A single year

1988

A SINGLE YEAR

IN THE LIFE

OF A

CHRISTIAN


January 1, 1988
Today is the start of a new year. It is true that I am somewhat nervous about making promises. My record of keeping promises I have made, especially New Year's promises, is not very good. Yet I am compelled to try to write something new everyday of this year. Mind you, I do not mean to keep a diary but rather to actually write something, anything, just so it is new and relates to God's love for me and my love for God. You see I truly believe that my God has called me to write and I must do my part. If I write everyday then I know God will take care of me and my family. It is a pact. While it could be argued that no matter if I keep my end of the deal or not, God will continue to love me in the same way, and I would not disagree. It is so important to me that through my actions I demonstrate my strong belief in what it is that God has called me to do. This is my way of doing that.
I believe with all that is me, that all that, is now, was yesterday, and will be tomorrow, comes from and in fact is a part of a real God. This God that I believe in was, is, and will be love. There is nothing that comes from God that is not from, of, and part of love. Sometimes I am accused of trying to impose limits on my God. It is not so! There is no limit to love. There is no limit to God. There is no limit to God's love for all of creation in the whole and as individual creations. All creation came, comes from, and will come from God. It is the same as saying all things come from love.
It is this understanding of God that I am called to share with my fellow man. I think God called me in a particular way to share this understanding. As with all men, I share who I am and what it is I believe through my actions and words. I am trying to do so. It is through the written words that I feel God's love of me and my understanding of a loving creator God is to be expressed. And so I am committed to trying to write what it is I feel and know; what it is that I think my God wants me to write. If indeed this is what God wants me to do, it will be done! Obviously anything I write of value to anyone comes directly from God. Just as obvious when what it is I have written makes no sense, well, you know who the author is.
And so I have begun with this written promise to write everyday this year.
January 2, 1988
I heard a man say today that there was no man on earth who had complete authority over everyone. He went on to say that Jesus Christ who was both man and God was the only human that ever lived that had such authority. The way Jesus exercised his divine authority was by calling man to account for his actions.
To a point I agree. Because Jesus was God, become man, but still God, it is reasonable to say that Jesus was God had authority over man. At that point one must understand the nature of God. Now I have heard it said over and over that it is impossible for "mere" man to understand the nature of God. Baloney! You see or at least I hope you will see that God has only one nature. God has only one being. Indeed God has only one reason for existing. It is the single reason why man was created and why man continues to survive to this day. It is the reason why man will never cease to exist. The word is love.
Now some of man will have great difficulty understanding just how true this is. The truth is most always simple. Now God's love is limitless and the power of God's love is also unlimited. God's being is therefore also limitless. That is why Jesus was the divine man. Love as just described is divine. Limitless love is divine. Devine love is God. Jesus was divine man or God become man.
Man's love is not yet divine. Man's love has limits. Always those limits are self imposed.
When God created man, God did not impose limits on man. Man was created in the image of God. Man was created with God's love, and remember God's love is unlimited. Man's love could be unlimited.
Jesus called man to be accountable for man's actions. Jesus called man to love. In fact Jesus gave man only two simple laws by which to live. Jesus simplified life for man by calling man to love. Man was called to love his creator and his fellow man. That's all. Just live a life of love.
I am trying to live my life in love. I get close to doing that and I fall flat on my face. It seems the harder I try to live in the image I was created, the deeper and harder it is when I fail. So maybe what I believe and have written could easily be said to be wrong. I know it is not! I know that there is an evil, ungod spirit that constantly fights God's love. This undivine spirit is powerful and knows my physical and mental needs. It is constantly trying to win me and you away from accepting the limitless love that we were created with and from. I will not give in to this spirit. I know of the power of unlimited love. I know of the power of my creator. I know Jesus Christ. I choose to believe what Jesus called me to do and I reject any other concept that would seem to meet any immediate physical or mental need I might be having at any particular moment!
You see, I understand the nature of God. I want you to understand who your God is also.
