It'salways Best I Heed My Own Advice

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Hey Sue nice to hear from you and actually its nice to hear the type of problems your expressing. Ive led a less than desirable life before Christ and have had many problems, most of which I was responsible for. Now when I hear mysel;f saying that I want to be more connected to my Church, ny Church Family and feel a responsibility to ones that are influenced by my choices and convictions, I have to say there is no better burden than the burden for Christ.

It sounds like you are well equipped to handle the burden that your responsibility of faith requires. A while back I realized that i had developed a habit of looking at most everything in my life through the filter of Christ. What my marriage means to me and how I am devoted to my wife without reservation or an "exit strategy" and the desire and determination to help lead my kids to Christ had become the focal center of my purpose. What you are describing is so similar. You describe being sold out to Christ and have a burden for your daughter and husband. Christ also knows exactly what your burden and content of your heart are. He is well equipped to assist you in your effort to help develope you family into life lonf followers of Christ. Remember the parable about how we are to sow the seed and Christ will water and nurture it to fruition? Sister you do what the Christ in your heart commands. Do you endear your daughter to Christ if she fully resists and is despondent at the notion of going to Church. In my post i briefly described my mother's word to me, everytime I saw her. She would say, "you need to be in Church". I would say "i know" and kiss her on the head and go on about my life. I can guarantee you this, she never once missed Church because I didn't go. She never tried to pacify me or entice me to come to Church with anything other than the truth."You need to be in Church". My momma died and in the Church that we had the service in was the first Church Id been in since 1977.

i was the type of person that is shaped by extremes in my life. For me to turn my life over to Christ I had to loose everything. I mean living in the homeless shelters, no money , no family. i had to be hopeless, broken and desperate. in my despair I tried to take my own life. it was unsuccsessful and it was at that first moment of consciousness that i was primed and ready for Christ to be my Salvation. Now I'm not saying that that is the solution for your daughter and husband. I describe the call of Christ like this, Jesus has a "secret combination" of events that he "dials in" in our lives. He invites us to accept His gift of savation many times during our lives. He positions us so that we can CHOOSE.
The Bible says that God would have it that none should perish but all should come to know Him as their Savior. I know that its a heartbreaking feeling that our loved ones are struggling, not understanding the serious and eternally important consequences of their tarrying attitude towards Christ. I know this, I cannot tell anyone anything, but I can show them. Sue, you go to Church. You be a prayer warrior for your daughter and husband. You be the leader God intends to the ones that choose to listen to your Christ given leadership and wisdom. You spread the message of a need for prayer to your Church family. You immerse yourself in the Word. You live a life that emmulates Christ to the very best of your abilities. I believe the only reason I am alive today, a Christ follower and writing this to you is that my mother took me to Church when I was a child and she continued to grow in Christ and never ever compromised her beliefs for fear of "losing" me.
The only chance I had was her prayers and mantra that continually rang in my ears,"I love You And You Need To Be In Church. You know the way. Go for it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. In Christ, Patrick Franke

For Us, For Me, For Every Created Thing To See

It has been a month since my last post. Things have been hectic with the holidays coming. Work is picking up. Kids are growing and more demanding. Life is just plain faster and harder. I fell off a step ladder last Thursday and sliced my left forearm open requiring multiple sutures and staples to close. That injury kinda slowed things down a bit. I actually took a photo of my arm before and after suturing and my crazy yet lovely wife posted it to Facebook. I mean really, we live in a world where I can cut my arm halfway off and the next moment its digitized and spewn around the planet. Crazy cool times we live in now.

