receive healing, and I’ve seen others use this as a reason to run from God and continue their suffering.

The three layers of intimidation (for the purpose of this blog, not as a way of defining all intimidation or its impacts) can become self-fulfilling prophecy as the damaging effects can be caused by anticipation, which no longer has to be real. It can be imagined or felt to be real enough to create the patterned negative behavior.

So – what? The two most common mistakes of humanity (in my opinion – and I’m not an authority) is the tendency to trust in self/other humans and/or to trust in things. This is the road to failure if those trusts are not Jesus centered. The only true road out is with Christ. 

Solomon was the wealthiest, most famous, and most powerful of his day. He tried everything. He validated that wealth, fame, and power don’t satisfy or bring life and healing, like many of the rich and famous have proved today. Read Ecclesiasties so you don’t have to try it all yourself.  Life, hope, health, and healing come through the hands of God in Christ and may include, completely according to God’s preferences in each situation, people and things. He and His values must come first for people and things to work. Stay in touch with the Bible, the guideline for finding and realizing Christ.

The entire point of the gospel is not that we won’t have suffering/disaster, but that God cares and heals. He is present and available. The greatest stories in our world are stories of devastation that God redeemed. God’s ability to transform the worst into something of value continues to verify the gospel’s life giving power on planet today. Jesus is alive.

Education takes a lot of hits because it has been an assembly-line, factory process for a long time. Much content is taught in fractured pieces and left unassembled which is one of the unintentional hardships or failings of the process. For example, we learn history by areas, like American history, without ever putting the experience together with the other history timelines except for the times they intersect. These are fractured connections without giving enough context to the other timelines to create a feel or understanding for the people involved. Fractured teaching, fractured timelines, fractured lives,  are true signs of the enemy at work.

Last weekend I went to the dedication of the Richardson Community Center as a historical site. It is necessary to understand Richardson and the timeline of African-American education to understand the lives of fellow Americans in Columbia County, or possibly, anywhere. I was stunned to realize how I had never realized that segregation had such a terrible impact on me. I saw much more clearly that my Black neighbors and I lived and experienced life in separated timelines, only connecting the dots at points of intersection without really having a context to understand, fully accept, and appreciate my neighbors. I had never assembled the timelines into one. We share the same community, the same desires for health and well being, the same faith. We are one people with two separate experiences caused by the division of Satan who continually pits us against each other instead of our living in the joy that God created us uniquely with gifts and talents to bless each other. 

Avoidance of the uncomfortable is a normal human trait. It is normal to avoid leaving your “comfort zone,” as they say in church, and venture out into the unknown. I have many African-American friends who are very important to me. However, Richardson was like taking a dive into their world experience instead of having them in mine. I experienced a mental shift that was more expansive than before. I watched the celebration of life and history in this part of my community. It was beautiful. Many of their heroes were persons who were models for me at the school where I taught. I took them for granted and didn’t realize what true trail blaizers they were for their community. They were giants. I went from intersection to context. My timeline was merging.

They were telling stories of life, hope, joy, and sorrow. I could completely relate to so much. Their sports, clubs, dances and more were like mine, so many things so much the same. Their hopes were like mine. So much the same, but so much was different. 

Charles, a man I met at the event, could not ride the Columbia County white school bus to attend classes in Columbia County where he lived. His parents had to buy him tickets on the Greyhound bus so he could attend school in Welborn, the only destination he could take. He graduated from school when I was thirteen. Segregation and its warfare-like transition began when I was nineteen/twenty. We shared a timeline, separately. They were experiencing the curse of oppression while I experienced the curse of separation from the beauty and life God had put in them. One of the differences was that they knew they were under attack, but I didn’t realize I was suffering until I began building friendships.

All men fail. It is Satan who has used these failings to divide us. We have allowed the evil one too much room to work in our relationships. It is evident not only in racial struggles but also in the terrible attacks on marriages and families. The enemy divides to conquer and oppress. The Lord does not. The fruit of the spirit does not include oppression, division, or cruelty. It is easy to find fault, but the Lord would have us find favor, to rejoice in His creation, to celebrate the gifts and talents He has placed in each person, to follow His goals and purpose, and to stand against the wiles and schemes of the enemy. We can join our timelines into one walk with God.