January 3, 1988
Love is accepting who you are and the responsibilities that accompany who you are. Love is understanding who, what, and where you are. Love is giving all that you are all the time for the good of not only yourself but the good of all you come into contact with. Love is doing! Love is doing whatever it takes to find the good that dwells within you and all persons. Love is not only finding that good but bringing it forth so that it may be shared. Love is not making excuses for when you have failed and fail you often will. Love is not just overlooking the faults of yourself and other but indeed loving yourself and other no matter that fault. Love is when I say to you that no matter what you do, say, or be, I accept you and will not turn away from you; and with all your heart, soul, and being and actions, mean it. Love is pulling tightly to you someone or something that not only has hurt you and turned away from you one time, but is likely to do so again and again. Love is being accountable for yourself. Love is never quiet. Love is always reaching out. Love is constantly being taken advantage of. Love is being open to being hurt. Love is not being afraid to make a fool of ones self. Love is constant yet never final. Love has no limits.
God is love.
Man was created by God and from God.
Man can be love.
It's scary to be love. It's awesome to be love. It's powerful to be love.
Jesus Christ was man. Jesus Christ was God. Jesus Christ was God and man at the same time. Jesus was not afraid to be love. Jesus died because he was love. Jesus Christ was killed because he was love. Jesus Christ was powerful. His power was unlimited not only because he was God. His power was unlimited because as man Jesus allowed his love from within to dominate his outside. Jesus as man was love and his love was unlimited! Jesus was able to overcome death only because of love. Death could not dim nor halt in anyway the power of Jesus' love.
Love is unlimited and limitless. God is love and Jesus is God and God dwells within every man. Every man can become love. Every man can choose to become God for God truly dwells within every person.
The needs of the flesh along with the needs of the mind are the needs most open to the influence of the evil one. These needs are like a room with no windows and walls constantly closing in suffocating the very being of man. Man cannot conquer the evil one by himself. Man in order to survive must turn to within himself and find that special place where love dwells. Man must turn to God dwelling within in order to not only to survive but in order to love. In every man God is. In every man love dwells. Sooner or later each man must reach within and find that love or he must perish.
That which dwells within each of us is love. That which dwells within each of us is God. God has power that created everything including the evil one. God's power is unlimited. God's love is unlimited and the love that dwells within each of us is God and is unlimited and is waiting to be claimed. It is in this love that salvation is to be gained. It is in this love that the necessary power to overcome evil will be found. This is the only place it can be found. There is no substitute. There is no substitute for God. There is no substitute for love.
It is there in each of us.
I know. You say it must be buried pretty deep because you can't find it. I say look harder. Even if you don't want it, even if you try to reject it over and over again; it is still there. You see you have no power to dismiss it. You cannot affect it. You cannot change it, indeed you can do nothing at all about it, you can do nothing but accept it.
It will never desert you. The only decision you need make is that you want it. And please want it. Want it with all your being and give it a chance to spring forth in you. It will! It will!
You got to be willing to want it.
I want it and I know it is here for me and the more I have accepted it; the more difficult my life seems to have become. And yet I couldn't go back to where and what I was even if for one moment I tried to want to. You see that love which dwelled within me and I buried so deep for so long is finally trying to burst forth from me and I am glad about it.
Lord God, now that your hand is upon me, I beg you please don't turn me loose! No matter how much I cry or beg or pled, don't turn me loose.
For the first time in my life I am more concerned with my acceptance of the love of my God than I am with my physical and mental needs.
I worry a great deal about taking care of my wife and daughters. I worry about the money I don't have and the things I want so very much to give them. I worry about their image of me. I spend still for too much time being discouraged and close to despair. I know that this is normal for any man, and husband and father.
God's love had exploded within me and I know this love is limitless. I know this love is all powerful and I know that it is only through this love I can be. It is though this love that I will be and I choose to accept this love and God will take care of me and my family. Love is all powerful. There is nothing that can compare to love. There is nothing that can compare to God.
God is love. Love is within me. Love is coming from me. Love is!