More seriously though is the time with our families and friends. I have the pleasure of having a wonderful wife and family. I serve the one and only God of all things. My God, my King. Sadly this has not always been so. I served myself first for a long time. I lived without thought or consequence of a "God". I lived, I lost, I destroyed the things that were close to me. I lost all my family, all my friends, all my self respect because of brokenness, hopelessness and despair brought on by addiction and more specifically no relationship with Jesus Christ. This is no fault of Jesus I'll let you know. Looking back I can see where He has extended His hand countless times offering me the unconditional love I have always sought. The love that we all seek. I found Jesus Christ as my Savior when I was 12 years old.
I promptly took that experience and started burying it with the "junk" of this life in the "junk drawer" of this life. I kept on living and kept filling that junk drawer with the things I thought I wanted and needed. I lived hard and played hard. I ended up married and soon thereafter suffered a broken neck and ended up paralyzed from the waist down. Soon after surgery to stabilize my neck I discovered I had contracted Hepatitis C from surgery. Hepatitis C from my surgeon. Six months later it was discovered I had liver tumors. I had cancer. In a two year period I had went from owning life to being a prisoner of life and the hits kept coming. My marriage deteriorated. Life was insufferable. I sat day after day mentally and physically deteriorating. I gave up. The desire to live, left. Then in the fourth year following experimental viral treatments for the cancer and Hepatitis C something remarkable happened, I was cured. No detectable tumors could be observed, the liver biopsy showed no cirrhosis. and the Hepatitis C was undetectable with RNA testing. My physician called it a miracle. I really can't recall rejoicing. The grip of depression and loss was greater than the news that, yeah! now you get to live a long time in that stinking chair. Talk about ungrateful, no good self serving, feeling sorry for yourself scumbag. That was me. I could have had a goose that laid a golden egg and I would have been mad cause I couldn't fry it. Two years later four significant things happened. 1. I began to regain feeling in my legs. 2. My mother died. 3. Our daughter died. 4. Within two years I learned to walk again. All this and not once did I say thank you God. I just took, hid it, buried it, faked it. My physical abilities improved my mental abilities deteriorated. My addiction dominated my life. My wife sat in a chair in our living room and disappeared. My marriage was over. My life was over, or so I thought.

I believe I once was the most ungrateful human that has ever lived.I stole lied cheated, decieved and in doing so I found a new life and a new friend, Unfortunately for her she didn't get to meet the real me until after she married me. We hadn't been together long and the addiction became unmanageable and without bounds.My firsy ex-wife committed suicide and almost a year to the day my new wife divorced me and I was on the street, living to die. I lived from shelter to shelter. Hopelessness abound. I still can't wrap my head around how God could have delivered me from so many hopeless situations and I not be able to see it. Well. finally I'd had enough. It came time to die. I had a plan. My ex-wife told me that night she never wanted to hear from me again. Never wanted to see me or have anything to do with me. The last thing i told her was she'd never see me again. That night I overdosed on methadone and was found dying in an alley. The ambulance took me to the hospital who saved my body. My soul was still lost. I woke up in ICU five days later mad as a hornet because I was still alive. I raged against God. What kind of God would make me suffer like this. How could I be so selfish? Why couldn't I see every blessing that He'd given me? I felt the presence of the love of God laying in that hospital bed. I cried to Him to do what the Bible said He'd do. Save me, Forgive me, Help me, Take this horror and pain and hopelessness off of me and please God do it now cause I can't stand it another moment. Jesus won't let me die ans I can't live without Him. I gave my life to Christ that moment of that day Better yet He gave me life that day. The sacrifice He made on the cross at Calvary where he Died so that I could live. I accepted that gift that day.

I escaped from the hospital that day a homeless half naked former drug addict. I walked to a place called The Union Rescue Mission. I stayed therefor a year and went through their rehab program. I established a relationship with Christ. I found a new family at a Church that God led me to, The First Assembly Of God North Little Rock. The closer in relationship I grew with God the more I had to cry and tell Him I was sorry for not seeing the blessings and gifts and miracles he had done in my life, all my life. One day my ex-wife contacted me. I didn't know if I should have contact with her. I had prayed for many months for our relationship to be restored. I didn't know if I was strong enough to just "be friends". We met I showed her MY CHURCH and her comment after an hour was "I think I need to bring the kids here, we need to be in Church". I knew it then and there. God was up to His stuff again. Within a year our Pastor married us, again. We live today so the kids will see everyday how God can take a broken helpless sinner and love him into a worthwhile, purpose filled person. I live today to share my story of how far God will let you go just to get you into a position to choose Him.

I understand today that Jesus not only died for us, He was born for us. He lived for us. He loved for us so we could know what being born, living, loving and dying meant. I have come to know, for me , the meaning of Christmas was the birth of my Savior. The thing that has recently come to my knowing is that God created us so He could show all His creations what love was. We were given the free will to choose to love God or reject God. The son of God came and lived among us and let it be known that he was dying for us to abolish all sin for all time. All we had to do was accept that truth, that reality, that gift. In doing so we exercised our free will and fulfilled God's grand design that above all else love triumphs.