There is very famous martial arts actor who made some very popular and successful films. In addition to his fame, he has earned an infamous reputation as an egotistical bully who is difficult, if not impossible, to work with. He apparently has gained a long list of fellow successful actors who will not work with him or speak any kind words about him. They tell that this actor demands that all others on the set bow and give place to his egotistical demands. Failure to meet the egotistical demands are met with a variety of responses from physical to emotional, and all vicious. 

I began to realize that this professional warrior, a highly trained and skilled martial artist, has failed in his first true war. His first true war was with himself. He was conquered and made a slave to his own ego through his humanity and the enemy of humanity. The ego not only rules over him, his relationships, his career, but it also tries to force others to obey it. The ego had become a power in his life almost like a character in his movies. It had become so powerful that it (if it could be treated like a personality) moved to rule, not only him, but the people around him. 

Failure to conquer his own spirit has been having a horrendous effect. His movies have dropped out of the mainstream. The people willing to work with him have become far less. His career has entered a slide and appears to be continuing. His reputation, covered by his early successes, is now fully exposed as to its true quality. The destruction has arrived. The call to repentance could not be more clear. The most frightening part of this story – from the perspective of those of us who examine the health of our own souls – is that every one can see the condition of his life more easily than he can himself, even if the clues seem overwhelming.

Salvation is an individual experience. It only becomes an influence to others after it has taken effect inside the individual. The first territory salvation conquers is the self, and that conquering is to free us from the very kinds of destruction this actor is facing – pride. It is one thing to be enslaved by the failings of others, but I think it far worse to be enslaved by your own. Who can you blame? Where can you hide? Where can you go? How can you have an objective view of your condition when your perspective is corrupted within you? There is only one true source of rescue – Jesus.

Jesus sees the truth, reveals the truth, but with the compassion it takes to get us from brokenness to health. His goodness and love bring us to repentance, the kind of love that takes us from bondage to freedom. 

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.” Proverbs 16:18, 25, 32 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/pro.16.18-32.ESV 

-C.S. Lewis from _The Screwtape Letters_: “It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

– Solomon 2:15 Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.”

How do little foxes equal bears? How do cards equal murder? The key is that the basic function of life is not as humans see it. In the human view, murder is obviously worse than cards or a lie. The real key to understand the seeming discrepancy is the connection to Jesus as a critical necessity, an eternal necessity. A lie can separate us from Jesus because it is a step out of heaven and away from Jesus. The lie is getting on the pathway to murder because it is choosing the path to death. “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James 1:13-15 ESV https://www.bible.com/bible/59/jas.1.13-15.esv

Lying, in the human view of small sins, is the complete plant, including death, in seed form. It is the choice which kills because it comes from the heart and equal to the sin of murder which was within the seed when it was chosen. We know that we are growing corn when we plant a corn seed, an olive tree when we plant an olive seed. The physical is an image of the spiritual. The seed we choose/plant, is the one we will grow, physically or spiritually.

Choices toward the Lord or away from Him are complete seeds. They will bear fruit in our lives. That fruit will be good or evil according to the seed. A good plant will not bear bad fruit and vice versa. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.” James 3:10-12 ESV https://www.bible.com/bible/59/jas.3.10-12.esv

Marriages often die because of a cumulative effect of small choices, the little foxes. As Lewis says, “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” Marriages require an active work ethic, a constant effort to make it healthy and viable. Marriage is a concrete example of a living relationship with Jesus. “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” John 3:12 ESV https://www.bible.com/bible/59/jhn.3.12.esv Marriage is an example to teach us about our heavenly relationship.

The above can sound pretty hopeless to anyone who is self aware and understands how many bad choices he or she makes on a regular basis. For me, the number of bad choices by the end of breakfast can be daunting/intimidating. We are growing good crops and bad crops at the same time. It may be impossible to measure the seeds we’ve sown or the amounts. However, we have been given the greatest gift of all, mercy from heaven and the gift of repentance. Any bad seed in our lives can become good through repentance and forgiveness in Christ. Just like we, destined for hell without the salvation of Christ, find that all our seed are the same. As we are redeemed, our seed can be redeemed. The joy of maintaining a healthy and viable relationship with Jesus is total redemption, our selves and our seed.

The greatest testimonies I’ve ever heard or shared were horrible people turned to heavenly emissaries and terrible choices turned to producing heavenly fruit. The true joy of salvation is that it operates every day in every way because Jesus never fails and His love is beyond measure.

