Heros - The Way It Should Be

Our hero was our father.  Then our hero was the policeman or firefighter or teacher.  We had neighborhood heros that all the kids and some of the adults looked up to.  They were a hero because they did amazing things.

As a child a father was the protector who always caught us before we fell.  We could depend upon him to always be there.  He was larger than life itself.  He taught us things about bugs and why sky is blue.  He helped us with homework and took us to the zoo and told us about the animals.


He taught us to fly a kite, to ride a bicycle, to ice skate, to bowl and play cards.  He taught us that there was someone who we could depend upon when all else fails.

Then he left.  Our hero was a grandfather, an uncle or a neighbor.  Sometimes it was even Mom when she had time to be with us after working some menial job to put food on the table and clothes on our backs.

We moved around and our hero was a character in a book or someone in history.

History was changed and we found out that the hero owned slaves or polluted the planet or had children out of wedlock.

Our hero was a sports' figure and he used steroids or gambled on the game or beat his pregnant girlfriend.

Our hero was a rock star until they overdosed.  We found a new hero whose rap was banned because it glorified rape and killing policemen.

We emulated our hero and found the act of following was not satisfying.  The idol worshiping was not the same as the doing.  Our lives became filled with lost dreams and visions of a reality that did little more than torture us with their vagueness and we looked for another hero and when it was found the media ridiculed it and tore it down if they mentioned faith or belief in God.  Goodness and faith is reviled while men having illicit affairs and destroying hotel rooms are held high with massive coverage on the evening news.

We need a new hero for the children.  They need someone to uphold clean living and wholesome moral values.  They need to know that there is someone they can depend on so when it comes time to know God, they have already had the experience of knowing what goodness is, of knowing The Messiah through the human representation of Him through that one He used and we knew as a hero. 

We need to know that the children have someone other than a drunk, drug dealer, undressed rock star pulsating on stage or the pedophile next door to look up to and emulate.  They need a Noah, a Joshua,  a Jabez, a Boaz, an Esther, a David or a Paul in their life.  They need a living Bible that they can point to and say, "I want to be just like that when I grow up."

We need to know that their eyes are upon us each and every day.  They need a hero.  They need to know there is goodness and mercy in the world.  They need to know that God lives within us and is there to help us through the bad days and rejoice with us in the good times.

Tiny Tomato Follow-up

On November 25, 2010 I posted one called "Thankful for Tiny Tomatoes".  About 2 days later I decided to clean up the flower beds and put some pine straw around the plants that were still alive.

I looked at the Cherry Tomato plant and saw about a hundred little green tomatoes on it.  They had been protected from the freeze and were not damaged.  I didn't have the heart to just throw them away.  That would be wasteful.  But what can you do with a hundred inch sized green tomatoes?

I could not think of anything but I remembered reading in a gardening book many years ago about how someone had pulled up a regular tomato plant and hung it upside down in their garage to harvest the tomatoes later.

Being the type to not want to do more than I have to and not wanting to dig in the dirt, I just grabbed the stem close to the dirt and pulled up the roots.  I put it in a trash bag upside down and hung it in the spare bathtub.  It hung there for a few days and I moved it to the laundry room.  It has been a unique pleasure to go to the laundry room and check for more ripe tomatoes.  The vine is pretty much dried out now and is only storage space for the remaining few green tomatoes.   It is almost time to take it down and maybe start some new plants for the next season.  The Lord has been abundantly gracious and Blessed us with more food to eat.

For three weeks it has been hanging over the dryer getting a bit of northern sun through the window and we have been harvesting tomatoes every few days.

I will miss them when they are gone, but it has been fun having them around.

Thank The Lord for all His Blessings.

One of America's Heros

I do not recall ever meeting this man, but I may have.  One of my step-fathers worked at the National Bank of Washington so I very well could have had the pleasure of this gentle little man telling me things were "veddy good".  I have no idea when I cut out this clipping or what newspaper it came from.  I found it while sorting through some of my odd piles of "stuff to go through later."

