"Meddle Not in the Affairs of Dragons.....

"....for thou art crunchy, and good with ketchup." - Anonymous.

I think two conditions that we as human beings get confused about are "loneliness" and "solitude".

Both require us to be separated from other people. However, one is detrimental to us, while the other is beneficial.

We're all well acquainted with loneliness, from not fitting in during high school because we didn't wear the right clothing to being the odd-man-out in a room full of couples.

But this is harder. Its more than "you don't get to sit at the cool kids' table". Its the "Nobody wants you."

Be Cool Or Be Cast Out!

At heart, the message we are telling ourselves is that we are not worthy or good enough. We lack the capacity to be a proper human being.

"The world would be better off without me."

All of us want recognition and validation.

Validation is especially important if you are unsure of who you are. 

Then, to validate and recognize you, allow me to remind you of exactly who you are:

• "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well." Psalm 139:14 (Made by God)

• "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children." Eph. 5:1 (Child of God)

• "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." John 15:15 (Friend of God)

• "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." Rom. 8:16-17 (Heir of God)

I think we are starting to get a picture here. You are FAR from "worthless".

"But why don't I have a better job? A better house? A better car or truck? A better life? "

In other words, why can't I be one of the Joneses? Or Kardashians? Everyone else seems to have more things or better lives than I do!

Allow me to submit to you that this may be God's way of protecting you from a lot of heartache.

Consider the following:

"In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8 

What if, God is actually protecting you from that Rat Race? What if He gives you everything you really need, but not what you think you want?

All of the fighting, sniping, gossiping, back-stabbing, politicking, etc, is NOT your problem.

While the Joneses are doing everything to get more and destroy others, you are blessed and content with what God has given you, with the knowledge that He will continue to provide.

Consider also that we are to be a "Peculiar People" (1 Peter 2:9 KJV), meaning "set apart".

This separation from the "rest of the world" is the essence of Solitude.

We need this time alone with God to rest and recharge. To enjoy His Presence and His Creation.

We also enjoy His Protection and His approval simply because of His Son and His Grace.

Our value comes from The Father, not from the world.  Matthew 6:25 says "Do not worry about what you will eat, or what you will drink, or what you will wear...".  The Father provides us with these things, but He gives us so much more. He gives us Purpose. He gives us Meaning. He created us for a reason, and how blessed we are when we obediently follow His Will.

We're a lot less crunchy that way.

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.

Just a reminder for y'all today.

For Where Your Treasure Is....

I have a gentleman who has been visiting us for some time now. He never misses a Sunday or Wednesday.

Last week, his truck broke down.

He, like a lot of us, simply doesn't have the funds to get the necessary parts to repair it.

He'll repair it himself, he just needs the parts.

So what does he do to continue to get to church?

He gets this:

It's an old bike. It's his niece's bike, in fact.

Our church is about 3 minutes away from his house by truck, but about 20 minutes by bike. Each way.

He rides this bike to and from our church in 90 to 100 degree summer weather. Sundays and Wednesdays.

That got me to thinking.  I asked myself, "What would I value so highly, or need so badly, that I would do whatever it took to get there to get it?"

One could immediately get a mental picture of an addict in the midst of lying, cheating, or stealing to get the next fix, but I am talking about something much deeper than that.

What, or who, in your existence, is something or someone you need so badly in order to not just get through the day, but through life itself?

This particular gentleman comes from some rougher straits than most. He's tried the other stuff, but his current need is Church Family. People who love him for as he is.

In Luke 12:34, Jesus said "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (ESV)

We cannot escape that fact. We will treasure something. Our hearts will be focused on it, and we will do whatever it takes to obtain it.

At root, we look for those things that make us feel good or feel better. If drugs, alcohol, or sex makes us feel good, we take more to feel even better. We crave it even more when we feel bad.

Jesus invites us to crave something that only He can provide, which is not just something that makes us feel better, but some that actually makes us better.

We become better siblings. Better spouses. Better parents. Better people.

When was the last time you did whatever it took to get God in your life?  When was the last time you fought to get to church, instead of fighting the church Herself?

What would happen if Jesus became the Treasure you absolutely had to have in order to live? And live life more abundantly?

You might even borrow your niece's bike.