In this Christmas season I urge you to open your junk drawer of life and remove the clutter, broken,useless, meaningless junk that covers the glowing gift that Christ has given to us all. If you've accepted His gift of salvation but buried it with the trappings of life dig like crazy to rediscover it. Find it and nurture it because frankly, it's all you got. If you have never accepted Christ's gift of salvation, Now Is Your Chance To Use Your Free Will. There is a God, His son is Jesus. He lives. The stories you've heard about how He came to earth as a baby, grew to manhood, lived a sin free life, taught the truth about who He is and who we are, and that these truths are found in a book named The Bible. These are all true. Find a Bible .Open it to the Book Of Luke and read. Let your heart feel the truth. Go around the corner from where you live and go into the Church. Say hello to anyone. Set down. Open your heart close your eyes and hear the truth. Believe it or not, YOU are the meaning of Christmas. It was all for you and I. Jesus in the manger, Jesus the teacher, Jesus the sacrifice. It was all for you and I. Jesus made Christmas for us. We didn't make it for Him.

This season hold your children. Hug your parents. Greet your neighbors. Call your families. Gather together and remember the Christ who loves us. the Savior who gave all for us. The God that opens His heart for His children and offers them the unconditional love that He created. God bless us all, Merry Christmas

An addendum To Signs And Symptoms

When I finished my last post -Signs And Symptoms- I did so hurriedly because I was trying to get ready for Church. In my haste I was unable to express what I believe is the most important aspect of the message. When I reviewed it, it sat to close to pride. I may have left a subtle impression that their was an element of pride in overcoming the things that had for so long seperated me from Christ. This is false. Their is no pride because it is not about me. It is and always has been and shall always be about Christ and His Grace born of the Cross. The Grace from Christ and how we wear it, use it, exude it and share it is the outward sign and symptom of being a Christ follower. I wanted to leave this message with a couple of mental pictures. Ones that will forever be in my head and my heart. Most importantly they are the things that I can express in words as ideas to help witness to others.

In the Bible their is a mental picture that is the timeless expression of a Christ follower. The time is the end of Jesus' life as a man. The location is a hill called Calvary. Jesus is crucified between two criminals who, too, are moments away from eternity. With one statement of faith one criminal secures his place in Glory with Christ. One moment of humility, of guilt erased by the Creator. Jesus told this man he would be in Paradise with Christ that day. This is because that criminal spoke aloud for any to hear his beliefthat Jesus is the Christ, Son of God. The criminal spoke it with his mouth and believed it in his heart.

The other sign and symptom comes from an experience related to me by my best friend who is also a Pastor at my Church. The other day he was telling me he had to preach a funeral for a fellow that mosy likley did not know Christ as his Savior. He stated the family was sure this dying man did not have a relationship with Jesus. My Pastor friend told me he went to the hospital to see the dying man. He was unable to talk and could only squeeze his hand as a form of communication. Pastor leaned down to the man's ear and quietly told the dying man that he didn't know if this man knew Jesus as Savior. Pastor told the man that he was as close to being in eternity as anyone he'd ever seen. If the man wanted now to confess Jesus as his Savior and ask to be forgiven as a sinner, then, in his mind repeat the name of Jesus over and over. That he that calls upon the name of Jesus will be saved. The man , Pastor told me, squeezed his hand strongly and quickly, over and over as a tear fell down his face. Many will scoff at this moment and find reason to conclude the dying man did not accept Jesus. I have already heard this perspective. I am encouraged that my Jesus, the Jesus that knows our hearts and thoughts, the Jesus that desires that none fall short of His gift of Salvation. The Jesus who heals the blind and speaks the universe into existence can and did witness the dying mans squeezing hand and shortly after welcomed him into Glory.

So whats your sign and symptoms of Christianity? What is it that makes others easily identify you as a Christ follower? Do we really need to be nailed to the cross of life before we cry out? Are you betting on the death bed experience? Do we act like a neighbor lover? Are we consistant in the way we are in Church as well as when we are in the picture shows? Think about it.

