THE GIANTS AND THE THUNDER

For some of you who don’t know me, this story may reveal my age, but to some of you much younger people, it may make you think I’m older than actually am.

When I was in the first grade, once in a while, we would watch a film on a reel-to-reel projector. A vinyl record contained the audio track. We also had records that read books for us with a ding to tell us when to turn the page, but that’s another story.

One time, we saw an animated film about a man who, somehow, ended up in the land of Giants. He was captured by one of them and taken home. I don’t remember if the giant was going to eat him or keep him as a pet.

The Giant’s wife felt bad for the little man and tried to help him escape but her husband caught him before he got away. I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember another giant coming along, and the two giants started fighting over the little man. As they fought, they began moving so fast and swinging their arms so violently that they somehow propelled themselves into the clouds. The point of the story was that the sound of thunder is the noise of the two giants still fighting in the clouds.

As an adult, I understand that this is a fairy tale made for entertainment, but as a six-year-old kid, I thought it was true. I didn’t even realize it was animated. Kids today may not be that gullible, but they’re exposed to many things in movies, and TV shows that are not true. They’re also exposed to many things that are true but are not good. We can expect secular entertainment to be filled with lies and things that are not good for viewers of any age, but you’d think that Christian entertainment would be different. While there are many good, and decent things for Christians to watch, there are just as many that aren’t.

I could write a lot of words here about the many Christian movies that have errors, and even lies in them, but what I really want to do is encourage you to read, and study the Bible so you can see these errors for yourself. Jesus said, You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32). He also said that God’s word is the truth (John 17:17). That's the Bible. 

If we don’t know the truth we’re in bondage. We have to believe whatever we’re told, and that’s more likely to be false in this day and age. The only way to know the truth is to know the author of truth. That’s Jesus. He said we would be judged by the words that he spoke (John 12:48). That’s also the Bible. Read and study his words daily. Get to know him personally, and be set free.

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SEDUCTION AND REDEMPTION

When I was a young man, I went to a party one night where everyone was drinking, including me. There was an older woman there who was probably twice my age. She kept making passes at me. I tried to let her know I wasn’t interested without hurting her feelings, but she didn’t give up. She actually became more insistent as the night went on. She was so determined that I decided I had to get out of there. Even though I was drunk, and knew I shouldn’t be driving, I got in my car and started home, which was about 25 miles away.

About a mile from the party, there was a 45-degree curve. I remember waking up as the car went off the road in the curve. I remember struggling to get back on the road, and that was the last thing I remembered until I woke up in my own bed the next morning.

God protected me and brought me home when I was not able to do it myself, even when I was in total rebellion against him. I was a poor, wretched, miserable sinner, but God had plans for my life. He has protected me from tragedy many times, and I’m so thankful I didn’t die when I was living a life of sin. I know I would have died that night if God hadn’t protected me.

He protects us many times when we’re not aware of his presence. Contrary to popular belief, he even protects people who are not saved, and who have no intention of living for him. Jesus wants us to accept his free gift of salvation before we die. He loves us, no matter who we are, or what we’ve done. He doesn’t want anyone to be lost, so he gives us every opportunity that he possibly can for us to be saved. He came and lived on earth, and died to free us from sin.

God showed us how much he loves us by sending Jesus to die for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8). Jesus showed his great love for us by giving his life on the cross. Colossians 1:21 says we’re actually his enemies before we’re born again, but he loves his enemies just as he commands us to love ours (Matthew 5:44). So remember that the next time someone hurts you. Jesus said we are to pray for them and treat them with kindness.

Also remember to never, ever drink and drive. It’s too dangerous. You not only put your own life in danger but the lives of everyone else on the road. It’s best not to drink alcohol at all. We need a clear mind to make good decisions, and the Bible says drunkards will not go to heaven (1 Corinthians 6:10). Read WHAT’S WRONG WITH DRINKING ALCOHOL to see what the Bible says about it.

We all need to commit ourselves to God, accept his free gift of salvation, and be born again. We also need to avoid situations where Satan and his demons can have easier access to us; like parties, nightclubs, and places where drugs or alcohol are present. We can have plenty of fun without all that stuff.

