Whatever!

 

On this blog you will read about the things that interest me. Those things include living for God, hunting, writing, archery, fishing, and laughter. I woke up this morning thinking of writing but with no direction in mind, just writing. I began to have the desire to write, about fifteen years ago when I was in my mid-forties. In the beginning my internal critic said, “Get real, you can’t write.” Well I ignored him and started writing. I had an idea in mind that sparked my first attempts at writing. But after that I had a hard time starting my next project.  I eventually realized that anything you write is good, because no matter how bad it is, it is something, and something can be made better, but nothing cannot be made better. I have begun most of my projects by using Stephen King’s approach of asking “What if?”  For instance, what if a man dressed in a purple suit walked into a mini mart and handed out one hundred dollar bills but required everyone who took one to sign a contract.  That was just off the top of my head but you get the idea.

 Let me ask you a question, have you ever wanted to write a story, but the critic in you says, “Ha, you? You can’t write a grocery list!” tell the critic to hush, it is not true, you can write a grocery list, and much more. Deep within you lies an imagination so extensive, so creative, that you have the ability to create worlds that have never existed, people you have never met, creatures and terrible things that would frighten a priest. If you doubt what I say, I challenge you to think about the last dream you had.  Ah, now you see where I am going, dreams are fiction in its truest form. They are stories that our subconscious tells us in order to reason with fears and doubts, or things that have created cognitive dissonance with in us. I do not claim to know anything about dreams or why we dream, but I do know that it is a wonderful source of ideas for fiction.

Sometimes our dreams come in sketchy, broken segments that we have to piece together, other times they are stories that have a beginning, middle but no end, sometimes there is just and ending and you are left to try and figure out what the beginning and middle was. I don’t claim to know anything about why we dream or the meaning of dreams, I just know that if you can get past all of the physiological stuff and use the scenes that your subconscious hands you, it is possible to come up with some very creative stories. I have a book I am working on that started as a dream. My dream began with a young man (who looked a lot like Charlie Sheen) siding into a canal in the early morning in search of something. He eventually found an underground city. I saw waterfalls, turbines that gave light to the dwelling, different inventions that made living underground wonderful. I turned the pictures into words and I have about one hundred and forty pages of story.

My first inclination was to say don’t worry about what dreams mean just take the scenes and turn them into words, but I think I need to add that there are dreams that have supernatural origins. In the bible we read about how God spoke many times to people in dreams. Sometimes it was to tell of wonderful things to come, and other times it was to warn of things in their lives that need to change. So if you do not have a right relationship with the Living God of the bible and you are having dreams that seem to be warning you of something, The first thing you need to do is to get your heart right with God, and you do that by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. On this page in the upper right hand corner there is a link that will take you to a page that fully explains what it means to make Jesus your savior. If you are reading this and you decide to follow Jesus, and invite him to be Lord of your life, you have the beginning of a wonderful story at your fingertips. Write about it and share it with me, I want to hear how God changed your life.

Ideas for stories are all around you, so write! I love reading books by writers on writing, and one of themes that has been in all of the books that I have read on writing is that if you want to be a writer, you have to write. So open up your word processer and start writing. Thanks for reading my blog and if you are not a follower of this blog you are welcome to join. May God richly bless you!

Cliff

 

 

 

 

 

I Can't Get No Satisfaction!

   I was getting ready for work the other day and the song Hallelujah by Darlene Zschech began to play. The first line caught my attention, it goes, “He is King. The Savior has been born, the One we’ve waited for, surrounded by our praises”. “The One we have waited for” caused me to think that we have all waited for something in our lives.  I remember when I first started working in the early 70’s thinking that once I finally made ten thousand dollars a year my life would be so good.  The odds are most of us are waiting for something to come and change our lives, the perfect mate, the new car, the job of our dreams, to finally get out of school, you fill in the blank. Living unsatisfied lives is a common trait among humans. If you sit here today surrounded by plenty and still feel like something is missing in your life, I have the answer for you.

Part of the continuing search for meaning in our lives comes from an inherent emptiness inside of each of us.  There is a God shaped hole in our lives caused by what the bible calls sin. The bible tells us that we all have sinned and fallen short of Gods glory; it also tells us that the wages of sin is death. Everyone but one, (you’re not the one)  who has ever lived on the face of the earth has sinned and missed the standard set by Gods glory, and consequently has or had the penalty of death upon their heads.  Billions, upon countless billions of people have missed the mark and have lived and died under the penalty of death.  

God is a loving God, God’s character is defined by love, and in fact God loves you so much that he sent his one and only son to pay for the penalty of death that follows us through our lives. Only Jesus lived a sinless life.  Two things are evident through the teaching of scripture, the first thing is that the death that God says we deserve (Genesis 2:17) is spiritual death, which is separation form the Gods presence for all eternity;  if we die in our sins we are exiled to a place called hell forever. We are told in scripture that hell is a place of fire and brimstone where we burn eternally without any relief. But the greater anguish is those who choose hell are an eternity away from God’s presence and love. You have one life and within the boundaries of that life you are given the opportunity to *repent, or turn from sin to God, through Jesus.

