Still On The Journey... Part Three

Is God about to do a New Thing? Or is it just my being more sensitive to something God has always been doing? That has been a thematic question I have had since the new year started, which began this major spiritual life change. 

I have studied Church History, and have always been fascinated with times of Great Awakenings, and things like the Jesus Revolution of the late 60's and early 70's. I got saved in the mid 70's  and have been through times of spiritual growth and long times of wilderness periods. Now that I am into another era of spiritual growth, and renewal, then I also wonder if this is also a time of preparation for another Great Awakening move of God? Do you not think if there was ever a time we needed it in this Country, and world wide, it would be now?

In a message called Viruses and Victories, Dr. Lynn Hiles detailed his research of the many times through the past centuries when the world has gone through plagues and viruses, and how at the same time there was a great move of God and spiritual reformations! Is it more than possible that while the world is trying to recover from this Global pandemic, that God is about to introduce a Global Spiritual Reformation?!!

That has been the message I have been hearing from many ministries, and also has been the theme of my heart since the beginning of the year. "A man's mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and establishes them." Prov. 16:9 Amp. And while I am convinced that if President Trump was re elected, then I would not have made such a major shift in what was consuming my time politically, that many things developed into a life changing event. From feeling a growing sense of hunger for a closer relationship with the Lord to the point of tears! To the major upset in the election. To ending any concern over political results that were more than I could bear. To finding ways to fill that time with spiritual interests. At the same time as hearing from other sources, and sensing in my own spirit that God might just be at the beginning of a Global Spiritual Renewal.

And so at this point, I am not even sure if I will continue posting updates after this, but I will continue this post to include this following story of a recent event in my life. To begin with, I have been close friends for about 17 years or more with a Pastor Galen Winebrenner, who is the pastor of a church in Uniontown PA. called United Christian Temple. We have kept in touch many times throughout the years, and I have even had the pleasure of taking him flying on a few occasions. As I have been keeping him informed of these changes in my life, he had asked me to come speak at his church, which I was reluctant to do so, and said as much. 

In previous posts, I am sure I mentioned about sensing a calling to the ministry many years ago, and having nothing come of it, and after so many many years, of having come to terms with it not something that would happen, and so making peace between me and God.

Preaching again was not something that I wanted to have stirred up again within me! And so after several discussions with Pastor Galen, and after a I made a mid-week flight to visit and take him flying again, I filled him in on the details of my heart over the years. I finally agreed that if God made it known to me what to preach, then on the next available flyable day, I would make the 1 1/2 hour flight instead of the 3 1/2 hour drive to preach. Oh boy!

Imagine having not spoken much more than a greetings in visiting church services for more than 20 years, and having made peace with not even wanting to anymore, and yet being filled with countless hours of teachings and readings and ministry and talking and listening to God, and now being asked to speak a message!! 

I would have been content to never having been asked, but since I was, I did spend weeks thinking about and preparing for a message should the conditions arise. Sure enough I hearkened back to when I was in my mid 20's (some 40 years ago) and first felt a calling to preach and was sort of mentored by a lay minister from the church I was going to at the time, who did services for jail ministries and nursing homes. He gave me an outline for a sermon from Mark 4:35 where there is a storm on the sea of Galilee and Jesus is asleep in the boat so that I had an outline for my first message to preach at the nursing home. I thought that it would be a starting point to begin again and have something to develop from which I would have a message to share this time.

And so, as it has happened that on D-DAY, June 6th 2021 the weather was flyable and we flew to KVVS Connellsville airport near Uniontown PA. and I delivered my heart in a message I called "A Sermon 40 Years In The Making"  to the people of United Christian Temple. Cindi did record the message, which I may at some point include a link for posterity. 

While I would be very critical of my own preaching, I also recognized that it was something I had not had any experience doing for decades, and so, while I would preach it much different if I had to do it over again, I am also satisfied with at this point of it being one and done having felt like I delivered what God put on my heart to say.  However, unless God makes it clear that a door has been opened for me to be pushed through to preach more often, then it has fulfilled all that it was meant to do, which satisfied my wondering what it would be like for me to preach again, and also Galen's interest in hearing me preach. 

And while my plans are to continue with  still reading and listening and praying and waiting on God, and doing what Paul Young describes as "Living in the Grace of each day" and trying not to be "Future tripping" where he says, there is no Grace for our imaginations of future events that haven't and likely won't happen. At the same time, I will intend to be sensitive to listening to God, and continuing to seek if perhaps if I can be included and a part of it if indeed the answer is yes to the question.... Is God about to do a New Thing? And all of that while living in the Grace of one day, while we are Still On The Journey

Still On The Journey... Part Two

So now we come to the major life changes in my pursuit of a renewal of my spiritual relationship with God and an effort to feed this hunger that was beginning to consume me, at the same time as I was ending my time wasting efforts on politics.

We were not directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during the 2020 lock down, in so far as our jobs remained in tact, and neither Cindi nor myself got sick from this virus. (Although I did get cellulitis around Memorial Day during that time, and thought it was COVID related until a rash developed which led us to seek medical help which diagnosed the cellulitis and several weeks of treatment)

Other than that it was doing our jobs everyday, and now the effort of me trying to find something to fill in my time while driving, rather than listening to FOX news. So I found several CD's of sermon messages that I had not listened to in years, and began to play them on the drive, but it does not take long to hear many CD'S during 40 plus hours of driving in a week. 

