A Tribute to Our Servicemen

He was 65, I was 32, the year was 1982, we were up on his roof close to the finish of replacing his roof, having one of those father son moments when for a few very brief moments the son feels like he has finally arrived at adulthood, you know where father and son are finally communicating as equals.  I took the opportunity to ask my father something that had brewed in my mind for pretty close to 30 years, as I know as a young child going to church that the things that my father had experienced in war were still being worked through, but never shared as to what was going on in his brain.  At that moment I felt I had finally arrived the moment seemed so perfect that I might get an answer to my questions.

I popped the question.  Dad what was it way back when, in the early fifties that you were talking to the pastor about that bothered you so much about your experience in World War II?  I suddenly saw something that I never saw before, didn’t expect and certainly did not wish to cause.  The man who I had idolized , and still do, one of the toughest men I have ever known, broke down and started weeping.  What had I done?  Had I opened up a Pandora box that I should not have?  It only led to more questions that I would never receive answers to.

My father had been in the 82nd airborne, the band of brothers that we watch on the movies these days.  And I saw the bond that existed with these men that lasted until their demise.  What I really learned that day if anything is this.  War is hell.  Time will pass, but the memories the raping of our young serviceman’s minds by the atrocities that they are subjected to in the war will go on forever.

Yesterday at church, Joe, a man I have known since high school days, delivered a message to me that disturbed me greatly.  In the past week very close to home, four servicemen have ended their lives prematurely by suicide.  Think of it four men aged from 27 to the mid 40′s took their lives, because of the horror that was experienced at the cost of our country sending them into battle.  Who knows the real reason why?  Why did each of these men decide to end their lives?

Could it have been what they saw?  Could it have been what they lost?  Perhaps it was a marriage or relationship ended because of an extended absence.  The girlfriend or spouse that could not wait for the return of their lover.  We will never know on this earth, but whatever the reason, if it pushes a person over the edge even after leaving the war zone, they are still a casualty of the war, in my opinion.

I have witnessed in my lifetime, a disloyalty of our government to our servicemen.  I have seen where men came home from Vietnam and get cancer from being exposed to chemicals like agent orange, and our military medical facilities reject them for treatment, for non loyal reasons.  The most recent administration wanted them to pay for their own medical insurances, because after all they chose themselves to go to war.  How insane government has become.   We send our people off to get mutilated, whether it be physically, mentally or spiritually, then we try to divorce ourselves from them all in the name of money, cost and budget cuts.

We have imposed so many complications on our servicemen, that they almost have to read the rule book before they shoot the enemy, to avoid violating the rules of engagement, which are subject to change in each situation.  It is no wonder that atrocities happen in war, things that never should be, massacres that have happened, all in the name of restricting our men from doing their jobs by putting ridiculous rules on them.

I remember having a conversation with a friend who served in Vietnam.  They could be watching the enemy planting land mines in the road from a mountain top, but they were not allowed to fire upon them from their high position, they had to actually go down to the place where they saw this activity by the enemy happening, and by the time they got down there the ill intent of the enemy would be done and would be gone.  All caused by the rules of engagement.  I think the name “rules of engagement”, should be changed to “rules of stupidity” in some cases.  There are not rules with the enemy when we fight them, but there are always rules for our soldiers, because we must make sure the enemy is killed according to proper procedure.

It all seems so unfair, and when our servicemen do something by accident that is embarrassing to our leadership, it seems we want to bring charges up on the very people who are doing their job they were paid to do to defend us.  I have for many years now really wondered why anyone would want to serve our country and put up with the non loyal pathways our political leadership has taken us.

I just want our servicemen to know that I know many of us do not follow the political hot air that seems to blow around us.  I truly believe in and support our military troops.  I am glad that there are people among us that care enough to be concerned for our country in spite of the political dichotomies that happen.

My father always took pride in his military experience and rightfully so.  I would have followed suit, had I not been rejected because of an injury i carry in my body.  It seems so unfair that our military heroes have to be subject to such political inconsistencies.  It really causes me an uneasy stomach to see how many of our people treated our Vietnam servicemen upon their return from the that war.

