Seasons Church

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 18:38:01 GMT

In Preparation for 2023

There is no time to develop a thought anymore. People simply will not sit still long enough to allow it.

I recall years ago a leader in a church I pastored having called out some devotional writing for taking too long to read. So, I went to the article of which he had complained, took out my stopwatch, and timed myself reading it in a somewhat leisurely manner. It took about 3 minutes to read.

We are not responsible for slowing down the pace at which others run their own race, but we are responsible for our own velocity when it comes to taking in the things of God.

For example, take these two very familiar Scriptures and really s-l-o-w down as you read them:

Matthew 5:45b ESV For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Matthew 7:1-2 ESV “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”

Do you see in the first verse that you cannot tell whether or not a man is good or evil by what kind of corn crop he has this year? And in the second verse do you additionally see that you therefore better not judge him according to that corn crop?

See how simple life gets when we slow down to read?

Wait. What?

Well, we just said that you and I cannot, BETTER NOT, judge a person by their external blessings . It was simple, right?

If you see one Believer in a $50,000 truck park next to a 15-year-old beat up car in the church parking lot, we just read in Scripture that we have NO IDEA from looking at their vehicles which one of them is more pleasing to God.

If we see a megachurch with 10,000 people and a budget of millions and a little country church on the edge of town that struggles to keep the lights on, by those criteria alone, we have no idea which one has done the best at serving God.

If you see a Believer whose life has been pretty free of hardship next to a Believer whose life has been similar to Job’s, don’t dare judge which one has pleased God best!

I have told of how God spoke to me several years ago and said in part: “ I am going to place you in difficult situations for the rest of your life, in storms and whirlwinds where you will have to be willing to be humiliated and wait until the last second for me to respond..”

A hard Word to be sure, not one to be coveted by one’s friends. And yet, it has become a comfort to me, a defining Word in the worst of times that prevents me from comparing my tribulation to someone else’s apparent peace and prosperity.

In order to be people of God’s Kingdom, we must allow Him to redefine “blessings.”

Our greatest time of blessing can turn out to be during the time when our faith is challenged to the very core, when we question all we thought we knew about Him and are SHAKEN, WRECKED BEYOND RECOGNITION…

He had been making us into something wonderful and we broke it. We shattered our lives, our faith into so many unrecognizable pieces that it seemed there was nothing left of US.

And then…God begins to build us back, piece by piece, lovingly, skillfully, on His Potter’s wheel, until we are the person He always envisioned us to be when He knew us in our mother’s womb.

Yes absolutely, there are times when we need the blessing of a new computer or a house or a car or such. But if that is as far as we can see, if we can only see materially and not spiritually …It is the “ wounds of a Friend that are faithful ” but the kisses (blessings) that sometimes come that prove to be deceitful because they have come from an enemy. (Paraphrase from Proverbs 27:6 )

It is the wounds-that-God-allows-that-turn-out-to be-the-blessings . And if we are not CAREFUL, the things we thought were the BLESSINGS, the things we CHASED until our tongues hung out, turned out to not be the blessings we thought they were…They were the deceitful kisses of an enemy.

God is moving you into a place where you never mistake his current release of what we usually categorize as blessings (or lack thereof) toward you for the indicator of His love for you.

This is just a reminder, as we prepare our hearts, minds, and bodies for a new year: “ Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. ” John 7:24 (ESV)

Or said another way: “ Do not judge by appearance [superficially and arrogantly], but judge fairly and righteously . ” (Amplified)

Or one more way: “ Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly .” (New Living Translation)

Now that you have been bold enough to have sacrificed these minutes to read, is it worth taking a couple more to meditate on it, to breathe it in as say, David did, down into your spirit?

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 15:46:09 GMT

Who is it???

Isaiah 6:1 NIV In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

In the year that Isaiah lost the relationship with his earthly king, he was able to see his King in Heaven more clearly than ever. It was not that Uzziah was a godly man at the time of his death, but that he had assembled a strong military and had made Judah strong. What would become of the empire, now that the surrounding nations might take this opportunity to attack? Isaiah could now also focus on what had been lost or on what there was to be gained.

My dear friend Oswald Chambers (I call him that although he departed for Heaven before I was born; he has become that to me because I have “spent so much time with him”, as it were, through his writings) points out that every time the LORD removes someone that has “ stood for God to us ”, it is that He may come to us in their place.

Depending on your current state in life, those words may or may not speak life to you. If you are in a lot of pain through the loss of a loved one who “stood for God” as a counselor, an intercessor, a force for righteousness, a beloved brother or sister, then you may not be ready to hear.

But if you are in a certain place of healing, then this is precisely what you DO need to hear, that God is waiting to take the place of the one who is no longer at your side. I have been in many conversations over the years with those who have lost spouses and who have found that “... the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband ...” (Isaiah 54:4-5)

These are not platitudinous words spoken to grieving widows and widowers, but powerful opportunities that lay out the promise of being able to actually walk with the LORD in ways never before realized. As painful as is your loss, so will your days ahead be multiplied in their fulfillment if you are able to grasp what your LORD is now saying to you!

But this is not only for those who have lost spouses. This is for all of us when someone we have leaned on is removed from our lives.

It can be as simple as losing someone to a change of job and relocating across the country. It may even be losing someone through a BROKEN relationship. Suddenly they are gone, and you feel abandoned.

God may not have designed it to go that way, but here you are. You need to realize RIGHT NOW that He is again “ standing at the door and knocking ,” not to save you from your sins (if you have already made that commitment to Him), but to save you from the depression of the dark days of discouragement into which you have found yourself!

He ALWAYS comes to offer Himself as a replacement for your loss. This is a real offer. If you manage to get up and go check, you will see that He has been standing outside the door this entire time, waiting for you to let Him in.

I am guessing He wants to then wrap you up in a long hug… Then have a chat.

The things He will tell you will be amazing.

And, as always, His words will all be spoken in a depth of love beyond what you could imagine.

