godliness – Page 5 – Watch. Stand. Pray.

119 – Judge Each Situation

A dad is too busy dealing with adult babies in the world to remember every errand his family assigns to him. He deals with a complaining boss, parents, students, and customers to both buy the ketchup and build the pantry to keep it in. Try to be understanding if he doesn’t remember where you didn’t tell him where you decided to put the ketchup.

While dad is working, mom is chasing away the dust and moving the laundry that never ends, all while feeding the children who can’t be left alone lest they cause bring apocalypse prematurely. When you get home, thank mom that the house is still standing, thank her more if it’s clean, and bow at her feet if there is food to eat. But, it’s hard to do that unless you hold off judgment before you give each situation a thorough look.

I once told two brothers, “There is a very easy way for your parents to have more energy to be kind, understanding, and never make mistakes: Get rid of you two kids, then they will always be well-tempered, calm people. But, your parents have two growing problems: you and you. Don’t forgive them for loving you. Instead, love them back.”

The problem with being ungrateful for family, friends, neighbors—and everyone—isn’t gratitude, but prejudgment. Don’t criticize another man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.

There are no “easy” decisions in punishing, firing, hiring, or relocating. We can’t throw people away for being sinners, not in families, relationships, nor the workplace. Big mistakes need demotion and diminished stewardship, but we remain useful to someone as long as we breathe. Man-made morals would have us either ignore all mistakes or punish every mistake without mercy. God’s morals are that of redemption: Every punishment must be educational or there is no benefit.

God chastens us because He loves us. When we do what is wrong, we need less responsibility to do less harm, pain to remind us not to do it again, instruction so we can understand how to do better, and there are never easy answers to make that process works. After all, only God is the perfect Judge.

Matthew 7:1-5, Luke 6:37-38

127 – Sow Virtue

No matter how busy your life gets, take time to sow in virtue. There are many ways to sow virtue; the more virtue sown the merrier your life.

Virtue is a kine of foundation. As much as we value the roof during a heavy rain, without a firm foundation there won’t be a roof at all. It’s arguably a “mentally referable” state of mind if someone tries to build a roof before laying the foundation. Just as much, it’s “mentally referable” when someone focuses on producing a product directly while leaving the factory that produces the product in disrepair.

One classic example of this in Christian business was Big Idea Productions. The simple summary goes something like this: They originally promised their small distributor, only verbally, that they would always use them as a distributor. Around the time the Jonah movie was coming out, Big Idea supposedly reneged on the verbal promise, lost a lawsuit in which verbal promises were judged to be legally binding, and that was the end of Big Idea.

The founder of Big Idea didn’t give up; he continued his life and got back on a good track. After losing everything, he had the harder lesson to rebuild. But, it might have been easier with a moral compass prioritizing personal promises above profit. Learn from the Big Idea story, but don’t judge it.

Sometimes the foundational needs are “basic”—hygiene, taking out the trash, balancing financial accounts, and normal “sustainer” activities that we humans reflect, being the Image of God and all.

But, just as important—even more important—is the foundation of virtue. That goes back to building on a rock rather than on sand. A foundation is only as strong as the ground on which it rests.

Give a “tithe” somewhere to something that helps advance God’s justice. It doesn’t need “Christian” branding, but it must serve the Creator God Most High of the Bible if He is Whom you want kudos from. “Tithe” can be any percent, amount, or resource, even time. Dripping kindness, compassion, and fairness to people around you is more important to God than sacrifices. One way or another, prioritize sowing virtue into your fields.

Genesis 14:17-24, Hosea 6:6, Matthew 7:24-27, Hebrews 7:1-10

133 – Formal Recruiting & Contentious Spirits

When you constantly feel that people are contending with you, and you can’t seem to “forgive” it, it could be that you are infested with a contentious spirit. It is a “thing” in the spirit realm that rests on people and makes them imagine that everyone is arguing with them so that they will hunger to argue back. This is especially common among groups that attend formal, regular religious gatherings; no matter the religion, the contentious spirit is the same and makes people behave this same, contentious way. It’s not a “religious” problem; it’s a “recruit people” formal structure problem.

