August 11, 2024

WORLD-VIEW


I’ve always been amazed that so many Christians can read the same Bible and have many different beliefs. This is why there are so many different denominations. I’m also amazed when several scientists view the same archaeological evidence, and come to very different conclusions, especially concerning the age of the earth, dinosaurs, and other fossils.

It’s the same with politics. Democrats and Republicans are now so far apart in beliefs and ideas that it seems there’s not even a few issues we can agree on. It all comes down to our worldview. Our worldview, or how we look at the world, determines everything else we believe, as well as how we act, and how we treat others in our everyday lives.

That’s why it’s very important to have a “Biblical Worldview.” In other words, we need to see the world through the lens of God’s holy word, the Bible. You may ask, What good is a biblical worldview when there are so many different opinions, and interpretations of God’s word? That’s a good question. The answer is simple. The Bible says spiritual things are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:13-14). Jesus said, Everyone must be born again (John 3: 1-7).

There are many people who claim to be Christians, but do not bear the fruits of a Christian. Jesus said his Born Again followers will be known by their fruits, which are the works or deeds that they do (Matthew 7:16). Nobody knows everything, no matter how close we are to God, but if a person is not born again, with the Holy Spirit living inside, they cannot understand the Bible correctly.

Unfortunately, there are many people who have not been born again, but claim to be Christians simply because they believe God exists. They don’t believe IN God, they just believe there is a God, and they think that makes them a Christian. When Jesus returns, those people will be in the group that Jesus tells to depart from him because he never knew them. They never knew him, nor had a relationship with him.

The Bible is an awesome book. It’s God’s instructions to every human on how to be saved, and what to do after we’re saved. We need the Holy Spirit to help us understand the word of God, and to help us carry out his instructions.

If you haven’t been born again and become a new creature with the Holy Spirit living in your mind, then you’re not saved. Just believing that God exists does not save us. The Bible says the demons believe, but they’re certainly not saved (James 2:9). We must be born again for the blood of Jesus to wash away our sins, and to inherit eternal life.

Jesus loves you so much that he suffered and died to save you. He wants you to live with him forever, so don’t wait another minute. Trust in Jesus right now. Repent and be born again, and receive eternal life (Romans 6:23; John 3:16).

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March 03, 2024

THE BAD WIRE IN THE WALL SOCKET

When I was a kid, I found an electrical wire at my dad’s house that was cut off from some electronic item. The ends of the two wires had been stripped about an inch or so, evidently to reuse later.

As I looked at the two naked wires, the wheels and cogs in my inquisitive brain started turning. For some reason, I started to wonder what would happen if I tied those two naked ends together, and then plugged the wire into a wall socket. As I thought about it, I concluded that the only way to answer that question was to go ahead and conduct the experiment. So that’s what I did.

This was an experiment I did not want my parents to be part of or to even know what I was doing, so I went into the living room by myself and proceeded to plug the wire into the outlet.

When I plugged it in, fire shot from the end of the wire, and the electricity went off. I knew what had happened, so I jerked the wire out of the socket immediately and threw it behind the couch.

I heard my mom and dad talking in the kitchen. They were wondering what had happened, and why the power went off. Back then we didn’t have breakers. They were fuses. That’s where the term fuse box comes from. I still hear people today calling a breaker box a fuse box. Well, my little experiment had blown at least one of the fuses, maybe more for all the electricity to go off. Daddy did whatever he did with the fuses and soon had the electricity working again.

I did not dare tell them what I had done. In fact, I never told my dad but a few years before my mother died I told her and she just chuckled and said, “Well son! What did you do that for?”

I needed to know what would happen. I was always curious. I always wanted to know how things worked. Growing up I would take things apart to see how they worked, and many times I couldn’t get them back together correctly. Several things I took apart never worked again including an expensive base Walkie-talkie my dad bought me for my birthday. But when I could get things back together and working right, and understand how they worked, that was an amazing feeling.

That reminds me of studying the Bible. When I study a certain topic, I look up everything the Bible says about it and compare scriptures with scriptures to get a picture of what God’s word says about that subject.

