When The Bottle Wins.

UPDATED to better reflect.

This is honestly the feeling I get in my pastoral work sometimes.

Especially in marital counseling.

You'll work with a couple, ministering to them with love, patience, and a LOT of prayer and Scripture.

And you'll see changes. Positive changes.

You'll talk to them about being "transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2), and how the "new has come; the old has passed away" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

And you will see growth and changes!

The couple you are talking to now is completely different from the couple you started with six weeks ago.

God is doing MIGHTY works in them.

And then, the Bottle.

Someone will fall into The Bottle and kill the entire process.

One twist off on a Sunday, when they could have been in the church that they professed their love for, when they could have been fishing, when they could have been doing a thousand other things in the world...

But, instead, they chose The Bottle.

The Bottle makes them angry, makes them mean and looking for an argument when their wife comes home from visiting family from out of town over the weekend.

The Bottle empowers them enough to pull a gun and threaten to kill someone.

The Bottle gets the Sheriff called on them, and then arrested for Family Violence.

The Bottle, in one fell swoop, takes away the marriage, the home, the job, everything.

The Bottle Wins.

This is true power of the Demon that is The Bottle.

The Bottle controls the person by making the person think he or she is in control.

How many recovering addicts have said "I'm in control, I can stop it when I need to"? They may have even been functioning addicts, being able to keep a job and keep the bills paid so they must be doing something right.

But, in the end, The Bottle always wins. The Bottle is in control.

When things are good, we can "control" it and feel even better. When things are bad, we "control" it just to feel better. We lose judgement, we become our own worst enemy.

We hurt and injure everyone and everything around us.

The Bottle is in control.

It seems senseless. That's because it is senseless. There is no rationality to it. This demon thrives on irrationality. It thrives on senselessness. It thrives on the deepest of selfishness, rendering the addict powerless to prevent it.

Some will talk of an "out-of-body" experience - watching themselves drink even as they scream inside to stop.  But they can't.

The Bottle is in Control.

It is ironic then that the best way to "control" this demon is to surrender.

Step One of any 12 Step program is to admit that you are powerless against the addiction and that that addiction has made your life unmanageable.

It is admitting that you don't really have control. In a sense, it is giving up control.

Step Two is to seek the help of a Higher Power. Actually, it is letting a Higher Power have control.

Coming before Jesus as you are and letting Him have control of everything from now on.

Its much easier said than done. 

And its not just limited to Alcohol. Drugs, Food, Sex, we all have an addictive personality to something.

And we are broken and imperfect enough to relapse. Repeatedly.

Yet, the Blood on the Cross still saves us. Repeatedly.

Even after the gun, the yelling, the arrest, the probably impending divorce, there is still The Cross.

Even Scripture says so:

"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39 ESV)

Nothing that we do can get Jesus to stop loving us. Nothing that we do can get the Father to stop loving us. Not even The Bottle.

Jesus has this knack of raising things from the dead, even when He is four days "late".

And that is why I keep ministering. Because the Blood still Works, and so must I.

And I still love these people.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Fox News had a recent story of a possible serial killer, as evidence by the discovery of the remains of three victims.

They are, as follows:

"...48-year-old Jewel King, who vanished in April 2006; 41-year-old Verdell Jefferson, who was reported missing in August 2006; and 43-year-old Dorothy Botts, who was last seen on Christmas Day of that year."

They had died 12 years ago.

While not explicitly stated, I believe that these pictures of the ladies are police mugshots, based upon tone, direction, and style.

I almost missed this story.

I also almost dismissed this story.

Except that my entire work week is ministering to people like these.

I can hear the epithets used now.

"Crack Whore". "Slut". "Welfare Queen." "Stoner". "Hooker." "Thief". "Trash". "Parasite".

Those are the repeatable ones.

The world may look at these ladies with disdain.  One can hear the collective sigh of dismissivness.

"No biggie, no big waste. No one will miss them."

The world finds nothing endearing about them. They didn't care for themselves, why should we?