Let Him in .

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 14:00:50 GMT

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall...

In prayer, I began to pray for “those in authority” or “in high positions” both within the Body and without. When I pray for leaders, I ask God to “bend those who ask for His will, and break those who fight against His will.”

And this morning as I prayed for a particular leader who holds an extremely high position, since I have observed his decision-making for years now and deemed it to be mostly ungodly, I automatically positioned him in the latter category (“LORD, if he won’t bend to your will, then break him for the sake of your people”).

Suddenly, I heard, “he may be doing more with the understanding he has than you are doing with what you understand.”

The Holy Spirit doesn’t mince words. He wasn’t saying He was pleased with all that this person was doing.

No.

He was talking about ME now and reminding me that just because I might be in the “second grade” I have no right to look down my nose at a “6-year-old-first-grader”, especially when I may be 16 years old and still held back in God's second grade!

At that moment I had a flashback to something I had read some years ago. I am not going to name names because I feel sure I won’t get all the details exactly right, but it went something like this:

The man told of how he would pass a homeless fellow on a regular basis as he went to work. And he told how he thought to himself how “this was another case of someone who didn’t rise to fulfill their God-given potential, to accomplish all that they could have in God. If he just had more self-control and discipline over his emotions…” (words to that effect.)

Then God allowed him to see the homeless man walking down the sidewalk one day, obviously depressed with his situation, angry at life, hatred spilling over at everybody and everything. And as he fumed, he came upon a dog laying in his way on the sidewalk. He pulled his leg back to swing it at the animal with all that pent up anger, and just before he lets loose, he stops in mid-swing, looks down at the dog, walks around it, and continues on down the sidewalk.

And in this vision/dream that God is giving the man telling this story, God says to him, “This man you have been watching and judging for not living up to his potential…When he walked up to that creature and wanted to unleash all the anguish inside him at all life had given him, it took far more self-control for him to refrain from kicking that dog than what you have ever exhibited in your own life. Yet you have compared him to yourself and judged yourself superior.”

You know, it is completely fine to make judgements of others.

Just as long as you are qualified.

But remember this: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

We found those Words important enough to give them the “ lipstick-on-the-mirro r ” treatment at my house...

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Sat, 17 Sep 2022 17:37:35 GMT

Well...Might as Well Invoke Job

No doubt you have seen those pictures online where you are asked whether you see THIS or THAT? And depending on how you look at it determines what type of person you are, so they SAY...

I don't put any stock in such things to tell me who I am. But I do want to ask you, what do you see in the picture of the eagle above? Is he falling?

Or could he be diving toward a venomous snake he saw from his vantage point far up in the sky, and now he is about to swoop in to crush the snake's head with his talons!

Well, he could be BOTH.

And it all starts with the way I began that last sentence, with the word, WELL .

Let me go back to the beginning.

These past few months have been unknown wilderness to me. Oh, I know. Everyone who has walked with God for any length of time has come to know wilderness areas intimately.

But this one has been different for me.

Why? Not because of the duration. Not even because of the severity of any particular blow from the enemy.

It has been the repetitive, continual appearance at the door of messengers, as in Job, chapter one.

14 And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, ...

16 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, ...

17 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, ...

And before Job had a chance to get his breath, one came right after the other!

We all shy away from invoking Job when we are under duress because none of us can measure up to Job, of whom God HIMSELF said to Satan, “Have you thought about My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth. He is without blame, a man who is right and good. He honors God with fear and turns away from sin.”

Duly noted. Now we will continue, having embraced the Word of God "for instruction in righteousness."

(Imagine smiley face inserted right here.)

So, back to the word, "well."

I wrote a friend today to thank her for the wells she helps people find. When we are in the wilderness and trying to find our way out, we are always looking for the next well. When we are going through our worst times, we must be able to get a drink of water, the living water that springs up and quenches a thirst in us that plain water cannot touch.

The children of Israel were delighted to find a place they named Elim, where there were 12 wells and 70 palm trees. But what they received there soon ran out and they needed more. (At this very moment, Cathy came in to tell me that an expensive piece of tech in our house died... " And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, ...

So, my response from the heart must be : The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away, BLESSED be the name of the LORD! And there is a real-time example, even if it is not of the gut-wrenching variety of the past few months, it still really stings.)

Well , God is able to give what we need the same way I began this sentence...with another WELL .

You see, it always appears that we are surrounded by desert, but as long as there is a well nearby and a palm to sit underneath, we are going to make it!

It may appear to others that we "eagles" are falling from the sky (and we ARE for a bit), but we are going to take out some snakes before it is all over!

Would you join me in starting more of our sentences with WELL?

Well?

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 00:57:41 GMT

Dodging Bullets

"...the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow." Colossians 2:19 NIV

So, today as these four individuals shared, exactly WHAT support did they give the Body? How did they hold the Body TOGETHER? (After all, those two things define the work of the Body, while it is GOD’s job to cause it to then grow.)

When I hear these speak today, just as I listened to those last week, I can see the church about to burst at the seams. It’s not because we are growing numerically. It is because the walls can’t contain for very much longer what is being stirred within the people there. One of two things is going to occur; either the church will implode or explode.

Quick review: An implosion is an inward collapse of a hollow structure. That is a perfect description of the church when, having nothing of substance within, we eventually collapse upon ourselves. An explosion means there is so much energy built up within, that the walls can no longer contain it, resulting in a rapid expansion in volume with an extremely vigorous outward release of energy.

Since the choice is ours, I say we choose explosion over implosion!

Adrian gave God’s answer to our every objection to anything He asks of us: “Am I not sending you?” “Am I not sending you?” His Grace is constant. Constant, never taking a break, never taking any time off, always the same for us. THIS is why “there is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!” (Romans 8:1)

Chelsea brought focus to Philippians 1:29 “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,” and as I type this I am wondering who is reading this and also focusing the same way on the same verse?

