Monday, February 5, 2007

Monday, February 5, 2007

Well, I'm still without my cane this morning, so far. However long this lasts is a blessing and I was quite serious when I stated simply that God owes me nothing. I don't walk around thinking that somehow I'm above all this pain and suffering that I experience. I’m not. No one is. Especially me.
God’s been good to me all my life. Look at my wife. Look at my children. Look at my family. Look at my years in music. Look at my years in my vocation as an audio engineer. Look at the accomplishments done through Him. Look at my friends. No, God doesn’t owe me anything. I’m not sure I could handle myself, or if anyone else could handle me, if I were to think that for some reason, God, is His Omniscience was indebted to me. It is ever-so the other way around. Again, look at all the noted categories I afore mentioned. I am indebted to Him instead.
Regardless of my disease, regardless of my fate, regardless of my finances, regardless of my pain, regardless of my cane, regardless of my medicine, regardless of Kaiser, regardless of UCSF, regardless of our money and lack of money. It’s my prayer and hope that I won’t be, nor feel like I am being tested in this realization of roles.
My hope and prayer is that all will come to pass as it favorably could with regards to the disability claim and with regards to the referral over to UCSF. I will do all I can, within my power to produce the outcome that I believe is correct and just for my family and me, but I know that it all belongs to Him, not me.
The leader who spoke yesterday said a number of things worthy of repeating, but one of those things was “The homeless beg from the outside in. We beg from the inside out.” I take from that, that those who live without beg for what they don’t have and what they want, that they know others have in the sense of physical worth, food and profit. We beg more from what we don’t have inside, regardless of the things we have outside, learning as we go that those material things are not enough to keep us from begging as well.
Galatians 6:3: 3If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Isn’t that us? Isn’t that me? Don’t we often find ourselves there?
I do.
I think I get caught in that, often, and thus I think I’m due some kind of break, some kind of reprieve from what this time in life has to offer and deliver.
The speaker also said something I found pretty funny then realized I identified with it too…when speaking about Peter, the apostle, he said of Peter, “Peter is a ‘ready, fire, aim’ kind of guy…” it brought an initial chuckle from most but then those of us who identified with that description of Peter kind of took a second to register the identity and then continue listening.
The speaker also shared how he was guest speaker in his home town at a visiting church after he’d been on the road for some time lecturing and ministering across the nation, and while speaking one night in his home town, an older guy walked in, dressed in pretty dirty garb, “street clothes” would be an appropriate description, looking pretty dirty, disheveled and such, and as he walked down the aisle toward the front, a couple ushers came and escorted him out. The church had been having some issues with homeless folks walking in and disrupting the services and making scenes and such and since this church was hosting him, they wanted to avoid any unpleasantries if possible. The pastor sitting next to the guest apologized for the distraction and noticed the guest’s dumbfound expression and asked if he was alright. The guest (the same guy who was speaking to us yesterday morning) said to the pastor “I know that man.” The pastor kind of shocked said “you do?” and he said “Yes, I do. That was my dad.” He figured he must have come straight from work or someplace, I’m guessing. He said that his dad has not entered a church building since that time. The damage it caused was and is apparently irreparable. The sharing of that story brought silence to the room. Shock, unbelief, disapproval, conviction as well, I would imagine.
Hard story to have as history. Worse yet is to also have the infidelity as well. Through all of his personal garbage and errors that he brought before all of us and in his plea for us to forgive him. I couldn’t help but think inside myself, “but who are we that you should ask our forgiveness? If we were to walk up on stage, hold a mic to our lips and then share our sins with 2000 people, who in the room would be qualified to sit in judgment over any one of us?” Please don’t be so far off the mark as to think that I am condoning his infidelity or that I am excusing it or even placing a value on it over something else. In fact, I am NOT placing a value on it over ANYTHING else.
Unless I am mistaken, God does not count one sin higher or more vile than another. We do. I do. Probably, you do. It is known in the correctional facilities and prisons world-wide, that those who are imprisoned for crimes against children are not even forgiven or overlooked by those already imprisoned. Many have stated that the majority of those beaten and abused viciously behind bars by other inmates are those who have been incarcerated for crimes against children. Digression? Yes. Point? The point is that even those found guilty of sin in the judicial system, find guilt and place a value on that guilt within their own realm. We are nothing less than blessed that we are not judged by God according to the degree of the sin we commit, as we hold value and attribute such to, but that He looks in our hearts and goes no further. He doesn’t have to. That’s where it begins and He deals with it there.

I just looked out the music room window because movement caught my eye and there was a woman in her 30s to 40s, walking with a walker, her husband or counterpart, walking with her, helping her along. I’m sitting in here with my cane in my bedroom. There, but for the Grace of God, go I. Maybe I don’t have the literal meaning correct, but the inferred meaning, the one I understand and interpret, I have and realize. I’ve been there. Walking on the street with a walker. It’s likely in my future too. But thanks to God, it’s not here now. It’s a moment of appreciation, wrapped in words of that moment.

Okay, well, interesting blog this morning…prayers for continued healing, treatment and God’s blessing of finances for us. Many more, but those come to mind.
I’m off to change sheets on beds, and to see if I can get the alternator back in the truck.

Peace.