It’s an amazing feeling when you understand what God has revealed to us about a certain thing. Reading and studying God’s word is the best way to understand what God wants us to know. It’s amazing when you can explain what the Bible says to others, and no matter what someone else says, they can’t take that understanding away from you.

2nd Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to show yourself acceptable to God; a worker that is not ashamed, correctly dissecting the word of truth,” which, according to Jesus, is the word of God, the Bible (John 17:17).

In 1st Peter 3:15, Peter says, “Always be ready to answer anyone who asks you about the hope that is in you.” That involves Bible study, and prayer. That’s also what it takes to have a close personal relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That’s the most important relationship we can have, and we have to develop it and maintain it every day. Spending time reading and studying the Bible must be an important part of our daily routine. It has to be.

We have to put on the whole armor of God to grow as a Christian and to be protected from the devil, and his evil angels as explained in Ephesians chapter 6. So pray, read, and study God’s word, the Holy Bible, every day of your life here on Earth so you can live with God for the rest of eternity. God bless you and protect you. Amen.

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March 02, 2024

PAIN x4


A while back, I wrote an article about my experience with three different pains over the last several years. I was going to update it because of some new developments in my health situation, but I decided to just write a part two. If you haven’t read the other blog post, I called it Pain x3, so I’m calling this one Pain x4.

In the last post, I discussed 3 major pains I’ve suffered from in the last twenty-four years, with each one accelerating in intensity. Starting with terrible back pain from Deteriorating Disc Disease, to toothache pain, and a kidney stone. In my blog post, I said the stone was the worst pain I had ever felt. But, little did I know that the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life was not from that kidney stone as I thought.

I had never had a kidney stone before, so I really didn’t know what kind of pain they caused. All I knew was that other people were saying they were really painful. After about seven weeks, I passed a small stone, but the pain didn’t get any better. In fact, it was getting worse.

I was going to work every day, and doing my best to do a good job, but I was hurting constantly. Even though I was taking the two pain medications prescribed by my doctor, plus some over-the-counter pain medicine, the pain would never completely subside. In fact, on several different occasions, I was in so much pain I was actually bent over, and couldn’t straighten up completely.

Finally, the night before my next doctor’s appointment, I was in the shower and decided to push in on the knot in my lower abdomen, and it popped back inside. That was it. I was convinced it was a hernia. I had been telling the doctors I thought I had one, but I thought it was higher up, around my belt line. Sometimes it felt like butterflies in my stomach and I could feel, and sometimes hear a gurgling in the right side of my abdomen, and the pain was so bad. Then, I started to feel a knot in my front pelvic area. Sometimes it was there, and sometimes, it wasn’t. When I sat and relaxed it was inside, but when I was walking at work, or when I ate something, it would come out, and it would hurt pretty bad there and also in my stomach and abdomen. My doctor visits were always early mornings, after I had been resting, and hadn’t eaten anything for 12- 15 hours, so that’s why my doctor couldn’t find the problem.

One day, I finally convinced her to send me to the hospital for a CT scan. The diagnosis was an Inguinal Hernia. It was actually a Direct Inguinal Hernia. It was not in the Inguinal Canal, but in the connective tissue in my pelvic area; the white stuff that connects the muscle to the pelvic bone. I had to get it fixed. It was so painful, I could barely function anymore.

My doctor contacted a good surgeon she knew and made me a pre-op appointment. It took a few more weeks to actually get the surgery. By then, the pain was so bad that I was actually looking forward to the surgery, but I had no idea what kind of pain I would have to suffer through after the surgery. If I had, I don’t know what I would have done.

After the surgery, I was in so much pain I could barely function. They gave me some very strong pain medicine, but I was still in misery. Initially, the surgeon had said I should be able to go back to work in a week or so, on light duty. He said, Two weeks at the most. When the week was up, the incision was healing very well and I got the stitches out, but I was still in a lot of pain, I was very weak, and the swelling still had not gone down.

The pain in my abdomen was still there, and I was still getting sick almost every time I ate anything. It was a whole month before I was able to go back to work and I still had to be on light duty. I couldn’t pick up anything over ten pounds the first week, then it gradually increased each week.