To be GRANTED is to be given the PRIVILEDGE of “not only believing in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” The privilege of suffering. Imagine. Our Father granting us the privilege of suffering.

Our Father who loves us? Why would our Father who loves us grant us THAT? The answer is: only if He knows it to be a privilege and a blessing to us. Only if He knows it contains within the experience something that we cannot obtain any other way.

Typing on my laptop as fast as my slow fingers would go, she also said:

Seek to renew our minds with the word of God.

Make sure to live in such a way as to be prepared to be judged.

Be prepared for trials as a result of our own sin.

Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Be careful to control what comes out of our mouths.

Michael gave us an enjoyable pictorial review of his and Maureen’s recent trip through Scotland, then tied it in to the history of the church, the reformation, and particularly, the Bible.

And to walk the region of the world where some of the greatest heroes of faith gave their lives for the Gospel of grace and the Word of God…

Finally, Tonia shared her life’s history.

And as is often the case, it is a challenge to see and hear the online testimony she gives, powerful though it may be…But I encourage you, if you were not present, to grab some earphones and listen best you can, as it is powerful...

God is always working His plan, often completely unseen, unknown to us. As Tonia quoted from her aunt, we are “ dodging bullets ” and we don’t even know it until one day God pulls back the clouds, blows away the fog, and we find out that He was in control, right there the whole time.

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 02:23:37 GMT

JUST. BREATHE.

There was a moment when Moses had the nerve to ask God what his name is. God was gracious enough to answer, and the name he gave is recorded in the original Hebrew as YHWH.

Over time we’ve arbitrarily added an “a” and an “e” in there to get YaHWeH, presumably because we have a preference for vowels.

But scholars and Rabi’s have noted that the letters YHWH represent breathing sounds, or aspirated consonants. When pronounced without intervening vowels, it actually sounds like breathing.

YH (inhale): WH (exhale).

So, a baby’s first cry, his first breath, speaks the name of God.

A deep sigh calls His name – or a groan or gasp that is too heavy for mere words.

Even an atheist would speak His name, unaware that their very breath is giving constant acknowledgment to God.

Likewise, a person leaves this earth with their last breath, when God’s name is no longer filing their lungs.

So when I can’t utter anything else, is my cry calling out His name?

Being alive means I speak His name constantly.

So, is it heard the loudest when I’m the quietest?

In sadness, we breathe heavy sighs.

In joy, our lungs feel almost like they will burst.

In fear we hold our breath and have to be told to breathe slowly to help us calm down.

When we’re about to do something hard, we take a deep breath to find our courage.

When I think about it, breathing is giving him praise. Even in the hardest moments!

This is so beautiful and fills me with emotion every time I grasp the thought. God chose to give himself a name that we can’t help but speak every moment we’re alive.

All of us, always, everywhere.

Waking, sleeping, breathing, with the name of God on our lips.

- Unknown Author

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 04:06:36 GMT

Does it Last Past Noon?

It is NOT the responsibility of the pastor/teacher to grow the attendance of the church. It IS the responsibility of the pastor/teacher to mature the church in the knowledge of Christ.

Today I asked to hear from four different people in our Body, “one of the most important things God has taught you about Him or life so far.” It was so good that it would be well worth your time to grab your earphones and plug them in as you watch the video from today (August 21st).

So consider this your spoiler alert if you plan to watch...

Caleb spoke on I Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

He pointed out how God showed his patient love toward the Egyptians, even though they had put His chosen people in bondage, by giving them all the plagues to repent before He destroyed the firstborn. What love and grace He extended!

He said God’s love “is not irritable” (NLT), even first thing in the morning…

Carl shared from 1 Peter 5:10 and Joshua 1:9 . He made it clear that church is not for the perfect, but that from his vantage point seated in the back, he had been able to see broken, imperfect people show up and become healthy in Christ.

He also spoke about the importance of boundaries, of setting those in order to rest so that stress doesn’t destroy you. And one of my favorite verses, Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Charley related another of our favorite scriptures, one we would all do well to memorize: Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. He summed up what God had taught him throughout his life as not trusting what occurred in his job, or money, or anything else, but in everything…the message is: to trust Him.

Cathy gave a metaphor of lifting a child on your shoulders in a crowded mall in order to help them see their way and related that to how we are like a small child in a crowded mall, unable to see anything at all unless we get on Jesus’ shoulders and allow Him to show us the way. She emphasized our need to understand our weapons are not carnal.

And finally, how God’s weights and balances are so very different than ours. We cannot possibly weigh the events of our lives (what is given or taken away from us) and measure how much it weighs in God’s hand.

All four of these need to be heard in order to better appreciate what God has shown them. I am very proud of them in the LORD.

You know, it really doesn’t matter what is being said from the pulpit every week if it isn't being absorbed in the people listening. Those of us whom God has made responsible in any way for the care of His people must ask ourselves regularly: Are they maturing in the LORD? Are they coming through the severe trials of life stronger than they were when they started? Are they better off spiritually than when they first came to this ministry?

" How many people in attendance Sunday ?" is a question that really reveals more about the person asking it than about the number of people in the answer...

What really matters is if the teaching is lasting past noon each week in the hearts and minds of the hearers...

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 16:11:57 GMT

Like a Boy Scout...

We were riding down the street, about to enter and intersection, when an alarm went off in my spirit. Even though the light was green, I let off of the gas and began to brake as I reached over and put my arm across in front of Cathy as many of us are apt to do with our loved ones when we see danger ahead.

But the thing was, there wasn’t any danger to SEE ahead. There was no indication of anything bad about to occur.

And yet I said, “Watch out.” About that time, a car came careening across the intersection, running through the red light from their direction, spinning out of control. If we had been a couple of seconds earlier from our direction, the car would have hit us broadside.