Signs And Symptoms

In the past weeks we have had a series of horrific incidents come to light on the news media.There has been a young girl kidnapped who spent eighteen years as a hostage until being found. Another child taken and murdered and found in a dump.Yet another infant lost and five days later found alive and well in a box under the perpetrators bed. This past week a massacre at Ft. Hood. I can rationalize the cause of these events as a sociological manifestation of the presence and pervasiveness of sin and evil in our world. These events leave no doubt that they are from Satan and a direct product of his influence upon the world and the inhabitants therein. In short, these are signs and symptoms of evil. Why does it take this escalation of action to diagnose what evil is? And more importantly why do we as a society feel compelled to excuse and often dismiss the precursor actions and events that lead to these undeniable outcomes. Little Johnny beats little Bobby at school and it is examined and the conclusion is that the lack of structure and oppressive nature of little Johnny's home life has caused him to act out. The behavior that out society has adopted is to find blame in the environment of the individual that can excuse their behavior. There is an "all or nothing" attitude that permanently excludes the possibility that the presence of sin, ie... The exclusion of relationship with Christ is the ultimate causative factor for the presence of evil that leads to the manifestation of evil acts whether they be petty crime of mass murder. In short it no task to identify the signs and symptoms of evil. We know where it comes from. We see it as it escalates and the end result is unmistakable.

What about righteousness? Holiness? Christ followers? My question is how do we identify a Christian? What are the signs and symptoms of a Christian?

Conversion, the change from before to after. All Christians have a moment or period of conversion. Alot of times there are folks around to witness this event of conversion. Either you've seen someone change or you yourself have been observed changing. Sometimes the conversion is unseen and only after the period of change is it observed by others that knew the converted one prior to their change. Either way there is always a "OMG" moment. The family, friends, classmates, co-workers, pastors, whoever is privy to this witness of before and after has universal reaction. Something has happened. Then....What happened? Depending on your or their perspective you start with ....The Lottery? You got a girlfriend/boyfriend? You got a new job? Usually towards the end of the list is the remote possibility that you have had an experience with Christ. This experience has changed you and now you are "a new creature". Why is it easier and more comfortable to exclude a "Jesus" moment that to include it? Context. You have to be witness to the context which the change is made. That in and of itself excludes a lot of people from knowing where the change in a person from one day to the next comes from. In my personal instance my conversion took place in an ICU bed in which I had regained consciousness after being in an overdose induced coma following an attempted suicide. I had given my best effort to end my life and when I woke on the ventilator I was hopping mad. I railed at God. Why couldn't I die? Why did I remained tortured with Grief, Guilt, Addiction, Despair, Anger, Powerlessness. The moment I realized that the only thing that could rescue me and relieve my torment was Christ I cried out to Him to take these things off me. I begged Him to do what it is that the Bible and the Promise says. Then and there I confessed my sins, I acknowledged that He sacrificed Himself for me, for my sin. I believe that He died so I might live. I understood that I could not die earlier cause He would not allow it and I could not live my life without Him. I had to choose. I chose because I knew the truth and I understood the love that was presented to me. That was my conversion and no one was present for it. Later in the weeks and months to come there were no family or friends present to see this change. I was changed none the less. I was still changed and measurably so when my ex wife discovered where I was after a year of looking for me. I was still a new creation in Christ another year later when we were remarried. I was still that changed Christ follower a year after that when asked to lead the Mens Discipleship Class at The Union Rescue Mission Rehab (where I graduated following my escape from the ICU after my conversion). Today as I get ready for Church and type this blog I am still a new creation in Jesus. It has been 3 1/2 years now. My Signs and Symptoms are the conversion and the steady and increasing service to Christ and my fellow man as my life goes on. Jesus said to love God and Love your Neighbor as yourself. This is what I am led to do because Jesus instructs it and it feels so good. For me as well as many others that I know these are a few of many clear signs and symptoms of a Christ follower.

What Your Mama Told You about Leaving The House Without Clean Underdrawers

Once again my wife is gonna kill me but it is too perfect to pass up. You know how since being a small child you mama has told you to never ever leave home with dirty underdrawers in case you are in a car wreck? Guess what happened to my wife this past Tuesday? You bet ya.

I had been home sick sick since Sunday past. I could have died or even worst by Monday. I was still laying in bed on Tuesday when the kids came home around 4:00pm. I never heard them. Then around 6:00pm Mom rolls in and I didn't hear her either. Now somehow the kids cahold their Mom to take the to their friends Volleyball game over at the college campus. Now remember I'm completly unawares of these goings on. So an hour later I get a phone call from my wife hysterical because she has has had a wreck on the Hendrix University campus. I ask if she is ok physically and in between sobs she says yes. I ask if the damage is sever. She says no it's not good but not totalled in her estimation. All along she continues to squall. Finally I ask her, babe, whats really going on, why do you keep crying? Finally she admits it. This is what happened

When the kids asked if they could go to the volleyball game they had failed to do a number of things. First they had left their rooms a mess that morning. Secondly, they had brought home a school mate which they know is forbidden without prior approval. They all thought since we were not supposed to be here they could get away with breaking these rules.
Man were they in for a surprise when they saw the car in the driveway when they got off the school bus.