I finally got over the surgery, but my stomach was still hurting and I was still getting sick almost every time I would eat anything. The pain would radiate all around my stomach from my abdomen up to my lower chest. It was still almost unbearable at times. I was more convinced than ever that I had a hernia in my right lower abdomen, but the doctor thought it was my gallbladder.

She sent me back to the hospital for an ultrasound, which found multiple stones. By then, I was in so much pain that I didn’t hesitate when she said it needed to come out. Again, the time it took to get the pre-op appointment, and the surgery took forever. It was almost another month.

I think it was two weeks after the gallbladder came out before I could go back to work, but guess what. I still had the same symptoms I had been having. It was going on for about a year and a half at that point, and I was getting worse. Somewhere around this time, I got COVID and was down for a while.

After I recovered from that, I asked my regular doctor to send me back for another scan and focus on the area where I thought the problem was. I was afraid it was colon cancer because my dad had that several years back. She didn’t find anything on the scans, so in my desperation, I made an appointment with the surgeon who had fixed my hernia. This time, I ate breakfast before I went to the appointment so I would be affected when the doctor saw me. He examined me and immediately said, “Yep, it’s a hernia. We need to get some fresh scans to see exactly what’s going on, then we can fix you up.”

Finally, after more than two years, I got some relief. I was back to work in 2 weeks, on light duty, of course, but I was feeling so much better very quickly. Praise the Lord. That was over two years of CRAZY!!!

So, in conclusion, I have suffered severe back pain, terrible pain from a toothache, gallstones, and a kidney stone. I have pain from deteriorating disc disease, a deteriorating hip, and Arthritis. I’ve had two bad car wrecks, and 5 surgeries, but none of those things have given me nearly as much pain as that hernia in the lower right part of my abdomen. That was some kind of pain and I hope, and pray that I never, ever have to suffer that kind of pain again.

I’m so thankful to God for giving me the strength to make it through those two years of terrible pain and frustration, and I’m so thankful for my wife, Linda, and for her prayers and patience, and all she had to do for me. I love her so much. She’s a true blessing from God.

So, whatever you’re going through, whatever you face, and whatever pain you have to suffer, just remember that “God is with you if you’re with him” (2 Chronicles 15:2). Stick with him, love him, praise him, and trust him. Things are not always good, and we will suffer at times, but God has promised to be with us in whatever we go through, and remember that the pain won’t be forever. So have faith, and hope. Never give up. Keep looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, and for Joy in the Morning.

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My books are available in paperback and digital format on Amazon @ https://www.amazon.com/Teddy-Lynn/e/B01MZDB6L6

November 26, 2023

ASLEEP ON THE JOB AGAIN


I once heard about a man who was resting on his forklift at work and unintentionally fell asleep. As he was waking up, he realized someone was standing beside him. It was his supervisor. So before he opened his eyes, he took a deep breath, and said, Amen.

That was told to me as a true story, but I don’t know if it is or just a joke. I thought it was funny. It made me laugh. It does sound like something that could have really happened because I’ve fallen asleep on the job a few times. All during lunch except the time I’m telling you about now.

One of my first full-time jobs was making vinyl siding. We worked three 12-hour shifts, and one 6-hour shift each week. There were 4 shifts. Days and nights at the first part of the week, and days and nights at the second part of the week. I was on the 4th shift which was nights, from Wednesday night through Saturday night. I would get off work on Sunday and be off until Wednesday night.

Those were weird hours, and they seemed so long. I couldn’t get much sleep in the daytime, mainly because I was used to sleeping at night, but a few of my friends and family were not as considerate as they could have been. One of my young cousins actually set the woods on fire behind my house one day while I was trying to sleep.

Being tired and sleepy at work is bad enough for eight hours, but it’s worse for a 12-hour shift, and it didn’t help that the job was boring.

I was packing vinyl siding into boxes as it came off a conveyor belt just after going through the mold to form it into its unique shape. When it came out at the end of the machine, it traveled through another mold just to keep it straight and in the same shape while it quickly cooled down. It was fenced-in with rollers and presses to aid in this process and to keep anyone from getting hurt. By the time it reached the end of the track and dropped onto the rollers, it was pretty much cooled off and in the shape, it would be in for the next twenty-plus years.