I would like to say that the Holy Spirit has warned me of danger EVERY time it was about to enter my personal space in my life but unfortunately, either He hasn’t, or I haven’t been sensitive enough to hear Him.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said… Matthew 4:1-3

In the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, He is continually preparing us for what is ahead of us. It could be preparing us by protecting us from a car spinning through an intersection. But here in the famous section of Scripture above, He was preparing Jesus for the temptation of the devil by first leading him to fast for forty days.

Over the past nine months, I have spoken of fasting from time to time so often that our folks are probably about ready to stone me. The reason I have done so is because I have seen how ESSENTIAL it is in order to be PREPARED AHEAD OF whatever the Holy Spirit sees coming down the road toward us.

In my case, there is absolutely no doubt I would have been steamrolled by the circumstances that have occurred this year if that preparation had not taken place.

Let me be clear: I have NO DOUBT I would not have made it through without the preparation that God called me to beforehand, which in my case primarily took place during a 40-day fast.

Now, before you write me off, look back once again at the Scripture in Matthew 4 and explain to me why Jesus fasted before His encounter with the devil if it was not important. After all, Jesus was and is the Son of God, and if HE and the Holy Spirit felt it was important enough to LEAD with that…

WHATEVER it is the LORD leads you to do, fast, give, set aside things, get apart, just do it in order to prepare! And if He is preparing you, that doesn't necessarily mean bad things are headed your way either! He may be preparing you for leadership, for doing something important for His Kingdom! Just be prepared!

Love.

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 14:52:45 GMT

Riders on the Storm

I hope you believed me when I said I was just waiting for the time when I could share the answers to prayer, the GREAT things God was ALSO doing right in the midst of this season of TRIALS! If you recall, what was said was that some things were just too personal, that we didn’t have permission, but once we did, we would certainly share.

Most of those things are still on “hold” but I do have one “Hand-of-God” story for you:

Sometime back, a friend of my daughter asked prayer for her father for a personal situation he faced. God heard that prayer and moved in that situation.

Not long after, the same friend of my daughter received word that her father was diagnosed with an incurable cancer. ( Just reminding you that this is not some story I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend, but a real person in our lives. )

They started him on chemo to help give him a bit of time, but was told it was not really likely going to do much good, that he likely had only 6 months to live.

I was asked to seek God for him.

Fast forward to his doctor appointment this week. Lo and behold, scans showed that “the chemo was working” (doctors’ words), that he “might go into remission” and have “5-10 years to live!”

Hahahahaha!

I have great appreciation for my own doctors, and I will give a shout out for these, but I will make sure right here that everyone knows it is GOD who did this great work!!!

Anyone who has dealt with this horrible disease knows that it does not make a U-turn like that as a normal course of action when it gets to the latter stages.

And while we are talking about miracles, sometimes we think we are only useful to God when He uses us to perform great acts. But just like the picture above portrays, at times the greatest act is simply that we are able to stay aloft in the storm.

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Sun, 07 Aug 2022 23:49:31 GMT

Now, Go play Right Field...

Watching a Little League game out of Texas on ESPN this Sunday afternoon, I heard a word I needed to hear. You know how it is; sometimes our word comes from a verse God gives us, sometimes it can come from something the preacher says.

Other times it comes from something a Little League coach says to his 12-year-old pitcher who he is taking out of the game after giving up seven runs in an important game. As 12-year-old boys are apt to do when they have a bad game at that age, he started to cry.

But his coach, who immediately earned my respect, said, “Hey, did you honor God today? Did you honor your family? Did you honor your team?” To which the young man shook his head yes. The coach continued, “Then keep your head up. You did good. Go play right field.”

The standard by which we measure a day or a life, is whether we did our best to honor God.

This is coming from someone who, as a young man, would come home punching walls when I had a bad basketball practice. A bad practice…

And I have had occasions when I would drive home after church really upset instead of joyful, having prayed with say, 5 people to accept Christ, feeling like I could have reached several more that morning if I had listened better to the LORD.

“Hey, did you honor God today? Did you honor your family? Did you honor your team? Then go play right field.”

We live in America. “Land of the Driven to do it a little better today than you did yesterday.” You must be able to quantify what you do. Show me the numbers! Where is the graph to prove that what you did THIS quarter is better than what you did the same quarter LAST YEAR?

And we are not speaking in business terminology, we are talking about what is expected in much of the CHURCH TODAY! "Is your church GROWING? How many got saved THIS MONTH? How many were BAPTIZED? Show me the NUMBERS! Show me the MONEY!"

What is this, a game show???

How about I just leave you with this instead?

Then Esau said, “Let us be on our way; I’ll accompany you.” But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender and that I must care for the ewes and cows that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die. So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the flocks and herds before me and the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.” (Genesis 33:12-14)

Doesn’t matter so much the context of this story. What matters is that Jacob knew a lot about taking care of those he was responsible for. His goal was not speed, his goal was to get there. He had learned to be a shepherd. He had learned to be a pastor.

He was going to do what was best for those under his care and not be concerned with how it looked to anyone else.

And at the end of the day, Jacob would have honored God.

Even if he gave up 7 runs.

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 19:29:56 GMT

Smoke, Mirrors, and Angels with Magic Markers

Most likely to become the least popular of these small writings, I will press on anyway. Besides, if popularity were the goal, those of us with marketing skills would just revert to them and say whatever was wanted rather than what was needed. But we will leave that to those who put together most of the large mailouts that comprise 90% of what I find in my mailbox each day. (I said most mailouts , not all )

Marketing to draw attention to what God is doing or saying is not wrong, as long as it is with the right purpose, and done usually with the plain, raw, audacious manner that God likes to do stuff. You know, like burning bushes, smoking mountains, fire from Heaven, walking on water, raising the dead and so forth.

Smoke, mirrors, taking anything that belongs to God, and doing anything to call more attention to ourselves than Him? Well, might want to leave all that outside the door when doing the King’s business.

But I digress…

All I started out to say was this:

At the deepest depth of sin, we take the right to ourselves.