To any of you that read this that served in the military, and experienced such treatment, this is one person that will stand up and apologize for our short-sighted people who demonstrated such.  This does not give merit to the war itself, as even 30 years later I really wonder about why we were at war in that country especially the way we were fighting it.  Which leads me to say this, that we need to let our generals fight the war as they were trained to do, and not tie their hands behind their back while doing it like politicians are so good at doing.  It almost seems like at times we want to defend our country, but we want our objectives to be accomplished by divine intervention of our servicemen.

To all that have served our country in the military forces, I would like to thank you this Memorial Day for your service and for putting your life at risk, no matter where you served.

Be of good cheer for we believe in God.

Blessings

David L. Moody

dldlmoody@msn.com

http://feedmysheepdotnet.wordpress./

Taking a Break, Hopefully Not to the Tijuana Jail

Sometimes the pathway leads to a point where we cannot continue to function for a few days.  Mine is not the exception as I am going to be away for a week or so.  Although I will be away from the keyboard during the next week, part of the time in Mexico, partly visiting my children and relatives, it isn’t without ministry involved.

First of all I will be helping my son move to Mexico as his life’s ministry seems to be down there, I don’t get to see my daughter that much any more and I will be spending a couple of days with her and renew my relationship with my 2 grand daughters and my grand son who just turned 1 in April.  The hard part of the trip will be spending a couple of days with my grieving cousins family who just had a son-in-law graduate to heaven.

I have never found rest and relaxation by simply laying in the son on some beach somewhere, as I have always found more satisfaction from doing ministry on a mission trip, or being with Gods people at a camp or retreat somewhere, but retreat is good to allow a refreshing of the mind and soul.

I have times when I feel like what I share is coming from me and not the Lord, and that is a good sign for a time of refreshing.  I love reading the word as I always get inspiration from that and also finding a good book which I have found one for the trip and I believe reading the first two chapters I am learning things I didn’t know before.  I will share those things with you on my return.  I may share some things about mid-week next week as I may be near WiFi by then and sometimes the Lord will give me a word that needs to be said.

I have been doing the blog for 10 months now, and when I started it I didn’t think that my words would get past the mountains that are around me, but I was totally ignorant of the power of the internet, and also the power of the Lord as since Feb 25th of this year I have had 1500 hits in over 35 countries.  I don’t share that to build up myself, I share it because it shows how ignorant that I am that God can use a handicapped fool like myself.  I have always maintained though that if God can use Balaams donkey, he can use me at times.

Mexico is a troubled country now (aren’t they all) as the drug cartel’s are creating havoc as we have been reading in the news.  I know that God watches out for His own, but I would be a liar if I didn’t say I don’t have a little bit of concern with my kids being down there and also driving alone as I will be doing a little bit of while I am there.  Just across the border if you have a fender bender and don’t have insurance, and your  All State doesn’t work down there, they put you in jail.  I am not sure that I want to get insurance for a 50 mile down and back trip, so I will be relying on God’s mercy and your prayers.

I make a small request from those reading this that if you think of it this next week please say a prayer as you never know what will come your way when making a trip like this.  I have found that a prophet is without honor in his own land, and I believe we all are the messengers of God, making us prophets at times and when we are out of our land, our home base I believe that our switch that turns on the prophesy part of us is activated.  You never know when you will bump into that person in need of the Lords grace in his life.

Vacation is really not a part of my vocabulary any more, but moving in Gods will is and I believe the next few days will be moving in God’s will as most of what I will be doing is ministry.  There are those who only you have contact with and they respect you, because of your testimony and your commitment.  The old friend you’ve known for years, the relative you’ve known forever and they all regard you for your commitment to the Lord.  Just the renewing of the relationship, the sharing of what God has done and is doing in your life, has ministry to other people.

I know that with some of my family, my son’s commitment to ministry and not making money and building his financial security like some of us get caught up into doing, causes them to sit back and scratch their head a bit in wonder at times.  And if you are like me, the past few years have taught me just how secure those financial nest eggs are that we have accumulated.  Nothing is for sure.

I know that if I did have some adversities happen in Mexico, it would be of the Lord, and you can be assured that the Lord would be shared with someone because of it.  So if your prayers don’t work for me, you can like the old Kingston Trio use to sing “Send My Mail to the Tijuana Jail”.  If you have ever been exposed to a jail in Mexico, it is some place that isn’t really all that funny.

Be back in a week or so.

Be of good cheer for we believe in God.

