Oh, Those Thorny Roses!

                    Roses grow.  They grow with very little care given to them.  They grow without special treatment to the soil and in adverse conditions.  And they are some of the most sought after of all flowers.  Indeed, when one wants to show their love and appreciation, the gift given is likely to be roses.  Furthermore, although red is the most popular, roses come in many colors and styles to suit just as many varied occasions and purposes.  What makes this so?
                    Of all the lessons life holds, diversity within unity is perhaps the most important, and the most beautiful.  Diversity happens whether we like it or not.  However, unity is the acceptance of the thorns among the very stems that give diversity life.  One cannot appreciate the rose without feeling the thorns.  Once this is accepted, true love of the beauty can be drunk in, filling the soul with joy.
                    There is, among any and all, a greater gift which defines the individual.  Along with that gift comes rough edges that must be honed to a sharpness that brings out the beauty of the gift.  Accept the rough edges, glory in them.  For, without them, the gift would not be.  Embrace your own gift without looking to find it in others.  Instead, while refining that which you have, encourage others to do the same with their gift.  With this, unity is not only possible, but probable.  We take the bunch of roses, with its many varieties, carefully avoiding the thorns, and present them in all of their God-given beauty.

Does God Really Change People?

                I was twenty-four years old with a three-year-old son who’s mother was doing everything she could to keep me from seeing him.  His mother was my second wife.  The first one was supposed to pick me up at the hospital when I was being discharged after a seven month stay.  She didn’t show because she had run off to Mexico with a friend of mine.  On the rebound I met my second wife.  She was trying to get off drugs and was leaving her two daughters with family until she succeeded.  We started living together with the goal to bring her daughters back to their mother.  Shortly after the birth of my son we went to Reno and got married so we could continue to get welfare money for me and the baby.  A little over a year later she decided I was in the way when she wanted to bring guys home from the bars.  So, she kicked me out and filed for divorce.  I was devastated!  We had been together for three years.  I was a father to two beautiful daughters, one of which was an illegitimate child who had never known any other father, and a son who was the apple of my eye.  I was being denied fatherhood rights to the girls and would have been denied the same rights for my son if not for the courts.

                My lifelong dream of having a family had been stripped from me.  I became bitter and started acting out.  Women became useful for one thing and I sought out as many as I could find for that one thing wanting nothing else.  That is, until I met a young girl who looked past the bitterness and fell in love with me.  After a short time of dating Una informed me that if I was going to continue to date her I would have to give up the other women.  I agreed to her demands.  In due time she asked me to marry her.  I was still bitter, but I thought to myself, “Sure.  Why not?  What’s another divorce?”  As we made plans for marriage she told me that she wanted nothing to do with any church because they were all fanatics.  I quickly agreed because I felt the same way.  Three days after Una turned sixteen, her mother, my dad and his family, along with my eighty-three year old aunt, took a drive to Carson City, Nevada.  We were married at a cute little chapel.  I had no hope that this would be any different than the other two marriages.  However, being married made life easier than being single and seeking out dates.  I felt no real sense of commitment and I am sure that if something dramatic didn’t happen that I would hurt Una, and that it would be ruthless.  I think that I would have taken all the frustration from the others out on her.

                About a year after we were married, having a small baby daughter who was born about nine months after we had exchanged vows, I met up with a young man who was destined to help lead us to Christ.  Not long after Warren and Alice Bennett came into our lives Una asked me why I never tried to get even with people.  I thought about it and told her that I think it has to do with a lesson I had learned as a child.  My family had gone to a little church for about six years.  The one thing I took from that tenure was the golden rule, do unto others what you would have them do to you.  I told Una that I had always tried to live by that rule.  She said that she hoped our children would be like that.  I said that if we would raise them in a church they probably would.  So, we started going to church.  It wasn’t long before I was faced with a decision.  I knew that if I chose to accept Jesus my life would never be the same and that there would be no turning back.  It was scary.  When I committed my life to Christ I committed myself to Una.  I was transformed in some ways almost immediately.  However, the complete transformation is a lifelong process.  What happened quickly was a new attitude toward life.  I gained a new perspective and my wife gained a new man.  God had changed me.  He had done what nothing else could do.  Until I turned it over to Him I could only accept failure.  Everything in my life had failed and that was all I knew.  I had been counseled by secular counselors, had read self-help books, taken well-meaning advice.  Nothing had worked until God took over.  Since then my life has been a wonderful series of successes.  Una and I have been happily married for thirty-six years.  We raised two fantastic daughters who are now living legacies to what God has accomplished in our lives.  I have enjoyed three successful careers and earned three college degrees, as well as, completing a three-year ministerial program.  Success is a normal function of my life now that God has changed me.  He continues to work through me.  I am now proudly witnessing His transforming power at work in my son’s life.  He has given Rodney five years of a new life free from drug addiction and is providing new and exciting opportunities for him in the church and in his personal life.  Can God change lives?  What do you think?

