The Spirit Is Strong With This One

The Spirit of God is powerful. But those of us who subscribe to a belief in the God of the Bible already knew that, didn't we?

Paul writes in Romans 8:11...

"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you."

I find this passage to be simply amazing. What can we not accomplish if such strength--powerful enough to bring the dead to life--dwells within us?

The answer, of course, is nothing.

The problem, unfortunately, is that I forget it more often than I remember.

Recently I was in a pretty bad place. I felt alone, unneeded, unwanted, unimportant...just overall unhappy. I spent a few days...maybe even a few weeks...wallowing in it. Drinking far more beer and smoking far more cigarettes than usual. The majority of my close friends had moved away over the years, and I felt like I had no one to talk to. As I sat on my front porch one night, well past one in the morning, gulping down the last of the beer I had bought that night, coughing from the accumulation of poison in my lungs, I realized two things.

I think the thoughts occurred simultaneously, though I'm not sure its even possible to think two things at the exact same time. But that's what it felt like, and we are talking about the Spirit of God here, so I choose to believe anything is possible.

The two thoughts were:

1. I haven't spoken to God in a very long time.
2. I wish I could talk to...for anonymity's sake, let's just call him Dick...right now.

Let's get something straight. I speak to God on a regular basis. I pray throughout the day, I pray before meals, before bed, etc... What I realized, though, is that I never really talk to God. I ask Him for things, I thank Him for things, but I never actually have a deep conversation with Him. So in the middle of a drunken stupor, I decided to give that a try.

I talked about Dick. I talked about how I missed him, and how I wished I could talk to him. I talked about what was going on in my life. How I felt, how I was handling how I felt, how I felt about how I was handling how I felt.

And then I passed out in bed.

I woke up, took the kids to school, went to work. And something amazing...something powerful happened. During my first cigarette break of the morning, Dick called. Out of the blue. Not only did he call, though, the first words out of his mouth were, "For some reason, I just felt like I needed to call you."

I understand that this may not seem very amazing to some. But it was earth-shaking for me. After pouring my heart out to God the night before, I knew at that moment, as I stood in the segregated smoking area, that He had heard me. And He cared about me. And that my friend cared about me. And I felt His Spirit move within me.

That was a couple months ago. It seems I had forgotten everything. Until a conversation with my wife reminded me.

She said that sometimes, she just needed time to herself. Time away from everyone and everything. For some reason, although I have always known that about her, I never fully grasped the life-and-death importance of it. I don't know what she does in her quiet periods, or what she prays about, or if she prays about anything. But I now know how essential they are. 

Because the Spirit moves in the silence. He awakens my soul when I'm quiet. When I speak without making a sound, He listens. And when I close my eyes and humble myself before Him, He fills me with strength. The same strength that raised Christ from the dead.

If its been a while since you've felt the presence of God within you, I urge you to spend more time alone with Him. If you've never accepted that the God of the Universe could desire an intimate relationship with you, I urge you to reconsider.

Because if He can speak to me...if He can love me...if He can change my life, my attitude...if He can forgive my failures, and stitch together my wounds...if He can extinguish my anger, and still my bursting heart...and if He can make me new, time and time and time again... 

If He can do all these things for a wretched creature that has nothing to offer but a pair of bent knees, bloody hands, and a bowed head...then He can do it for anyone.

From Father to Son

As a boy, my father spent a lot of time introducing me to the things that brought him joy. He insured that I had seen every Monty Python and Mel Brooks movie ever made. Genesis or Journey filled the air nearly every time we got in the car. He painstakingly tried to pass on his love for baseball...which I quit playing, much to his chagrin, after he pegged me with the ball an uncountable number of times. He was a horrible pitcher.

My dad taught me some valuable life lessons...all of which I have tried to apply to my own life...many of which I have failed at miserably.


"Learn to discern"
"Fear nobody, but respect everybody"
"If mama's not happy, nobody's happy"

Just to name a few.

So I spent some time thinking about the things I want to pass on to my own son. Here's what I've come up with so far:

1. Don't linger on the things you can't control...it will only suck the joy out of you. You can only control yourself, and you should always do so in a manner that does not embarrass me or your mother.
2. The greatest superhero ever created, or ever will be created, is Batman. Anyone that tells you differently is not only wrong, they're stupid.
3. I advise you to treat all girls/women respectfully, but ignore them as much as possible. This will, for some reason, make them more attracted to you. The longer you can act uninterested in a girl you are actually interested in, the better your chances of her liking you. And you should never be afraid to knock a girl down a notch or two. Don't be mean, just make fun of them about little things that won't overly offend them. This will make it seem like you don't see them as perfect--that you haven't placed them on a pedestal--and as a result, they will try harder to win your approval.
4. Lesson #3 does not apply to your wife. Once you have won that one special woman over, you need to treat her like she is the queen of your world. Never stop being romantic. Never stop telling her how beautiful she is. Your sex life depends upon it, but it shouldn't be the reason you do it. She can tell the difference between things you do out of love and things you do for sex.
5. It is okay to envision the girls you like wearing Princess Leia's slave outfit. But don't think about it too much. It will only frustrate you.
6. Don't take the people you care about for granted.
7. Things you say in anger can be forgiven much easier than they can be forgotten.
8. Don't air your dirty laundry on social networks.
9. Until you are married, your mother and sisters are the two most valuable females in your life. And when it comes to your sisters, I expect you to be right next to me if and when one of their boyfriends needs to be taught some lessons of their own.
10. Find something that you love to do and make it yours. Own it. If you can make a living doing it, that's great. But if you can't, you still need a hobby.
11. Video games, comic books, and Legos are just as fun as an adult as they are as a child.
12. Fighting strangers is frowned upon in this day and age. So I strongly suggest fighting your friends.
13. Think for yourself! Your friends are probably idiots. Cliffs do exist, and lemmings tend to fall off of them.
14. You don't have ADD. You don't need medication. You are a boy. Do what boys do, and don't apologize for it. If you get suspended for pretending your pencil is a gun, I'll be right there next to you, defending you in every way I can.
15. Don't start smoking. One day, you will, without a doubt, want to quit. And you will struggle with it your entire life.
16. It takes a lot of effort to find a style of Levi's that fits you perfectly. When you find them, remember the number.
17. Life is not fair. Disappointment is inevitable. Whining will get you nowhere. Get over it and move on.
18. The only true contentment you will find in your life is through Jesus Christ. People will fail you. Things will fade away. Only Christ's love endures.