So while I'm asleep they all give Mom this sad, pitifully song and dance about this volleyball game and of course gives in an. So Mom just thinking that it will take a few minutes to run then mover to the game loads them up and off they go, a few minutes I get this frantic phone call because Mom has, after dropping the kids off, rear-ended a lady and is now waiting for the Conway Police to come. She is mortified because she had failed to change clothes before she left home. Now close your eyes and picture this. My wife wearing her mismatched pink and purple fuzzy socks. No shoes. Wearing her most favorite and comfortable pink thermal long john pants with the reindeer on them. A two size too big funky gray satined yucky tee-shirt with no brazier and an a hairdo that looks like a Tesla experiment gone bad. The encyclopedic definition of of unprepared for the car wreck your Momma told you about. When I saw her I nearly blew a vessel in my brain and then it dawned on me.

How many of us go out in this exact way totally unprepared for the "what ifs". What if we are put in a situation to comfort someone we do not know. Are we spiritually dressed? What if we encounter someone with that question, whose answer from us could be a heaven of hell moment? Are we spiritually dressed?. What about the influences of this life? The influences from our past. That old girlfriend or boyfriend? Are we spiritually dressed to deal with the influence and temptation that is often accompanied by such an encounter?
My wife made a common yet embarrassing mistake by taking out of the house with confidence that nothing bad, important or kingdom changing could happen. In fact, it did.

The next time you leave home, put on your clean undies, don't wear your pink thermal sleep pants with the reindeer. And by goodness sakes put on a bra and comb your hair. But most importantly put on your desire and ability to lead others to Christ by the way you live your life, the way you take questioss from conversation to introduce how Jesus has changed your life. And above all how Jesus let you go out of the house one day dressed in pink thermal sleep pants with little brown reindeer, as humiliating as it was, just so you could use this start as an introduction into your experience of relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ.

I Can Clearly Now The Rain Has Gone.....

"I can see clearly now the rain has gone". Thats's the partial line from an old song I heard earlier in life. To me today it means we have been in the storm and now we can see the sun peeking out. The clouds are still there but they are retreating. Heading for the horizon. For now, all is clear.

That's what happened this week. My friend that I blogged about earlier, the one who had been in the Mission with me, the one who had found God just to walk away from Him and then found Him again? That one. The dude that had a relationship with Christ but took his focus off Christ. This was the guy who came back like the "prodigal son". Broken and desperate for acceptance. Desiring fellowship with other believers and more importantly desperate to know, really know that God forgave him for turning way and would accept him back. Our job, my job was to reinforce this truth. God will and did forgive you for breaking away. He forgives you for making stupid, selfish choices. He rescues you from damnation with His grace and mercy when you cry out to Him. These things are all true.What I saw this week with my own eyes is when you hold up your end of a deal with God, He will hold up His end.

I told you earlier that this guy had gotten in trouble with the law during this last time he had walked away from God and started getting high. He made a stupid choice amongst a bunch of stupid choices and later, after he'd came back to God, so did the police, with a warrant. They'd busted him, charged him, and the potential penalty was further enhanced by new charges as a "habitual offender". This bumped the penalty from six years in prison to twelve years in prison if convicted. For the past couple of months this dude has been increasingly freaked out. He is working but too poor to hire a "real" attorney. He had only seen and spoke to his court appointed attorney once in the past months. Court trial was last Tuesday. I held my breath as I waited in the back pew of the courtroom because in the back of my mind I feared he had cut and run.