Sometimes a piece of trash or something would get in the mix somewhere along the way and it would cause a hole to appear in the piece of siding. As it was pushed and pulled along the track it would usually become solid again when the piece of trash moved on, but sometimes it wouldn’t. When the hole remained for more than a few seconds we would have to quickly cut the piece of siding off behind the hole with a hacksaw and quickly put it back into the precisely formed track.

It was bound to happen, and one night it did. A huge hole formed in the piece of vinyl, and I knew it wasn’t about to work itself out. I grabbed the hacksaw and cut as fast as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough to get the siding back into the form in time. I had to try it again. I grabbed the quick-moving siding with my left hand and the saw with my right hand and began to cut it again. After only two strokes, I stopped. I knew what I had done. The second stroke had cut my thumb almost completely off.

I grabbed my bloody hand and ran to the restroom. As I washed my thumb in the sink, I could see the extent of the damage. The saw had hacked through my thumb, removing a portion as wide as the teeth on the blade. There was only a small section of the nail and flesh left intact. I was in a lot of pain.

I went to the emergency room and got it patched up. Then I spent the next week or so pushing a broom at work for twelve hours a night. That was worse than the accident itself. I was supposed to be on light duty for two weeks but after one, I couldn’t do it anymore. I bugged them until I convinced them to let me get back on the line.

I still wasn’t sleeping enough, so I started using caffeine pills to keep me awake at work. They made me sick so I had to stop taking them. Then one night, as I was packing the siding into boxes, I woke up about twenty feet away from my line. I was holding one piece of siding in my hands looking around. The plant manager and my supervisor were standing together by the break room looking at me and laughing their heads off. So I calmly walked back to my line and got caught up as quickly as I could.

Then, one morning as I was driving home, I fell asleep and slammed the side of my car into a bridge on the highway. It woke me up, and I jerked the steering wheel in the opposite direction and went into the opposite lane. Thank God there was no oncoming traffic there or I might not be here to tell the story.

After that, I had to quit and find a daytime job. That’s how I ended up with the position where I fell Asleep On The Job that I previously wrote about. You can read that post and one about another time I cut the end of my index finger almost all the way off at the links below.

God has been so good to me. I’ve been through a lot in my life and he’s always gotten me through whatever bad happened and I know he’ll always be there to help me. You can trust him, too. Never forget that.

ASLEEP ON THE JOB
https://teddylynn.blogspot.com/2017/07/asleep-on-job.html

THE DUNE BUGGY, THE BICYCLE, AND THE DRILL
https://teddylynn.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-dune-buggy-bicycle-and-drill.html

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My books are available in paperback and digital format on Amazon @
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September 24, 2023

NAILED TO THE CROSS

 


If you're a Christian, and/or attend church regularly, or if you've been around Christians much, then I'm sure you've heard somebody say that the law was nailed to the cross. They say the Ten Commandments were only for the Jews, not for Christians, and they were nailed to the cross when Jesus died. Then, they usually quote Romans 6:14-15, and say, "We’re not under the law but under grace."

So, if we no longer have to obey the 10 Commandments, is it okay to Lie, Steal, Kill, Commit adultery, and take the name of the LORD in vain? Then they say, "No. Nine of the Commandments were repeated in the New Testament, so we do have to obey those nine."

Today, I want to ask, and answer the question, What exactly did Jesus nail to his cross?

We'll start with Colossians 2:11-14, and Ephesians 2:11-18

Colossians 2:12-14
12 You were buried with him in baptism and rose with him through faith in the operation of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 Because you were dead in your sins and uncircumcised in your flesh, but he made you alive together with him, and forgave you for all your sins,
14 Erasing the handwritten law that was against us, which was contrary to us, he took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

Ephesians 2:11-18
11 So remember, that in the past, you were Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcised by those who are Circumcised in the flesh;
12 At that time, you were without Jesus. You were not part of the community of Israel and were strangers to the covenant of promise. You were without God in the world, and had no hope:
13 But now, in Jesus, the Messiah, you who were once far away are made near through the blood of the Messiah.
14 Because he is our peace. He has made both, one, and has broken down the wall that separated us.
15 In his flesh, he destroyed that wall, which was the law of precepts and ordinances, in order to create in himself one new man from the two, and make peace;
16 So that he might reconcile both to God in one body, and destroy the wall through the cross:
17 He came and preached peace to you who were at a distance, and to those who were near.
18 So now, through him, we both have access to the Father through one Spirit.