Blessings

David L. Moody

dldlmoody@msn.com

http://feedmysheepdotnet.wordpress./

Adversity, Retreat, Rest and Relief

I was talking with a neighbor the other day, and we were talking about sibling rivalries.  I find it interesting that usually around the time of the passing of a parent, the surfacing of these types of rivalries spring up.  Why?  I believe there are a number of reasons.

First of all it is usually an extremely stressful time.  Usually the demands of taking care of our family, providing for our children, the demands of our job and other issues in our lives are further complicated because of the needs of the person who will soon pass this earth.  We may feel like, “am I the only one that can do anything?”  And we start wondering why someone else isn’t doing more than you are doing to help the parent in their time of need.

Then after the passing there is the time of distribution of the stuff the parent left behind.  A lot of times the stuff is old the value is not that great except for nostalgic purposes.  Sometimes there is a piece of furniture or a set, or something that is a real collectors item and there are a number of people in the family that want the items and the problem is finding the proper method of distribution.

From my limited research on the subject, I have found very few situations where the family works through these problems without someone getting their feelings tweaked.  My neighbor was sharing that she had 4 brothers and a sister that shunned her from family events for five years, and she didn’t even know why.  The one sister got offended at her for some unknown reason and turned the other four brothers against here for five long years and she was not invited to family functions.

This can be very hurtful in people and of course we analyze what behavior we might have done that caused the infraction, and many times we may fail in our analyzing the situation.  The problem is that the truth as we see it may not be the truth that the other person see’s.  They may be so wrapped up in their problems, they don’t see the total picture with you as they may think you have it all together and live in la la land like Camelot, as many of us may portray.  They don’t know about the doctor visit you just had, or the business that is having problems and the personal relationships that are going south around you and the many problems that are cropping up in your life and you just have to learn to deal with.

In the situation of my neighbor after about 5 years the relations started to improve, and upon asking her brothers and sister what it was that got everyone up in a huff about, nobody knew, not one person could tell her why they had been so cruel to her.

When I was a young boy ages 1 to 9 I grew up in what was the outskirts of Portland Oregon.  My parents had a couple of acres and it was run like a small farm as we would have a steer on the place, a few chickens and a couple of pigs at times.  There were times when the field next to our house would not be used and the neighbor kids would use it to play football.  I always loved football and would try to play with these older kids and I would end up getting hurt and go home crying to my mother, and she would say “well if your going to get hurt don’t play with those kids!”  It wasn’t the response that I desired, as I was looking for sympathy, and for my mom to fix the problem, when all the time what I needed to learn was I wasn’t in the league of the kids I was playing with.  I needed to withdraw from the game and grow up a bit, gain some size and play with kids my own age.

What I learned from this is to withdraw from conflict.  When it hurts, don’t subject yourself the hurt, withdraw from the thing that is causing the confusion, contradiction we don’t understand and the pain we are feeling.  When growing up, we had this gas heater in the floor of our house.  Back then people were not as educated to insulation, energy conservation and safety.  There was a grill in the floor of the house that would get almost red-hot, it is a wonder the house didn’t burn down, but all three of us kids growing up got our legs branded by crawling across that hot grill in the floor.  I had scars on my legs I could see up into my teenage years from that grill.  Finally when my younger sister got branded on that grill, my parents got one of those gates to the hallway so my sister who came along later in life and wasn’t expected, finally got the house prepared for her arrival.  Safety was not as big an issue back in those days, but the gate the barrier was to provide protection for the child, as the parent could not have their eyes on the child every minute of every day.

Withdrawal and building a gate of protection is OK, and is very wise in many cases.  Many have been the wars were the battle started being lost and the General should have withdrew his troops prior to the massacre that would happen.

We find in the gospels that often Jesus would retreat from the people and find a quite place to pray.  A time to retreat, rest and regroup and refresh Himself for what was to come.  Way too often, when I should have retreated, rested up and refreshed myself, I would push myself to the point something would happen, I would have an accident and be forced to rest and retreat because I had an injury that needed repair because of my neglectful ways.

Once I was remodeling a small house that I had, in the middle of repairing a roof, in my haste I came very close to cutting off my thumb with skill saw in a freak accident.  I would have been much better off had I taken the night off, rested and taken up the project the next day in a better frame of mind.  Many were the lessons of my ignorant youth.