But these are exactly the people Jesus was referring to in Matthew 25:40: "’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’" (ESV)

And just in case you might think that Jesus was just rambling, remember who He hung out with.

Hookers (Mary Magdalene). Thieves (Levi the Tax Collector, Judas Iscariot).

He was genuinely concerned about the Least of us. He commanded us to Love them.

And so I do. Probably not as well as I should sometimes, but at least I am aware.

I am aware that these ladies were also "Daughters". "Mothers". "Sisters". "Wives". "Friends".  I am humanizing them because that is exactly who they were; human beings created in God's Image and loved by other human beings.

And deserving of being loved simply because of that fact. The fact that they were knit together in their mothers' wombs. Fearfully and Wonderfully made.

Don't miss that!

Just a reminder for y'all today.

Free Because of the Brave

I ran across this picture from the recent Pre-Season Miami Dolphins game.

To me, it says so much in a brief moment of time.

The man who is standing and holding our country's Flag is a sailor in the United States Navy.

Since we are viewing him from behind, we cannot see his rate/rank, but for the sake of comparison, we'll use a Navy E-4/Petty Officer 3rd Class (PO3).

The average annual salary for a US Navy PO3 is $43,350.

This excludes other bonuses such as housing allowance, subsistence allowance, and hazardous duty pay.

Pay extra attention to the "Hazardous duty".

This man has taken an oath that could possibly cost him his life. He will do it to protect the men behind him, who are kneeling.

The men who are kneeling during our National Anthem are NFL football players. The average salary of an NFL Player, according to Forbes, is $2.1 Million Dollars.

While there is always the chance of major injury in a football game, there is very little chance someone will be actively shooting at you to take your life.

NFL Players take no oaths.

The players are kneeling to protest what they believe to be police brutality and racial injustice.

The sailor, being on duty and in uniform, may not protest anything. 

It is because of the sailor's service that the men who are kneeling during the National Anthem are able to protest without governmental or political repercussions.  It is their right to speak and signify their discontent.

It is also my right to not feed that animal. It is also my right to think that maybe Vince McMahon is crazy like the proverbial fox, and I can patiently wait until his new league comes out and simply watch football.

To my mind, guys who play ball for a living and make 100 times more a season than an average E-4 in the Military makes a year and deliberately disparaging that which should be sacred of every American is the height of hubris.

Men like the sailor have literally died for the Flag and Anthem.

If you must protest, wear a black stripe on your helmet, or put on some special sock, provided the NFL doesn't fine you for being out of uniform.

But keep the Flag and Anthem sacred.

A World Cup for Texas.

Congratulations to France for their recent 2018 World Cup Final 4-2 Victory over Croatia. Champions Du Monde! Personally, I wanted an England vs France Final, which I believe would have been absolutely insane, but that was not meant to be. I’m not disappointed, however. I have a cousin who lives in France and they are rightfully over the moon.

Unfortunately, the US failed to even qualify for the Cup this round - lowering the interest in the States, and the lower ratings demonstrated this.

England, at least, not only qualified for the tournament, but managed to earn a 4th place finish. For a brief moment, it was possible that the Cup would return home to the birthplace of the sport. All of the U.K. would have been celebrating.

Well, not all of the U.K., just the England part of it.

Which brings up an interesting quirk that exists in international sports.

What makes the U.K. the “United Kingdom” (“United” should be your first hint), is that it is in fact 4 separate “countries” - England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

Each country has their own International team for various sports, such as soccer, rugby, and basketball, among others. Pro Golfers and Tennis Players from those countries will often play under their own country’s flag, rather than the Union Jack.

2018 British Open Final Leaderboard. (The Open)

For example, here is the top of the final Leaderboard for the recent 2018 British Open. Notice the two England players, and Rory McElroy is represented by the Flag of Northern Ireland. No Union Jacks!

The vaunted annual Six Nations Rugby Tournament is technically only Four Nations, with Ireland, Italy, and France joining England, Scotland, and Wales. (Northern Ireland is included with the neighboring Republic of Ireland for a unified Irish side.)

