I’m plugging right along on my book although it has gone slower than expected since the arrival of this little person in my life. That’s totally OK though. I dig him a lot. I figure I might be done by the time he’s two or so.
At any rate, I would like to share with you an excerpt from the book that I am writing and I would like you to feel free to provide feedback to me whether it be positive or negative. This particular excerpt is a lead in for James 1:2-18
Thanks for reading!!
It took me a couple of days to get started on this chapter because I had a serious case of writer’s block and the best I could come up with in two days was the title line. One morning I had an epiphany; writer’s block is a tool used by God to remind me to invite him along, ask for His advice and follow His lead. So after this revelation, I remembered to ask God to lead me where He wanted me to go; and of course, he did. “Ask and you shall receive”. Oh yeah!
While I was sitting and contemplating what it was that I was supposed to write about this section of James, I received a little nudge. Well maybe nudge isn’t the correct word. This was more like what I call a 2X4 experience. That’s when God nudges you in the side of the head with a 2X4 so that there is absolutely no doubt, not one bit of grey area, in what He’s trying to tell you. That nudge was to write about the experiences of my life. “Why?” I asked. The answer was, “Do you remember Job?” You see, once upon a time, I had everything. I was young, energetic and ambitious. I was, in fact, immortal. I had been on foreign soil before my class even graduated from High School and by the time they got out of college, I had been around the world three times and had come back home again. Here at home, I had everything I could ever want; a great job, plenty of money and very few debts. I bowled three times a week, played softball twice a week with tournaments on the weekends and even had time to coach little league baseball. As if my schedule wasn’t full enough, I also made plenty of time for carousing, trolling and other pleasurable activities. I was a happy, happy person. I lived in the best apartments, drove a new car every couple of years and had a near perfect credit rating. I could get anything I wanted, anytime I wanted it. Life was totally awesome.
When I turned 27, my direction changed to a downhill course and the slope was not gradual either. Between the ages of 27 and 30, I got married; I moved to a new state, a new job, watched everything in my life fall apart and then got divorced. I was bankrupted, broken and buried three fingers deep in a bottle of Jack Daniels. In three years I went from having everything to having absolutely nothing. At one point during this time, I actually sold everything that was ever important to me simply go I could go out at night and party.
Job’s life was also about happiness turned to emptiness. His life was about trials and tribulations. It was about losing everything he ever had and still remaining fixed on the one thing in his life that was an anchor for him; the Lord. Job’s life also described my life. The difference was that I had no anchor except for the heavy ones that were dragging me under.
Sometime during 1996, I was working as a full time Air Force Reserve Training Instructor in San Antonio, Texas. One day while sitting on my front porch, I went into a kind of trance and felt an urge from out of nowhere to pursue a dream from my childhood. That urge led me to pick up, move somewhere new and seek a new life and new career as a police officer. I went into the house and laid a map of the United States down across the kitchen table. I closed my eyes and pointed to the map. With one point of a finger, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho turned out not only to be my destination, but also my destiny.
Within two months, I had transferred my military service to Great Falls, Montana, sold everything I owned except what I could carry in the cab of my truck and left Texas. I didn’t have a job, a place to live or any clue that it was the Holy Spirit that was actually leading me to where it was I was supposed to be. I had no idea that everything that was happening to me was the will of the Father. This unknown that I was heading straight for would lead me to my new life, my new wife, my new purpose and to a summer day in 2003 when I would fall down on my knees and cry out to the Father for forgiveness and accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
Yes, my life followed the pattern of Job’s. In the years since 1996, God has blessed me greatly. Don’t get the wrong idea though! God has not handed anything to me on a silver platter. If I was to write about the totality of my experiences with God over the last eleven years, the text would rival War and Peace for length. It is sufficient for me to say that patience is my lesson in this life and I am pretty darn sure that the Lord delights in teaching it to me.
I have had to wait for everything that I consider to be worthwhile in this life; my wife, my career, my home, my church family and most recently, my son. While that might sound like whining, it really isn’t. I look at life through different eyes now and I understand the purpose behind everything that I have had to wait for. I have been given a glimpse of the bigger picture which is a blessing that a lot of people never get. Very simply, because I have been made to wait on them, I now appreciate the blessings that I receive more and I give credit where credit is due. Everything here is God’s. He just allows us to use it for awhile. I am also learning to let go and trust that God’s timing is perfect. What’s funny is that I almost wrote “have learned”. AS IF!!
Just like Job, I have now been blessed greatly by the Lord; so much more than I ever was before. The difference between my life and Job’s – I think he deserved it while I question whether I really did or not.
That’s what grace is all about.