Since the day Christ died on the cross, and rose form the dead to pay for our debt, we have been living in the days of grace; all of us from the worst to the best have lived under God’s merciful grace, as He patiently waits for the best and the worst of us to choose eternal life over eternal death. God does not suddenly take people out just because He had a bad day (He never has a bad day).  As we live here in this wonderfully complex world that God created, we are all given a life time of chances and choices to choose Him. I believe God gives us all of the time we need to accept his open invitation for a new life through His Son, Jesus.  It is not Gods will that anyone perishes but it is his will that we all be restored to a right relationship with Him. The time that it takes in a person’s life to come to this point of understanding varies. People have turned to Him from early childhood all the way to death bed conversions.  This fact bears out the compassion of our God.

The sad truth is that everyone on earth will not be *saved. The bible says that few will choose him and many will be cast away from his presence, because the pathway to destruction is wide and easy to travel, but the path to eternal life is difficult and narrow and few will find it.  There is a line from another song that fits what I am saying it is from Caedmon’s Call “This world”, it goes “This world has nothing for me and this world has everything, all that I could want and nothing that I need”.  In the bible, Proverbs 14:12 tells us “There is a way which seemeth right unto man but the end thereof are the ways of death.”(KJV). Are you living in a way that “seems right” but offers no satisfaction, like drinking a glass of liquid that does not quench your thirst?

I encourage you to seek the One we have all been waiting for. He is Lord of all, He is redeemer, savior, lover of your soul, Master of the sea, and Lion of the tribe of Judah, His name is Jesus. He will fill the emptiness that is in your life.  We have a need that Only God can fill we are openly invited to come and dine at the masters table, regardless of who you are or what you have done. His forgiveness is powerful, His healing is refreshing. He will wash you whiter than snow.

May God bless you richly, remember He loves you more than you deserve and more than you could ever imagine.

 

* Saved is a term used to describe escape from the penalty of sin that is upon all of our heads, before regeneration. It comes only through confessing your sin and asking Jesus to come into your life to be Lord and Savior. From the bible the book of Romans the third chapter the twenty third verse and romans chapter six and verse twenty three.

* Regeneration is a fancy term that means a new life and a new heart, not a changed heart but a new heart because the hold heart is corrupt. The heart is the mind and consciousness of human beings.

*Repent is a term that means to do a 180 degree turn away from your old life and walk in a new life surrounded by Gods love and guidance. You must know that to repent does not mean that everything is automatically perfect and your life changes overnight. In most cases it is a slow process of relearning how to put God first in your life and to get rid of addictions or blatant sins (specific things that are contrary to the word of God and are hurtful to your life, and your walk with God). This done by simply in trusting in Jesus and letting him live his life through you. In the bible you will find the book of John chapter three verse sixteen and it will tell you of God’s love. Specific verses about repentance are in the books of: Matthew 13:3, Acts 2:38 (the need and the benefit.)

 

 

 

Through the Bible in....

 

March is generally past the time of year when we think about the daunting task of reading through the bible. By now many people will be in one of three camps, right on track, starting to slip, or hopelessly behind. This year I fall into the second camp. I confess, I have a difficult time going from start to finish through the bible in one year. I will be the first to give an “amen” to all of those who read the bible through every year, I applaud your dedication, and know that it takes discipline to honestly read through the entire bible in one year.  For those of you who also find it difficult to complete the task I have a word of encouragement, don’t stop, and keep reading, it’s about relationship not conquering a challenge.  

This year I started with the Life Principles Daily Bible, it is a part of Charles Stanly’s ministry. For each day of the year you get Old Testament, a little Psalms and proverbs, and New Testament. It takes me about 25 minutes to read one day. Doing the math shows that 365 days times 25 minutes equals 9125 minutes or 152 hours, or 6.33 days. That means all that is required of me is to find six and a half days a year to give to reading the scriptures. That does not seem as daunting when you look at it like that does it? But it is kind of convicting to think that I have a hard time finding six and a half days a year to read Gods word.

So now is the time to put it into perspective. It is only the first of March. Counting this month there are ten months left. Guess what? We are not hopelessly behind. There are many methods out there for reading the scripture through. In my case all I need to do is read two passages a day for about two weeks and I will be caught up. If you have not started or have started and fallen off early there is hope for you as well. I feel very confident that in the ten months remaining you can find six and a half days to read Gods word. The real goal is to make the word of God part of your everyday life, and the ways to do that are countless. Use the imagination that God blessed you with and make time to spend with God. You will not regret it. Remember that seven days without the word of God makes one WEAK!