For the past couple of months we talked frequently. I would encourage him to keep a positive attitude. He has been faithful in going to Church and even been recruited to work with the teens at his Church. Because of his past he would be perfect at talking about the pitfalls awaiting these youngsters. I also know he was tempted to run. He told me once that if it looked like he was going to prison he was leaving for Mexico. I told him that was the whole point of this "test". You either fall running to Christ, right to your knees or fall running away from Him. Either way your gonna fall. Week before last we had lunch together and talked about the upcoming trial on Tuesday. I could see scared all over him. We spoke about the what ifs.... then we spoke of the real truth. This was no longer about him and the judicial system. This was about relationship with Jesus. He found himself in a situation that he could not figure a way out of. He knows that the Bible promises that if we trust God and believe in Him He will never forsake us. Sometimes we do go to jail for our criminal choices. In this, Christ goes with you to jail. He don't stop at the bars and razor wire and say "I'll be right here when you get out". Nope he goes in with us. He comforts us and gives us purpose even behind bars. He strenghtens us and comforts us in prison. We have a witness and testimony. This moment he is contemplating running is the moment that satan is rolling the dice on his back, betting against him. This moment of fear that he is experiencing is about the real life application of relationship with Christ. this moment of fear is designed by the enemy to separate us from relationship with Jesus. This moment is used by Christ to strengthen out relationship with Him and out need to depend fully on Him. That is the truth I left with my friend. The truth that all this is about his relationship with Christ.It's still about our choices. You're jammed up beyond your control, who you gonna depend on? Yourself or Jesus?

My friend came through the court room doors with his parents in tow. He came in with with Jesus. He met with his "attorney". He stood before the Judge and was given grace. If he doesn't commit a crime in one year all these charges go away. Grace. Another chance. Hope. Compassion. Forgiveness. These are the things that were expressed by our judicial system. I asked my friend and he said these are the things that are expressed by our God. These are the things that define our Saviour. My friend is a free man today. Not because the judicial system said so on Tuesday but because my Christ said so on Calvary over 2,000 years ago. Praise God.

Nip And A Tuck

My wife thinks she is fat. There I said it. I'm gonna get in trouble but it's crazy. She really thinks she's fat and she's not. She is constantly comparing herself to photos of other women and asking; am I that big? or, do I look like that? The answer is always the same. She never,ever has compared herself to anyone smaller, prettier or more shapely that she is. I think there lays the truth in how she sees herself. She knows how to compare so that she does not feel compelled to change. She sees herself as she is. Just right.

So why does the world have this fixation on changing how we are viewed. The way we are is measured by what we do not have. When we have relationship with Christ we are measured now by what we do have.

I was watching television with my wife tonight and there was the standard issue loose weight commercials. Skinny women on treadmills in spandex telling us all that we need what they have. We need to be them. We need to change so we can be just right. I have met some of those people ,who, for their own reasons have chosen to modify their physical appearance as well as their emotional feelings in order to feel more accepted and acceptable to themselves and others.

Every channel is someone trying to change you. I think about all the self-help guru's out there. I think about the way the Mega-Diet culture has invaded our daily lives with their countless billboards, television, computer and print advertisements that help you identify your shortcomings then offer an easy and affordable cure to all that ails you. Weight problems, emotional problems, wrinkles, gray hair, bad hair, no hair, no problem, we can fix it.

I mean seriously, look around you. We put some serious time and effort everyday into primping, puffing, fluffing, sucking, pressing and dressing to feel good and be felt good about. Oh! how we like to manicure and trim, color and extend, flatten and firm, anything and everything in hopes of being universally accepted more often singularly recognized as the healthiest, most slim, prettiest, most handsome, most desirable, most envied, best dressed, best groomed, smartest, accomplished and exalted among our peers.

So much effort. So much evaluation. Do you think we should consider putting this same effort into our relationship with Christ?

Do we put forth the same passion born of desire to acknowledge and please Christ? What if the wrinkles that appear on our faces were a product of a lifetime of smiles and tears from worshiping our Lord? Would we rush out to erase them? What about the wrinkles in our lives? The scars born of a life of service and sacrifice unto Jesus? Would we seek to press, stretch or color over them? Should we consider the torn garment of our lives without Christ? When we are looking for an example of how we should "be" perhaps we now turn to Christ. When we are trying to compare ourselves to someone so we can own our worth, how about Jesus. Time to turn off the television and open the Bible. Jesus did not make a mistake when he made you. He made you with all the ability to develop into a life long follower of Him. He gave us purpose in and through Him. He gives meaning to all our insecurities and hangups. He leaves nothing to chance. He rewards us with joy and contentment with Him. I keep finding less and less that this world can do to distract me from my purpose. I think Jesus uses this process of our self-awareness to do a little nip and tuck of His own as He removes the obstacles of pride and ego from our pathways. Thanks God.