As he journals, Nelson continues to seek direction from thinking about what’s written in the Bible.
>>>>>>>>>>
October 13, 2022
I keep making the print bigger and bigger so I can read it without glasses. lol. Funny how much your body deteriorates over time—mine probably more than most, with this cancer and everything.
Hopefully I can rally and get a few more years of good health. It was always something I had until lately. Now it’s been different. God only knows.
This is the 3rd day Annso and Will are gone over to Germany. She wrote little cards for each day, and the one for today affirmed me, that I have good ideas and the fish tank was one of them. I remember that morning when I started looking at them on Facebook Marketplace. We jumped in the car and went down and picked up that one.
It was a “wild hair,” but it turned out good aside from Astrid throwing her back out helping to carry it up the stairs. I’m thankful for ideas like that. Now we have tons of fish in there and little ones being born right there in the tank, which is pretty cool.
We bought a few other ones as well, to clean the tank. It’s been a fun project. I’m sitting in the dark writing, before Mom comes out around 8 am. I was so tired this morning at 5 am when I woke up, that I re-cashed out on the couch and woke up in a dead sweat at 6 am when I made the coffee.
Still tired but pressing on. Haircut at 10:30 am, Mom’s car appointment at Honda after that, pick up some scripts at Mayo, and small group tonight at 7 pm.
There is a rapid-fire list of commands to obey in Hebrews 13, and I thought this one was particularly interesting… “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever…” (Hebrews 13:7-8)
It’s a great reminder that even though the world is coming up with all new junk like critical race theory and the sexual mess they are trying to put on the kids, even in schools at young ages, the Bible and the Lord who speaks through it are not changing. They are the same.
The word is still the same. We are not to “mellow out” and accept the garbage the world is slinging. I am reading a book by Eric Metaxes called, A Letter to the American Church. And he’s making a great case that the approach the church has had in response to the corona virus and to the rest of the political garbage that’s based in anti-God movements, has been pathetic.
We have stood by while the devil comes in and slowly takes over. Soon it will be too late. I think he’s right. I hope he’s not, but he likens it to the church in Germany in the 1930’s. They stood by, and look what happened there.
I pray for the courage to stand up and speak out against things that are wrong, Lord. I pray that I would educate myself to know what is happening instead of taking an approach where we lay back in an effort to preserve ourselves instead of speaking out for the powerless and the voiceless.
Help us as a church to speak out even when it costs us. Thank you that we never closed our church during the so-called pandemic a couple years back. I pray to be able to stand up. Help us God. What an awful temptation it is to keep ourselves safe while others are suffering.
I finished Hebrews and just kept going into James. I thought this was fitting from chapter 1… “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)
I wondered if the “discipline” described in Hebrews that fathers exercise over their sons is something like cancer. Or is it just persecution from the wicked for standing up for what’s right? Here, it talks about “trials of many kinds,” so it seems it means standing up under trials, because they are tests.
Cancer is a test. It sure feels like one. I don’t know if everything hard is a test, or if life is just hard sometimes. The Word makes it seem like hard times are always trials. I suppose they could all be useful to build endurance and perseverance.
I pray this trial wouldn’t be wasted on me, Lord. That you would accomplish what you had in mind when it came to me. I don’t know what it is, but you do. Amen.
>>>>>>>>>>
“The testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (James 1:3)