In the case of our passing loved ones, we cannot always retreat like we should and the stress can be pretty extreme.  Sometimes we have to dig deep, go the extra mile and keep on task until the task is complete.  Often the love and appreciation that we have for the loved ones is what takes over and carries us through the task.  My dear wife, who provided most of the car for my mother in her days of declining in health, on top of working full-time, I asked her why she did it?  She said to me because my mother became the mother she didn’t have.  Oh she had a mother all right, but her mother was impaired some how.  She seemed OK as a person, but when it came to relationships with her spouse and children, she was damaged goods and no one really knows why, if there is an answer.

Whether it be our personal relationships, our stressful situations we get into, or like me the unrealistic goals I set for myself and we work ourselves into a tizzy trying to make things perfect.  We can neglect what is really more important and that is taking retreat, time for ourselves to regroup, time to refresh and time with the Lord.  When time is taken to regroup with the Lord, it seems everything else will work out.  And for those who are dealing with situations that we cannot retreat from seemingly, sometimes we can dig deep into our courage and love and find help, and sometimes it is Gods grace that get us through.

Once when I was in the Valley of Elah, with a number of giants I was fighting, I had a close friend who was praying for me and after I passed through that valley, a few years later I stopped and took a look back at that time, and I wondered, “how did I ever get through that time?”  I looked at my tracks in the sand then and saw two sets of tracks and then there was one.  At first I though Lord did you leave me during that time?  Then I took a closer look, and I saw that the single set of prints, was not my shoe size, and the tracks were deeper in the sand, it wasn’t my tracks at all and the load got heavier on the set that was there.  The tracks were my Lord’s, and my tracks disappeared because He was carrying me.

It is good to share our problems and concerns with other trusted friends.  Sometimes it makes all the difference in the world in the load that is on our shoulders.  Pray for one another that you may be healed, and He is coming for us soon, we can almost hear his footsteps.

Be of good cheer for we believe in God.

Blessings

David L. Moody

dldlmoody@msn.com

http://feedmysheepdotnet.wordpress./

Nice Guys Finish First

In my late 20′s, while I was in the prime of my empire building days, I had a friend of mine say to me “nice guys finish last”.  Now what he was saying in essence was that if you were nice to all people in all situations, you’re going to finish last.  It has now been over 30 years since that man said those words to me.  I have been able to observe his life from a distance.  This man was raised in a Christian household, but decided he would rather compromise and finish first than not compromise and finish what he thought would be last.

I have known this man since I was about 13 years of age, my first experience with this man doing business was when I was 18, when I bought a car tape deck from him and he helped me install it.  After we got it installed and the transaction was done, the told me he stole it from himself.  He had reported it being stolen and turned it into his insurance company to be reimbursed.  I had no knowledge of this until after the fact, but that memory lodged in my brain forever.

As this man’s life progressed, he had several son’s.  I ended up working with this man later in life, and when he started his family, I had a real fear come over me for him because I knew he knew better in life about his relationship with God than to live in compromise.  I have witnessed to him a number of times, and have been told by him that he knew it was the right way, but he just enjoyed the life that he was living too much.  The fear that came over me was for the life of his son’s, and the fear happened around 15 years before the accident happened, and the accident took his son’s life.  I don’t know why the Lord let me have that fear so many years before it happened, but I have learned something since then that I didn’t totally understand then.

What I didn’t understand then was that “the wages of sin is death”.  When we live in compromise, we are going to experience death in some shape or form.  It may be the death of a loved one, it may be the death of a marriage, or several marriages, it may be the death of our dreams in life, but I can tell you for sure with almost 100% accuracy that death of something very precious to you will happen, when one compromises.

I don’t take God lightly, and I have spent a good portion of my life having a very healthy fear of the wrath of God.  It might be because I lived very closely to the edge of the line with compromise.  I believe that an accident that happened to me when I was 12 years old kept me close to the fear of God and trusting in Him for my everything,  my health, my wealth and my future.  It caused me to bond with Him at a very early age.

You see because of some things that I have observed in life, God has reinforced the idea that you don’t mess with God and get away from it.  I tell you the following story reluctantly, but I share it because it is the 100 percent truth, and I feel someone needs to hear it.

