“But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD, in an acceptable time…” – Psalm 69:13

A few years ago, there was a woman who saw an ambulance pass by her place of work. The ambulance was moving quickly with its lights and sirens on. Although she was busy, she felt moved to stop what she was doing in order to say a prayer for the person in the back. This woman, whom I hold very dear, is someone that I’m proud to say is close to Jesus and turns to Him in troubled times. She knows He’s there and listening. So when she saw the ambulance, she immediately spoke to the Lord and asked for a special blessing for that person. Later, she found out the rest of the story.

The person in that ambulance was her own mother, nearly at death’s door. If not for interventions from God Almighty, this story would have gone a different way. The situation ended on a happy note though, in that her mom survived the ordeal and went on to live another 11 years before she was called home to glory. There were times during the ambulance ride and at the hospital that her mom was not expected to survive, but in the darkest of times Christ shows that He truly is the light of the world.

God is mindful of our prayers. The book of Philippians says to be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication and with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. It doesn’t say to pray only when we have nothing left, but that’s where we as human beings seem to go with prayer. It becomes an afterthought until poop hits the fan, then prayer is all we can do because it’s all we have to fall back on. When things are good, we almost forget that God is around. We say, “Thanks Lord, but I got this for now.” It’s all about us. Then, when bad times hit (and they always do), we go back to God asking for His help. Thankfully, we have a loving and merciful God who hasn’t stopped listening and never will.

What God wants is a fellowship with Him, in and through Jesus Christ. It’s all about a relationship where there is an open line of communication; not just when bad things happen, but always. When you spend time with the Lord, you get to be better connected with Him so that when you pray, you are constantly praying His will rather than you own. The better connected you are with God, the more you can be sure that when you pray, your needs will be met. They aren’t just your needs then, they are His as well.

That connection with the Lord will also result in Him placing you into different situations that He needs His best people in. A football coach knows to use his first string players in the toughest situations. Same thing goes for God. When the outcome of a situation is critical, God will use His best and most trustworthy tools to get the job done. Are you one of those trustworthy tools? Are you one of God’s go-to people? If you are, you will be placed into various circumstances where you have a chance to witness to someone who needs Christ or to bring comfort to those in need. You will find yourself driving past an accident scene and almost instinctively, you will start praying for those people in the accident as well as the responders. You will feel a stronger and stronger tug on your heart to be more like Jesus and approach situations the way He would and with boldness. Just like the story I told above, you will see something and without thinking you will turn your eyes to the Lord. Your prayers will be less about you and more about others’ needs.

If I can offer any advice, it’s to stay close to Jesus. He is more than a crutch to me, He is a stretcher. He opens my blind eyes to see the problems around me and then lets me know that He’s listening. Don’t ever think that prayer could be done at an inappropriate time, because it’s always the right time to talk to your Heavenly Father. When you stay with Jesus, all of your prayers will be ‘just in time.’

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine.” – Isaiah 5:11

As a police officer in my earlier life, I was the unfortunate witness of many bad things. Some things you can’t un-see or un-know. Most of those stories I wasn’t able to see the end result of, so all I have are the bad memories, but some I was able to see good come from them. One case in point was a man who had reached the end of his proverbial rope. It all started with a man trying to cope with stress and it almost ended with his decision to try to commit “suicide by cop.”

I was called to a catholic church there in town about a man who told the priest that he was going to kill himself and he ”was going to make the police do it.” I and another officer from our relatively small department arrived to find the man sitting on the front steps looking distraught, but somehow calm at the same time. He had his right hand by his side, out of view. As I approached the man, I made the tactical decision for me and the other officer to stay a certain distance from him so we could talk. All the time my hand was clutching the Colt on my hip. I announced who we were and started a conversation with the man. My main objective was to keep him talking until more help arrived.

The man gave his name and not much else, until I started speaking to his reasons why he went to tell a priest he was going to kill himself. He said he wanted the priest to pray for him because this was his last day. He wouldn’t say much else until I started talking about his religious reasons for asking for prayers on his last day. Once I opened that emotional and spiritual door, out came the flood from his heart, but in a good way. He started talking about his family, wife, kids, a potential divorce, and a recently lost job. He said that the “stresses of life” got to him and that’s when he started abusing alcohol. Then, the drink wasn’t enough, so he started in with crack and various other drugs. Eventually, he lost it all. Everything that meant anything in his life vanished into truly a cloud of smoke. By all accounts, that man had hit “rock bottom.”