Is There Room in the Kingdom for a Murderer?

                I met a man yesterday who has spent a large part of his life in prison.  At fifty-one he is just beginning to experience a life in the real world.  He has been a heroin addict most of his life.  Having been clean now for about a year and a half he is starting to come to terms with God.  In his younger days he and a partner started robbing drug dealers.  One of these robberies went bad and he ended up killing two of the dealers and kidnaping seven other people.  The judge told him that he showed no remorse.  His response was why should he for a couple of drug addicts.  The judge reminded him that he too was a drug addict.  Over his turbulent life he has been married five times and is now living alone.  He tells me that growing up he was pulled by two different religions, Nazarene and Pentecostal.  This left him confused about church.  He was left-handed and his mother, a clinical psychologist, sought to cure him of his left-handedness.  The institution she committed him to used strategies that broke him and forced him to become right-handed.  I really doubt that this had much to do with his troubled life, but I can assure you that it didn’t help.  His father has never given up on him.  A couple of years ago his dad found out that he had been homeless for over a year and a half.  He brought his son home, gave him a mobile home and small pick-up truck.  Shortly after this his father had a heart attack.  If it wasn’t for this son providing CPR he would be dead.  This young man tells me that he owes his life to his father.  I feel blessed that God has placed me in his life and I pray that I can have a redeeming effect on him.  At this point, he believes in God, but he wants nothing to do with church.  He finds that at times he is angry with God and he has no compunction in letting Him know that he is angry.  Can a man begin life at fifty-one?  I believe it can be done and I pray that it is this young man’s experience.  Redemption comes through the cross.  The same Messiah who gave Himself for me, gave Himself for this man.  God can and will use him to do powerful work in His kingdom if His Holy Spirit will enter his heart and bring acceptance of the salvation offered.  Do you believe this?  I do.

Having Done Evil

            Having done evil, what keeps one from doing more?  The answer for many is quite simple – nothing.  The pleasure derived from the evil is enticing enough to draw them back to that simple pleasure.  Thus, the evil is repeated and often with greater zeal.  This is especially true where there are no consequences or the consequence is minimal.  Unfortunately, consequence is often believed to occur only if one is found out.  For this one, there is no cost for the evil done.  This conscienceless individual cares nothing if another is hurt by the evil done.  In fact, it is this hurt that is often the object of the evil perpetuated.  So, the evil continues, dragging the one caught up in it done to an abyss so full of darkness sight is impossible, life becomes death, and self is no more.  At this state all individuality is given over to the Prince of Darkness and hope is no more.  Which brings us back to the original question.

                Having done evil, what keeps one from doing more?  All are born with an innate conscience.  This conscience is somewhat of a nag.  It is always there to remind us that the cost of doing evil is very high, the consequences can be eternal.  Most of us want more from life than to be given to darkness.  This doesn’t mean that there is no pleasure in evil.  It simply means that the price for the pleasure is too much.  I once tried mescaline, a very powerful illegal hallucinogenic.  It scared me.  Not because it was scary in and of itself.  It frightened me because I liked it and I knew that if I gave myself to its enticement that I would only live for the pleasure it could bring, even though that pleasure was not based in reality.  I wanted more from life, so I never took it again.  I’m not saying that is the only reason people run from evil, but it is a powerful reason.  By our striving to not do evil again we find that life has more to offer.  Life offers more for less than evil does.  There is no abyss when one is given to doing that which is good.  Instead of sinking into darkness, one is transported into light.  Carried to its extreme, goodness introduces us to heavenly treasure.  We find a God who offers gifts that exceed what evil can give to an infinitesimal degree!  Sight is deepened, life becomes eternal, and hope soars.

            We are human and we err.  The question is not whether or not we do evil.  We will do evil, without question.  Thus, having done evil, what keeps one from doing more?  Choose to do no more.  Choose life.