Finally Seeing Easter

I have learned to love Easter. When I was little it was just another holiday to get stuff. In fact it was a break. I went on Easter break before there was spring break.

A few years back my relationship with God changed. I finally became convicted. I was losing my own personal flesh war. I wasn’t losing in an outward way, that manifested in symptoms. In fact I wasn’t losing in an eternal way either. I was sealed, bought and paid for. My belief in God was never in question. Jesus as something other than my Lord and Savior never crossed my mind. My destination has and always will be Heaven, but how would I arrive.

The Grace given to me by God was going to waste. My heart was not in line to my destination. I was disappointing the Man who took my place on the Cross. I was breaking His heart.

Here I was at best a back sliding Christian, my heart betrayed most if not all the Commandments of God. It’s in our nature to be that way, but I had not fully accepted my accountability of the Cross. I saw it like this one day:

There I stood convicted and sentenced to death. I could not plea deal or negotiate my way out. No defense attorney or riches could save me. No good and righteous judge would have mercy on me. I was walking in shackles to the cross. Just then, a man that knows all about me, every wrong I had committed, and every person I had hurt walks toward me. This Man comes up beside me, places His hand on my back, and says, “I got this”. Before I can react He is shackled and taken toward the Cross.

Now I’m being pulled away. I’m speechless. I want to yell thank you. I want to ask why, I just want to talk to Him, but they won’t let me close to Him. He has to pay my debt alone. I’m forced to watch from a distance.

There is no repayment. I cannot do anything to repay this Man.

But now my works, my heart, should be a reflection of the Man that saved me. I have to acknowledge my heart is changed. I have to let that show. I have to stop wasting Grace.

I know Jesus doesn’t hold this over my head, but when your heart takes a hit like that you have to change. You should change.

Over the past few years I feel better, I know I’m making positive yards. I finally get Easter. I feel better about how I’ll arrive in Heaven. Lord knows I’m not perfect, but I’m changed because I finally saw Easter for what it is.  

Marriage And The SCOTUS

So we find ourselves in a conundrum, again absolute victory without any choice. Leave all who differ in my wake so I may say, “Neener neener you are a poo poo head”.

Marriage

Let’s set the stage, what are you fighting for? Gays, the right to love who I want. Acceptance. Validation of our relationship under the law. DOMA people. Sanctity of marriage. Traditional marriage. Family Values.

What if I said you both are wrong? What if I told you both extreme sides lack Love? What if I told you the SCOTUS decision will not help? What if I told you the government could fix the problem with marriage, and they will not do what it takes to make it right? You would say stop asking questions.

Where does marriage come from? When you try to look it up through secular means, you will find yourself at a wall that no reliable source exists. That’s because the world discounts Biblical beginnings on anything. Marriage does not exists without God.

WOAH! Go easy, just read on. 

“Till death do us part.” is complete BS without God. Today’s marriages are more like, “Till I find you ugly...or fat...or annoying. Till I find someone better looking, more fun. Till I feel like I want to sleep with some one else...”, the list goes on. If I have not made a covenant with an outside party, God, why would I ever find it necessary to keep this bond? If I don’t believe in the ultimate plan God has for marriage why fight for it. Marriage has become like any other business transaction, if one side is unfulfilled they opt out. There is no validity to the phrase, “traditional marriage”. Traditions change, and are modified to fit the will, needs, or desires of the participants. The stand should be at Biblical marriage vs non-biblical marriage. 

Now Christians you have done more than your part to break down Biblical marriage. In fact Christian you gave it a death blow. You proclaim your vows in front of God, right? Then you go right out and destroy that covenant. You sin you blow up your marriage, and you never fight to keep it. You take the easy way out, you divorce. You piss away you covenant with God, based on the Grace of forgiveness, as a crutch not a safety net. You quit. And, yes I understand there are perfectly acceptable Biblical outs to marriage. I know Moses brought the law of divorce, I get it. I would be willing to bet, however, 85-95% of Christian divorces would not meet the mark there.