Six Nations Rugby Tournament Teams (Rugbydump.com)

It’s been that way for decades.

They make for some very interesting rivalries, based upon history that spans hundreds of years.

The only exception to this are The Olympic Games, in which the United Kingdom fields a unified U.K. Olympic Team. As a nation, they still consider themselves British. They just compete as their "States".

What the heck does that have to do with us in Texas or the USA?

Stay with me for a moment.


During the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, a humorous (and very Texan) meme started appearing in some of the local newscasts, like this one from KRPC in Houston. They started keeping a medal count as if Texas were a separate and independent nation, like so:

Texas Olympic Medal Count via KRPC, Houston

Cute, right? All they did was take the Americans from Texas and counted them as “Texan”. Yes, we are that proud.

By the time it was all said and done, however, it turns out Texas had performed extremely well.

Texas would have been 3rd in the World for Medal Counts! (US Global Investors)

Texas had earned ⅓ of all the American medals won at the 2016 Games. In the final Medal Counts, Texas was tied for Third with China.

Let that sink in for a minute.

It demonstrates that Texas, if She ever decided to, could not only field an international team, but successfully compete on the international stage.

By ourselves.

Obviously, we would not excel at all sports. Outside of hockey or figure skating, we would be hindered at a number of winter sports (Jamaican Bobsled Team notwithstanding). However, there is obviously a large number of sports that we could feasibly participate in, such as Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, among others.

Texas could compete in individual sports as well, such as Golf, Tennis, Cycling, Archery, Equestrian, Wrestling, etc.

Each sport has their own rules and guidelines as to who can be eligible to play for a national team, but for Texas, we can use our own State Residency rules.

The most obvious would be one of the following:

• Born in Texas
• Residing in Texas for a certain number of years.
• Maintaining Legal Residence in Texas - many Texans live and work out of state, but maintain Texas residency for financial and legal benefits, such as no state income tax.

What this is NOT:

This is not a "Let Texas Secede" attempt.  In fact, I am not even addressing anything new. I am modeling an existing framework that has existed for decades, as I will demonstrate below.

“Why in the world would we want to do that? Isn’t having a US Team good enough?”

The recent World Cup tournament started me to think about this.  England reached Fourth place.  But, it is also entirely possible that both England and Scotland, or Wales, could qualify for the tournament at the same time. In fact, Scotland and England did qualify together in the 1998 World Cup.  Essentially, the UK had two nations representing them in the tournament.

The US did not qualify this year, but what if a Texas team did?

Or perhaps both could participate in the Basketball World Cup in 2019, provided the pros would actually show up to play and not sit out to keep from risking an injury. Texans tend to have more pride than that.

Or how about the World Baseball Classic? Yes, the US won that one in 2017 by beating Puerto Rico in the Championship.  Wait a minute, didn't we just play ourselves?  Which brings up....

“You do realize Texas is a State in the United States? It’s an AMERICAN territory?”

You are absolutely right.

And so is the aforementioned Puerto Rico, who are also an American Territory, but have their own national Soccer team, Basketball Team, (Currently ranked #16 in the world) and Baseball Team.

Puerto Rico National Basketball Team (FIBA)

They take part in the Pan American Tournaments, World Baseball Classic,World Cup of Basketball, the Olympic Games, and The World Cup if they could ever qualify for it.

 “Yes, but there is a significant difference between a ‘Territory’ and a ‘State’.”

True, but the difference is not as large as you would think. Puerto Rico residents don’t have to pay the Federal Income Tax, but they still pay the other payroll taxes that we have to pay. They’re not really “American Lite”.

Also, the difference between states is the same amount of difference between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England. Each has their own local government, but are united by a common National Government. Each of those territories send their own teams.

Such teams don’t have to be limited to Texas, either. If California or New York want to field their own teams, the more the merrier. It would be great to have a rivalry outside of college football or hoops.

“Wouldn’t that be detrimental to our US Team?”