Usually, recruiting religious structures recruit people because they are led by people with the same spirit, always hungering for more people to argue with. To mask this, the spirits make people feel homely among their group of other people with the same spirit, enabling them to think they are friendly when, actually, they are only friendly with their clique. Even among their own religion, they will tend to argue with other groups and people. If you have difficulty with arguments and you are part of a religious weekly meeting, this could likely be you.

I actually sat with a person from a religion different from my own and explained this. The whole time he shook his head, smiling, and said, “I don’t agree. We don’t argue like that.” It never occurred to him that he was being argumentative about being argumentative. But, I didn’t call him out on it because, frankly, I didn’t want to argue. I just said, “You’ve been told, do whatever you want with it.”

That urge to contend with someone will drive people to argue about things—whether to agree or disagree—in which they have neither say nor decision. The mere desire to have an opinion about someone else’s business is a flashing red light and loud buzzer warning that one has this problem. The reason a person wants to argue with things that don’t matter, which they have no vested interest in, is because the contentious spirit on them wants to argue with everyone.

Stay aware to notice “contentious spirits” and feel free to call people out on it.

137 – Fiefdom Dictators & Controlling Spirits

Beware of the strange desire to control, merely for the sake of control. Another “thing” that can get situated onto people is the “controlling spirit”. It might show up as megalomania or meaningless manipulation or creating chaos just for the sake of attention. When people have this controlling “thing” on them, they would be satisfied to have a small corner in the room to control, torture, manipulate, get a reaction out of, get attention from, get a “quarrel fix” with, and entertain themselves with absolute dictatorial powers, merely for the pleasure of the experience.

It tends to gravitate toward leaders of groups that recruit numbers, religious or otherwise, because controlling spirits want to have something to control. Any sensible slight to its pride will set that controlling spirit off its rocker, prove to the host that the problem is real, and, if that host keeps cooperating with it, the host might socially and professionally self-destruct.

Remember, someone with a controlling spirit doesn’t actually hunger for this control. Like a parasite that gives unnatural hunger, the spirit “thing” rests on its host, creating the appetite to act so strangely. Of course, the person must cooperate and welcome the controlling spirit. Simple resistance would make the spirit shrink, lose its size and thus its power, and eventually leave. But, too many people won’t give up that resistance because they somewhat enjoy the feelings the get from carrying a controlling spirit on their backs.

In East Asia it’s such a common problem that Western expats and Asian bloggers write about it. The boss holds numerous meetings merely to “feel like a boss”, makes his office inaccessible, and the solution to “problems” is the same solution to “suggestions”: The boss is the god, everyone else is a cockroach created only to preserve the boss’s godhood. If it’s hard to imagine, ask someone from Asia. But, it is a living, real caricature of the controlling spirit.

If that’s you, quitting your position might make the spirit go away. That actually happens.

If you struggle with a “controlling” person, use these strengths: Be among the hardest working, remain super-calm when the bear gets provoked, and expect insanity because spirits don’t reason.

143 – Fantasy: Counterfeit of Dreaming

Fantasies come in many shapes and sizes, but they have in common that they make fantasizers unable to function. Porn makes it difficult for men to interact with women. Romans fiction has the same effect vice versa. Daydreams about money keep people broke, so don’t put up a poster of an expensive car or house unless you actually have a timeline and step list planned out for making the money to buy it.

Fantasy is healthy as a genre, but numbing as a lifestyle. Humans were endowed as the Image of God with creative imaginations. Seeing results in your mind, knowing that something is possible, keeping your mind focused on your goals—that is vital and necessary. Fantasy delivers some of the thrill and a variance of the ideas, but it leads to a dead end. Fantasy is the engineering of criminal brilliance, the devil’s plan to make people think they are dreaming of the light at the end of a tunnel when they’re really looking at the headlights of an oncoming train.

Anyone can become addicted to fantasy, whether gaming, movies, novels, clubbing, or just wasting time under the delusion that you’re getting something done by creating to-do items and checking them off. When fantasy addictions beckon your return, think about something else—anything else. Get out of the house, go for a walk, pray. When someone is deeply addicted to anything, reading the Bible is the most likely time for the devil to attack with more calls to fantasize. Resist.

