A Laptop Death Threat

A homeless person can become a habitual hoarder

who will plunder anything just to have something.

My laptop was beside me as I sat in the drivers seat of our van. I was taking some young people home on our nightly neighborhood cruise after we close the Youth Center. I knew I would have to leave the van and escort a young girl up to the 8th floor apartment where she lived. I reasoned that it was safe to leave my computer case in the van because I trusted several of the young people in the van. There was one guy that I wasn't sure I could trust. I lost more than my computer that night.

After I escorted the girl up to her grandmothers apartment, I climbed back into the van. I saw that my computer case was still there and I even lifted the case to see if still had my computer in it. Once again my faulty reasoning told me that if the case had weight, that my computer must still be in there. After driving everyone home, I walked upstairs with my case and went to bed. Early the next morning, I had a strong urge in my gut to check the computer case. My laptop was missing. In it's place was a quart of oil that had been in my van. I had been fooled through a weighty deception.

This pelican is stealing a fish that we intended to release back in to the ocean!

 

It was easy to figure out who took the laptop. It is not easy to prove it and get it back. The people in the van that I did trust and believed that they would not steal from me told me who took the computer. They said that their lives had been threatened if they snitched. A death threat is something we take seriously here in the hood. I have watched people die. I have stood in the streets and watched hooded figures fire guns at their fingered targets. The people in the van would talk to me but not the police. Perhaps, I thought, if I talked to family members before I went to the police, they might persuade him to give it back. I was not looking to press charges at that point, I just wanted my computer back. I waited a couple of days but the family was unable to persuade the young man to return my stolen computer.

I did go and file a police report. They were not very adrenalized by the opportunity to retrieve my computer. After I filed the report, I never heard another word from them. I saw the young man on the side walk a few weeks later and I pulled over to talk to him - he ran. I was confronted by a young family member who told me I was not safe outside the Youth Center. He said this was his territory and I had disrespected his boy. He moved toward me in a threatening manner. I looked at him and said the same thing I've been saying for over 10 years: "There is something you need to know. Jesus put me here and only Jesus can take me out. If you think He's going to use you to take me out, go ahead because I don't care. If I die today - 'Cool beans!' It doesn't matter because I know where I'm going if I die today or I die when I'm 115 years old. I'm going to heaven!" At that point he backed off and another guy said this wasn't his fight and that he should just leave. I saw that young man several years later and he is doing good in life. He even gave me his business card. I never saw the thief again.

There are some people in life who we cannot trust. Sometimes in our Youth Center, we are on high alert when certain people walk in. We watch our phones, purses, wallets and anything else that can easily be pilfered. A reputation of being a schemer and a thief is like having a label on your forehead - nobody trusts you. As far as I can remember, that laptop was the last thing I ever had stolen from me at the Youth Center. I've developed a lot more wisdom that helps me identify potential schemers and thieves.

Today's Wise Saying is from Proverbs 24:8-9

 Proverbs 24:8-9

New International Version (NIV)

Saying 24

⁸ Whoever plots evil
    will be known as a schemer.
⁹ The schemes of folly are sin,
    and people detest a mocker.

Proverbs 24:8-9

The Message (MSG)

23

^8-9 The person who’s always cooking up some evil
    soon gets a reputation as prince of rogues.
Fools incubate sin;
    cynics desecrate beauty.

Proverbs 24:8-9

Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁸ He who plans to do evil will be called a mischief-maker.

⁹ The plans of the foolish and the thought of foolishness are sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to men.

Proverbs 24:8-9

King James Version (KJV)

⁸ He that deviseth to do evil shall be called a mischievous person.
⁹ The thought of foolishness is sin: and the scorner is an abomination to men.

Heart-Storming Challenge:

• Can you identify untrustworthy habits?
• Do you cut off scheming people from your family?
• When do you let go when you are in a dangerous situation?
  

Thanks for your time. Go do something nice for somebody.

Jesus loves you and so do we. 

You're Not My Father!