The first day I started dating my wife I went to her house to see her and her mother opened the door when I got to the house.  I knew the minute she opened the door that she didn’t like me, which proved later to be true.  Situations went from bad to worse between us and as my wife and I had a two-year courtship, there was plenty of time for pre mother-in-law experience to happen.  My bride to be was a Christian and my mother-in-law to be was not.  I know very little about her life, but I know that she was in full control of what she wanted in life, and I did not fit into her picture.  She had been married twice unsuccessfully both times and it wasn’t because of the men she married, it was because of her unrealized expectations.

She accepted the Lord at some point during my courtship with her daughter, but she did it quite frivolously.  Not with a lot of meaning, sort of like joining a club that you like but don’t want to get too involved with.   I believe, when you accept Jesus into your life, and you are not totally committed to the decision, Jesus is totally committed to you.  He doesn’t take coming into your life lightly, and I believe and have seen people who accept the Lord this way and it can be very dangerous.

My mother-in-law worked in a bank, and a man, a customer of the bank started warming up to her.  This man was an ex-convict, and he had learned how to use women.  He would warm up to them and weasel his way into their lives and then create a living hell for the woman if she didn’t give him what he wanted.  He would threaten her with anything that he could, and he was even threatening to do harm to my family unbeknown to me if she didn’t do what he wanted.  This went on for a number of years, and even though he was a former convict he had a gun, and one time when he held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her, she spent the night outside in the cold fleeing from his abuse and threats.  After about 5 years of this abuse as this man had taken her money, imposed on the whole family and was on the verge of taking her very sanity.  Some how she was able to get away from him.  He would still come around uninvited.

This man relocated over to a Oregon/Idaho border town.  I later learned that this man was a child of an incest.  He was the child of his grandfather and mother and I don’t know it that is what made him on the crazy side, but the possibility of demon possession is also likely as he said he heard voices in his head.  This man ended up getting cancer and in a dispute with his neighbor over a horse being abused, he somehow entered this neighbors house and the neighbor called the police.  This man knew it was a sure trip back to prison, so on his exit from the house he had a gun in his hand.  He sat down on the porch like he was thinking it over, then he pointed the gun at the police and they blew him away.  He had city, county and state bullets in him from the autopsy.

After this was all over my mother-in-law had a nervous break down, and rightfully so, but upon healing from the breakdown I was able to share with her and lead her to the Lord.  I was able to help her find answers to her insecurities and understanding of the Bible.  Our relationship changed drastically.

I truly believe God allowed this adversity to come upon her to correct her erroneous ways.  You may say “ah, come on Dave, you believe that a loving God will send adversity our way”, and my answer to this is a most definite “YES!”  I truly have come to the conclusion that you don’t mess with God.  We cannot pull the wool over His eyes like we do the World.  He sent an accident my way 50 years ago that has caused a lifetime of pain in me and affected my whole life.  Why?  Because He loved me enough and cared enough about me that he could see 50 years down the road to me even writing this blog.

I have seen what sin does in the world, and although it might look like “nice guys finish last” at times on this earth, I assure you that they finish first in the end.

Be of good cheer for we believe in God.

Blessings

David L. Moody

dldlmoody@msn.com

http://feedmysheepdotnet.wordpress./

I Forgive You But, A Lesson In Dying

In the year 2000,  my father was dying, I was sick and I had more problems going on in my life than you can shake a stick at, so to speak.  Along with that our family relations, all stressed out with big issues going on in our lives, blew up.  That phone call that was made that pushed someone over the edge and irreparable damage that is done.  The family all take sides, someone gets alienated.  Separation happens and unforgiveness flows.

With time repair is in the desires, but just how to do it and save face is the problem.  In my case, I seemingly have the ability with my words to slice people up like lunch meat if I am not very careful.  I have come to learn that with my words I can be a very dangerous person, just like Peter with a sword when the lynching party came for Jesus, I can slice off ears, cut off limbs and cripple people with my words.  I knew this because I had caused so much damage from my use of my ability to come to the point abruptly and twist the sword after puncturing the other persons abdominal cavity verbally.  Because of my ignorant use of my weaponry, I learned to bounce things off my wife who politically, I believe is a genius.  She see’s things in a way that is so foreign to me, but I have been learning from her for over 40 years now.