In these 2 passages, Paul is talking to two different churches, but he's saying the same thing to both, although it's not word for word. Notice that he uses the same terms in the highlighted sections in each passage marked by corresponding colors.

Paul is telling the Colossians and the Ephesians that Jesus died for the Jews and the Gentiles to bring all his followers together as one people. There was a law of precepts and ordinances which he calls a wall that separated both groups. He also calls it the handwritten law which was against them. Both terms refer to the Law of Moses.

He says Jesus destroyed that "Wall" which was the handwritten law of precepts and ordinances which was against them by symbolically nailing it to his cross. He became sin for us on that cross. He was the supreme sacrifice that all the animal offerings pointed forward to. So, what was nailed to the cross? It was the Law of Moses; not the Ten Commandments. Let's look at a few verses from Deuteronomy to confirm this.

Deuteronomy 10:1-5
1 At that time the Lord said to me, Cut two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me into the mountain, and also make you an ark of wood.
2 And I will write on the tablets, the words that were on the first tablets which you broke, and you will put them in the ark.
3 And I made an ark of shittim wood, and cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up into the mountain, with the two tablets in my hand.
4 And he (God) wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandmentswhich the Lord spoke to you in the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them to me.
5 And I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.

Notice that the 10 commandments were written on two tablets of stone, and were placed inside the ark of the covenant itself, but, as the next few verses show, the Law of Moses was written in a book, (scroll) and placed in the SIDE of the ark of the covenant.

Deuteronomy 4:14
14 And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, so you might do them in the land which you go over to possess.

Deuteronomy 31:9
9 And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.

Deuteronomy 31:25-26
25 Moses commanded the Levites, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying,
26 Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.

Notice that the Law of Moses (Precepts/Ordinances and Judgments) was against them. That's the same wording Paul uses in Colossians 2:14. The law that was against them was the Law of Moses, and clearly, that is the law that was nailed to the cross; not the Ten Commandments.

Since that's the case, what about the Ten Commandments? Well, the Bible tells us the Ten Commandments was the Old Covenant written on stone (Deut. 4:13), and the New Covenant is the Ten Commandments written in our minds (Hebrews 10:16).

The Ten Commandment Law was NOT nailed to the crossthe Law of Moses was. So, that means the Ten Commandments are still there for us to obey; all ten, not just nine, and by the way, all ten of the commandments were repeated in the New Testament; not just nine, as some people claim.

The Commandments were not just for the Jews. In fact, they were not given to the Jews. They were given to the Children of Israel, which, at the time, consisted of all twelve tribes. The Jews came much later from the tribe of Judah. The Ten Commandments existed before God wrote them on the stone tablets for the Israelites in Exodus chapter twenty. Look BACK at chapter 16 and read this verse carefully.

Exodus 16:4
4 Then the LORD said to Moses, Look, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people will go out and gather a certain amount every day, so I may test them, to see if they will follow my law or not.

Much earlier than that, God said this about Abraham;

Genesis 26:5
5 Because Abraham heard my voice, and obeyed my ordinances, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

So God's Law was already there before there was ever a Jew or a nation called Israel. The Israelites had been in Egypt for over four hundred years and had been deeply influenced by Egyptian culture. Many of them were even serving the Egyptian gods. They needed to be reminded of the true God's Law, so he spoke the Commandments to them, and then he wrote them down for them. The fact is, that God's law has always existed because he has always existed.

Just a few more points to wrap it up:

The New Testament does say, "You are not under the law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14). But the first part of that verse says, "Sin shall not have dominion over you…"

Romans 3:20 says the law is the standard that shows us what sin is.

In Romans 7:7, Paul says he would not have known what sin was without the law.

Romans 10:4 says the goal of the law is to bring all who believe to Jesus to be justified.

