who you gonna call????

Most Christians don’t hear God’s voice because we’ve already decided
we aren’t going to do what He says.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

I had the best of intentions this morning, during fevered delirium, of writing a funny post
about honeybuns, aka formaldehyde wrapped in plastic…but my enthusiasm and energy have both waned.

Long story…my husband and I have had what we’ve figured to be the crud…
receiving said crud from time spent with a croupy Mayor.

Mine went to my sinuses, which is my typical MO…
But last night, at 3:20 AM, our home security alarm began blaring.
My husband who normally wears hearing aids, can’t hear squat without them…
not even a blaring siren…WOOOOOO WOOOOOO WOOOOOO

We have said system because my husband was in the jewelry business and we live in
the middle of nowhere on 5 acres off the road…
so call it a bit of peace of mind…or not.

So at 3:20 with a blaring alarm, I immediately jumped from the bed,
screaming at my husband that the alarm was going off as I flipped on the lights and ran
to check where the “breach” was located.

In the meantime, my husband scrambles to cut off his alarm clock because,
in his sleepy deaf state, he thinks I’m fussing because his alarm clock is going off.

I ran to the alarm pad—it read that the breach was at the windows in our closet…
the one just off our bedroom.

At that point the phone rings—it’s the alarm company.
The gal states that they have an alarm code breach coming from our home.

Naturally at 3:20 in the morning, when I’m in the middle of a possible break-in, I tend to
be a tad frantic.

My husband grabs his gun (yes he has a license and has had both hunting guns and a gun he
kept at the jewelry store. He was actually shot during an armed robbery a couple of years
before we met, so let’s just say he’s been cautious ever since.)

He proceeds to scope out the closet then walks through the house.
All the while, the girl on the phone asks “do you want me to dispatch the police?”

I practically scream to my husband “SHOULD SHE SEND THE POLICE!?”

See, I’m the kind of person who, when trouble comes calling,
I want the cavalry to come running.
But what with all this defund the police crap, it’s like Charles Barkley said,
“who you gonna call, Ghostbusters???”

But my husband said no…he thinks it was just glitchy wires.
Glitchy wires??!!
And yet I will say that Percy the cat was still nestled in his bed…
had someone been in the house, Percy would have been the first to hide.

We got back into bed and my husband falls readily to sleep.
Who does that?
I, on the other hand, lay there in the dark…listening.
Waiting for a chainsaw massacre psycho to come busting into our bedroom.
Like a little kid, I feel safer if I bury myself in the covers…like
no one can tell I’m in the bed…
eye-rolling obviously.

I keep listening.

Was someone outside?
Were they going to try another window or door?
The dark has a bad way of playing with our fears.
I pray while my ears play tricks on me.

Suddenly, I notice how very cold I am, and how achy I feel.
Great, I was running a fever.
I never run a fever unless it’s serious.

I laid there until daylight.
Balled up in a shivering clump hidden under the covers…just
waiting for daylight to know I was safe…sick, but safe.

At daybreak, I stutter from under the covers, “I think I’m dying.”
“What? says my deaf husband.
I ask my husband if he could please go get me the thermometer…
“And please make certain it’s ours and not the rectal one for the kids!!!”
I didn’t have on my glasses so I took my chances.

101.4

My husband showers and goes to make coffee…forgetting to feed the cats…
Who both proceed to jump on and off the bed until I stumble from bed, feeling like death,
in order to feed them.
He complains I never let him help enough around the house and yet the one morning of
death and dying, when his help would have been so greatly appreciated,
…well, he was sitting in his chair with his warm cup of coffee…
oblivious to 8 legs of bedlam.

I ask him rather indignantly why did he not feed the cats…
“I never saw them” he lazily responds.
“That’s because they were jumping all over me!!!”
Sigh…

I call the ENT’s office at 8.
Telling them of my ailments but would I need a COVID test first?
Oh no, the nurse tells me, we’ll do that here.

