God

... I have begun a new study on the sovereignty of God and it is a very thought provoking study. The book is Trusting God, Even When Life Hurt by Jerry Bridges. One of the early items of intense study is the Absolute Sovereignty of our LORD. This is a matter that I have seen very experienced Christians trip over and that is a shame. In the first place it is absolutely necessary to understand and to believe that nothing has ever or will ever sneak up on God and surprise him.
... There are several life examples I can draw from here that will illustrate what I am talking about but I'll just use the one that offends no-one. I have had MS since the early seventies and they have been able to diagnose it for almost twenty years now. That I, a combat veteran and definitely a man have the disease is enough to cause doubt and yet it hasn't. The fact that I have contracted the disease because of the need to defoliate the jungle for our men's protection is another reason to question God's authority and still I do not. Before I was growing inside my mother's womb, God knew that I would volunteer to go serve in Vietnam because I would believe that the South Vietnamese people deserved freedom. None of this has taken God by surprise.
... God knew from the very beginning of the creation that Bill Taylor would get sick with this disease, so the question might be asked, "Did He know and still allow it?" For the answer to that look at the Book of Job. Satan told God that Job was only worshiping Him because He had a hedge of God's protection about him. God took that hedge away and Satan took all of Job's children, all of his possessions and then afflicted him with boils and sores so badly that all Job could do for relief was to scrape them with shells and stones. Job was sorely tested and still his faith remained in God.
... Going, many centuries, in time forward we find Jesus, God's only Son hanging on the cross paying the debt that Bill Taylor owed to God. He was laid down on that cross and nails of about a quarter inch square were driven into the hole in the bone in the center of the wrist, one for each hand. And then His feet were placed atop of each other and a nail of, judging by my feet, at least 8 or 9 inches in length, square and most likely about the same thickness was driven through the bones in His feet. After all of that torture He was lifted upright and dropped into the hole meant to keep Him erect until He would die. And if I had been to only sinner that would ever have accepted His sacrifice, He would have done so, just the same.
... Yes, God knew before I was born that my fate, His plan, included this disease and yes, He could have prevented it but the fact is that He did not because He had a plan to glorify Himself and in doing so to raise up sinners mark on the scales of life a few inches. I absolutely believe that God, through His Wisdom, has allowed me to have MS, to lose my very best friend in life to a mortar in his chest, to receive over three hundred entry holes in my aircraft in a single mission and many other trials for my own good and for His Glory.(Rom. 8:28)
... The question that must be asked by each and everyone of us is, "Are we ready to serve God? No matter what?"

Loving God In Difficult Times

... I have a free puppy that is a half breed Dachshund. Because there is so very much inbreeding with the Dachshund they commonly have a genetic form of mange that is not contagious and my baby, Delilah, has this incurable disease and even though she is just over a year old and in spite of the truth that I am on a very fixed income because of my disability, I have spent better than two thousand dollars to fight this death dealing disease that has no cure. A very logical first question would be, “Why.”
... There are different answers that are all true but there is one that might mean the world to each of you and today I would like to tell you about why a man raised with a Texas farmers values would ever reach the point that he could ignore all the perfectly sound reasoning that he grew up with and instead of using the common sense that he is so proud of, he would fail to use a thirty-eight cent bullet to cure this problem. As I have grown older, I have gained wisdom and a great deal of that wisdom is the result of walking with my LORD, these past eighteen years.
... Some days when I wake up, Delilah is the very first living thing I see and she jumps from the floor, into my lap, in the wheel chair, and she washes every inch of my face and my bald head. On other mornings, the ones I want to concentrate on, she will wait for me to sit in my recliner and then she crawls into my lap and she sets down on my right leg, facing the far wall, and she sits straight up and just tilts back until she is as close to my body as she can possibly be and begins to snuggle until I caress and stroke her bare belly and just love on her. In that defenseless position I could end her life in an instant and yet in that position with my hand stroking her, she snuggles that long nose against and around my neck as she holds still and allows me to love her.
... In Psalm 46:10 God, our Father, has commanded us to be still and to find that true and unfailing love that He has for us. Today, with no expendable income, in the midst of all the rumors of financial ruin and the collapse of bank after bank and companies rolling over and closing, folks ask me to tell them what to do. Well, actually, I have the answer. I need to buy my wife a new truck and with no liquid income I am going to do just that very thing. The Great Depression came about because of foolish men and this recession/depression today is a result of the same thing, foolish men. The Great depression grew to be so incredibly bad because men were foolish enough to forget God and instead to trust in themselves. If this is ever to grow to the same point all that need happen is for foolish men to once more forget who it is that holds them in His hand and to fail to turn back to Him.
... When the brook had no more water to sustain Elijah, God sent him to live with a Widow and her son and they had the makings for one more loaf of bread and then they had planned to die. At the Word of God, Elijah assured her that if she backed that last loaf of bread and would, because of God's promise, feed him first that the ingredients for making one more loaf of bread would always be there when it was needed. And that silly(?) woman believed that God would do what He had promised and baked Elijah the last loaf of bread in the house. Because God loves His children, in much the same way I love that hole digging puppy, they always had just enough flour and oil to make one more loaf, just enough to serve their need.
... I laugh and I take such pure joy in loving that puppy and from loving her and listening to the Holy Spirit of God as I study the Word I have been taught such wonderful lessons about my relationship with the LORD. It is my heart cry for each of your ears to just trust God the way Delilah trusts me. I have trusted Him, in that manor for these past eighteen years and in my darkest moments He has never failed me. Tonight, do as I do most every night. Get ready for bed and instead of just running through your nightly routine, crawl into that bed and just be still and call out to God and just wait and listen to Him. He loves you so much He'll rub your belly for you if that's what you truly need.