It is what killed Adam and Eve.

The moment they took the fruit and ate, they died. They died, not because the fruit was bad, but because they took themselves out of the everlasting, loving hand of God, and in that split-second realized they were naked.

Without covering. No protection. Alone. Separated for the very first time. Do you see this and understand?

They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. They may as well have wrapped themselves in the darkest, thickest fabric that would eventually be produced. Nothing would cover what they were now feeling for the first time.

We cannot understand this because we come into the world this way. We are already in this state…UNTIL the time when the Holy Spirit falls upon us with conviction of sin. And THAT is the day of our salvation, the ONE day we are PROMISED CONVICTION in our lifetime. (We may get more, but we aren't promised them)

But you already know all this don’t you?

So back to the part that is for YOU, you saved person , you …

Every time you and I sin, we are taking the right to ourselves AWAY from God, and BACK into our hands.

We are doing what Adam and Eve did.

Why would we want to ever follow in their example when it cost SO much to buy us back from the prison, the hell we were sold into?

Imagine being in a spaceship that is programmed for a destination far across the galaxy to a place that took some amazing math to program the onboard computer so your ship would actually reach that planet. But halfway there you get bored and turn off the autopilot and decide you want to wing it. Play it by ear. Just kinda feel your way.

Talk about lost in space…

You can’t take control of a spacecraft like that! You don’t have to be a highly skilled astronaut to know that!

Neither can you nor I take control of our lives like that.

How many times can you take control of your life before you are completely dead?

Do some sins kill you quicker than other sins?

Does God have one of those giant thermometers in Heaven with an angel using a red magic marker to fill it in whenever I sin and when it gets full I am completely dead and lost and go to hell?

1-I don’t know. 2-Maybe, I don’t know. 3- I’m pretty sure not, but like, wow for asking such a question. Just, like, please make sure your KIDS go to Sunday school.

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 13:51:02 GMT

Falling Off Your Mountaintop Experience

It has taken every ounce of strength you thought you had but you finally reached the top of the mountain. Your elbows and knees are bloody from having to crawl these last days, but you made it. Exhausted from the effort, you lunge the last few feet and plant your flag there at the top of the snow-covered mountaintop!

Now you stand up, ready to look down upon all that you have conquered. But lo and behold! You aren’t at the top. You are just at an overlook. The top is so far above you that you can hardly see it.

That is how I feel after 46 years of walking with the LORD. I can’t say I was right on His heels the entire time, but He has never let me lose sight of Him.

But every time I think I have reached the top of the mountain with, say, love or patience, it is as if a blizzard comes blowing in at 200 mph and a gust wallops me right off the mountain! I mean really!

I am braced for the wind to come from one direction and before I know it, it comes at me from a direction I never expected!

I know you can’t possibly relate, can you??? HA

We are born with a certain DISPOSITION. A percentage of our disposition is a tendency toward moral actions and a certain percentage is toward immoral actions.

But as we grow up, our CHARACTER is shaped by our role models, our life, our choices, and hopefully, most importantly, our relationship with the LORD Jesus Christ.

Hang on, I am headed somewhere...Now, each CRISIS that occurs in life causes us respond with our disposition, and reveals our character. I may have THOUGHT that I was a better person than I really was until a certain crisis revealed that I had absolutely zero patience, or love for the homeless, or compassion for the needy, unless their skin is the color of mine.

When a crisis reveals these shortcomings in us, here is possibly the most important thing I may tell you: If you have been a Believer a while, there is a certain well-worn trap that you may have ALREADY fallen into. It is the trap of trying to climb out by yourself.

(But here is the sneaky part: most of those real mature kinds just breezed through that sentence, not even realizing it was for THEM. That's because they are so accustomed to working it out on their own that they don't even realize they are doing it. They have forgotten how to let go and just "be saved." Oh, they still fall overboard, but they also still keep refusing any and all life preservers...until they can build their own. It is time for you to just get alone somewhere and let God tear down all your walls and have a good cry. Then let HIM take over...)

Somehow, after we have known the LORD a while, we begin to think that we are capable of doing stuff in our own strength. Yet we are no more capable of that than we were the day we got saved! We start listening to this little voice telling us that we should be strong enough now so that we “not have to bother the LORD with such as this” and climb out of the mess we have gotten ourselves into.

Hogwash.

We are no more capable on day 10,000 than we were on day one. We still have to do all things by HIS strength operating through us. It never becomes ME; it is always HIM IN me.

And with this revelation that I am not the patient, loving, compassionate person I thought I was, I now have a decision to make: either continue along the path of the disposition I was born with, or choose to be reborn with new character. Even though we are accustomed to using the term “born again” only for being “saved,” we can also ask God to make us new in whatever area the present crisis caused us to fail!

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:20)

We simply need another area TRANSFORMED. Once we believe that God has remade us, changed us, really made us DIFFERENT in that area of our mind, we will be able to test this by our own actions! We will see small changes at first, then large differences, bold statements, and steps in our walk with Christ, in that very area where we had failed to have patience or love or self-control.

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 17:37:30 GMT

The 4 bulls

I was watching the news and the sports guy covered a media day for high school football coaches. This one young coach took his turn to talk about his team and where he expected them to perform. As far as what each of them were saying in the soundbites, it was kind of like “yada, yada, yada” to my ears.

Then one of the coaches says, “I have never failed at anything, and I don’t intend to fail now."

You know how there is that radio telescope array that they have pointed out into space, and all these guys are sitting around with earphones, trying to hear intelligent life communicating with us? And when they decide there is nobody over here in these billion stars, so they turn one dish a bit, they turn ALL 50 dishes at the same time? That would be a picture of how I looked when I heard that coach say he had never failed at anything.

I was like, “ say whaaaat ?" He now had my attention. I am thinking, 'I don’t know you, but now I DO know one thing about you, and that is: I have no trust in you for anything important.' Until you have learned from failure, you really know nothing about leadership, fatherhood, marriage, or just life in general. If you haven’t failed, you don’t know how to forgive, how to ask forgiveness, how to repent, or how to come to God.