I wanted to repair relations that were damaged, and the only way I knew how to do this was to use my arsenal of weaponry to communicate my thoughts on paper so to speak.  I would write a letter, and let my wife read it and she would say, “no don’t send it”.  I would rewrite the letter and bounce it off my wife again, and she would say “no you’re not ready to send it yet” and I would question why?

You see when relationships are repaired, somebody has to die.  If you go to somebody and say “I forgive you, but…”, you’re not dead yet.  You have to get to the point where you say flatly “I forgive you” and have no conditions to it.  When you are dead there is no longer any fight in you and you are flat-out dead.  A dead man does nothing.  He cannot make conditions, he cannot make contracts, he cannot enforce his desires as he is dead.

When Jesus was on the cross, He didn’t say “Father forgive them, but you know they are going to let You down?”  He didn’t say Father “forgive them, but You know they are just going out and going to commit adultery, fornication, theft, murder and …” as the list goes on.  Jesus died to Himself and was the supreme example of what we should be doing in our list of abominations that we have committed.

I don’t know how many letters I wrote, but thanks to my precious wife over a period of several years, I finally came to a point where I learned how to die.  You will never learn how to forgive until you learn how to die.  If ever there was a quote that was a legacy of my life, it was learning that principle in my life.  I will go on to say, you will never learn really how to love also until you learn how to die, because dying is the ultimate price for demonstrating love.

John 15:13, says “Greater love has no one than this, than one lay down his life for his friends.”

We all want to practice perfect Christianity.  Do you want to be the most successful Christian in your circle, then learn this principle.   Is there anybody you can think of in your life that you have ill feelings for that you have not forgiven?  When you think of that person do you think, “I forgive him, but”, then he is probably not forgiven totally.  Now the only exception I can see to this is if the guy is like a serial killer and you say “I forgive him, but I’m not going to go around him, because he is dangerous”.  We don’t have to subject ourselves to avoidable abuse, as I know that some situations we need to protect ourselves from the other person, and that is ok, but we need to get to the point where we don’t use the “but” word in forgiving people.

I have to report to you that there is a serial killer on the loose in our area.  I had 17 chickens, which is down to 15 now because one of my chickens is abusing and trying to kill the other chickens.  My keen homicide investigation skills have narrowed down the potential  suspects to one chicken that thinks she is the head cluck.  I have detained her and I have made separation from the flock, and I forgive her but I cannot let her remain with the flock because she is a danger to the rest of the chickens.  I tried removing the first victim, but that didn’t work as the killer found another weaker victim to practice her vengeful skills on, and I know now that the dangerous chicken needs to be removed.  The problem is that if I don’t take care of the problem that these vengeful practices are taken on by the other chickens.  Get the point?  Forgiveness doesn’t mean subjecting yourself to danger it means purging the evil that resides within, make a separation, and if necessary purge yourself from that evil if necessary by having chicken and dumplings.

In the process of taking care of this problem, I cannot help but wonder if I, the keeper of the flock, have failed the flock?  You ask me how could that be?  You see the Bible says “As ye are going into all the World, preach the gospel to every creature.”  DLM paraphrase.  You see, I have neglected to preach the gospel to my flock, and perhaps I could have avoided the problem had I been more in tune with the word.  Know what I mean?  When the flock is not in tune with the word, the flock tends to stray.

Be of good cheer for we believe in God.

Blessings

David L. Moody

dldlmoody@msn.com

http://feedmysheepdotnet.wordpress./

The Phone Call You Never Want To Get

Yesterday as I was going about my business, I left the store I was at and on my way home I saw I had gotten a phone call from my cousin in Southern California.  I was driving at the time and I couldn’t return the call until I got home, but I knew.  I knew what he was going to say.  I didn’t want to make that call back, as it was going to be too painful, but I knew and I had to return that phone call.

My cousins son-in-law a 37-year-old young man in the prime of life with a beautiful wife and two small boys had lost the fight with a brain tumor, and had been called home.  I always feel entirely different when I know that like ripe fruit, some old saint has been plucked by the Lord and taken home, I am in essence really glad for them, as I have often said that at my funeral don’t weep for me, I want a blue grass band and want it to be a joyous occasion, because I know where I am going and I want people to celebrate the occasion.

But in this case it is a young wife you lost the love of her life, and two young boys that lost their father.  I don’t really mourn for Darrell who passed, because he is in heaven, but I feel the pain that will never go away in my cousin, in his daughter and the two boys who have been robbed by their father’s death.