Christians have not been the light for Biblical marriage, you have even used the phrase, “traditional marriage”, knowing very well the downgrade on marriage that is. Biblical marriage minus God is traditional marriage. Traditional marriage has no leg to stand on. Well done Christians your defense of marriage now looks like hate, because you can’t keep the standard. 

But, as a Christian I know we have forgiveness for the sin of divorce. Our flesh is weak, in fact, we fall on Christ as believers because we will all screw up sometime. We know we are flawed and unable to meet the mark. It’s now time for us to extend that Love to others, without fear or knowledge of their sins.

Gay couples can’t get married. Marriage is not set up for that. Marriage belongs in the Church not the law. Contracts are governed by secular laws, marriage should not be. Marriage was hijacked by the government to define the family unit. It was short sighted, but it was the easiest way at the time. This in no way excludes gays or anyone from the right to come together and form a family unit, and be rewarded with the legal benefits of taking care of someone else and raising kids. Why as a nation have we gotten to a place where, we have to have sex with someone to take care of them. We have let our coming together as a two people to raise a family be decided by who or how we have sex. Why is this an issue? 

Being able to love who you want is not validated by marriage, many secular heterosexual couples love each other and never marry. The “Don’t tell me who I can love!”, campaign is just that, a campaign to vilify the other side. Let that go, being able to get married will not bring you acceptance. 

From me: You can love whoever you want. I accept you, and want you to care for someone, I want you to be cared for. I want you to raise children. I want you to have full access to all benefits that my family unit has. I want all this for you and everyone. I don’t care who or what you have sex with. That is for you and God. If you don’t believe in God then you rely on the law of the land.

Now to me the secular law that governs the land should have no religion, no emotion, and no morals. It should look at all things objectively, making all decisions in the favor of fairness in a republic run by law. Law is capable of governing contracts, and that is what we should unite as a people and push for, coupling contracts. Terms, conditions, and length to be decided by those to enter into the contract. Your emotion, passion, and sex life to be decided by you, no government intervention. All couples governed the same in the eyes of the law, under contract law. Any two consenting adults can enter into this kind of contract regardless of relationship.

Abstract example: Two sisters one a widow with no desire to remarry. The other has a slight disability that prevents her from holding a full time job with healthcare benefits. Sister one has a good job with great benefits and and adolescent child. These two could come together under a couple contract, live together and help each other. Sister one could gain a second “parent” to be there and help raise the child. Sister two would gain healthcare and monetary assistance. Take the religion, emotion, moral, and sex out of it, what is left is a real solution to so many problems.

Everyone stop trying to win, stop trying to vilify the other side. Respect each other’s values, beliefs, and traditions. Demand that our government come up with real sustainable solutions, that can grant rights to everyone while protecting the core beliefs of others. It is possible, but we as a whole must demand it.

Conclusion: In my humble opinion the SCOTUS will do one of two things. One conclude the Prop 8 sponsors had no standing to file an appeal. Thus really keeping the power to decide marriage rights to the states. Two rule that marriage is a civil right and unconstitutional to deny anyone of it. Neither would surprise me, but I would tend to lean toward the first. That would keep the federal government off the hook, without really choosing a side.

Both sides-Get over yourselves.

Guns Guns Guns

When thinking about gun control I think it's important to take into consideration a few things:

1.The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that police officers at all levels of the government have no duty to protect the lives of the citizens of this country. Police officers are to enforce law, investigate crimes, and apprehend criminals.

2. If that is the case, we can assume the weapons and gear police officers carry is to protect themselves from perceivable threats. As law abiding citizens, are we not subject to similar threats? Shouldn't we be allowed to equip ourselves in a similar manner of gear and weaponry? Most notably in cases of large civil unrest as seen during riots and large natural disasters.

3. In cases of large scale civil unrest our government has seen it appropriate to use the National Guard to help restore order. With both police and NG personal their gear and weaponry is for their personal defense while working to restore order. 

4. Can't a conclusion be made, of our right to arm and equip ourselves in a somewhat like manner? Can't  we raise our level of protection ability to closely resemble that of the police and NG soldiers, who do not have a primary mission to protect our lives or property?