Of course, I did realize that the coach was a young guy and trying to talk big in front of a television audience.

It reminded me of the story of the four bulls that I love to tell from time to time: Three bulls are standing around in a field one day. One big ole’ bull, a medium size bull, and one little bull. They are just standing there in the shade of a tree, looking over their cows, when a big cattle carrier backs up to the fence.

The bulls had heard that another bull was coming that day to join them in their field and they were not too happy about it. All three of them agreed that they were not going to share ANY of the cows with the new guy.

About that time the gate swings open and out comes the biggest, the meanest bull that you have ever seen! He is snorting and digging into the ground and making the worst noises you ever heard.

The big ole’ bull is first to speak. He says, “You know, I may have spoken too soon. I think I might be able to share up to a dozen or so of my cows with this new fellow.”

Then the medium size bull says, “Yeah, I don’t know what ya’ll thought you heard me say, but I will be happy to share ALL of my cows with the new guy,”

Suddenly the little bull starts pawing the dirt and snorting in the direction of the new bull, and raising such a ruckus like the other two bulls had never seen him do before. He looked like he was going to charge the new bull!

They looked at him and said, “ Are you out of your mind? What do you think you are doing? He is doing to KILL you! Are you really gonna charge him?"

The little bull replied, “ Heck no. I just want him to know that I’M a bull! ”

Hahaha.

(Spoiler alert here) God knows just what to back up to our gate that will test our words and our works. It is always composed of fire.

… But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work . 1 Corinthians 3:10-13

I always said that as long as God granted me the health to continue, I would never “retire” from pastoring. Yet I have to come clean and admit that I did expect our life’s burden to lessen, not increase ten-fold here at what many people consider “retirement age.”

The fire has come, and it is hot.

Be warned. This fire consists of anguish. It may consist of sorrow. You may call for a firetruck, only to see that when it shows up, it is driven by Job’s 3 friends.

Our solace is in the motto of those who have learned some of the depths of God: “ Real gold fears no fire.”

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 18:24:57 GMT

Next...

The eagle has become one of our threads here at Seasons, but not for some of the reasons making the rounds on the internet. As much as people may wish, everything they read online isn’t true, even about our eagles.

They don’t pluck their own feathers out to start over, nor do they push their baby eaglets out of the nest and catch them midair as they teach them to fly. However, what they CAN do is pretty special…

… but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31

Back on January 25, 2020, I dreamed that I was standing beside a large body of water, watching as hundreds of eagles were flying in. They were gathering there with purpose .

I took this to mean that God was going to bring His eagles together (I can't speak to where all the "wheres" are), His mature disciples who were prepared to lead His Body into His “Next.” I do NOT think for a MINUTE this is just leadership that will march around inside auditoriums, then sit down and that be the end of it, but leadership to effect real change on the outside. We have often settled for whomever LOOKED ANOINTED or whomever OUTSHOUTED the OPPOSITION or supported a POLITICAL POSITION OR TWO.

But the eagles that God will assemble will not be obliged to any and will have a secret power source that no opposition can find and turn off! Nobody will be able to slander these nor in any way interrupt their support, because their support does not originate here on earth!

I don’t pretend to know what that will look like, because that will only be revealed as He unfolds it. But I do know it won’t look like what some of us have been doing all along for the past 20 years!

It may be that the LORD has introduced the eagle because of the great height it is able to attain. That doesn’t make it a better bird, but it does mean it can breathe cleaner air. A nd it is the purity of what we consume that will allow us to maintain our flight until we arrive at our ordained destination.

There is going to be a LOT of HUMILITY needed in these folks too. Sometimes eagles will lock in midair in a “death spiral”, attempting to prove which is the stronger bird. They are so arrogant that they have been seen to refuse to release until below the tree line, or sometimes not at all, crashing to their death as they are still locked together as they hit the ground.

One of the greatest aspects of maturity is no longer feeling that you must prove anything to anyone. Death spirals are no longer a part of your life. Your one goal is to know Him.

RISE ABOVE all that is happening around us in the world. BREATHE CLEAN AIR at a HIGH ALTITUDE and use the SHARP VISION for which eagles are known.

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 14:05:40 GMT

The Story of the Red Pants

It has become one of my favorite stories because of the impact it has had on my loved ones.

My son-in-law had just gotten a good paying job. It was apparent God’s hand was on him because he had just gone from job to job to job, of his own accord, making more money each time, as I cringed with my old mindset thinking he should stay put where he was.

But what do I know.

So, he walks into our house one day talking about how he wants to change jobs AGAIN because he “wants him some of those red pants” those men get to wear who work for that other crew where he works.

Now, I need to insert right here that my son-in-law is 100% red-blooded American heterosexual, married to my daughter, redneck deer-hunter.

But for some strange reason, he wanted to wear those red pants to work. (I will get to the reason why God put this inside him in just a minute)

So, he asks one of the red pants-wearing-crew and they send him to the boss, and he goes to the boss and straight up says “How do I get to wear me some of those red pants?” So, he gets hired. And again, a bump in pay.

(By the way, can I just stop right here and say to the men out there, how many jobs do you usually get, with large increases in pay, by starting out walking up to the owner and asking, "HOW DO I GET TO WEAR ME SOME OF THOSE RED PANTS ?'")

Well, after only 2 months on the job, he gets incapacitated and can’t work for a bit.

So then, via a phone interview only, the owner of the company hires my daughter and pays her while she trains! She is now working from home, working and going to school.

Then my son is looking for work. He is probably one of the most qualified applicants available in the job market in our area but cannot find employment. Until he gets a phone interview with the owner of, you guessed it, the company of the red pants.