They were the picture perfect family, the wife was a former model had her picture was on products you would buy at Wall-Mart.  Darrell was a contractor, and doing quite well.  He worked out in the gym and could bench-press around 400 pounds.  He loved his children and it was evidenced by a hundred or so foot long slide he built that emptied into their pool, and they loved to camp and ride their quads in the sand dunes together.

Now suddenly the family is cut short of the children and marriage maturing to the kids adulthood.  Now there are a lot of big unknowns.  What will happen to the family?  What about the house?  What about their future?  We all have these concerns at times, but things usually have a way of turning out.

We ask why did this have to happen this way?  We will probably never know on this earth.  As I check their Facebook address, I see tons of people expressing their sympathy.  Perhaps the young man who went to heaven in a very courageous way, not complaining but praising his savior, perhaps he touched a life, or many lives.  Perhaps he was able to push someone over the hump that brings them to Christ, or minister to another cancer patient, or it could also be the doctor, or doctors or doctors and nurses that worked with him.  Like I said you never know.

In 1984, I spent 3 weeks in that hospital from being hit by a car on a bicycle.  I have always taken a bold stand for Christ, and Jesus gave me the courage to stand boldly for him in my time of tribulation.  I don’t remember what I said or what I did, all I know is that I didn’t let the accident drag me down, and I had my Bible right next to me on the table with wheels on it.  I was going to have a pretty major surgery the next day and after laying in the hospital bed for a week waiting for my special order hip prosthesis to come in, I had got to know the nurses that were waiting on me.  One of the nurses came into the room, shut the door and sat down beside me, which was a bit shocking to me as you usually didn’t see this in their behavior.  I barely remember what we talked about, but I shared Jesus with her as she wanted to talk about the Lord.  I don’t know what came of that conversation, I wouldn’t even remember the lady if I were to bump into her on the street after all of these years.  All I know is that Gods power flowed through me for a few minutes while I talked with her.  I may never know the results until heaven.

I didn’t know Darrell all that well as I only saw him a few times and spent little time talking with him.  But I do know that Darrell has touched lives from the adversity that he has been through and how he dealt with it.  He at one point had excruciating headaches because of fluids on the brain which required surgery to fix.  And his wife said that through it all she never heard a complaint.

It isn’t the good times in our lives that are going to minister to people and show them how great our God really is.  It is how we deal with adversity that ministers to people.  I once cut my big toe, sliced it right down the middle of the bottom tough part where the callous forms.  I cut it at the beach and having no shoes I had to walk through the sand and dirt with it cut open back to the car and went to a hospital in San Francisco.  At the hospital the orderly gave me a sponge and some warm soapy water to clean it up, but with only two hands to be able to pull the wound apart and then wash it out is a near impossible task.  Finally when they were ready to work on me the orderly came took my toe split it apart and wiped out the wound while I was biting my tongue in pain.  Then he tried several times unsuccessfully to shoot Novocaine into my tough calloused toe when finally I said why don’t you just sew it up without the Novocaine, which he did without anything to kill the pain.

The whole time this was happening there was a black man with an injured finger sitting next to me and they were going to have to remove his fingernail.  When they got done working on me as I was getting ready to leave, I heard this black man say “I hope I can deal with the pain the way that guy did?”

We never know who around us is going to be influenced by what we are going through.  Yes I mourn the passing of Darrell.  I feel for his wife and family, as they are going through great pain right now.  I don’t know why God didn’t intervene and heal him as there were lots of prayers going up for him?  But I do know one thing for sure and I have full confidence in this.  Darrell was a Christian.  We will see him again if we are saved.  And I know that “All things work together for good”, because the Bible says so.  How can dying be good?  If even one soul is saved from hell because of Darrell’s passing, it was a good thing.  Only God knows the reasons right now, but I believe five years from now should God tarry that long we will be able to look back and see more of the reason and the good that came from the situation.

Be of good cheer for we believe in God.

Blessings

David L. Moody

dldlmoody@msn.com

http://feedmysheepdotnet.wordpress./

Reconciliation and the Blood

I spent 30 years of my career doing accounting for corporate business’s, and the one word that I can describe all of those years of work would be reconciliation.  The definition of reconciliation is the act of being reconciled, or the process of making consistent or compatible.