Authority can be a nasty word. Especially in a place where the authority seems to be the gang with the most guns or the judge who hands down your jail sentence. For many generations now, young men have grown up abandoned by absentee authority figures. Mom's have had to play the role of authority. Most have done a great job at wearing the hats of both mom and dad. Still, the dad walked out on a family. Abandonment is like the first shot in a war - the war of survival in a young persons life. "You're Not My Father!" That's both a battle cry and a plea for love and discipline. Do you know how to balance the battle between love and discipline? The secret is combining them.

Climbing the mountains of life requires a Fathers love and guidance.

Acting as an authority based on actions of unconditional love is a struggle.

Step off the trail and you might lose your life over a cliff.

An authority figure is compelled to selflessly persevere

 in the best interests of those he disciplines.

For those who persist, the view from the top is unbelievable!

What is discipline?

Administering discipline is a necessary means of instructive authority. Discipline could be described in the following ways: 

1. A controlled behavior; self-control.
2. An enforced compliance or control.   
3. A systematic method of obtaining obedience.
4. A state of order based on submission to authority.
5. A punishment to train or maintain control.
6. A set of rules regulating behavior.

What is love?

The best description of love is from the Bible:

1 Corinthians 13 The Message

The Way of Love

13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

² If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
^3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹ When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Yesterday (7-10-13) I was cleaning out my office at our Youth Center. God told me to clean it out awhile ago and I've been dragging my feet. Removing memories and moving on is hard. I came across a poem written years ago by a 13 yr. old girl. Her words included a phrase that said: "A friend always tells the truth even when it hurts." True love will risk anything in the best interests of the person they love. Discipline is teaching a more excellent way that will result in the ability to love in a greater way.  Yes, free will does enter into the equation. People become bitter or better; it's a choice of whether or not you will learn from discipline or become resentful and yell something like: "You're not my father!"

How do you know when to use discipline?

 The Holy Spirit is a great revelator. Patiently ask God for the wisdom to discern how and when to administer discipline. You will know and feel in your gut when something is wrong with the way someone is behaving. Love is like a tree that soaks up the rain of empathy and understanding. Will you selflessly give shade, shelter and allow nourishment to flow to a sapling? Do you have the courage to speak into a storm of arrogant pride? Will you risk shedding relationship leaves and believe in the spring like buds of behavioral change? The whole process starts with your own character. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. The best teachers are those who teach from experience and provide a path of self application for those they teach.

An old, dead tree is an example of wisdom. It's still standing providing life in many ways. People with wisdom may appear lifeless to brash young people who think they know it all. This tree is still standing tall in a graceful state of decline. Discipline stands tall in the face of stormy resentment. Love will find a way.

 The Steps of Disciplining through Love

• Identify the need for discipline. Sometimes behavior can be corrected through self realization without any need for intervention by others. Is the behavior infraction worth causing conflict over? If someone is slowly learning about their own character through trial and error without hurting others, leave them alone. 
•  Spend time in prayer. After you have noticed a behavior that you believe needs discipline, ask God how you should respond. I should not have to tell you that some responses are immediate. If you have a regular prayer life, your response is most generally reflective of your own personal relationship with God. Patiently pour your heart into God's cup and you will receive direction. Journaling is perhaps the best method of giving orderliness to the message  God wants to give you.
• Begin with a compliment. After you have your answer and you need to move forward with discipline, approach the person you love with a compliment. Find something positive they're doing and praise them for it. Tell them how much you admire the way they are maturing and growing. Explain to them that you want to be their partner and help them grow even more. Try to smile as they scowl through untrusting eyes. (Most children do not trust adults.) Tell them gently what part of their behavior needs to be changed. Explain what consequences will accompany their continued misbehavior. Repeat several times that you love them. In our Youth Center, I always tell children: "Jesus loves you and so do I." It doesn't matter if they are yelling at me or not. Do not expect an appreciative smile!
• Be Patient yet firm. The growth of trees depends on condition and maintenance. The atmosphere of love that you create will help people grow. All people grow at different rates, even the children in your family. A bamboo tree can grow as fast as 39 inches in 24 hours. The slowest-growing tree is a white cedar in Canada. After 155 years, it grew to a height of 4 inches. I hope your discipline through love will grow fruit before 155 years!

  

  If you look closely at this picture, you will see a deer peering intently through the foliage. Even when you think a child is ignoring you behind an impenetrable fog of defiance -

  BE DILIGENT!  DON'T GIVE UP!