Oooo, a one-stop-shop—great!

Long story short…
I had a strep test, a flu test, and a COVID test.
While we waited on those tests to process, they took x-rays…“well you definitely have
a sinus infection”
the PA tells me—
and then blessedly the other tests came back negative.
YAY, I guess, because she said there are both false negatives and false positives…
And I still felt like crap.

Two shots and a prescription later…we still wonder.

And so now when you think you might have a cold, flu, virus…what was once simple and ordinary…
well, it is not so ordinary anymore…rather it is now very complicated.

How could I have gotten it?
I wear my mask at the grocery store…I really don’t go to many other places.

And then it hit me.

My husband’s hunting buddy jokingly handed me a honeybun the other day as my
birthday gift.
He knows I hate those things.
I think they could survive a nuclear bomb.
My dad loved them.
My husband’s buddy thought it was an appropriate and funny gift.
And yet I actually got him something nice and real.

And then two days later, this friend calls to tell us his wife, daughter, son in law, and two little
grandkids have tested positive.

And then it dawns on me…
It was the handoff of the honey bun!

So I’m to the point now that no one seems to know which is what.
Gather, don’t gather…mask, don’t mask…Thanksgiving, no Thanksgiving, false positives,
false negatives…vaccines, no vaccines

So maybe Charles is right…who ya gonna call??? Ghostbusters…??

Nahhh…

My Refuge and My Fortress
Psalm 91

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”
For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
You will only look with your eyes
and see the recompense of the wicked.
Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
the Most High, who is my refuge
no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
no plague come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the adder;
the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.
“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
I will protect him, because he knows my name.
When he calls to me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”

people of distraction

Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible.
It wears us out by multiplying distractions and beats us down by destroying our solitude,
where otherwise we might drink and renew our strength before going out to face the world again.

Aiden Wilson Tozer


(one of my local bunnies, not distracted by my presence / Julie Cook / 2018)

We are a people of distraction.

“Oh no we’re not” you counter.
“People of distraction have ADD or some other affliction that keeps them
from focusing.”

And whereas that is partially true, I’m here to remind all of us that yes,
we are indeed a people of distraction.

This revelation began to dawn on me last evening when I caught the tail end of the evening news–
although I’ve actually been aware of it for many years it’s just taken the latest idiocy
racing around the country to actually bring this little problem of ours into full focus.

It seems there was some sort of sudden national obsession over the sounding of a word…
‘Was it Laurel or was it Yanny?’

Huh?

I don’t “do” FaceBook, thank the Lord, so I happily don’t catch a lot of this trending
buzzy mess bombarding the masses out there.
This is where I joyfully exclaim, much like Viva La France, yet rather
more accurately “ignorance is bliss!!”

But right there, on the closing segment of the national evening news was some sort of
nonsense about the ‘heard pronunciation’ of a word…or more accurately a name.
It was such a to-do that it even became fodder on Capitol Hill.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan actually closed-out the day’s session on the same note as
that of national news by telling all present what word he had actually heard.

Really??
You guys don’t have more pressing issues to contend with than the latest viral buzz
out there???

The following morning I went to get my hair cut.
I sat in the chair as the gal who cuts my hair got to work, yet there was a buzz in the room.
And the buzz was not the noisy din of hairdryers—it was more of that same nonsense
I heard the evening before…

“Do you hear Laurel or Yanny??

This as each person in the salon had an opinion.

I just sat there listening and looking back and forth.

Next, they quickly moved on to that craze a few years back over the color of a dress
that had also made the viral rounds—” was it blue, black, gold…??”
“and oh, what about those sneakers…pink, grey or white…??”

I couldn’t believe my ears.

All around me grown men and women were chattering about the colors of images of
dresses and shoes as well as the sounds of names all racing around the internet.

I was somewhat dumbfounded as the conversations all truly bordered on, dare I say it,
the dumb.

