This time, I was in college.
Already working 40 years in my career field, getting my degree after the fact was merely symbolic. But on a campus that went for miles and at my age now with no short-term memory for where my classes were held, every day was Groundhog Day, consisting of 5 long and aimless jogs, finally stumbling into the right classrooms out of breath at the wrong times. The dismissal bells marked my arrivals with no time to rest, loathing the next trek to another forgotten campus classroom. Anxious and under pressure, it would be a miracle if I finally got (not earned) my degree at all without keeling over from a heart attack beforehand.

We’ve all awakened from this dream at some point. Mine just happens to be at 3am on a Saturday morning, pissed that I missed the opportunity to sleep in but so relieved to have woken up when I did.

That this time I was in college and not junior high, and carried an extra 40 pounds, fully grey and wrinkled, God was obviously mistaken. This scene was a dream that belonged on nights decades ago when I wasn’t waking up four times to go pee. So why now? It doesn’t fit my season of life.
Or does it?

I made myself a strong coffee and sat down in this very chair prompted to type in ssa.gov. I don’t know why that was the only website I felt compelled to consult at 3am this morning.

Let’s just say my benefit statement clearly won’t accommodate my retirement dreams. And the little bit of savings and investments I’ve accumulated over the decade since I swapped 8 of my prime earning years for 8 years of using drugs, on paper at least, my retirement years won’t be very golden.

I can only surmise that this poorly placed dream of constantly falling behind and arriving late to the game of life was connected to my own self-inflicted consequences of 8 years of bad decisions for which I’ve very gratefully been completely forgiven.

Practically speaking, I’ll either need to die much earlier than planned or live the lives of all the struggling senior citizens I’ve met and helped in the past ten years of my employ.
But I wouldn’t trade my path of 63 years for anything.

My trek and experiences along the way have ultimately made me a very rich man inside and in the things that matter most. Three wonderful adult children, three and soon to be four beautiful grandchildren, a few enduring friendships, and a faith that promises to deliver me to actual streets of gold once I’m gone.

My point? When you’re awake enough to realize you have what matters most of all in life, bad dreams, in the end, are just dreams. I’ve no time for fear or anxiety about my regrets, but I have plenty of time left to spend with and bequeath riches upon those whose continued presence make life as close to heaven on earth as I can know for now.

Live for today, and let tomorrow worry about itself.—Matthew 6:34

And with that, I need a second mug of coffee. Happy Saturday.

Nearly all today’s big social issues have, at the core, some primary sexual component.

Originally gifted as the procreative means by which humans continue to exist and civilizations thrive, it’s become a reckless plaything now a noose around society and its sexual frontier of pursuits and abuses.

The end game will lead us to self-annihilation.

Ironically, the very gift that should keep giving life to all species may in fact become so erratically employed that it will bring about our extinction.

Humanity has a knack for corrupting good things, oftentimes to its own demise.

I start each morning with acknowledgment that I’m a weak and vulnerable man, powerless over what are otherwise admittedly feeble but good intentions apart from a faith which guides me blindfolded through daily minefields.

Like you, I’m tempted in a half-dozen ways from which I could very easily slip up from my convictions and slide down that rabbit hole to self-destruction and certain disaster.

While triggers these days seem smaller, they’re a lot more widespread and plentiful, planted within my purview, hoping I’ll pay them just a brief acknowledgement.

Just enough, given the opportunity, to take root.

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” was the warning in Oz that poignantly illustrates this personal battle for me from a very young age.

You’re susceptible to your own rabbit holes, but you have means of avoiding them if you’ll make it your mission to humbly do so on your knees this morning and every morning.

I wish you many victorious successes today and every day.

Maybe you’re different, but as an addict on multiple fronts, I’m hounded relentlessly by thoughts, circumstances, and entities wanting to drag me back down to the depths where I once willingly lived but to which I have since died.

Evil pursuit of my soul won’t cease in this lifetime and I’m resigned to that.

But the pursuit of my soul was also made by another who has since claimed it as His own.

Possession, being 9/10ths of the law, today clinched the last 10th.

War is real and war wants a victor.

So I surrendered.

I woke to no pretty cards or basket this Easter morning.

No chocolate bunnies, eggs to hunt, and without a single peep from anyone.

Yet never have I felt more remembered in my entire life.

HeIsRisen

In that day…

The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled and human pride brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭2‬:‭11‬ ‭NIV‬‬

In that day…

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭5‬:‭20‬-‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Lately, there’s been a lot of speculation about exactly when that day is, yet all we know is that no one does

People would rather waste time supposing they are clever enough to figure it out than to take the necessary step to avoid its perilous consequences.

I don’t care much anymore about the end times and last days or the end of the world as we know it.

I care about the people I know and love who, at least for now, won’t be joining me into the next beautiful life ahead.

If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭7‬:‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

But I’m poignantly aware I’m not here to make their decisions but to stand firm and gently beg them to decide for themselves on that truth of which I have been convinced.

Because it will make all the difference,
in that day.

I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.
‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭9‬:‭11‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Seems like practicing noble virtues and good behaviors should count for something.

The bible tells us God can’t lie, change, or think like us. That latter one is called ‘omniscience,’ a regard that God is all-knowing over all dimensions of time.

The equal chances that a good or bad thing happening to us is improved upon by practicing good, wisdom-infused behaviors toward which God instructs and directs us to tilt the scales and probabilities in our favor.

However, in a corrupt and fallen world with a very tangible enemy in the mix working as hard against us as we are working for us, bad things can still happen to set us back from what had seemed like realistic, logical, and consequential explanations for doing the right thing.

If we were omniscient like God, we might see that he will and does work all things together for the good who love God and are called according to his purpose.

Maybe not instantly but most certainly strategically to build faith and spiritual depth in us, God’s timeline and omniscience produces a better outcome in the end. His end.

So still do your best, wisest, swiftest, most brilliant and favorable work, and let time and chance (God) take hold of the outcome from there.

In the end, with dashed expectations put aside, watch him do his magic and defeat for good that which the enemy meant for evil.

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭25‬:‭41‬ ‭NIV‬‬

It was never in God’s plan that any one of us would go to hell. In fact, it is his expressed desire that all of us would be saved.

That eternal fire wasn’t prepared for us but for the devil and his angels.

A glorious heaven with streets of gold awaits us and has always been the plan.

But those who won’t believe, live by faith and in reverent fear of God are not unlike the devil and his angels, and as such, they deserve and receive the same eternal destiny.

Whiter teeth fresher breath
fewer bags fewer sags
assorted concoctions
for ways to cheat death.

A lift here a tuck there
a cream that erases
all traces of ages
on everyone’s faces.

To never be happy with life’s imperfections
you’re constantly seeking the next of suggestions
that strip you and rip you of all that you are
leaving no trace of the real you
but a fake avatar.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and for the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭31‬:‭8‬-‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Our senior citizens are in desperate need of advocates.

I’ve spent a lifetime speaking out and speaking up for a lonely and voiceless generation to which I now belong.

Lacking money, energy, and basic technological skills to make their voices heard in an online world, their concerns and requests largely remain swept under a rug.

They are a lost generation becoming more invisible by the day for lack of interest and enthusiasm within the now selfish generations they created.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭4‬:‭9‬-‭12‬ ‭NIV‬

One by one and in huge numbers they are becoming an impoverished cohort of forgotten stories and crushed voices whose equal rights are without equal representation.

God instructs us to be advocates for the needy with whom we share this earth.

If we fail, what goes around will—in time—most certainly come back around.