  PERSEVERE IN LOVE!

Today's Wise Saying is from Proverbs 24:5-6.

Proverbs 24:5-6

New International Version

Saying 22

⁵ The wise prevail through great power,
    and those who have knowledge muster their strength.
⁶ Surely you need guidance to wage war,
    and victory is won through many advisers.

Proverbs 24:5-6

The Message (MSG)

21

^5-6 It’s better to be wise than strong;
    intelligence outranks muscle any day.
Strategic planning is the key to warfare;
    to win, you need a lot of good counsel.

Proverbs 24:5-6

Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁵ A wise man is strong and ^[a]is better than a strong man, and a man of knowledge increases and strengthens his power;

⁶ For by wise counsel you can wage your war, and in an abundance of counselors there is victory and safety.

Proverbs 24:5-6

King James Version (KJV)

⁵ A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.
⁶ For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.

Heart-Storming Challenge:

• What helps you grow your level of patience?
• What part of your own character could use some discipline?
• Can you define humility?

Thanks for your time. Go do something nice for somebody.

Jesus loves you and so do we. 

Heart Chambers of the Morning Star

Your heart is the place where the morning star of life rises over your day. Newly risen thoughts appear over the mountains of your unconsciousness. What or who is your morning star? What is important in your life? What have you allowed to become the primary focus in your heart? What have you allowed into the chambers of your heart?

Your heart is a house of many rooms. When the content of those rooms is visible to other people, your morals and values are on display through your actions.

Proverbs 4:23 Amplified Bible

²³ Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.

The front door of your heart is the gateway where seeds flow into your heart. If you are not diligently guarding that entrance, darkness has a way of slinking in. Listening to negative people can influence your own tongue. What seeds are growing in your heart?

Proverbs 4:23-27 The Message

^23-27 Keep vigilant watch over your heart;
    that’s where life starts.
Don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth;
    avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip.
Keep your eyes straight ahead;
    ignore all sideshow distractions.
Watch your step,
    and the road will stretch out smooth before you.
Look neither right nor left;
    leave evil in the dust.

The Living Room of your heart is where you entertain friends and social acquaintances. There are voluntary associations and involuntary associations. There are some folks you have to be around whether you want to or not. People like fellow employees, grocery clerks or even church folks would generally be classified as involuntary associates. There are other associations that you have actually made a choice of inviting them into your heart - that's voluntary. The people you spend time with and allow to influence your way of thinking hang out in the Living Room of your heart.

Jesus is the Bright Morning Star.

Will you climb the mountains of life

 to see the Bright Morning Star?

There are many other rooms in your heart. 

• The dining room is a place of digestion - do you digest good or evil?  If you allow gossip into your gut it will come out of your mouth. Character defamation is like a birds regurgitation. Swallow some gossip, mix it with some dirty laundry and up it comes even juicier as you slander it on even thicker.
• The bedroom is a place of intimacy - with God and people. Will you allow just anybody to get intimate with you because you are lonely? Patience would say: "Guard your heart. Intimacy is reserved for "Till death do us part" kind of commitment. 
• The bathroom is for confessing and cleansing. Everyone needs a good cleansing on a regular basis.
• The basement or attic are rooms of storage. Are you keeping good memories or harboring grudges? Cobwebs of failure can cause entanglements of negativity that spin through all the chambers in your heart.

Proverbs 23:7

King James Version (KJV)

⁷ For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:   

Even in the cold of winter, a warm heart will grow.

A rock hard heart spreads waves of gossip.

A compassionate heart drops slander in the sand at the waters edge.

The tide of grace washes it all away.

Heart Nuggets

• Wisdom allows you the knowledge of making good choices.
• Wisdom allows you to discern what room to allow somebody to enter.
• Relationships are built through wisdom.
• Houses and hearts need maintenance.
• Some people allow you into their heart to gain access to your heart so they can spread the woundedness of their own heart into your heart. God can heal.

Today's Saying is from Proverbs 24:3-4.

Proverbs 24:3-4

New International Version (NIV)

Saying 21

³ By wisdom a house is built,
    and through understanding it is established;
⁴ through knowledge its rooms are filled
    with rare and beautiful treasures.

