CONSPIRACY

    I don't subscribe to the Conspiracy theory of history.  There is a lot of folk that do.  They say that there is a conspiracy behind everything that happens; like what happened on 9/11, or the Kennedy Assassination.  I do believe that Satan, or Lucifer, commonly known as the devil is conspiring to keep mankind blinded, and in darkness so that he can land as many souls as possible in the Lake of Fire.  One method that he uses in doing this is by keeping the minds of men off of the real issues of life by keeping humanity hyped to a fever pitch with the 'current events' which are happening.  The media of today is a puppet of the devil in stoking the paranoia and concern of people.  
     For example:  This week, it was reported that Great Lakes water levels are down, and levels on Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron are at their lowest points in Decades.  On Monday, one of the Detroit talk radio hosts was interviewing a person supposedly in the know about this.  Frank Beckmann, asked the expert specifically twice about how deep, and how shallow these affected bodies of water have become.  And this expert evaded giving specific depths, which indicates to me at least, that this expert was raising the anxiety levels of the listeners by indicating a problem, and not giving too much in the way of specific information.
    Whenever we have a tragic occurence happening in America, like for instance, the shooting tragedy at Newtown Connecticut, the media won't let go of it.  They hype it up by appealing to the anxiety levels of their listeners.

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

        In Act One, Scene 3 of William Shakespeare's play 'Hamlet', Lord Polonius makes this statement to his son Laertes:  "This above all:  To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night, the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man".
       We are told that today, 1 out of every 2 marriages end up in divorce.  Why is this?  In the sacred bond of God given holy matrimony, as I might add, between a Man and a Woman, two people are joined together as one.  People are not staying married because neither one of them knows, and can live with themselves."  How can a person live with another if they've never been in-touch with themselves, and know who they are?
     In the every day flak of this war we call life, it is a daily struggle for the individual to rightly discern who they really are.  We are created by God as special creations.  He has a unique purpose for each person individually.  But it is the Devil's purpose as he is God's, and our adversary, to obfuscate and cloud God's purpose for us so that we will go through life and never discover it.  The devil tries to keep us so off course, that we never discover WHO WE ARE!  We live our entire lives that way, never being in-touch with our real selves.
     Every day, we need to Cry Out to GOD and ask him to show us:

• Who We Are
• For Which Purpose did He create us
• In what Direction should we be headed

   Once we get in-touch with our true selves, we need to be true and faithful to who we are.  We must not allow anything in our lives contrary to what is really us.  And we must not allow, any negative accusations from our adversary, the devil, or any one else debase and put down the picture of who we really are!

    If we are real Christians, our job and mission is to be a light to others so that they can be rescued and saved from the terrible eternal fate that awaits them if they go to the Final Judgement unprepared.  We must be strong in order to be of any use to others.  How can we rescue others when we ourselves are on sinking sand, and under water.  Therefore it is imperative that we discover are true selves; and once we learn who we are, we hold that ground and never give in.  It Is A Fight To The End.

"This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

WE LIVE IN A WORLD OF ABUNDANCE

     Several years ago, the impression came to me that I should no longer think in terms of being poor, in want, and not having enough to get by.  This corresponds to a short essay that I wrote in response to reading chapter 15 in Napolean Hill's book, "Think and Grow Rich".  Chapter 15 is, 'Conquering the 7 Ghosts of Fear'

Below is the short essay:

    Hill penned it right, "We are living in a Universe of Abundance, and Superabundance."  If we are living the the spiritual realm, and walking according to the dictates of faith, we shall NEVER be in want.  We shall always be supplied with what we need (Phil 4:19, Holy Bible) God shall grant us the desires of our heart. (Psalms 37: 4; Holy Bible)

    One of the laws of the Kingdom is and continues to be, "According to your faith, be it unto you", and this works as a 'Two-Edged Sword.  If we are going to dwell and live in the land of High Gas prices, Vanishing Jobs, Financial Depression, Political Malaise, Misery, and just abject negativity, this will be our reality.  We will be locked in.  This reality will track us, haunt us, and hunt us down.  It indeed will be our portion all the days of our lives.

DON'T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY!