US Olympic Team - Sporting News

Yes, No, and Not Really.

It really depends on which sport and which venue.

Firstly, for the Olympic Games, unless the IOC formally recognizes a Texas Olympic Committee, there would always be a Unified US Team, much like the United Kingdom.

In other venues, however, Texas could compete.

Basketball:

Texas boasts three NBA teams (Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, and San Antonio Spurs), along with three NBA G Development League teams. Also, other NBA teams feature players who are from Texas that could qualify.

Dallas Mavericks' Owner Mark Cuban - Could he start a Texas International Basketball Tradition? (Deadspin)

I could see Mark Cuban being tapped on the shoulder to field a team for Texas, who would probably love to poke one in the eyes of the NBA commissioners by taking home a literal World Championship to Dallas. He certainly has the facilities and equipment necessary to field a world class team, along with the financial resources to ensure a NBA quality coaching staff.

Kevin Durant in a Texas National Team uniform anyone? The Texas National Team at the World Cup of Basketball?

Baseball:

Texas hosts two Major League Baseball Teams (Houston Astros and Texans Rangers), both of which had made recent trips to the World Series, with the Astros being the current Champions as of this writing.

Nolan Ryan, Baseball HOF and Texas Baseball Legend. Who better to start a Texas International Baseball Team?

The direct and indirect connection for the teams' success is Nolan Ryan, the Hall of Fame pitcher and Texas legend. The Rangers' trips to the World Series happened during his involvement, and his indirect involvement with Astros only demonstrates his ability to grow success.

He would be the obvious choice for the formation of a Texas International Team, especially at the World Baseball Classic.

Soccer:

Yes, we could compete at the World's Game.

Texas boasts two Major League Soccer teams (FC Dallas and Houston Dynamo) along with two United Soccer League (a lower division) teams (Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio), along with two more expansion sides (El Paso and Austin).

FC Dallas is a Charter team with the MLS, then known as the Dallas Burn, playing in the inaugural season in 1996. Houston joined 10 years later as an expansion team, but were the league champions in 2006 and 2007.

Jason Kreis, former Dallas and USMNT Player and Current Manager For Orlando City FC

With collectively 34 years of experience of both clubs (notwithstanding USL and NASL), there are plenty of players that could theoretically qualify. Clint Dempsey, a USMNT regular, was born in Nacogdoches, and could be a high profile player or coach. Jason Kreis is a former Dallas player who is currently the manager for Orlando City, and has USMNT playing and coaching experience. Oscar Pareja, the current manager of FC Dallas is also a former player who became a manager, and has earned caps with the Columbia national team.

Oscar Pareja, Former Dallas and Columbia National Player, and current Manager for FC Dallas.

Yes, we would compete with the USMNT in the CONCACAF tournament (known as the "Hexagon"), but the beauty of the system is that it would be entirely possible for both the USMNT and Texas to qualify for the World Cup.

The US would, essentially, have TWO teams in the World Cup tournament. Much like the UK did in 1998 with England and Scotland.

Other Sporting Opportunities:

I have deliberately steered away from Gymnastics in light of the recent sex abuse scandals that had hit USA Gymnastics. The fact that the former headquarters and major training facilities of USA Gymnastics were at the Karolyi Ranch, just north of Houston, plus the fallout from the abuse regarding the facilities, makes it difficult to promote Gymnastics of any sort at this point.

However, we still have Track and Field, and could make a reasonable attempt at Hockey and Rugby, as well as individual sports like Golf, Tennis, Archery, Cycling, etc.

Remember that British Open graphic I started out with? What if Jordan Speith was represented by the Texas Flag?

No, this is not "Anti-Americanism". It is using an existing framework that another nation has been using for decades, centuries even.

Texas can do think about doing this because she has the wherewithal to do it. We have the facilities, the population, the funding, and the pride to consider competing as an independent nation-state. 

And in the end, it can only help the US. Not only in giving the US a second entry into competitions, but increase the competitiveness of both sides.  And that's a good thing.