What’s Wrong With Drinking Alcohol?
https://teddylynn.blogspot.com/2015/07/wine-and-strong-drink-what-does-bible.html

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MORE CUTS AND SCARS

A while back, I wrote a post about several times I had accidentally cut myself. Well, in case you were wondering, those were not the only times I’ve been cut. I want to share a few more today and hopefully, you’ll be entertained for a few minutes as you delve a little deeper into my life lessons.

I had been working at my new job for just a few weeks packing vinyl siding in boxes as it came off a conveyor belt. Sometimes a piece of trash would get in the vinyl somewhere along the way and it would make a hole in the piece of siding. When that happened we would have to quickly saw the piece of siding off behind the hole with a hacksaw and feed it back into the track between the rollers.

One night, a huge hole formed so I grabbed the hacksaw and cut the piece of siding as fast as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough to get it back into the rollers in time. I had to try it again so I grabbed the quick-moving siding with my left hand and the saw with my right hand and started sawing again. After only two strokes, I stopped. To my shock, the second stroke had cut my thumb almost completely off.

I ran to the restroom and washed my thumb in the sink. I could see that the saw had cut a trench in my thumb as wide as the teeth on the blade. There was only a small section of the nail and flesh left, and I was in a lot of pain.

I went to the emergency room and got it patched up. Then I spent the next week at work pushing a broom for twelve hours. That was worse than the accident itself. I finally was able to start doing more after a week and soon I was back to regular work.

Several years later, I picked up a small, metal pipe at work to toss it in the scrap truck. As I tossed it, I simply pushed it off the tip of my middle finger to watch it flip into the trailer as I had several times before. I didn’t get to watch it flip that time because as it left my hand, it took a piece of my finger with it. There was a metal burr on the end of the pipe and it sliced right into my flesh. More pain and more bandages, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

I have had some pretty bad scrapes and cuts and cracks. A few of them have been on, or around my head, but not many directly on my face. There was that one time, though. My wife’s dad had a camper he was using as a storage shed. He had built a deck around two sides of it. We lived just down the road.

My oldest son and I were doing something there and I stepped up onto the deck which was only a few feet high. The sun was setting in the sky, and I was facing West so it was shining right in my eyes. Just as both feet hit the deck, I came to a quick stop. It was a hard stop, too. My face had hit the end of a TV antenna pole that was propped up on the deck at about a thirty-degree angle. It struck me at the top of my nose right between my eyes.

My vision became blurry for a minute or so. When I felt to see how bad it was, then I felt the blood and I felt the pain arrive. When I looked at my hand it was bloody. I told my son we needed to go before I passed out. We made it home and I cleaned it up and got to feeling better, but I still have the scar to remind me of that painful day.  

Let me give you one more for the road. I was picking a few things up off the floor at work. I don’t remember what it was but there were several of them. I think it might have been trash or screws or washers. I don’t know. I guess it really doesn’t matter because what happened next is what I want to tell you about.

When I bent over to pick up that last, whatever, I would never have imagined what happened next could even be possible. As I raised back up, my head was abruptly stopped by the sharp corner of an electrical panel. I hit it hard, and it cut deep. I think it took three stitches to close the wound. I’m not sure about that either. The whole thing is a bit blurry. Anyway, I feel I was blessed in all of these situations because each one could have been worse. I truly believe that old saying, “It could always be worse.”

I feel fortunate to have experienced all I have in my life, and I’d like to think that I learned valuable lessons from each experience. If nothing else, hopefully, I at least learned not to do the same thing again.

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CARTOONS, DOLLS, AND MOSQUITOES

Have you ever misunderstood something someone said? Have you ever thought you knew something only to find out later that the mental concept you had of it was quite different from the way it actually was? It happens to all of us, especially when we are young.