He said, “I keep trying and I can’t do this anymore! It’s like there’s no way and nobody on this earth who is going to help me.” I told him he was right, there was nobody on earth who could help. The problem was too big for the people and the places he was going to and that he needed the help of one man who could truly help. As if prompted by the Holy Spirit, I felt the overwhelming urge to tell him about God’s great love for him and that what this man sees of his life is not what Christ had in mind when our Lord died on the cross. The man started crying and said, “He is my last hope and that’s why I needed the prayers to help me on my way today.” I said that those prayers weren’t to help you die, but to live.”

With that comment, the man slumped over, wailing and almost unable to breathe. He was incessantly crying out, “I’m so sorry!” with a sheer groaning as if those words were coming from the very depths of his being. I then started to approach him carefully. Within a few yards, I saw what the man had been hiding in his right hand. It was a red handled knife. I stopped and called out the man’s name a couple of times until he answered. My hand went back to my sidearm. I asked him to slide the knife carefully away from both of us and put his hands out in front of him on the ground. He did so without a problem. I reached him and handcuffed him without further incident.   I told him that we would make sure to get him the help he needed and that help started with a quick prayer that very moment.

As the ambulance arrived to take the man to the hospital for psych evaluation, he told me that his intention was to get me close enough to stab me in my neck, so the other officer would have to shoot him. He said, “There’s another bad choice that went wrong, huh?” and kind of laughed as he said it. I told him he was right about one thing. Today was surely the last day of that old life of his. He looked me in the eyes and told me, “Thank you.”

It was one of the most meaningful “thank you’s” I’ve ever gotten and one of the most powerful situations that I’ve ever faced.

The funny part is that about two years later I ended up stopping a vehicle for not having its lights on just after it turned dark. I approached the vehicle and it was that man again, looking like a brand new person. His face was shaved and he was decently dressed. It was like two old best friends seeing each other. He had a smile ear to ear when he told me that he and his wife reconciled and that their next child was on the way. He had gotten a new and better paying job than before after getting his life back on track. Most importantly, after his hospitalization, he was free from the drugs and alcohol and was only “high on Jesus.” He had rededicated his life to our Lord and was spending much of his extra time in small groups, as he put it, “now helping others to cope with this crazy world.” We had a few smiles and laughs. He was genuinely OK and it was a moment that would not have been possible without Jesus saving the lost.

This was one of the few bad stories that had a wonderful ending to it. Too many times, these stories of drug and alcohol abuse take people into the ground too soon. When your life crashes, there’s only a few rocks you can choose to land on. Either you can find the rock at the bottom of a crack pipe, which can only lead you to further into hell, or you can be lifted up by the Rock which is Jesus Christ. One way leads to death and the other leads to life eternal in the heavens. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” – Proverbs 18:21

Do you know what I heard through a friend? There was a group of guys that went out one night. They were talking, eating, and drinking their share of wine. After a while, a few of them got into a fight in somebody’s garden and one even got arrested. That’s just the way I heard it, anyway.

How many of us engage in the rumor mill without thinking? How often do we jump to conclusions without knowing the full story? The answer is that too many of us do this kind of thing on a daily basis. Without all of the facts, if we are being honest with ourselves, we really don’t know the whole story of any situation.

The group of guys I’m referring to in the above story is Jesus and His disciples, of course, but do you see how a wonderful story can get twisted by just leaving out a few facts or putting a negative spin on it? None of the story I just told was untrue, but it was put forth in a negative light. Maybe that’s how I perceived the story or maybe I meant to convey the situation. Either way, what a difference between the story I told and what really occurred.

So much of our lives depend upon our perception of the world around us. Many things can skew our perception to events or make us take things in a poor way. Personal biases are something that shouldn’t be taken into account when you need to convey information. That being said, you should take great care in what you feel like you “need” to convey to people. Are you giving information for a right and just purpose or are you simply telling a story? A just purpose would be to tell someone that their normal route home from work may be detoured. A story or rumor would be degrading to a person or group.