At a time when people stay an average of less than seven years at one job location, it is amazing to know that one man stayed at his post for 66 years.   In a day when youth is venerated and the older worker is discarded in favor of the "innovative" ways of the young, it was refreshing to note that the employer chose not to throw away a faithful worker thirty years prior to his retirement.  It may even cause some to wonder, "Why is there mandatory retirement anyway?"  It only serves to reinforce the idea that after a certain age, you are no longer useful to society.

It was a truly heartwarming story and it is worth passing on.   He truly lived life to the fullest.

Traditions of Men vs GOD

Teaching for Doctrines the Traditions of Men

Christmas
Easter
Tithing
Halloween
Missions
Birthdays
Thanksgiving
Feeding the poor
Sunday morning worship service
Clothing the poor
Wednesday evening prayer meeting
Sunday School


In the beginning was the Word, then we added to it and we took away from it and we made it convenient for ourselves.  We call ourselves Christian.  We are reborn through the finished Work of Christ on the Cross and somehow that is never enough.  Instead of leaving the ways of the world behind we drag all our traditions and baggage with us.  We pretend to turn our focus on the true "reason for the season" when in fact there is no Scriptural reason for much of what we do; for what we have woven into the simple Gospel, the stand-alone Word of God.

It starts with Sunday morning.  Do we truly know why we worship on Sunday?  Do we actually worship or do we listen to announcements, listen to the choir and plan our week while the preacher drones on?

We claim to celebrate the Resurrection of the Messiah on a holiday called Easter.  Yet we feel we have to make it fun for the children with egg hunts and candy and other mess.  We tell our children that the empty egg shell represents the empty tomb.  We attend the sunrise service and we go home momentarily moved.

We hand over our donations on Sunday morning, maybe, if it is convenient.  We repeat the story of the widow's mite given to The Lord in the temple while deducting the reasons for giving less than that ten percent.

There is trunk or treat and Christian themed costume parties in order to incorporate the world's addiction to Halloween parties.

We go on mission trips and give money to missions after much pleading from the sponsors of the trips ignoring the mission field in our own town.

The celebration of birthdays has become a yearly event where the old dog and pony show is dwarfed in comparison.  We give no heed to what is mentioned in Scripture regarding birthday parties.

Thanksgiving.  Giving thanks is what we should be doing daily but we set aside one day a year to gorge ourselves in the company of people we seldom see or talk to any other time of year.

The poor are only hungry twice a year on Thanksgiving and on Christmas.  They are only unclothed and lacking in housing or furniture at this time of year.

Prayer meeting on Wednesday is no longer devoted to a time of prayer.  There was too much silence to suit so they just have another meeting.  It appears that true prayer meetings have lost their appeal.

We send our children to Sunday School because they need that instruction.  Our lives are so busy that we cannot spend the time with them during the week to teach them Biblical Truth.  Anyway, it is a time when they can socialize with other Christian children.  If you believe that, you haven't taught Sunday School lately.  Instead of studying for a lesson and preparing oneself for the class, we hand out insipid class activities from a prepackaged formula designed to follow the denominations' standards not necessarily the Biblical ones.

Following the Truth is so much richer than trying to hang on to tradition.  Traditions are filled with falsehood and can be destroyed.  The Truth, Biblical Truth is everlasting and cannot be undone.  We warp and twist the truth in order to fit in, to feel more comfortable.  We suppress and grieve the Holy Spirit with our rebellion. 

He can give us so much more if we dispense with the trappings and open up to the Truth. 

Read your Bible.  Study HIS word.  Leave off what you have always done and see what HE would have you to do.  Study with your children.  Let HIM start a revival within yourself, then your family.  HE will grow it from there. 

HIS WAY IS EVERLASTING.  The ways of the world change with every breeze.