So as the owner is driving through the mountains of North Carolina, he does the interview with my son on the phone and hires him on the spot. And because so many details of this story are personal, and some are "larger than life", I cannot even tell you the most powerful parts, but hope to very soon.

But for now, here is an obvious point to remember: Never, EVER, think that you can figure out how God is going to provide. Ever.

If we were playing poker, I would have gone ALL IN and bet against God EVER using somebody wanting to wear RED PANTS to provide for two families!

There are things that we tend to laugh at, to cast off, to refuse to consider, to ignore, because we have determined that God could not, would not POSSIBLY use it or them . And when we make ourselves JUDGES of what God will and will not do, we are sitting in God's chair ..." There is only ONE Lawgiver and Judge ... James 4:12a

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong . 1 Corinthians 1:27

God takes pleasure in choosing things which we think are foolish to show us how foolish are our own plans.

Things we have planned for, maybe for decades, can be destroyed in a moment, and God can go a different route in a split second and rebuild something that is more glorious than we have ever imagined.

He does it all to shame the strong and wise and reveal Himself as God of all.

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 17:54:02 GMT

The Emperor’s New Clothes (or) The nekkid king (southern)

I was trying to block out the noise downstairs so I could finally make some notes for Sunday.

One of my children stuck their head in the door and asked, “You ok dad?”

“No, but I find a way to get ok every day,” I replied.

So many stressful things have been occurring lately that I have not been “ok” ANY day for weeks now. I have to FIND a way to GET ok in the LORD every day.

I don’t just wake up to find everything falling into place in life as a Believer.

Let me put it like this:

I don’t have a problem at ALL with women wearing makeup.

The problem is with Christians feeling like they have to cover up everything with makeup .

Said another way, we perform as anti christian when we try to cover our imperfections with lies instead of The Blood.

We can walk around confessing we smell like roses all day long, but if we wallowed in the hog trough, we are going to smell like a pig until we take a bath.

The people around us are holding their noses while we declare we smell great, while the TRUTH is that we just need to bathe.

We, Believers, are supposed to be the ones who love truth so much that we easily spot at least most lies.

Especially when we see them in the mirror.

BUT DON'T YOU DARE STOP READING RIGHT THERE!

When I was 18, I coached a 13–14-year-old baseball team. We would practice out behind the school on an old sandlot baseball diamond (yep, picture the movie) and we would occasionally hit one too far into left field and over or through the fence of an extremely irritable older man. And if one of the boys really got ahold of one, they could hit it off of the man's roof, at which time our entire team learned to scatter and do their best to hide behind whatever they could find big enough.

When the old man would hear the baseball hit his tin roof, out he would fly, yelling curse words that I am not sure I have heard since. And we could forget ever getting our baseball back. But if his wife was home, an amazing thing would occur... more than once she would follow him out into the yard and, (although I didn't understand what was going on at the time) rebuke him, or the unclean spirit controlling him, and he would head back into the house.

Then we could hear all the way back at home plate the sound of her speaking in tongues, then HIM speaking in tongues for a WHILE until finally everything calmed down.

Suffice it to say, it became harder and harder to find a volunteer to go get any future ball hit anywhere near that yard, except our first baseman, who I later learned had a Pentecostal background so he kinda-sorta was familiar, at least with the tongues...

But the thing was, the next time we hit the ball off of the man's roof, here he would come cursing again. And I take the space to tell his story here to say that he was not so different than a lot of us who wear our "make-up" to church or to town.

We present an unattainable, unachievable Christianity to the world, NO, NOT just the world, but to the person sitting next to us on Sunday morning!

The well-known and respected theologian Thomas a Kempis, in the early 1400's wrote: "You are a man, not God. You are flesh, not an angel. How can you expect to remain always in the same state of virtue when the angels in Heaven and the first man in paradise failed to do so?"

This written by a monk, no less.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.

But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 1 John 2:1-3

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 15:00:06 GMT

Go DOWN to the Potter's house

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” ³ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. ⁴ But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Jeremiah 18:1-4

We hit the bottom spiritually and misinterpret the purpose of these times in our lives. These are not to be confused with any time of sin and rebellion, but this is a time similar to one in which we could compare to Job, at least in the sense of his own confusion.

“The clay was marred.”

The potter refused to cover up the misshapen part of the pot. He formed it into something else entirely.

We may appear to others to be similar because we have the same outward appearance, the same personality, love the same fried chicken.

But if they could see deep down into our spirit-man, they would stand in wide-eyed wonder at what this one event in our lives, ordained by the Hand of God, had accomplished in such a short period of time.

People may remember your imperfections, but flesh can only relate to flesh.

Spirit relates to spirit. It is unimportant what people see in you, as long as you strive to see what God wants to show you.

That which marred you will no doubt destroy your flesh.

That which marred you, in the Hand of THIS Potter, ONLY this Potter, will also destroy your flesh, making who you were so thin that people can see right through you...

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 20:36:55 GMT

Our calling is NOT to love the bible.

The danger occurs when we fall in love with a portion of the Bible.

Now that I have your attention…

We can find ourselves going in the wrong direction if we fall in love with the doctrine of laying on of hands, or baptism in water, or in fire, or healing, or discipleship. It doesn’t matter that the doctrine or principle is right and true. We were never called to become devoted to a doctrine nor a principle. Once we do, we have begun to steer our ship straight toward the shallows and, like Paul’s ship in Acts, we are destined to run aground.

If our devotion is to healing or discipleship or baptism or any of the great doctrines that Jesus has taught us, then the deep water in which we set sail will eventually become too shallow to support our ship. Nobody much will care to listen to our message because we are stuck in the mud.

We can add onto our ship and make it look prettier and larger, but we really aren’t sailing anywhere. We aren’t bad people. We didn’t TRY to sail into the shallows and get stuck here. As far as we knew, we were doing this religion thing the way it was supposed to be done. We still love Jesus, but we stopped letting Him navigate our ship a long way back…

Jesus never intended for His life’s teaching to be broken into pet doctrines that men could use to build private empires around. Taken as a whole, they are intended to be absorbed by people who would humble themselves as little children who would take them at face value and simply live them out in the most loving way possible.