Before speaking not just stories, but really anything, think about what you are saying first and who it may be affecting. What would Jesus do? He sometimes rebuked the Pharisees and others, but He never felt any ill will towards anyone. Not once did He ever speak to simply tear someone down, He always chastened the way a good parent would. He focused on the actions rather than the person and would have gladly taken in anyone who repented of their sins. He still does.

In short, be careful of your words, because they have the power to bless or the power to curse. You may hear things or even see videos on television about a situation, but don’t be too quick to pass judgment. There is only one judge and His name is Jesus Christ.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You.” – Psalm 56:3

I was standing and talking about school with my daughter Emma the other day, when all of a sudden and without warning she spun around and said, “TRUST FALL!” Unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough to realize what she was doing. She hit the floor and looked up at me as if to say, “Well then, I see how it is.”

The problem was that I didn’t anticipate her doing that trust fall. It came as a surprise to me and thus, I couldn’t react to it in time. Thankfully, that isn’t how God operates. He is not only the creator of everything, but he is actively engaged with His creation moment to moment. He didn’t just make us and let us go on our way. God promises that He’s with us always. That’s truly a great comfort to know and remember.

As human beings, we worry about things. It’s just something we seem to do all too often. Even as Christians, as much as we believe in God, we still find it hard to just sit back and know the situation is handled. The Bible says in the Psalms that we should “Be still and know that (He) is God.” We read that verse and we take that in, but for some reason we go back to fretting about things when times get rough. Our hearts say, “I trust you Lord,” but our earthly minds quickly forget that God is in control and we aren’t. We try to handle things through our own means, only to find that we often fall short.

Nothing that happens is a surprise to God. Whether it’s a tough time at work or a poor medical report, God is God and He knows all things. Christ the King is still on the throne and He’s not going anywhere. No matter how twisted this world gets sometimes, the Bible says that God will use all things for His good. All things! Indeed, even the times of trial and suffering will be used for good. God doesn’t cause the bad things, but sometimes He does permit them to happen. However, God never allows bad things to happen unless a much greater good can come from them. For proof of this, I simply need to point to the cross of Jesus. The greatest evil, yet the greatest good; without which there would be no salvation for you or me.

We can’t see the bigger picture the way God does, since we have such a small view of things. The Apostle Paul said that right now we see things through a dark glass. That glass gets clearer the closer to Christ that we get. At the foot of the cross, Jesus’ mother Mary stood there hurting the way no mother should ever have to hurt, but she trusted God. She trusted God so much that she stood at the foot of the cross when any other person would have fallen down in agony, watching their own son hang there and die. She kept standing. Wow, what a woman. No matter how close to Christ I get, I’m not sure I’d have that kind of faith and strength to watch my child die on the cross. That is true trust and faith the likes this world would never understand. Through her trust in the Almighty, she didn’t just see the moment, she saw eternity.

When this world turns on its ear, we need to turn our ears to God. If you spend time with Him daily through such things as prayer and Bible study, it becomes easier to see our Lord for what He is. He’s not just the God of the past, but one of the present and future as well. He is the almighty and ever present help in times of struggle. He’s worthy of your trust. Let’s face it, you put your faith and trust in things all the time. You trusted your chair to hold you up when you sat down. You trust that when you flip the light switch, it will light the room. You trust that when you hand the McDonald’s cashier a five dollar bill, that they will accept it as legal tender and hand you your food. Your faith is placed in small, meaningless things all day, every day. How about Christ, the one person that can offer you eternal salvation by washing away your sins? He is the Savior of all mankind and all He asks for in return is for us to accept Him and His finished work on the cross. Your faith is well placed when you trust in Jesus.

We work and we try to do the right things, but sometimes we fall. That’s OK, as long as we are falling into the arms of Jesus. Trust in Him, always. He will not only pick you up, but raise you higher than you could imagine.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully” – 1 Timothy 1:8

Our laws in the United States were originally based off of biblical principles. Somehow through the years, we’ve twisted those laws in order to agree with whatever we wanted to do at the time. Our Creator endowed us with certain unalienable rights, but those rights have been changed for some people as the majority saw fit.

