The first time I saw the movie “The 10 Commandments“, I was impressed with the special effects. Remember though, the movie came out in 1956. I don’t remember how old I was when I saw it, but it was long before I accept Christ as my Savior. Thus the movie had no spiritual significance to me at all; it was just an entertaining movie.

Many years later, now born again, I watched the CleanFlicks edited version of another special effects movie, “The Matrix“, and thought that it had profound spiritual connotations. (As an aside, it’s really too bad about the judgment against CleanFlicks.)

The difference is easily explained by Jesus in John 3:3, “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” A more detailed explanation for this difference is found in 1st Corinthians Chapter 2:11-14.

This difference in perspective is dramatic, to say the least. It can change a blade of grass from an object to be studied into evidence of the Creator. (Reference Romans 1:18-20) It transforms despair into hope and death into life. (Reference John 5:24) (By the way, in case you haven’t noticed, IE users can hover over most Scripture links to view the Scripture.)

Today I heard someone comment that they’ve never seen a miracle. I’ve never lived a day that I haven’t seen a miracle. The way I see it is this: within every second that ticks throughout all created time there are an infinite number of instances for which we can glorify God.

The practical side of this is the difference between “not another day, I can’t take this anymore” and Lamentations 3:22-23 which says, “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

I choose life, for the unborn and for myself. I figure the longer I live the more I’ll have to glorify God. I choose to live life as a joyful servant of my Lord, my King, and to praise Him with every breath. For me, to live is Christ. (Reference Philippians 1:21)

It’s difficult for me to admit that I’m not being honest with people. I really don’t like talking about my ailments. Indeed, my primary reason is that rather give glory to God for his many blessings. Sometimes I’ll drop hints about how I feel but try to close the subject off. “God is good even when I don’t feel good.” My other reasons include: I don’t think most people are interested in the details even though they do care about me; I think it would be boring to most people; some of my ailments are difficult to explain; I don’t think people would understand; some are too difficult to even believe. (I have trouble understanding and believing them.) I’ll give you a taste, just one example.

Sometimes things will abruptly change for me, usually for the worse. Two months ago I started a whole new set of symptoms. This list includes fever, petechial rash, strange headaches, sensitivity to light and noise, muscle pain and weakness. Additionally my appetite has decreased further still and my fatigue has increased further still. All these symptoms persist in addition to the numerous problems which left me disable and feeling very much like a freak over six years ago. The entire list of symptoms is much longer.

I wonder if people are being honest with me. Do they really have time, are they really interested in hearing the details about how I feel? I have some friends and acquaintances who have their own list of ailments. Perhaps I’m better prepared because of my illness and in a better position to patiently listen to them. And, although I will listen to them and show them compassion, I can only take so much before I’m worn out.

There are a few people with whom I do share how I feel. I talked to God about my ailments although not as much as I should. I don’t want God to think I’m complaining about His will or that I don’t trust Him. Of course I talked to my doctors but sometimes I think this doesn’t do any good. Not that my doctors aren’t good, but there are no cures for some of my diseases such as my nerve damage. Then there is my family who are my personal caregivers. My wife has been with me during procedures where I screamed with pain, my face in a pillow, tears rolling down my face. My children have seen me at times when I was so fatigued due to dehydration or low RBCs that I couldn’t even lift my head off my pillow. I have many more and much worse examples of things that my wife and children have dealt with because of my illnesses.

My wife and children are heroes. My wife is so gentle, tender, compassionate, and patient. She listens as I complain, discusses courses of action to alleviate my pain, serves me great food throughout the day, manages double duty of activities where I can no longer help, puts up with my bouts of irritability, and much, much more. My children, too, are immensely helpful. They help with mundane tasks of my daily care without complaint. Although it may seem like a small thing to them when they bring me lemonade and a bowl of corn curls, it is an immense help to me. They are somehow not embarrassed to have a dad who looks like a freak (always dressing like it’s wintertime) and sometimes acts like one. I am so proud of my two teenaged boys who would no doubt rather be with their friends but who choose the responsible thing, staying with their dad, pushing his wheelchair, getting him a cup of coffee, and ready to serve me in anything that I would ask them. It brings tears to my eyes. I feel like I don’t deserve them, my wife or my children, but they love me, and this they do very well.

Forgive me for abruptly ending this journal entry. I’m not exactly sure how to continue it or where to end it. Part of the reason is due to a new pain medication which I started today. It is spacing me out a little. I’d like to discuss the theology of all this, how God calls us to show compassion, to serve without complaining, and to find their courage and strength in God. I don’t know how things will end whether it be this article, my life, or the world. But I know that God who is the author and finisher of my faith has a perfect plan for everything.

“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2)

A related article would be Man in the Mirror.

I’ve been working on two personal projects recently.

One was getting my speech recognition software working on my computer. I waited too long to try it again. I felt that I had been burned enough times in the past and simply didn’t have the desire, time, or money to invest in what I thought was a failed technology. But I was wrong. This is my first journal entry in which all the text was entered using speech recognition technology. In this entire journal entry it made three recognition errors. I’ll have more to say about this useful technology later as I become more used to using it.

My other project was something very close to my heart right now. Years ago a friend gave me a tract called, “The Last Days of Edward Payson”, and I needed to find it and read it again. I wanted to share this little gem with the world so I sought and obtained permission to reprint the tract on the Internet. A couple of scans, OCR, proofreading, and editing has yielded something worthwhile. I’ll have more to say about this later, too.

You can see the first-ever-published-on-the-internet article here: The Last Days of Edward Payson, D.D.

That’s all for today.

Alive In Christ, now and forever,
Ed