I’ve been a re-enactor for a while, working with the museum and the Blue Grey Army. The Blue Grey Army is the organization who organizes the Olustee Festival ever year in Lake City, Florida. Olustee was the largest Civil War Battle fought in Florida. The Civil War is currently being emotionally refought through the politics and popular action groups of the current time. Viewing past life and culture creates skewed insights when viewed through modern eyes, even in the Bible. The truth in the Bible is spoken for all time, but the events were for the time and culture of the time they occurred. Culture and experience change, but the truth of God remains continuously faithful forever.

Looking at history requires finding the artifacts and interpreting them. Interpreting them through our current knowledge, vantage point, and priorities can cause us to misunderstand as much, if not more than we understand. I think it is important to look behind the scenes. By that, I mean to ask the questions about the spiritual influences behind the human manifestations. I use the Bible as the standard, and I use a short cut, Galatians 5:19-23. These verses provide two lists, one through which we can see the footprint or image of the enemy, “works of the flesh;” and the other, “the fruits of the spirit,” the footprint or image of God. These two lists help me quickly assess the artifacts or content I am evaluating.

Looking back at the Civil War, we can see the footprints of both throughout the North and the South. We can look and see the causes of cruelty from one person to another, the corruptions in authority and governments, the media and its role, and the bravery and love that occurs in the middle and around the cruelty. We can clearly see that this world has been and is a spiritual battleground in which all persons are given a choice of who they will serve, the enemy and their own selfish desires, or love and the purpose and plan of God. 

Sadly enough, it is easier to look back and prefer the color of the uniform, the region of the country, the popular feelings of the time, and the other convenient views than it is to seek to understand how people chose or were manipulated into moving in one spiritual direction or another. Naturally this oversimplifies things because I think very few, if any, are completely evil or completely good. Normal humans are a mixture of both, fighting internally the same battle which becomes external and manifests to everyone in their sphere of influence.

We can see the footprints in every generation. Every generation has their slaves, their wars, their champions and their heros.  The faces change. The cultures and technology change. The sorrows and joys change with the fluctuations in the countries and the circumstances. However, the sources remain the same. Man’s inhumanity to man continue through the selfish manifestations of pride and works of the flesh. Redemption, hope, healing, and all forms of rescue come through Jesus in the fruits of the spirit. The trail of evidence is clear in every generation. The question isn’t refighting or redefining the choices people in the past made, but what choices we make.

We can see what happened in the past because the events then are complete. We can even see or infer the spiritual realities that pushed people in the directions they traveled. All their choices are relevant today because we face the same true enemy to peace, hope, and harmony. We are at war today, the same spiritual war that has been fought since the beginning of man. It is not a political party. It is not a region or cultural preference. It is not art or music or clothing styles. All those things might reflect some images of the war, but they are not the war. The true war is against the “spiritual forces of evil.”

The people of our historical past, all of them, amaze me. The people of our current generation amaze me. Each person’s story is worth telling, as I say at the museum all the time. There is still much left to do. We’ve grown some, gone backward some, and left ourselves with many challenges left to overcome. Jesus lived and died and rose again to bring us into the freedom and joy He wants for us. The best way to fight and maintain joy, is to hold on to Him as we move forward and become history ourselves.

I guess everyone has had a business experience that is far less than satisfactory. Recently I had one with a twist to it. I went to a business to have a repair done. The number quoted me was more than three times what it actually cost to have the repair completed. I was given bad numbers and charged fees for work not done. I was angry and extremely disappointed because I had a long term association with this business.

I received my first miracle when I was shocked by the price. I did not lose my temper, yell, and use all the bad words that always seem so close to the surface. The agent was very polite to me and evidently concerned with my disappointment. I have to add at this point that no person at this business was rude to me at all or at any time. I even received a gift basket. My problem was that the numbers given to me were outrageous and out of line with anything reasonable or fair.

I talked with several persons in authority in the business. All were very polite to me. I quoted them prices from like businesses. I gave them the benefit of my comparison shopping, being careful to compare like to like. However, the number confusion was never resolved. I was offered freebies and discounts and generous benefits. I was offered meandering justifications which didn’t really address the issue, but all pointing to their view that they had done nothing wrong. I was offered everything but the one thing I needed to re-establish trust – the truth about the numbers. 