1 John 3:4 says, Whoever sins, breaks the law: because sin is breaking the law.

There could be no sin without the Law, so it has been around as long as sin has. Please look at these next few verses carefully.

Galatians 5:18
18 If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

BUT, those who are not led by the Spirit are STILL under the Law. Let me say that again. Listen closely. Galatians 5:18 says, "If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law." Those who are NOT led by the Spirit are still under the Law. What does that mean?

We who have accepted Jesus as our Savior are not under the Law because we've accepted God's free gift of Salvation, and our sins have been forgiven. We're now under Grace. But, just because we're no longer under the Law, doesn't mean the Law is no longer there. Those who have NOT yet been saved still need the Law to show them what sin is so they can come to Jesus and be saved.

Galatians 3:24-25 says it another way.

Galatians 3:24-25
24 So the Law was our teacher to bring us to Christ, so we might be justified by faith.
25 But after that faith has come, we are no longer under a teacher(The Law)

Everyone is not saved. Everyone does NOT have faith. Those people STILL NEED THE LAW to tell them what sin is. They still need the Law to show them they're lost, and to point them to our loving Savior. They still need that teacher. So the Ten Commandment Law has not been changed nor done away with. IT IS STILL THERE, just as strong, and as in effect as ever.

Keeping the Ten Commandments WILL NOT save us. We should obey them because we ARE saved. All ten, not just nine of them. Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). If we love him, we should want to obey his Commandments; Not to be saved, but because we ARE saved.

So, the next time you hear someone say the law was nailed to the cross, you'll know that it was not the Ten Commandment Law. It was the law of Moses with the precepts and ordinances, and the sacrifices that symbolized the one great sacrifice of the Son of God for us for all time.

You can read what the Bible says about the Old and New Covenant at the link below.
https://teddylynn.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-old-and-new-covenant.html

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© 2023 Teddy Lynn – All Rights Reserved

My books are available in paperback and digital format on Amazon @
https://www.amazon.com/Teddy-Lynn/e/B01MZDB6L6


September 12, 2023

THE DUNE BUGGY, THE BICYCLE, AND THE DRILL


If you’ve read my books or followed my blog, you can agree that there just seems to be no end to the dumb stuff I did growing up, but you may be surprised when you read the latest dumb thing I’ve done as an adult.

When I was younger, I was very impressionable. If I saw somebody do something I thought was amazing, whether it was in person or on TV, I would try it. I guess you could say I was a daredevil. I did many things I should never have done, like climbing on top of our twelve-foot-tall mobile home and jumping off. Of course, it hurt my legs and hips, but not bad enough to keep me from jumping out of the ten-foot loft in the gym at school. I loved climbing trees, too. I would climb as high as I could possibly go until the limbs were too small to go any higher.

Pretending to be Spider-Man, I once climbed up the side to the top of a tall stack of wood at the pallet factory and had a hard time figuring out how to get back down without calling for an adult for help.

I always liked running and jumping over things, so when I got a bicycle, I started building ramps and jumping them. I’ve made some jumps that I thought were amazing at the time, but I’ve also had some serious wrecks. I never broke a bone, but I’ve had some serious scrapes, bruises, and sprained body parts, and I’ve lost a lot of blood.

One time, I made a ramp in our graveled driveway using an old piece of firewood and two flat boards placed side by side. When I hit the ramp, the front wheel went between the two boards, pushing them aside and hitting the log. I flipped over the handlebars and onto the gravel as the bike flipped over on me. The back wheel was bent beyond repair, and the bike was messed up pretty bad. One of my shoes was torn off my foot, and I was in a lot of pain for a while.

Another time, I had built my own bike, piece by piece. I bought an old frame from my uncle. I cleaned it up, and painted it, then Uncle Charles took a 3-speed rear end from a bigger bike and changed the spokes to make it fit my 20-inch wheel. I bought new pedals, a new fancy handlebar holder, and handlebar grips. It was a nice bike and I was proud of it. My cousin Timmy helped me build a nice ramp inside a big metal building where our landlord ran a Coke crate repair shop. It had a concrete floor, but the parking lot was gravel. That’ll be important later in the story.