     Oftentimes we lock ourselves in to unneeded stress and unnecessary misery by taking ourselves too seriously.  We might learn to lighten up and remember that the world is not going to explode; humanity is not going to disappear if our result, or performance, or the eventual reality doesn't meet our expected anticipation; i.e. the picture which we hold in our minds.  We need to have fun, and enjoy ourselves once in a while.  The well-known quote says, "All Work and No Play make Jack a Dull Boy."    Theodor Seuss Geisel, well known to us as Dr. Seuss, said it like this, "I like nonsense, it wakes up the braincells.  Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living;  it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.  Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities."
      
                         LET'S LEARN TO LIGHTEN UP.

YOUNG IN MIND AND IN SPIRIT!

   

Today was my birthday.  I turned 60 years old today.  Recently, a very dear friend of mine said,  "Tom, we must face the fact that we are 'Today's Senior Citizens'.  I told her, I am not in that mindset.   As time passes, and as we see ourselves getting more years in our resume, we must not let the world's prevailing opinion of age and getting older affect us and our mindset.  We must not accept any stigma attached to the fact that we are gaining more experience, and becoming veterans to this thing we call life.

   There is no reason why you can't approach life with the same enthusiasm, sense of adventure, and the 'joi de vivre' of a person in their early 20's.  Although you live with the reality that you may take life a bit slower, and may take the stresses of life in a far different manner than you would have 20 or 30 years ago, you can still exhibit of the focus and energy of a young person.

    As for me, I will approach life with the mindset that I am only 20 or 30 in my mind in my spirit. 

IF YOU FAIL, GET UP AGAIN!

       Ralph Waldo Emerson is quoted as saying, "Our greatest glory, is NOT in never failing; but in RISING every time you fail."  The HOLY BIBLE, God's Word, says it like this:  "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delighteth in his way.  Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand.  (Psalm 37: 23, 24)

     I believe that success, in any venture, is begun with failure.  For when a person begins from scratch, as a novice, he is bound to make some screw-ups which result in that person falling to the ground and encountering failure.  I remember well, in my childhood, when I was learning to ride a two-wheel bike, without training wheels, around the corner of the block that I was circling around was a bush which had thorns or pickers.  Invariably when I would turn that corner, I was prone to falling. And I did, several times, right on that bush with the pickers.  I didn't stay down.  I got up.  The fall, just made me try all the harder to stay on the bicycle.  And it wasn't to long before I was able to ride that bike where ever I wanted to go without falling.  That's the way it is in life.  It is natural to go through rough spots, and at times - failure.   -   
      
       Failure is not a pleasant thing to go through.  But when we are in the middle of it, it becomes a learning experience.  Our eyes are open wide as we strive to see how the failure happened, and we strive to discover the path to take so that our result will be different.  We become experienced, battle-hardened veterans.  We perform better, more consistently and our failures become a rarer occurrence. So my message is, not to glorify failure, or mediocrity.  Let your failures in life take you FORWARD.  If you FALL, Get Up Again. 

WE ARE SOCIAL BEINGS

     I served a 4 year enlistment in the US Army from 07/27/1981-07/26/1985.  I went to West Germay in January 1983.  I went there with a group of people that I spent nearly a year with in an intensive language program.   When we got to Germany we went through two orientation.   We had to go through an orientation into the German Community.  Then we had to go through an orientation at the US Army Field Station where we were going to work.  This site was a Military Intelligence site that had a LIVE intelligence mission going on 24/7/365-round the clock.  All together the orientations that we went through lasted a month.  The purpose of this time was to help us to feel that we were part of a team; and to assuage, if partially at least, the strangeness that we all felt of being in a strange culture.
    We are social creatures.  Some of us are loners.  But even loners in the depth of their souls get lonely sometimes and long for companionship.  I put myself in the category of somewhat a loner. I've learned to live with myself I don't mind being by myself.  I live by myself.    Okay, I have three cats as houseguests.   Most of the time I travel by myself, eat meals by myself.  I don't HAVE to be with anybody.  But I am a people person; as contradictory as it seems.   I love to network and get to know others.  So God made us to be team members who can work with, and live in harmony with others.