I did not want freebies because that would be dishonest, like a bribe. It would be like me manipulating them out of a price for selfish reasons. They would have to explain and justify their discounts and gifts to their superiors if their numbers were real, based on the requirements of their business. I needed a fair price for a fair job so I could live with myself and they could maintain a profitable business. My long term relationship with this business needed the trust they cost me through this experience. I had the repair done elsewhere for less than a third of the cost quoted me.  I found someone else I could trust. 

Here came the twist. I know I can shop around and go to other businesses, and will and did. Why did this happen? Why did I need a simple repair done by a business who has known me for years and have such a wild outcome? The answer was because I believe it was about blessing. That was my surprise. I had a reputation with the business which should have caused them to consider my complaint.

A business without integrity operates under a curse. Customers are hurt, bitter, and create bad feelings in the community. Employees are hurt by the oppression of falsehoods, lies, and coverups.  I was put in the odd position of giving a business a choice – blessing or curse – integrity or unfair charges. I felt that God wanted to bless this business during my time in prayer. I was to take them an opportunity to be blessed in the forms of forgiveness and integrity. He wanted them to choose between integrity and unfair charges.

A repair business who has integrety has no lack in business. People will carve a path to their door. Their employees, knowing they have fair prices for fair work, do not have the oppression faced by employees of companies lacking integrity. The business, the employees, and the community would all profit from a business with integrity.  God’s way really works and works to benefit everyone in every direction. 

God wanted the business to choose the path that He could bless. I was choreographed into a situation because God wanted to bless a business so the business could be a blessing. His goal wasn’t judgment for punishment like we often think of Him. This twist is a change in perspective. We, as individuals, are often brought to a point of choice for the same reason, allow God to remove the curse so we can walk in His blessing. We punish ourselves through our wrong choices. God brings that to our attention so He can free us and bless us.

Exodus. Perspective.

The miracles in Exodus are so much more than we tend to notice. The plagues on Egypt were powerful miracles. However, even more so, the miracles started and stopped when Moses said and only involved those intended. Each detail involved another layer of miracle. Pharaoh cried about the frogs and asked that they be stopped. Moses said when. Pharaoh said tomorrow. Moses said okay, and that is when the frogs died and stopped. The plague of frogs was a miracle, as was the time it started and the time it stopped.

Manna was an amazing miracle. Food dropped from heaven to feed the more than million people traveling through the wilderness. More amazing was that you couldn’t keep it overnight without it rotting and providing worms – except on the night before the sabbath. Manna fell every day but the sabbath. Those who gathered too much had enough for their meals, and those who didn’t gather enough had no lack.  There was so much more to each miracle than what we typically consider the miracle.  One omer of manna was kept as a testimony, and it never went bad. The manna was provided forty years until they arrived where food was abundant. Then, it suddenly stopped and never happened again.

Here is the question: How much more goes in to everything God does for us than we first see or consider?

God set me free from alcohol. That was the smallest part of the miracle. I was given compassion for the people I had betrayed and misused due to the drinking, which was a bigger miracle. I began to build honest relationships and found the people around me generously giving me far more than I had tried to manipulate out of them while I was drinking, a bigger miracle. I found that the reduction in lying made sleeping easier and the oppression of living much less. The doorway to work opened, and I had become reliable enough to keep the job, another miracle. The list could go on and on. I’ve been clean and dry for decades, and my gratitude has only broadened and deepened for all the work that went in to that portion of my clean up and restoration. God’s way works.

Sometimes it is easy to be superficial about the miracles in our lives. It is easy to forget how much work must go into laying a foundation so a bridge between past and future can be built. It is easy to forget how many obstacles have to be overcome to do something which appears so simple on the surface. It is easy to say I will buy a car until you try to. Then you learn about loans, insurance, payment plans, legal paperwork, and so much more. Nothing is as simple as we want it to be.

God never loses or forgets a prayer. He moves mountains in lives to build the bridges and the tracks to get us to a better life in Him. His life works. It is simpler to trust Him than it is to rely on an oversimplistic perspective. It is always a good day to count our miracles and blessings to build trust in the One who is trustworthy. He does so much more than we typically see.