Proverbs 24:3-4

The Message (MSG)

20

^3-4 It takes wisdom to build a house,
    and understanding to set it on a firm foundation;
It takes knowledge to furnish its rooms
    with fine furniture and beautiful draperies.

Proverbs 24:3-4

Amplified Bible (AMP)

³ Through skillful and godly Wisdom is a house (a life, a home, a family) built, and by understanding it is established [on a sound and good foundation],

⁴ And by knowledge shall its chambers [of every area] be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

Proverbs 24:3-4

King James Version (KJV)

³ Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:
⁴ And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

Heart-Storming Challenge 

• How do you clear your attic? 
• Do you ask God to bless your thought life?
• Do you put a stop to gossip?
• How do you maintain your heart?
• What do you do to maintain your closest relationships?

Thanks for your time. Go do something nice for somebody.

Jesus loves you and so do we.

ANGER SPILLS BLOOD

The body was still laying at the spot where he had been fixing his granddaughter's pink bike. The Detective wearing plastic gloves lifted the sheet covering his body, looking for clues regarding the angle and trajectory of a bullet. A fire truck stood nearby with firemen poised to hose off the bloody sidewalk. Yellow "Crime Scene" tape kept a large crowd away from the area of investigation. Somebody had fired a gun and killed a grandfather fixing his granddaughter's pink bike. Why did he die?

A burned out tree is a cairn of carelessness.

There are sometimes in life when there are really no words to say. Praying almost seems hypocritical in the face of such extreme personal agony. Yet, praying was the only sensible thing we could do. We hugged and cried as we sat in a state of disbelief. Voices in the large crowd began to create a history with words that hung in mid air: "He was a great neighbor and friend." "He would do anything to help you." "He was a wonderful Dad." "He was a loving Grandfather." "He worked really hard when he was my employee." Why was such a good man dead?

One moment of anger can burn many futures.

A little over a year later, a man was arrested and subsequently convicted of murder. From testimony at the trial, we know that anger caused a man to pull the trigger that resulted in a good man's death. The day before the murder, the convicted man had an argument with another man. He wanted revenge. Most of the witnesses for the Prosecution were involved in illegal activities and were either currently incarcerated or had pending charges. It seemed like everyone involved in the trial had something in their lives that helped beget anger and violence. Some of the words used during the trial were: drugs, gangs, guns, stealing, jail sentence, - any one of those words could lead to another of those words. On some days when the drug business is good and you're in the same gang, you've got peace. That doesn't last long. There's always the threat of being arrested and subsequently betrayed by someone looking to save their own skin. There really is no honor among thieves and murderers. Anger amidst people involved in illegal activity lead to the death of an innocent man.   

There is always hope amidst barrenness.

Today's Wise Saying is taken from proverbs 24:1-2.

Proverbs 24:1-2

New International Version (NIV)

Saying 20

24 Do not envy the wicked,
    do not desire their company;
² for their hearts plot violence,
    and their lips talk about making trouble.

Proverbs 24:1-2

The Message (MSG)

Intelligence Outranks Muscle

19

24 ^1-2 Don’t envy bad people;
    don’t even want to be around them.
All they think about is causing a disturbance;
    all they talk about is making trouble.

 

Proverbs 24:1-2

Amplified Bible (AMP)

24 Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them;

² For their minds plot oppression and devise violence, and their lips talk of causing trouble and vexation.

Proverbs 24:1-2

King James Version (KJV)

24 Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them.

² For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief.

The very first recorded murder in the Bible was caused by jealousy and anger. Here is what the Amplified Bible records in Genesis 4:5-8:

⁵ But for ^[a]Cain and his offering He had no respect or regard. So Cain was exceedingly angry and indignant, and he looked sad and depressed.

⁶ And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why do you look sad and depressed and dejected?

⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.

⁸ And Cain said to his brother, ^[b]Let us go out to the field. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

 Anger rooted in disrespect will destroy.
 
 Heart-Storming Challenge:

• How do you control anger?
• When do you feel disrespect? 
• Can you identify activities that lead to envy of evil?
• Is it easy to apologize when you have disrespected someone?
• How do you "master the sin at your door?"

Thanks for your time. Go do something nice for somebody.

Jesus loves you and so do we.