5. A semi-automatic rifle with a 30 round magazine and semi-automatic pistol with 13-15 rounds seems like a reasonable compromise, to raise ones protection level to meet the perceived threats our civil servants feel are out there.

6. If a 7 round pump shotgun and 6 round revolver is all it takes to defend ourselves, shouldn't that be the limit of our law enforcement and soldiers when deployed in civil unrest.

We must be smart about gun control. To act on emotion or just because it can be done defeats the purpose.

Code Name God: Part 2

One big part, for me anyway, in understanding my position with God is the Father aspect. I think people overlook that sometimes, and take a prideful I know it better stance when contemplating God. 

It can be hard to grasp if you're not a parent, but if you can remember when you were a kid there was a time to just trust your parents. We didn’t have the wisdom to fully understand the sitch yet. With age comes wisdom, right? Here I sit at 39 still working on grasping this natural world...how long would it take to grasp the supernatural? Again taking the perspective that God is real, I’m still just a baby at 39. Look at it like this. We were created to live for eternity. For discussion sake stretch out your arms all the way, and we’ll call that eternity. Now take the smallest speck on your pinky nail and that is still not as small as 39 years. Our wisdom level in that perspective is of an infant, we just can’t grasp it yet.

Bad things happening is not God’s intention. He created us to live for ever, to never be sick, sad, or feel the sting of death. So He created our kind, our nature, He created man, Adam and Eve. In the garden we had it all, we loved God and He walked with us. God created us with free will, because He wanted us to love Him by choice, our love would be pure. We would be different from the angels, not conscripted to service. 

Now in the garden was a few different trees bearing fruit, a couple in particular where, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told us just don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One rule man, just one, and we kept it until tempted. Now here is where some will differ, who tempted us? Wether the fall of Satan happened before or after this is unknown and irrelevant. The big thing is how the temptation was presented, “You can be just like God”. 

When Satan split from God his battle cry was to big like God or better. That is the temptation that struck a cord with our pride, so yum yum. Now we knew evil, we knew fleshly desires, and they sure were appealing. Our free will was turned on it’s head. God as any parent had to act. He had to act because if we ate from the tree of life we would live forever. We would have no consequences for any of our actions because we would never die. We would have no reason to come back to God, He would be useless to us, and we would be permanently lost. So we were banished from the garden, given a world that would be overgrown with thorns (hard times), and our bodies would be subject to disease and death. It must not have been easy for God, but in a round about way He did it to save us. The whole, this is going to hurt me more than you. I hate disciplining my kids, but I know they need it. Now when God comes to the Earth as Jesus this gets resolved, another story completely.   

Our bad actions are, just that, ours. How can we hold God accountable for what we did? He gave us everything and just one simple rule to follow and we couldn’t follow it. In fact  we were so arrogant we went after the tree to make us like God not the tree giving everlasting life. Now is it fair? I would assume most people think it’s not. I remember thinking a lot of punishments as unfair when I was a kid. We may ask why are we all punished for one persons actions. Can’t we find many examples of that in the world? Don’t some of our laws take away from many innocents because of the actions of a few guilty? But perspectively, we are all guilty, we all fall short. Adam is us, he is a representation of our core. 

Death, disease, violence, and suffering it’s all our fault. Our original sin set this all in motion. God doesn’t let it happen. In our prideful nature we are so much smarter than him and we chose to do it.

Later Jesus will come to pay the price and provide a road back to God. So God doles out the curse, but came to pay the price for the road back. We are all prodigals.

If God is real, why does He let bad things happen?.....it’s all on us.

Code Name God: Part 1

So I thought I’d start series on God. Fun topic to me. In light of recent events seems like the God topic is popular again. I’ve seen a fair amount of people using some common questions to challenge the existence of God. What I find interesting is the strategy of the questioning. Reasons being used to prove God does no exists are failed expectations that God never guaranteed. In fact, the Bible tells the exact argument being used was going to happen.

Question: If God was real, why would He let bad things happen?

The hard part is people expect a secular answer in a short sentence to rebut this argument. Also most making these arguments will not except an answer they don’t like. They look at them as excuses. Any answer given is going to be from the perspective that God exists, because that is the context of the question. So logically the staunch non believer will reject any answer.