If you try really hard, you can make the Bible say whatever you want. Just like a hammer, it’s a great tool when used correctly, but if used otherwise you risk killing someone or yourself. I hear people say that God made us free, so we must be able to do whatever we want, whenever we want, and with whomever we want. Sorry, but life doesn’t work like that and neither does God.

Jesus, our Lord and Savior, came to set the captives free; captives that were enslaved by sin. Everyone has a master that they serve and while sin might be fun for a time, you become shackled to it like a prisoner. Pretty soon, you feed that evil habit more times than not. You can try to convince yourself that it’s Ok and that “everybody’s doing it” or that sin is acceptable in today’s society, but sin is sin and wrong is wrong. You are not free to sin, no matter what society says or how you interpret the Bible.

You are free. Not free to do whatever you’d like, but free to do the right thing. And while our society applauds these so called free people for taking a stand for such things as gay marriage and abortion, they are not right and not how God created us to live. Im not just harping on those two things since in reality they are parts to a larger, more eternal problem. In short, we all sin and I’m not going to look down upon anyone for doing a different sin than what I do. That being said, I’m also not going to justify my sins by saying that it’s acceptable in today’s world or especially that our country has made a law for it. If I agree with you that your sin is acceptable, then I’m not helping you, I’m only confirming you in that sin.

Good is not a relative thing. There’s right and wrong and the two don’t mix. No matter what your thought or agenda is, if it doesn’t keep with God’s moral law, it’s wrong and you shouldn’t do it. We all make some bad choices sometimes and that’s why we need the saving grace of Jesus, but Jesus also wants us to repent and turn away from that sin. If you love someone, you want the best for them. Jesus loves you, but if you sin, you are denying His best for your life. So please, turn away from your sin and follow Jesus and the example He set for us before it’s too late for you, our country, and our world.

You can’t break God’s moral law, you will only end up breaking yourself first.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“And he said to them, Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel to all creation.” – Mark 16:15

It doesn’t take long for people to know where I stand with God, but with our “politically correct” world, it’s sometimes hard to share my faith with people. For the average person, the situation can easily become uncomfortable. You don’t want to offend people, especially at your place of business which can get you into hot water with bosses and others.  That being said, how much more uncomfortable will it be if you knew that the person you had the chance to share the gospel with went to hell and even took others with him or her?

That’s the chance we take when we know that someone doesn’t know Christ and yet we do nothing about it. There are so many people in this world who are walking in sin.  They are going down a bad road and don’t know how to stop.  It’s up to you and I as Christians to tell them about Christ.  There’s a part in the book of Acts where the apostle Philip meets an Ethiopian who is reading the scriptures.  Philip asks if he understands what he’s reading, to which the Ethiopian replies, “How can I if nobody explains it to me?”

No matter how far along in your journey with Christ that you are, you still can help show someone else the truth. We all have a story.  Start with what you know.  Tell that other person about your past and then how your life has changed after Jesus.  It’ll be enough.  And let me tell you, I’ve never saved anybody.  That’s not my job, it’s the Holy Spirit’s job.  I’ve simply pointed towards Jesus.  Sometimes they walk away with a new purpose and sometimes they walk away offended.  All you can do is pray that the seed has been sown and believe that God will give the increase.

Just think about it. If you went to the doctor and they found out you had cancer.  Then, they knew that there was a cure, but didn’t tell you about it.  Once you found out, you’d be fighting mad.  You’d probably sue them or worse.  Well, sin is the cancer and the wages of sin is death.  The cure is Jesus Christ and all who call upon Him shall be saved.  How dare you keep that cure to yourself!

There are good people, maybe even people in your own household that don’t know the love of Jesus Christ. What would you do to stop them from being lost forever?  You don’t have to preach to them to tell them about Christ.  Do it simply and plainly.  To tell them about Jesus is to tell them that you love them.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:9

I’ve been in and out of the church all of my life. I always had a sense of Christ thanks to my mom especially, but I didn’t really understand many of the precepts of being a Christian.  Even to this day, there are a few questions that I have that I’m sure will only get realized when I step into Heaven.  However, it’s a comfort to know that I’m not alone in those questions.  I’m sure that the sentence most often heard in Heaven will be, “Aha, that’s what it was all about!”