One of my first jobs in working in corporate America was reconciling the bank statements for a company that would have up to 1000 employes at times because of the seasonal nature of the business.  So here I was, a newly graduated college student, being sat down at a desk, with these piles of checks that would be 6 to 8 inches thick or more, and trying to make the bank statement agree with the book balance.  I knew how to reconcile a bank statement, but the most I had ever had to do was about 25 checks a month, but in a large business back then there were thousands of checks, and to be confronted with such was a bit overwhelming.  So one by one each check had to be put in numerical order, keep track of the outstanding checks, and sometimes after getting the checks in order, I would have to go through them all 2 or three times to validate my numbers.  There were also little idiosyncrasies that I would have to work around as the payroll clerk would do something out of the ordinary and I would be looking for a certain amount I was out of balance for and after a lot of hours of searching for it would bounce it off of her and then she would remember something she did that was done differently and would account for the difference in the balances.  That was just a small corporation, and I am sure that some companies have millions of checks to reconcile, and what a big job that would be.

There are lots of reconcilements that we have to do in our life time.  There is reconcilement in relationships with friends, with spouses, with parents and family members.  Sometimes there are some missing checks that keep the relationship from being reconciled.

I once worked for a company and the accounting office was not securely locked up in my absence.  An employee that worked for us and had a criminal record of embezzlement snuck into my office when I was gone and took some checks out of the middle of the pile, and when I was reconciling the statement for the month, I found a check that looked very suspicious and I knew I hadn’t written it.

This employee didn’t have a driver’s license, and forged a check, rode into the bank on a bicycle to a  drive up window and cashed a $4200 check on Friday after 5 o’clock so the teller couldn’t call and verify the transaction because the office was closed.  You don’t think that this caused a little adrenaline surge in me, as I was responsible for the accounting, and not knowing how the owner would deal with it.  Well you really cannot blame the accountant, if the owner doesn’t provide proper security measures in the facility so the accounting department can be locked up.  The outcome of the whole deal was that the bank should never have cashed the check, we got our money back, and the man who embezzled got a rent free room for about 6 months in the county jail, and I am sure with color television.  Also, I am sure someone lost their job over this incident at the bank.

Second Corinthians 5:20 says “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”  There is a reconciliation that all of us will have to make and it is with the Creator of the Universe.  Over the course of a lifetime, we can compile a lot of bad checks so to speak.  Mistakes we made, people we hurt, not living up to expectations and just willful sinning, for which we need atonement.  What is atonement?  It is making repair of the damage that is done.  In Luke 19, Zacchaeus, a tax collector who extorted money from those he collected from offered to repay four times what he had taken.  That was the law, if you robbed a bank and took four million dollars, you had t pay back 16 million.  As you see the laws of math make the debt to repay a huge amount, and it would be impossible  in a lot of cases.

We all owe a debt, some of us big time some smaller.  And I am so glad that as far as banks are concerned, all I maybe robbed was a few bucks from the piggy bank, but then it was my own money.  I look at my wife, and although she may not be perfect, she is pretty close, especially when compared to me.  If anger, bitterness, hard feelings were converted to a monetary amount, I may not break Chase Manhattan, but I might a local credit union.  How do you pay pack four times what you have taken?  You can’t.  It is only by the grace of God that we are forgiven and reconcile with God through the blood of Jesus Christ.

There was a song back in the 70′s by Walt Mills, that mentions something to the effect that all of our good works wouldn’t match up to one single drop of blood that Jesus shed for us.  When you think about all the people who His blood covers and prorate the approximate 5 or 6 quarts of blood our bodies retain to all the people who have existed in the World, it doesn’t take much of our saviors blood to save us, but because of how much in demand it is, gives it such tremendous value.  (A little economics lesson)  The blood of Jesus is the most valuable commodity that has ever existed, because it is the only thing that causes reconciliation between us and our God.

I only wish that in the case of man kind that we could prick our finger and draw a little bit of blood, and have it reconcile man’s differences.  Need reconciliation in your life, take of the body, and the blood and turn it over to Jesus as He is the only one that can reconcile the hard case’s.

Be of good cheer for we believe in God.

Blessings

David L. Moody

dldlmoody@msn.com

http://feedmysheepdotnet.wordpress./