And when we weren’t sure what He meant for us to do, the best thing would probably be to err on the side of GRACE.

Back to today’s point…Jesus said the day would come when His disciples would, absolutely WOULD fast. Yet if we teach this as “THE thing to do” instead of “A thing to do”, then we may be missing the mark that He intended. This would be true in most all things "a" thing to do on "an" occasion instead of preaching it as "the" thing to do on "all" occasions. Jesus didn't spit on the eyes of every blind man did He?

Our Father never called us to fall in love with a doctrine or principle. As a matter of fact, anything that He sees which has replaced Him, He will be sure to withdraw Himself completely from over time.

If your quiet time, your read-your-bible-in-a-year, your pray-an-hour-a-day, your fasting one day a week, whatever it is that you have fallen in love with that has replaced HIM…even that which was once good and brought life to you, He will withdraw whatever life WAS left in it, to cause you to realize that you have attached yourself to a doctrine or a principle or a book or a person other than HIM.

He will remove Himself from whatever you trust to be the vehicle that He must utilize and then show up in another…”but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.”

Return of the Eagles

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 16:34:24 GMT

Flying Higher...

“ They will soar on wings like eagles…” ( Isaiah 40:31b ) Which is a remarkable statement, considering eagles can fly upwards of 15,000 feet high and have been clocked at as high as 99 mph.

We are called to have an overview . I wonder sometimes if this is why some believers are so quickly drawn away by flimsy conspiracy theories. We know we are called to see the larger picture, but we must be extremely discerning as to whom we allow to paint that picture for us.

The eagle has one million cones in the eye compared to around 200,000 in our eye. This allows eagles to see clearly eight times as far as humans.

Were you paying attention as you read what was written? Humans may be able to see as FAR as an eagle, but we would only see vaguely that there was a forest in the distance, while an eagle could see CLEARLY the rabbit peeking out from behind a tree.

God searches for those dissatisfied with only seeing vaguely i.e. those who are desperate to see past the natural and into the spirit.

Remember the story of the blind man in Bethsaida? After Jesus had laid His hands on him the first time, the man said he could only see, “men like trees, walking.” What if he had been happy to settle with that blurry vision and had walked away then?

But instead, he wanted perfect vision, and stayed right there until he got it.

I just completed a 12 day fast this past weekend. (Let me come back to that) The 40 day fast last year was the breakthrough for me after attempted to fast countless, I mean COUNTLESS times, and failing almost every time to even to sunset on day one. And I know there are many people out there just like me, who try and try, and really WANT to fast or do something else that they believe God has told them to do and they have failed at it time and again.

First, I am not going to add my voice to those saying, "Just keep at it and don't give up!" There are plenty of good people telling you that in great ways to encourage you. Listen to the voices of encouragement and turn away from the voices of discouragement.

Secondly, focus on what you HAVE gotten right! Churchill used to say that he would try himself by court martial to see if he had accomplished anything worthwhile. I supposed if God had called you or me to save Europe from the nazis that might be a very good thing for us to do also, but for me as a regular human being, it drove me crazy for years to live that way.

In other words, be good at who you are and let others be good at who they are.

And as for the fast... Mark 2:17-21 The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”

19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. 21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

I can confirm to you, and I am sure many of you can say the same, that once you get your thoughts past food, phone, and self, you can begin to see more clearly into the spirit, to see things as God would have you see them.

Jesus said that His disciples would be able to absorb, maintain, and carry what He has made new ONLY as THEY are continually made new!

If you are able to fast to make that happen, do it.

Not there yet? Then next time you can grab a day, GET AWAY FROM EVERYTHING POSSIBLE INCLUDING YOUR PHONE and get renewed in the quiet with God AND NOBODY ELSE. Don't try to "sew a little piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment" while you text. Get apart with God and watch Him renew your youth like the eagle.

Now, get off the ground and fly above the conflict before it consumes you...

Return of the Eagles

pastoratshiloh@yahoo.com (Lee Barnes) — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 23:51:27 GMT

To start with...

J.R.R. Tolkien may have seen our day coming when he wrote of the gathering of the eagles on various occasions, sent to rescue the heroes of his books.

It seems that recent bold declarations coming forth from the benches of the highest courts in the land cause many of us to be filled with wonder at the awesomeness of God and of the moment.

I had felt to begin another time of fasting and prayer on June 20, and to be perfectly honest, the Supreme Court and upcoming decisions before them were not on my radar. There were and are too many issues and needs closer to home that had my attention. I guess it is hard to look to the horizon when so many of those close to you need you to help put the fires out before their houses burn to the ground.

Anyway, we have all learned that when God speaks to us, calling us aside to fast and pray, it is because He knows we need it.

In First Kings 19:7, Elijah is told by an angel to "eat up" as we would say, because "the journey is too great for you." He was going to have to travel in the strength of that food for forty days and nights through the desert! When God calls you aside to give you something spiritually, it is for the very same purpose: you are about to go somewhere and you will absolutely need the strength of that food to get there successfully and not lose your mind!

The deserts we go through are usually not made of sand and hot relentless sun. They are worse. We may be surrounded by people but we may feel like we are alone.

It is a welcome sight when God sends someone to come to our rescue. They are often somebody who was wandering around in the desert just like us, and God showed them how to find the way out. Now they are so happy to help you.

That's because all of us imperfect church people who have broken God's commandments, just like everybody else out there, have messed up in the past, but we have learned through our messes, gotten right with God again, and want to be there for you when you need help coming to Jesus.

We still don't have it all together, but this is not about us anyway. It never was. It is 100% about Jesus and how HE loves us. If you are looking for a church that has it all together, you will have to keep looking, 'cause that isn't us. But we will do our best to love you as Jesus told us to do...