I know many people who get confused with all of the history and the “thee’s and thou’s” of the Bible. Honestly, I was one of those people, but I kept going.  That’s the real trick, keep going and pushing through those problems.  I’ll tell you right now from experience, you will have questions and you will get confused about some things.  Even the best Bible scholar studied the Bible because they had questions.

Questions are fine. Just because you have questions doesn’t mean that you are going to hell for doubting God.  My kids have questions about how I cook dinner, but they don’t doubt my ability to feed them.  You can wonder and question the methods or ideas behind God’s actions, but don’t ever doubt that He has got your best interest in mind even if it doesn’t look like it at that moment.  If we saw things from the viewpoint of God, we would understand fully.  For now, we can’t often see the reasons behind God’s actions.  That’s where faith comes in.

Even if you don’t believe in God, you are still putting your faith into something. You put your faith into a chair before you sit down.  You are believing that it will hold your weight or that it doesn’t have a nail ready to poke you in the behind when you sit down.  You believe that the chair will hold you like a chair should.  It’s not a question of having no faith.  You have faith, it’s just where do you put that faith?

If you are holding back your faith because you don’t know the “how’s and why’s” behind God’s actions, then you will be holding back for all of your natural life. The Bible says that God’s ways are so far above our ways, as the heavens are above the earth.  It takes the mind of God to understand God and that is why when you accept Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to work in you and through you.  The more time you spend in God’s Spirit, the more you will come to understand His ways.  But even then, you are looking at the mind of God through a dirty window.  You won’t see or understand completely, not yet anyway, but you will understand enough.

God doesn’t want there to be secrets between Him and His children. He loves you and wants the best for you.  That being said, there are some things that He can’t reveal to you and I just yet.  I try to explain my intentions to my kids when I can, but there are times when I can’t tell them everything, because either they aren’t mature enough to understand or because it may reveal a bigger surprise I have coming.  Take that same approach and understanding with God our Father.  We may want to know the reasons behind some things, but if He doesn’t reveal them to us, don’t take it as a sign that He doesn’t love you.  Instead, take it as a showing that He does love you.  He loves you enough to say, “I’m doing this for your good and the good of everyone, but I just can’t tell you why right now.”  It may be confusing and you may not get all of the answers you want, but you will get all the information you need to live a good Christian life.

I don’t need to understand how a radio wave or electricity works in order to watch the television. I simply press the power button and start watching the TV.  The same goes for your life.  You may not understand how God’s majesty works, but through His grace and His Holy Spirit, you will have the power to affect a positive change in this world if you stay close to Him.  Trust in the Lord, for now and forever.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” – Genesis 2:7

I was speaking with a friend today about retirement funds and insurance. He made the comment that he was “worth more dead than alive.”  It’s unfortunate to hear someone say that, but somewhat common in today’s world.

Many times in life, it’s easy to feel defeated or worthless, but that’s not the case. We have the God of the universe as our creator.  The same God that spoke worlds into existence also made you.  The Bible says that we were made from the dust of the earth, but that doesn’t mean we are insignificant. It means that we have both material and spiritual value beyond compare.

Which is more valuable, a diamond or a pile of dirt? At first thought, the diamond would be worth more, but what about to a seed?  To a seed, that pile of dirt is worth everything, since the dirt is its future and lifeblood.  That dirt represents food and shelter for what will grow up to potentially feed thousands, since from one seed can come many seeds later.

I read in a scientific journal that spoke about the makeup of the human body. Not too many people realize that we have many different types of elements in our bodies, including such things as gold, silver, and even platinum.  We are also what scientists call a ‘carbon-based life form’ in which there’s a good percentage of our physical makeup that is carbon.  Carbon, when placed under enough stress and heat, eventually becomes a diamond.  In other words, not only are you the pile of dirt that aids in the creation of life, but you are also the diamond.  Through the stresses and fires of everyday life, we can become a symbol of beauty and strength.

You are not worthless. God created you purposefully and wonderfully.  You are God’s masterpiece and no matter what this world says you are, you can walk around with your head held high knowing that you are so much more than what this world sees.  You are worth more than you can imagine, not because of what you do, but because of who you are.

God’s blessings to you.

DH