January 4, 1988
Sometimes love is listening to a daughter excitedly telling you how she and her betrothed have found the perfect way to make tons of money. Sometimes love is listening patiently and not condemning the most outrageous of plans. Sometimes love is remembering that you have dreamed your share of strange dreams and even tried more than one; and met with failure each time. Love is wonderful in that although you have had so much experience, so much actual hurt, pain, and known a few successes; you cannot give that experience, hurt, pain, success to your daughter. She has to live her own life. She has to find out why and why not mostly on her own. She's more mature than you were about this idea in that she at least asked you for your advice and thoughts. I don't think she really wanted to hear your advice. She really wanted you to say what a grand idea, what imagination, how fantastic a plan. You didn't of course. Fathers never can. You see being a father means loving. Being a father means gently but firmly and logically giving her things to think about. It does not mean discouraging her, just giving her something to think about. Love and fatherhood go together.
I wonder if that is how the Lord God is with his children. Does he let us ramble on and get excited about anything we want? I think he does. Does he ever interfere? I hope so. Most people would probably say he doesn't. I know better. God the father is always listening. God is always giving us help. Often we don't want his help. Often we reject his help. Can you imagine? We ask God the creator for help and then in our own sometimes not too subtle way tell God to take a flying leap.
So what good is it for God to give us advice? What good does it do for any father to give a child advice? Until that time when the child is ready to not only listen but actually consider the advice, it doesn't do the child any good at all. It still is a most important way for the father to show love. Listening to a child is showing love. God always listens to you and me and is constantly showing us his love for each of us in this way.
I enjoyed listening to my daughter tonight. I mean she called me and asked my advice. Wow! What an ego trip. The child that my wife and I united with a loving God created, even at age twenty one still wants my advice. You got to feel good. I'll feel much better if she takes it.

January 5, 1988
If I say go, someone will say stop. If I say do, someone will say don't. Sometimes it seems that no matter what I say someone will say something opposite. You know what I am saying, don't you? You've been around when no matter what someone said, did; someone else would say or do the opposite.
People are not always wrong. I know I am not always wrong and yet there are sure times when I think I can do nothing or say nothing right.
If those times are often enough you can be sure I, just like anyone, will develop a complex about never being right. If you never allow me to be right then it is indeed more than just a complex. The truth is you become right all the time and I am wrong all the time.
Are there any people in your life that you never allow to be right? About anything?
You know if there is, then you are the only one who can do anything at all about it. What can you do? You can give that person self worth. Seems fair enough doesn't it? You took the self worth away by constantly insisting they were wrong all the time, every time! And that's exactly what you do to another person when you never allow them to be right. How do you know you are the right person all the time? When did you become perfect?
People must be allowed some sense of self worth. It doesn't have to be a lot. But you got to have some. You do, I do, every person does. Every person in the whole of creation was born with self worth. There is something special about each of us. That something special has nothing to do with what we own, what we have, or what we have become. It has to do with the basic core value of human life. All human life is special. The only way for life not to be special is for it not to exist. The only way for life to cease to exist is for God to stop being. That cannot and will never be. God is, was, and always will be. God is life. God is love. All life has God within and all life has love within. That is what makes each life so unique and special.
Since you cannot take the specialness away from any life, the only harm you can do is to take that value away from another person's humanity. When you insist a person is wrong all of the time you strip that person of all human value, all self worth. Now, hold on. It doesn't make that much of a difference even if the person is wrong all the time so that must mean that a person has to be right once in a while.
If a person feels their value is gone and cannot be recovered ever, watch out, I believe that person will soon waste away and eventually die. Hey I know you might be just a little angry at me right about now. You can see where I am going. You could be responsible for the life of another person. You probably do not want that responsibility – I know I wouldn't. Steal a human of his self worth, his value and let me assure you, it doesn't matter in the least if you want that responsibility or not – my friend – you got it!
So what can you do? Stop telling people they are wrong all the time. Try telling someone that you may be the one that is wrong. Consider another point of view. If you are right and you need to say you are right, try being gentle. Try saying something like this, "You may be right but I think we are going to do it this way because I have that responsibility of deciding and I feel strongly that we should do it this way." Leave that person with some self respect. You will not be sorry. There may come a time when you will need that person's input because they will have an answer you have not considered.
The most important reason is simply out of respect and love for God.
God respected you and me so much he gave us the right to be wrong. It comes with free will. If God can allow you to be wrong about so many important things, can you not allow someone else the same privilege? We are so set in our ways that it isn't easy to change. It is difficult and more than that, it means considering that we may be wrong yourself. Remember God allows each of us to be wrong. Can you allow yourself to be wrong? Can you allow yourself to be less than perfect?
