Author: MichaelJ

I was born naked, and unable to care for myself. But I struggled, and people helped me along the way.

On Life

If you don’t pitch a fit every once and a while, are you truly alive?  You go through life, and nothing makes you really happy or really sad, or really mad?

The only way I know is not to care.  Don’t have skin in the game.  Stay where it’s safe.

I don’t want to be like that.  I want to take sides.  Believe in something.

Here’s to pitching a fit, whether you’re right or wrong.

Oh, yeah, How ’bout Them Dawgs!!!

If you don’t know me by now

“Disappointments are inevitable, discouragement is a choice”.

That quote was heavy on my mind, as I navigated the truck from Columbia back to Loganville.  As I worked my way through the Kubler-Ross Model, I admit that I lingered on step 2 for quite a while.

Throughout my life, I’ve kept so many sayings, quotes, and stories that I often lose attribution, who said that?

What I have learned in the past shapes the person I will be in the future, so it is in these crossroad moments of disappointment, that I make choices to heed the learnings or ignore the learnings.  My capacity for “breaking bad” is high.

Finally, I confronted step 4 and that saying popped in my mind: “Disappointments are inevitable, discouragement is a choice”.  The choice was obvious for me: I won’t get discouraged.

This morning I googled the saying to get who said it.  Wow #20!.  The bread cast out over the waters has come back.

In my bible study this morning, a Spurgeon devotional:

When we sail in Christ’s company, we may not make sure of fair weather, for great storms may toss the vessel which carries the Lord himself, and we must not expect to find the sea less boisterous around our little boat. If we go with Jesus we must be content to fare as he fares; and when the waves are rough to him, they will be rough to us. It is by tempest and tossing that we shall come to land, as he did before us.- Spurgeon

And now I have another story in my head, waiting to console me, at the next inevitable disappointment.

For your comfort

Psalm 91

1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[a]
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe with your eyes
    and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
    I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble,
    I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

Ok, now here is my evangelical moment.

You have Isaiah: because of your sins, he does not hear you

You have Revelations: whomsoever will

Without the revelation, you don’t get the promises of Psalm 91, right?