Fantasy is an addiction, even in genre. Addictions take thirty to ninety days to break. The key to breaking addictions is to control your thought life. If you must become dependent on others to break an addiction then you are not in control of your own life. See the fantasy for what it is, then take back your place at the helm of your thought life, then fantasy will be less impossible to break out of at any stage and more likely to help you in the long term.

The best way to avoid a life of fantasy is to fill your mind with a real dream, with a grounded, plotted, God-sized dream.

149 – Bible: The Best Academic Study

Nothing will prepare you to read and understand poetry, stories, culture, history, and any literature better than reading the Bible. This is because of the Bible’s quality, time span, depth, and complexly woven story line.

The Bible begins at the start of recorded human history, even earlier. Adam and Eve lived before 4,000 BC; 1,500 years passed before Noah and the flood, but only ten chapters passed in Genesis. The rest of Genesis spans another thousand years. That covers many vital events of history in just a few short writings.

Then, those events prepared all other events through the rest of the Bible. Moses came along almost two thousand years after Adam and Eve, over two thousand years before Jesus’s day. Everyone in the Old Testament learned about Moses—thereby shaping and bringing context to their stories.

One by one, more events unfold in the Bible. Kingdoms and families rose and fell for hundreds of years, many of them with little mention. But in those eras, people told stories of the people before them, Moses among many others. Those people died and people in the next era told stories about them—and the next era—all with little mention. Some of this is recorded in the Bible. Different events—centuries and millennia apart—all different cultures that were built on the previous—they would talk about the societies before them. This shaped who they were. They were all connected.

Then, we finally read a longer story in the Bible with more details. Noah was linked to Ruth. Samson was connected to Jonah. The more we study, the more connections and themes we see. The more we learn about what archaeology says about those times, the more we see how accurate the Bible is. We progressively learn more about this complex, interlinked story; but we also learn more about history—our real history.

Then, we have poetry, wisdom literature, cultures, and ancient languages. These also connect to the real events of our history. By understanding what’s in the Bible, we can understand any other literature much more easily because nothing runs as deep. Yet, those who don’t study the Bible never understand why diligent Bible students do.

151 – Heavenly Fascination

Pop culture has always tried to mimic the grand splendor of Heaven. From the Garden of Eden, devils have spread lies as truth, “wowing” humanity with their twisted perversions of the awesomeness beyond Earth. Those ideas have always floated around society and literature in whatever form of mass media exists at any particular time, whether in lore, poetry, music, theater, books, comics, or video.

Whatever imagery of Heaven and the heavens beyond Earth you see in pop culture, the real thing is better. Know the real thing by knowing God’s Word.

Images of Heaven and truth from pop culture were not invented by pop culture, they were invented by God and expressed in Heaven before Earth was made. Even mischaracterizations of God and Heaven carry some truth. These not only include beauty, fantasy, and technology, but they also include ideas like Zen. Just as music and math began as man-made religions, many other worthy sciences are only religious because of misunderstanding. Zen, wisdom of Buddhism, psychology, and other “life sciences” hold fragmented truth, just as Thomas Aquinas said, “All truth is God’s truth.” The calmness of Zen is better known by the peace Jesus made when he calmed the waves. That peace first existed in Jesus’s prayer life.

Don’t allow secular sciences outdo your own diligence. Pray in a way that takes your heart and mind to the place of peace that’s greater than the peace of Zen; God’s Word will tell you what it looks like as you study diligently. Just as any apprentice must work and study to become a master, so God the Master expects you to study and perform the grunt work that will make you strong and teach you to calm your heart to enjoy the peace of the moment.

Part of knowing Heaven involves knowing peace and stillness. No stillness is greater than the stillness God spoke of in which to know Him, “Be still and know that I AM God.’

Heaven itself is an expression of God’s own imagination. With God’s peace in your heart, your imagination will blossom into reflections greater than Heaven. As you become fascinated with God’s beauty, pop culture’s “lesser” expressions will bore you.