January 6, 1988
Love is not present unless it is reaching out. Love is never selfish. Love is always sharing.
Think about it. Have you ever noticed a man and a woman who was truly and obviously in love? Do you remember how you knew? No, I am not talking about two people kissing and fondling each other in public. Remember how they – the two people that were really in love – seemed to glow. Remember how just being rear them, in their presence made you feel good, special. Sure you do. You remember how their love for each other jumped out from them and affected you.
That is how love works. Even in the most intimate of moments, especially in the most intimate of physical caresses between man and woman; if love is truly present they are not alone. The Lord God is fully a part of them. The physical explosion of flesh that is so very wonderful and happens only during the climax of intercourse between man and woman is never complete without true love being present. Where there is love, there is God. For my friend never forget, God is Love!
A very crude difference but a very real difference between man and animal is that animals couple with each other anytime, anyplace the urge is present. Man and woman have intercourse only when a special feeling of love is present. Man and woman have intercourse only when God is present. When they have intercourse at any other time they cease being man and woman, special creations in the image of God, and become animals.
Of course God can be and is present between loving man and woman at times when no child, no new physical being is formed. But I think that anytime a man and woman are joined in loving fulfilling intercourse, and we have said God is present anytime love is present, well I think a new life fills each man and woman at this time. I think it is impossible for man and woman to join their bodies physically in the ultimate act of sharing love with each other and God not be present. It is also just as impossible for man and woman at such a time not to receive a new source of loving life from their God at such time!
Although there are well meaning wonderful Christian churches that feel that the only purpose of the sexual act is to produce offspring, I must disagree! The main purpose of sexual union between man and woman is the sharing fully of love between man, woman, and God. Man, woman, and God united together as one with God supplying the most special kind of new life at such a time. This new life strengthens and binds even more fully the earthly union of husband and wife, and God and God's people. It is the main purpose of sexual union of man and woman and God, to produce this special new life.
At times when a new life is formed from such a union, we tend to look back and say God was truly present. In the saying of that, aren't we saying that God must not be present any other time this union takes place? That is where I disagree. Certainly no life is ever begun under any circumstance without God being present. Certainly new life is formed under less than perfect loving situations. Certainly new life is formed under sometimes tragic and terrible conditions. Who knows when God decides to form new life. Only God knows why each of us, no matter the condition under which we are conceived, only God knows why we were created. The only thing for sure any of us know, the only thing actually every one of us knows, is that we were created from love…not the love of man and woman…but we were created solely from and by the love of God. Now when my wife and I joined together and our daughters were formed, we would like to believe that God blessed us through our love for each other joined with our love for Him. Who knows, I'm not saying that our love for each other had nothing to do with the formation of new life resulting in the subsequent birth of our daughters. No indeed! I'm just saying that we joined together before and since their birth and God was present and renewed us each time with new life. This new life again I say is the purpose and must take place if love is really present. Anytime God is present with man and woman in loving sexual union this new life takes place.
God is love, and he who lives in love, lives in God, and God in him…most especially during the intimacy of man, woman and God joined in new life!

January 7, 1988
Yesterday I wrote about the main purpose of sexual union between man/woman and God. I wrote that this main purpose was to give and receive new life. I went on to say that the new life I spoke of was not necessarily the formation of a new physical being. Indeed this new life must take place whether or not a new physical being is formed. This new life is an infusion of strength giving and complete love which is the ultimate source of all life which is God. This new life is the fullness of God present in man. I can see that the question of birth control is going to be important.
I am fond of saying that the presence of "sin" is dependant on the "inner attitude of one's heart". I define "sin" as being the deliberate exclusion of God from a human beings actions and thoughts.
Birth control means to me the deliberate with or without forethought, effort on one's part to exclude the possibility of life from being formed. Birth control also means to me the deliberate intervention on one's part in the attempt, successful or not, to prevent a life which has been conceived from being born.
I have found it too easy to say the inner attitude of my heart is saying one thing while the actions of my body are doing another.