No answer on this is short or easy. My best recommendation is if you really want to know about God, get yourself to a Biblical church, that teaches the Bible verse by verse from Genesis to Revelation. Go for a year, yes a year. It’s going to take time to expose yourself to a big portion of the Bible. After every Bible study go to the pastors let them know you don’t believe in God and have serious questions. Challenge them, take your challenge straight to the, lack of a better word, source. I recommend Calvary Chapel. It has been a Bible based church to me. Sundays have been like going to class, I find no other agenda there, other than teaching the Bible.

Now you may be set in your opinion, that’s fine then let it be. Why ask questions if you’ll never accept an answer.

I hope to write more parts on this, but I just wanted to get started. To take a short stab at the answer to the above question. It all has to do with the original sin, the fall of Adam. More on that in part 2. 

America: Land of Milk, Honey, and Band-Aids

We have a severe problem in this country we fix things with band-aids. We take care of symptoms only, very rarely do we deal with the core cause. Hell, we won’t even acknowledge the core problem. In the great struggle not to offend anyone we place off limits any discussion about the true cause. 

ANALOGY: If you are cut on the arm and bleeding on the road, and I come along, I will put a bandage on it. If it bleeds through I may put another bandage over it, or put on a tourniquet. Now that tourniquet may stop the bleeding but does not fix the problem. Somewhere underneath a vessel bleeds. Now we could just let it go, because it looks like everything is good, the bleeding has stopped, we win! Eventually, the arm will die if action is not taken on the core cause. More work, a deeper look, must be taken to save the arm. In the end some things may have to be sacrificed to save the arm.

RELEVANCE: Just because one symptom is under control, does not mean the core cause will not manifest itself again to destroy what we thought we saved.

Right now, as a nation, we are bearing witness to one of the most horrific events we can conjure in our minds, the slaughter of helpless, innocent children. I have seen more dead kids then I have ever wanted to, I have watched more heart broken parents run into ERs then I have ever wanted to, and I have held lifeless hands of little children then anyone should. I have seen kids that are the victim of violence and neglect. I’ve seen first hand children suffering. With all that said, I know there is a underlying problem, not just and simple symptom to put a band-aid on.

I grew up with violent cartoons, playing guns, questionable video games, horror movies, and the list of dangerous exposer goes on. How am I not jacked up? I own a Glock 23 and S&W M&P 15 Sport 5.56. I was in the Army, I have scary military training. Are you scared of me shooting up a school? Why not? Or why? What makes me different? I had a strong core family. 

DISCLAIMER: I AM IN NO WAY STATING IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GROW UP WELL ADJUSTED IN A LESS THAN DESIRABLE FAMILY GROUPING. SOME GOOD PEOPLE WILL RISE FROM BAD SETTINGS, AND MONSTERS WILL COME FROM GOOD SETTINGS. THE IDEA IS WHAT GIVES CHILDREN THE BEST CHANCE. 

I did not grow up in a traditional family. I was raised by my grandparents and aunt. What they provided was a parenting team all on the same page. A stable safe place to grow up. I was told no more than yes. I was give unshakable moral values, that were explained and promoted everyday under the same roof. I always had one parent available to me 24/7. I was raised by my family not someone else. Teachers were at school to teach academics, laws were to maintain order, neither were to give me a moral compass. I was taught absolute right and wrong. I was taught about good and evil. I was taught cartoons, movies, and games where just that not reality and not an example of how to live my life.

I was not shuttled back and forth between two or more homes. I did not have to be raised under two sets of rules. I was never used a pawn between two battling parents. I did not spend 6-8 hours a day in dare care. I was not patronized, or told I would always win. I was not taught that life was relevant and my needs out weigh the needs of others. I was not taught to hate or knowingly do bad. 