Recently I went to a men’s Bible study gathering. The theme of the conversation was in taking charge of our thought life. “Thoughts are like birds flying overhead. We may not control those  thought flights, but we have power to choose the ones that want to build a nest on our heads,” said one of the men.

Some of the verses were extremely positive and encouraging like Ph 4:8, the prescription for good mental health. However, by the end of the meeting, I was already frustrated. I had turned inspiration into condemnation. 

There is a razor’s edge in perception between seeing what can be done and seeing what you haven’t done. What can be done is inspiring. What you haven’t done is easily condemning, followed by its best friend – shame. In an extremely short moment, the qualities of God are replaced by the realization of Satan. Humanity knows its own death and limitations.

I realized that I had gotten off track pretty quickly, was strugglihng with all the thoughts I hadn’t brought under control, and began to pray. The condemnation had arrived because I was considering only what I could do, were I god or in total control – the viewpoint of pride. Scripture tells me that my best on my best day, with everything going my way, isn’t good enough. It is not about what I can do, but what the Lord has done and is doing. 

For me, it means surrender. Surrender in this instance is the realization that bringing my thoughts under control isn’t going to happen by my efforts alone. My success depends on my surrendering to the Lord and realizing that my best isn’t good enough. He is what I need. The work and ministry of the Holy Spirit is what I need. There is no area in my life in which I am capable of saving myself. I need a savior. I need Jesus. Asking Jesus into my thoughts, making room for Him on the couch of my heart’s inmost living room, is the most important act of my will.

Jesus has been turning my condemnation back into inspiration where He intended it in the first place. My reliance on Him can give me peace during the process of my growth, before I get to the goal destination. Today is a day of inspiration, not because of the life todo or get better list, but because of the person of Jesus.who walks with us each minute, despite our inabilities. He is taking thoughts, experience, and life and transforming them into something better than we can do for ourselves. Jesus is inspiration

New Year’s (or any) resolutions can be very revealing. Part of the revealing is what is chosen, things to do or things not to do. The deeper revelation is what is buried under the choices – the attitudes. Am I managing my appearance to myself and others, or am I truly desiring change. If I say to myself I’m desiring change, what change is it, a behavior or the attitude which sustains a behavior? What level of my life am I examining? How deep am I willing to go? How much mud will get on my boots from wading through my excuses toward the truth of the matter?

I’m curious. Here’s an example. I set a goal to lose weight, say twenty-five pounds. Diet starts. The discipline hurts, but it’s not too bad. The first five pounds drop pretty easily. Now comes the challenge. I want to celebrate my success. The natural choice for celebration – cheat on the diet. It’s so perfectly self-defeating. A little success in any direction of any goal creates an opportunity to back up on the goal.

Why does success turn into an excuse to step back from succeeding? What does this say about the real desire – snack sneaker or healthy eating? I’m really curious as to how my mind works, especially since I often don’t take time to examine and question it. Somehow it makes sense, if you’ve lost five pounds, go to Dairy Queen and get a blizzard. Did I lose the weight to get DQ, or did I lose the weight for a better reason? What is the heart of my thinking, and what does it reveal to me about my true motives? Why would cheating in the direction of failure be considered a reward?

I can turn this example into a more spiritual image. What would it look like? I can pray devotedly for five days in a row at the same time each day so I can avoid prayer for the next five days? Be righteous and serve God a little so He will excuse a little sin on the side? Who am I really in my heart, the fat guy trying to wear skinny jeans or the thin guy trying to get rid of the fat suit? Or am I the guy looking to get my heart right? I look for ways and excuses to cheat when it is about weight. My soul is vulnerable to the appetites of the body. I’m convicted by my attitude.

This brings me back to the spiritual example. Am I identifying with the sinner-self who wants to get away with stuff, or the saint-self who wants the sin conquered? The saint doesn’t want an excuse to go backward. Now I find the truth in the matter. I’m broken. I won’t move in the right direction without help, help from someone who understands why and how I can’t be trusted to completely get on board with the right attitudes.

No matter how good I am, or how long I sustain a record for being good, failure resides. I am a cheater in the hands of a merciful God who will continue my discipline until the diet is complete and my rescue accomplished. My faith is in His victory becoming ever more my own. Trusting in self is a sure loss, only a matter of time before the flesh cheats. Trusting in Jesus is guaranteed success. Jesus never surrenders to failure. His goal for each of us is the true health of freedom from sin.