So we lined up several wooden Coke crates in a row. The ones that held twelve or sixteen bottles. I jumped those with ease, so we kept adding more crates, one at a time. We added another, then another, then another. I successfully jumped over eighteen Coke crates, so we added another. I went outside again to get a good running go as I had done the last twenty or so times. I started paddling as fast as I could down the gravel drive. I hit the ramp and sailed through the air like Evel Knievel, but the back wheel of my bike hit the edge of that nineteenth crate, and I wiped out like Evel Knievel did that time at Madison Square Garden in New York. I slid for what seemed like a mile on the concrete floor which had gravel speckled all over it from the parking lot. It tore up my pants, my leg, my hip, and my thigh. It was awful. It took a good while to recover from that one.

Another time, I was on a dune buggy trying to be funny because my friends were watching me from a distance. I drove up to the top of a steep hill and was going to make them think I was going over. I was planning to put on the brakes and stop just short of the edge. Well, when I was almost to the edge, I pressed the brake, but thanks to the rusty floor of that old Volkswagen that the brake cylinder was attached to, the brake pedal bolts pulled through the thin metal frame. I had no breaks, so off the top of the cliff, I went. When I hit the bottom, my ribs felt like they touched my pelvic bones, and that was some kind of pain.

I learned many lessons growing up. I learned not to do the same dumb things again. It’s easy to learn what not to do after we’ve hurt ourselves doing it, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do a different dumb thing later. Let me give you a good example.

It’s been over 30 years since that bicycle, and the dune buggy incidents, but two months ago, I was having a problem with my van. While I was working on it, I noticed one of the battery cable ends was still the same one that was there when I got the van several years back. I had replaced the other one a year or so ago, but there was a problem that I couldn’t overcome at the time in order to replace both of them.

There was a metal plate with a hole in it attached to the battery cables, and the new battery cable ends have a bolt that goes through the hole to attach the battery cable to the battery cable end which goes onto the battery. Well, the hole in the metal plate on the ground wire was not big enough for the new cable end to fit. I tried to make the hole bigger with a file when I replaced the other one, but it must be some kind of composite metal because it’s really hard and tough. This time, I decided to use a drill with a metal bit to make the hole bigger.

The cable was attached to the starter, so I couldn’t take it off and lay it on a table to drill it out, but it was just long enough to reach the battery, so I got a piece of wood and laid it on my battery, then put the metal plate on the wood and tried to drill it out, but that wasn’t working. I was afraid it might slip off, and drill a hole in my new battery, so I decided I could hold the cable in my hand and slowly drill the hole out. Talk about dumb; I knew that was dangerous I knew it could slip off and maybe hit my finger or something, but I did it anyway, thinking I had it under control. I just wanted to get it done.

As soon as I started to drill, the metal bit grabbed the metal plate and hung in the hole. It twisted the cable around my left hand and pulled the drill bit into the nail of my index finger. It happened so fast before I could even think to let off the trigger, but at the same time, it seemed like slow motion as I watched the end of my finger being twisted, and cut off by the drill bit. The cable wrapped around my hand and fingers so tightly that it bruised my hand and even bent that straight piece of hard metal.

When I got my hand, and finger unwrapped from the wire and the drill bit, I saw the end of my finger twisted and mangled, and hanging off. I took my grease rag and grabbed my fingertip to put it back in place, and then I started running to the house to tell my wife I needed to go to the emergency room. As I ran, I heard myself screaming really loud and long. I screamed so loud that my throat hurt for a few days afterward. Now, two months later, my finger is still healing, and I’m reminded every day not to do anything like that again. But who knows what life has in store for tomorrow.

In the famous words of Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” We can make plans, and complete them, sometimes, but we never really have full control of our lives. We don’t know what the outcome will really be anytime we set out to do something.

I said all that to say this; We do dumb stuff, and we learn from it, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do a different dumb thing later. We need to use discernment and determine that we won’t do anything dangerous without the proper equipment, and the proper training, and without asking God for wisdom and protection first. So pray. Believe and trust God. One day that could be the difference between life and death for any of us here on earth, and it will be the difference between life and death in eternity.

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