Life can only be formed by God. The normal way in which life is formed by God is through the joining of a man and a woman physically. We say that it is God's presence at such a time that allows life to begin. God seems to be finding new and different ways to allow life to begin in today's and tomorrow's world. It seems to me that God must surely be blessing the scientists who are working on these new ways to develop life, or simply put, they would net be allowed to do what they are doing. I'm not talking now about man's intervention but very explicitly about God's presence. Let me once again assure you that no life under any circumstance ever can be without God being present. God is life. God is love. Life is an explosion of God's love for his people. Life is an explosion of the love of God in his people! One of the terms that has continually bothered me is the term birth control. The very thought that man can do anything to prevent life from starting is abhorrent to me. Man can do nothing to prevent life from being started because man cannot create life. Ever! Man is the means historically by which God has created the creator of life. God alone creates life. So often as to be common knowledge we read of women who have clearly for medical or other reasons had their bodies altered so that they were humanly physically unable to conceive a child and yet they have conceived and given birth. God alone decides when life is to take place.
The way historically for new people to be formed is through the physical joining of man and woman. Just because there is more and different ways in which new humans are formed relates not at all to the value of human life, if there is life, there is God!
Since I see clearly life as being the full presence of God then you have no problem understanding my point of view on birth control or any sort and abortion at any time. Right! Neither is permissible ever!
When is sexual union between man and woman permitted? Hold on to your hats because the journey we are beginning now is an uncertain one at best.
When is sexual union permitted is any time God is fully present in that man and woman. Any time a man and a woman enter into sexual intercourse without God being a total part of such a union, it is forbidden! There is no shame in sex. Sex is a pleasure and it was meant as a gift from a loving God to provide, in its pleasure, a means by which man and woman and God could physically become one. When the three are united new life always takes place.
If a man and a woman make their sexual union a deliberate act in which rather than trying to achieve this special union with each other and God, but rather a deliberate act to avoid conception; what kind of act is it? Remember I defined sin as the deliberate attempt to exclude God from thought word or deed. Intercourse between man and woman solely to prevent conception is the same thing as deliberately excluding God, intercourse solely for sexual pleasure is the same thing. Intercourse without the physical possibility of being able to conceive a child is not always birth control. Sometimes it is definitely not birth control. Life is God. God is life. I believe this with all my being. Life, because it is God, is so precious that it must be preserved at all cost. There are women whom God has blessed with children. Some of these women if they continue to bear children risk great danger to their own life. I am not saying that it is ok for them to practice birth control in order to save their own life. I am not saying that at all. First of all keep in mind that you and I have no knowledge of when a new human is going to be conceived through intercourse. Only God knows. It is logical to me that God would want you to protect your life in order that you might live your life in God fully. It is logical to me that this is one of the reasons God has allowed man to develop medical ways to protect life. So many women feel such guilt because they can no longer bear children. The only time a woman should feel guilt about her sexuality is when she has sexual intercourse and no new life is present. New life as I have defined it is the fullness of the gift of love which renews and completes the bonding of man, woman, and God through sexual intercourse. My dear lady, or man, if you have sexual intercourse without such new life being present, well then go ahead, feel guilty because sin more than likely was present!
Abortion is much simpler. No! Once life has been started, from the moment of conception, it belongs to a new creation that was created by God and placed only in a human body for safekeeping. Since you did not create it, since it belongs in no way to you, since it is the presence of God in his fullness; well my friend, you can see life is not yours to give or take.
Abortion is not just wrong. Abortion is the deliberate attempt on the part of a lovingly created human being to destroy his creator. Abortion is the deliberate attempt by man to kill God.
Let's really understand what birth control is. Birth control is the attempted prevention of the physical birth of a life which has already been conceived by God and placed in the physical body of a woman for safekeeping.
Sexual union without new life which is the presence of God in man and woman at intercourse is forbidden.
Man and woman do not create life.
God creates life!
Abortion is birth control.
The most perfect way in which new life can be present in intercourse between man and woman is when there is the full presence of marriage. Indeed it is the marriage, the complete union of man/woman, and God that allows new life to be present.
New life has nothing to do with the physical start of a new human being.
God is the only one who starts new human beings and once started under any and all circumstance, that life is real and precious to God for within it God surely dwells.
Where there is life there is always God. Where there is God, there is always love. Love dwells within all life always.