As you may or may not know, my sister and I lived with our grandmother from the time I was three and she was two. I remember a time in those early years when our grandmother got really sick. I don’t know what was wrong with her, but she was sick enough that she couldn’t take care of us. She couldn’t take care of herself either, so we went to our aunt’s house so she could take care of her. Maybe she had something contagious because they sent us to stay with our mom and dad until she got well. I don’t remember how long we stayed there but it was quite an adventure. I’ll write more about it later, but for this post, I want to focus on just one thing from that time.

They only had one bedroom, so when it was bedtime they slid two recliners together facing each other in the living room, next to our younger sister’s crib, and that was where we slept while we were there. We slept with our grandmother at home so it was a bit scary being away from her, and in a room with no adults to protect us. We kept calling our mother and asking for water and other things. Finally, I remember our dad telling us that if we didn’t go to sleep a big mosquito would crawl through the keyhole and get us.

I pictured a giant mosquito standing upright like the ones in the old cartoons. It was as big as my dad and climbing through the keyhole one limb at a time. That scared me to death because at the time I didn’t know cartoons were not real. I was quite a bit older before I realized that some things on TV were only make-believe. I remember pulling the covers up around my neck, and the next thing I knew it was morning.

Another time my grandmother told us about her mom having twins. She said they were born too early, and they were very small. They only survived a few days before they died. Their names were Mark and Cora. My grandmother said they were so small they both fit on a pillow and they looked like little dolls lying there. Well, being a child and having the mind of a child, I pictured them actually looking like little toy dolls and that’s how I saw them for years.

As I was thinking about these and other times the visual concept that my mind created of something I was being told about, I thought about the Bible. There are so many things in God’s word that we can only imagine as we read. There are things that happened in places we have never seen, and almost as far back as six thousand years. Then there are the things God says will happen in the future. There’s the resurrection, heaven, and the new earth. These things are so far beyond our imagination that anything our simple minds can come up with can’t even be close to what it will actually be like. Look what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:9

1 Corinthians 2:9 
9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Now take a look at what God says in Isaiah 55:8-9.

Isaiah 55:8-9 
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Compared to the intelligence of God, the creator of everything that has, or ever will exist, the smartest of us are only children in intellect. There’s no way we can completely understand all these things right now. Like the song says, we can only imagine.

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FORGIVE YOURSELF

About a year ago, I posted a story about learning to forgive. It was called “I Forgive You, Mr. Richmond.” I’ll put a link to it at the end of this post. Many people misunderstand forgiveness, and what it really involves, and I was no different. I had to truly understand forgiveness before I could give it.

We know we must forgive others for God to forgive us, but sometimes it’s not that easy. What’s even harder, is forgiving yourself. We know ourselves better than any other person on earth knows us. We know all our thoughts and all our secrets. We know what kind of person we really are under all the smiles, and masks we sometimes wear.

When we do something that hurts others, or God, we’re ashamed, because we know we shouldn’t have done such a thing, but we also know that sometimes, deep down inside, we really wanted to do it. Whether it’s something mean we said to someone, or something God says to do, or don’t do, and we disobeyed. It might be anger we’re holding on to because we don’t want to forgive just yet. Sometimes we hold on to that anger like a child with a favorite toy, or like it’s a vital piece of merchandise or our most prized possession we can’t bear to part with.

It’s even worse when we’re angry, or disappointed with ourselves. When we become the focus of our own anger we are in a bad place indeed. If we could only see through our anger and shame, we would realize that we are only hurting ourselves more by holding on to those things. In Mark chapter eleven, Jesus had this to say.

Mark 11: 25-26

25 And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.

Jesus said forgive if you have anything against anyone. That would include yourself. We are God’s children just like anyone else, and we should try and see ourselves through his eyes. We know he wants us to forgive his children for wrongs they have done to us, and we ask them to forgive us for things we have done to them. We need to forgive ourselves as well when we’ve done things that we shouldn’t have. It’s important to do so in order to clear our minds and start fresh, with a clean conscience.

We may know ourselves better than any other person on earth knows us, but God knows us even better than we know ourselves. We often forget that. If he can forgive us, surely we can find it in our hearts to forgive ourselves.

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For more about forgiveness, read “I Forgive You Mr. Richmond.”

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© 2015 Teddy Lynn – All Rights Reserved

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