There is a destructive breakdown of the family unit today. I am not preaching “traditional” family. I’m talking a core unit that raises children together, a parenting team. Straight couples, gay couples, grandparents, aunts, uncles, the possibilities are numerous just create a team focused on raising healthy well adjusted kids. Having money is not key to raising kids. Having things will not make your children successful in life. I stood in line for free cheese and butter. My first brand name clothing item was a pair of Levis in JR high. I grew up with very few material things. Only love and time accomplish the goal of raising well adjusted kids. We are so selfish as a society today, that we make choices for our benefit not even factoring the effects on our kids. We are losing the desire to sacrifice everything for our kids, because it will make things hard on us. We want our unfulfilled needs and desires met. Challenges with video games, social media, guns, insert anything, will always be there. All of this can be overcome, if we build strong core family units.

The world is a bad place period. Monsters do exists and the Boogie Man is out there. Guess what it’s our fault. We have created it. I see fellow humans that we have cast off every day at work, and its sad. We have lost the value of life. The one thing that once made this country great, made us second to none was an overwhelming compassion for others, and a deep conviction to value all life. Today everything is relative there is no more common moral standard. Your individual situation is your reality. That reality has you justifying all you actions. That justification sets your morals. Those morals are your truth. How cant there be more than one truth when it comes to morals? I learned a few things from algebra. One thing was how to solve problems. We start with an equal sign in the middle. Now we must add, subtract, divide, and multiply both sides to make them equal, to get to a real answer. Both sides must give to the other, stop using band-aids.

The World Needs Ditch Diggers Too: Nope! Welcome to the land of entitlement.

BLOG UPDATE:  The “Occupy” movement is getting violent.

So as I pay more attention to the 99%, which I apparently am a part of, I have noticed some of the attention given to the rising total of student loan debt. Since when did everyone need to go to a four year plus university? Why does everyone have to be a doctor or lawyer? What makes all these people spending trillions of dollars collectively that they don’t have on possibly a pipe dream they will never have? Then they enter a work place that is short on supply with a four year degree and a 40-50K debt coming due.

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT ENCLUDING ALL STUDENT LOAN RECIEPENTS IN THIS OK.  A $ 4 TRILLION DEBT HOWEVER, REALLY!? HAS EVERYONE THAT HAS GONE DOWN THAT PATH MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE?

We have a problem in this country we have undervalued the ditch digger. I am not using “ditch digger” in the negative at all, but more to sum up the blue collar job.  The blue collar job is dying, because we have given it a negative connotation. Tech jobs are the “way” of the future. We can’t find people to pick fruit, landscape, clean hotel rooms. These jobs are below the American standard so much to the point that we have an influx of immigrant, some illegal, to fill the void of our poor poor 99% that won’t go swing a hammer. Then we complain about the issues associated with these immigrants. I offer this, how about we put our 8-9% unemployed to work at these jobs. People would be back to work and illegal immigration would slow because there would be no jobs for them. Trust me they come here to work. But now Americans don’t want to do those jobs. Americans all want six digit salaries and all the bling that goes with it, can’t do that picking fruit. Welcome to the land of entitlement!

“I deserve …..”, you fill in the blanks. In America you can be whatever you want, but you may have to be what your skill set and circumstances allow you to be. That hurts to hear huh? The world needs ditch diggers too. I am in total awe of people that can dig ditches, construct buildings, do electrical work, do plumbing, lay tile, and can fix a car. I cannot do any of that. But guess what I cannot be a doctor or lawyer either! Thank God I found my place in public service. My skill set and circumstances, plus hard work, led me to where I am. I will never break the bank or have all the bling, but I can put food on the table and put clothes on my kids back.

Nowhere does it say that we as Americans are entitled to have a big house or fancy cars. Your life may lead you to a small apartment, a used car, and basic cable. Here’s the shocker that’s o.k.!!! It is not a life less lived. You can find happiness without material things and debt. You can be happy working a room service job living within your means. Don’t like it work harder find a second job. Find out where your skill set can take you, but remember it may not be the top, and that is O.K.

Take an honest evaluation of yourselves people there is no golden yearly salary that equals success and happiness. Also next time you enncounter someone doing a job you may have once thought below you, show them you appreciate what they do. Maybe we could change the ditch digger quote to, “The world needs a supporting cast too”