I then found the collection of the Bible on CD that Cindi bought me many years ago, and I began a regimen of listening to first the Psalms, then Proverbs, then from the beginning of In the beginning God created.... all through the whole bible, then Psalms and Proverbs again, and several New Testament books again, repeating chapters etc. mixing it with more CD messages etc. This went on for many weeks!

At the same time, I began to read much more when I was home instead of watching TV, except for some sitcoms, or other shows not related to any political news! It is like a healing in my spiritual mind was taking place! Some of the books that I read, I hadn't read in decades, and many of them seemed to speak to me in very personal ways. I had 3 books by Malcolm Smith I read in the 70's that I re read which brought me to tears. I also ordered some other books, and happened to order another book based on a suggestion of other titles on Amazon called "Sinners In The Hands Of A Loving God" by Brian Zahnd because it was a new way of looking at the old sermon by Jonathan Edwards, called "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God",  which I had read before while studying Church History.

And while the order of things are somewhat blurry in my memory, I did enjoy the book by Brian very much, and was reminded that I had heard an interview between him and Paul Young who is the author of "The Shack" (another book and movie I enjoyed very much) I have also listened to hours of Paul's story on different interviews and video messages. Wow.

Cindi was of a great help to me at this time, because she showed me how to  download podcasts, and how I was able to play them on the radio in the truck, (which was ALL new to me!) And one of those podcasts was by Brian Zahnd who is the pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph Missouri. I started from the beginning messages in 2017, and listened to sometimes 3 or 4 messages every day on my drive to Ohio and back. I am now caught up to the present sermons.  I also listened to other podcasts including Wayne Jacobsen, who also produced a series called "My friend Luis" which is the exciting real life spiritual adventures of a Mexican immigrant who began their friendship when Luis was first hired as a cleaning business for Wayne's home. Check it out at www.myfriendluis.com You will thank me later!

All along the way, I have taken more and more steps to seek to feed this hunger I had, for a more intimate fellowship with God! Along with many podcasts, I also listened to YouTube videos of sermons and teachings and messages, and then Cindi set me up with the app called Audible and I have listened to several books, as well as now having the bible on Audible, I no longer have to take the CD's with me. 

Indeed there has been a major change over the last 6 months as you can see, with many other things to say which could fill a book, but instead I will continue with a part three, to write about something else that happened for the first time in more than 20 years, which came about as part of telling the story of  the major life changes in my pursuit of a renewal of my spiritual relationship with God as I am Still On The Journey..

 

Still On The Journey... Part One

I am still on the journey! In spite of the fact that it is, the July 4th weekend of the year 2021! That means that it has been 7 years 8 months and 21 days, OR 402 weeks, OR 2,817 days since my last post! And I must say that a lot has transpired since then for me to write about, which I could not detail of course, but rather perhaps I could highlight a few key events that might be of some Spiritual interest?

Rather than pick it up from 2,817 days ago, I will skip forward to the beginning of this year 2021, and try to only mention before that time as it relates to recently. In general for months before this year I was often having spiritual hunger for a deeper relationship with God! It reminded me of spiritual wildernesses I have had in the past, and how when I came out from them, there was such profound joy, and I was indeed seeking to come out of this dark and dry period. 

It was almost like sitting in a place where it is sunny, perhaps reading, and as the sun sets it gets gradually darker, but you keep reading, and then straining to read, until it is dark enough that now you realize you need to turn the light on to see clearer, and when you do so, you wonder how you were able to read at all with how dark it had gotten.

Nobody thinks about eating when they are full. And no matter how good the food is, we all get to the point when we "can't eat another bite!" But eventually, our bodies use up the food we ate, and then have a unique way of sending signals that it is time to eat again and replenish our bodies. (this is not meant to expand into discussion of eating disorders). It is a metaphor for spiritual sustenance, and for some time my spiritual sustenance had dwindled to the point of where I was at the point of tears in my longing for a renewed closer relationship with God! 

I longed for that time back in around 1993 when I might call it "My Great Awakening" which led to many years of a Spiritual renewal! And now the sun had set, and it was getting "too dark to read" and I began looking for the light switch. Not just looking, but now getting desperate!!

The biggest change that ignited this major life change took place at the same time as the election of Biden for president. And I ONLY bring up politics because it is so crucial to understanding the nature of this difference. Since I have been a Conservative politically as long as I have taken any interest in politics, and I moved here from Canada in 2002 during Bush's first term, I have followed American politics closely ever since. And in short, I will admit that I liked the job that President Trump was doing for this Country, and was very much hoping and expecting him to be re-elected.

When that did not happen, and when it became clear that Biden would take the office of the presidency, I decided at that point I had reached the end of my political endurance. Almost overnight, I came to realize that no matter what I thought, it was not going to change any outcome! Like it or not, any opinion I had about what was happening was not going to have an effect on anything that took place in Washington, and all it was doing was to build up an unhealthy level of disappointment over the consequences of something I had no control over. I was now done with it all!

As a result, I decided to stop any attention to what was happening in politics. That meant stopping listening to political talk radio, (FOX news) as well as political TV shows (FOX) The problem being that I drive a tractor trailer set of double trailers every day for a total of 8 hours! And what to do with ALL that time?? I am too selective in my choice of music to leave it on any one station for very long, and 8 hours of silence is a long time! 

Thus, begins my venture into such a major change to fill in the time gap and how to feed my hunger for a closer relationship with God. 

With that background covered, I will write part two, that will explain the steps I took and how that began to re-ignite the Spiritual part of  how I Am Still On The Journey.