Shadow Monsters

Six years old, fearless and can take on the world with my super hero’s. As I go to my room lay on my bed and look out my window, the evening sun has taken its place behind the mountains. The moon now guards the evening stars throughout the sky. My eyes begin to take their place deep beneath the lids. My ears are switching to the channel of peace and quiet. My body now molded to the wrinkles of my soft tethered blanket and my fingers grasping to its edges leaving the tip of one in my lips. My batman figurine and all his side kicks set at the foot of my bet guarding our makeshift cave. We are now going to the land so distant and far off. Nothing can hinder this trip where the Z’s unfold their work. Suddenly a distant rumble echoes through out the land. Then a flicker of light casts a burst of shadows deep beneath my eyelids. Quickly I peak out the side of one eye and capture another flicker of a shadow and I begin to see things move in my room. I slowly begin to unfold myself from the fetal position and peak around the room. Adrenalin flows like a river through out my body. My closet begins to capture the shadows from the rolling thunder and flash of lightening. I asked where did this storm come from and why did it bring all the shadow monsters with it? The moon is now only casting a faded light deep beneath the clouds; just enough to invite eerie in the room. I grab all my action figures from the base of the bed waiting for their next command. Nothing! I hold on tighter to my blanket as the lightening and thunder break the sound barrier. No one is responding to my call. It’s just me and the distance between the door to my room. As I slowly creep on my tip toes to the bedroom door as not to disturb the shadow monsters, I work my bravery up enough to make it to my parent’s room where mom and dad are not even fazed by all the battles going on outside my window. They can’t even see the shadow monsters preparing the attack. I slowly crawl into the safest place on the planet next to my father. Suddenly everything is peaceful once again.
Our lives can bring a lot of shadow monsters and we always feel that the world may be planning its attack on us. The rolling thunder from all the storms in our life is enough to frighten anyone. The comfort from our Heavenly father suddenly brings peace to those who seek him and fear him.

Psalm 34:4-7

American Idol

It’s seven thirty in the morning and I am sitting at the table with my wife enjoying an iced coffee and a bowl of cereal while getting into my daily devotional. As I am leaning over to get a bite of cereal, I notice out of my peripheral vision that a yellow spot keeps edging its way closer to my leg. I try not to pay attention to the wet yellow ball that sits so gently in the mouth of my black lab, Boone. If I make eye contact, it’s on! He knows it and will drop his ball into my lap so that I have to put my hands on the slobbery ball. I call it “Boone’s crack”. It goes everywhere with him. Tennis balls are everywhere around the house and he worships them. I looked down at him and said, “You know the Bible says not to make an idol of anything Boone.” He looks at me like I’m out of my mind with those soft brown eyes that can melt an aluminum can.
I can’t help but think that today we strive to be the next idol. Look at what American Idol has become. People will do anything to get their moment on TV, even if they have no chance at all of being successful. But never the less, people flock by the thousands to be the next idol or get a peak to see the next idol. We have made idolism what it is today and now there are many shows trying to mimic the American Idol. If we continue to worship people for their talents, the way they look, act, or sing then we will continue to lose Jesus Christ in all this. My dog Boone worships his tennis ball, but he is loyal to me in every aspect. He will drop his ball in order to give love and or receive it from me. We as Christians should be that way. We can enjoy entertainment without worshiping the people who entertain. If we are after what the world has, we are losing the war against the enemy. Think about it, we know more song lyrics than we do scriptures. Ouch! Who or what is an idol in your life?

Romans 1:21-23

Un accepted best friend

If I can think back into my teenage years I can think of a best friend that only I could share my most troublesome sorrows, and laughs with. The issue was that my parents could not see the reason that I wanted to hang out with such a friend. Even all my other friends made fun of me because of who I hung out with. This can work on one’s esteem pretty good. I doubted sometimes if everyone else was right about the person, and then I thought to myself that no one really knows this friend of mine. No one can see the things in this person that I can. This person has problems as well and we developed a relationship that we could share our problems and work them out through communication.
Jesus promises his disciples and us a friend or helper similar to this, The Holy Spirit The world will not receive the Holy Spirit because it doesn’t know the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit will live in you despite the rejection of the world.

John 14:16-19

Land Nav

The day was dusty, hot and long. I was in Kuwait and we were doing some navigation exercises out in the desert with the temp at 125 degrees. The only breeze you received was hair dryer blowing sand into your mouth. Never the less the mission had to move on. I was stationed with 3rd and 15th Mechanized Infantry division and attached to a tank battalion. We were always on the move and it was very important to know how to get around in the desert where there is very little differences in the terrain. We were giving the task to move from one coordinate to another out in the middle of nowhere. In order to accomplish this, the military gives you a terrain map and a PLUGGER or in civilian terms a “GPS”. We were in a race against other tanks to reach the point first. We were at different starting locations but within the same time and distance so that it would be fair. We had to plug in the existing coordinates and then plug in the destination and then try to navigate our way through the sand dunes that are constantly changing with the wind. During my NCO Academy training we learned advanced Mapping using a compass, and a map. Most people struggle in this but because I was a visual person I did really well in this and carried this into my advantage. It was a good thing because in Kuwait as I was putting the coordinates into the PLUGGER, it died. The batteries gave out. My soldiers began to panic thinking we would never win the races. I smiled and told them to give me the map , protractor, and compass. As a tank commander I had to be calm and take control. I knew that this was probably a plan and a trick from the Company commanders. So I found out where we were and according to longitude and latitude and the surrounding rock formations. We triangulated our position and wrote down our destination. I began to shoot an azimuth then we headed out. With ease we arrived about two minutes before the other tanks and without a GPS. The Commanders were surprised and when they found out we did it without the GPS the evened the playing field. They took everyone’s GPS units and gave them a map and compass. As the day went on the tasks were longer and it began to get darker. This made it even more difficult, especially while eating sand. We continued to win every race and each time the time gap was larger and larger. I trusted the training I had. I spent extra time making sure that I knew about map reading and I never wanted to be stranded. If the batteries go out on the GPS where are you then? I believe our Christian faith is the same. If we can trust Gods word and what we learned from it to get through life we should be on track. We cant just go on our own instincts all the time or do what we feel is the right thing to do. We have to know what Jesus would do. The more time we spend with God the more he reveals himself and will navigate us through life. If we are in His will we wont have to rely on the world to get us on the right path. I often think that if we had to have a GPS, it should be a God Positioning System, “Prayer and lots of scripture with convictions by the Holy Spirit”.

Proverbs 3:1-6