Hawaii is about to blow.
Half of the country hates the president and the other half that likes him.
North Korea is threatening everyone all over again.
Russia keeps buzzing our jets.
The American Embassy is finally in Jeruselum after a 23-year stall.
Great Britain and every news outlet is going bonkers over an impending wedding
(another copious wasted amount of time).
And everyone else is abuzz over sounds and colors on the internet????

Why am I reminded of the Israelites when Moses went up the mountain??
Throw in a golden calf and suddenly the Great I Am is all but a faded memory…

Our lives on this earth are short in comparison to most of Creation…our length
of time is not guaranteed.
And yet we fill this precious time and these precious days with mindless and idol frivolity.

When all is said and done, I don’t think a dress, a shoe or even a name will
truly matter.
And it might just behoove us to remember who loves the fact that we are
so easily distracted…

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.
What is your life?
You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes

James 4:14

Be sober-minded; be watchful.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion,
seeking someone to devour.

1 Peter 5:8

all roads…do not lead to Heaven

I want to be a more serious-minded Christian, more detached from this world,
more ready for heaven than I have ever been in my whole life.
I want an ear that is sharp to know the voice of the enemy,
whether it comes from religion, politics, or philosophy…
I would rather stand and have everybody my enemy than to go along with the
crowd to destruction.
Do you feel that way?

Aiden Wilson Tozer


(massive trees fall across a dirt road / Troup Co / Julie Cook / 2017)

About a month back, following Hurricane Irma, this is what my husband and I found
on a piece of property located in the western Georgia area.

It’s a piece of property he’s enjoyed and maintained for the past 30 years for hunting, fishing, hiking, etc.

Nearly 400 acres of woods and former pasture land with a criss crossing maze of
trails and dirt roads…
Irma saw to it that one of the main roads to the backside of the property should be
blocked by downed trees.

The trees fell across the road from the adjoining neighbor’s land.

Removing the massive oaks would require some major equipment of which we didn’t have,
so the only option was to cut a new road.

Where I saw an impossible passage, my husband saw a brand new opening…
but one that was not readily available.

A new passage that would require some time and hard work on our parts….
Not to mention destroying a large yellow jacket’s nest underneath a massive rock
as well as battling ticks, mosquitoes and watching carefully for snakes.

Yet it was all part and parcel of a massive undertaking if we wanted to
reach the other side.

It took the two of us the better part of the day to first clear a path using
clopping shears, and a chainsaw…
eventually allowing for the tractor and bush hog to make a clear path.

I was reminded of this recent road cutting adventure yesterday after reading
the words offered by a dear friend from Ireland…

A wise friend who admonished me…warning me to be wary of words now being offered
in the name of God…
As in not all words that are currently being claimed by some seemingly knowledgeable individuals are words, as given in scripture, being that of God’s…
Words that are not God’s word to man….but are rather words man is taking as God’s
and twisting them to his own.

He reminded me that the world has a new gospel…
and with its new gospel the world has decreed that any and all roads will lead
to Heaven..it matters not.

My friend noted that it would behoove me, as it would behoove all the faithful,
to see and to understand that the world is now claiming its gospel path as
the road of inclusion…which is a very dangerous gospel at that…”

He encouraged me to trust no one with God’s word.
For the amount of false teachers is growing at such a fast and alarming rate with
this current new notion of the gospel of inclusion…
such that scripture and prayer are to be our only true guide…

Because these false teachers are each readily claiming that any and all roads lead to God..which is a very dangerous gospel thought.

As I am reminded that Jesus, not man, clearly taught us to…
“Enter through the narrow gate.
For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads
to destruction, and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life,
and only a few find it.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing,
but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
By their fruit you will recognize them.
Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day,
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons
and in your name perform many miracles?’
Then I will tell them plainly,
‘I never knew you.
Away from me, you evildoers!’

Matthew 7:13-22