Pruning

This picture is from our front yard in Myrtle Beach. It is a Crepe Myrtle. At the moment, it looks wonderful. That is, compared to what it looked like just 2 months ago!

When we retired into our home, this tree had been growing in our front yard for 10 years. In that time, apparently no one knew what to do with a Myrtle Tree. Therefore, it was covered in some kind of tree rot, did not look good at all and appeared to be dying. 

So we did some reading and called a local guy to come out and murder our tree. Yes, you read that right- it's called Crepe Murder!

I figured he would clean the junk off the bark and cut it back a bit. After a minute of bark cleaning, he started his chain saw and cut it down to almost nothing! I was horrified! Imagine this image with no leaves at all- just 3 sticks about 4 feet high and you've got the picture. We had 3 sticks in our front yard as our central tree! Aauugghh!

After a winter of "stick in our yard," all of a sudden it started to grow branches. I'm told this is normal for such a tree. Every few years we will do the same thing and it will grow again into a much larger, healthier tree.

Pruning. It's a common gardening practice. However, it's not so common in The Salvation Army. I think it should be.

We are currently in a tough place. COVID and (frankly) dealing poorly with our officers has left us in a state much like my old tree. Rotting and appearing to be near death in some places. We are stretching ourselves way too thin with way too few resources. Some of our locations are dead already and leadership refuses to see it.

I'm not going to go into a lot of explanation here, because I think you are smart enough to figure it out. We should get about pruning those dead locations and put the resources into ones that are still living and have actual potential for growth.

Yes, it would look bad for a time, but when the "Spring" comes, all of a sudden we would begin to see new growth that is much healthier. And that growth will supersede what we have now. But I don't think it's going to happen if we continue on our present course.

Corps Murder. There- I said it.

Elohim, Our Authority and Nephilim

I may be jumping into this subject mid-stream. I have learned a lot since I regularly blogged, so there are quite a few things I may have to explain from the middle. Hopefully I won't confuse you!

There may be a past blog where I talked about Psalm 8, in which the word Elohim is used. I used to reference this verse as evidence of our being placed above the angels, in God's creation/authority order. I have since learned I was a bit off. Not in our authority, but where we actually sit in the creation/authority order. I won't rehash my old thoughts here unless I need to reference them to explain something.

In Hebrew, the word "Elohim" can be singular or plural. In it's singular form, it refers to Yahweh/God- the One and Only; there is none like him. In it's plural form, it refers to the "gods" (beings) that Yahweh created. As far as I can tell at the moment, all heavenly beings God created are Elohim (plural). In other words, there are no "beings" that are angels. 

In Psalm 8, we have BOTH the singular Elohim and the plural form of the word.

The word "angel" means "messenger." An "angel" is not a being, as such, it is a "job description." So any Elohim given a specific task is considered an angel. I guess when they complete that task and go back to "normal operation," they are no longer considered an angel (sorry for all the quotes!).

Moving on to the creation order, we have God, gods, human-kind, then Nephilim. So we are below the gods, but above the Nephilim. Yes, there are gods who have fallen and they may have done so while they were angels (are you following?), but my point is that I no longer believe demons are fallen angels, rather fallen Elohim/gods. The more I think about this, the more it makes absolute sense to me regarding our authority to cast out demons.

I used to say we were created ABOVE the angels, so when they fell, we naturally still had authority over them; to cast them out. But that thought process fell apart when I realized we were BELOW the gods/angels.

I now believe demons are the disembodied spirits of Nephilim, whom God did not create, so they have nowhere to go, after they die. They go around looking for another physical body to inhabit, so they can do something/anything in the physical realm (remember Jesus and the herd of pigs?). This understanding is nothing new, as it has been around for a long time. Why do we often lose the understanding of things we used to know?

Nephilim came about by Elohim's (the gods) physical union with human women- they were god/human hybrids. Like Hercules, as it were. See where a lot of mythology has come from? I find it fascinating that so much mythology has its basis in reality. Hmmm, I wonder if there actually WAS a Nephilim named Hercules . . . mind blown!

Well if I haven't confused you by now, I'll finish with my purpose of this post- we do have authority to cast out demons. No surprise, since many of us have seen/done this over the years (and Jesus told us to do so), but for me this explanation is the reason we can do it.

 

Our Retirement Home Blessing

This is our retirement home. Nestled at the edge of Forestbrook Reserve in Myrtle Beach, you will find our "forever home." Being a Salvation Army officer's kid, that says a lot, because I lived in 9 different houses before I graduated college (we actually lived in two houses while I was in college). Since then, you can add another 19 until we finally landed here! We don't plan on moving ever again! By the way- I have the address list of very house I ever lived in.

Here is the story of our retirement home blessing:

Three years before retirement (2020), our plan was to come to Myrtle Beach and find a good realtor (and we found one of the BEST!). We wanted him to show us some houses and we would fill him in on what we liked and what we didn't like about those houses. Then in 2021, we would come back and get serious about buying a home. During that year, I would learn everything I needed to know about buying a house, because, well, I had never done that. We always lived in Salvation Army provided "quarters" (homes).

Our realtor gave us access to his web site where we found about 4-5 houses we liked. The day before he was to show us around these houses, we drove around ourselves to see them from the outside.

The first was already SOLD, so that was crossed off the list. The second was in a neighborhood we didn't particularly like (and it was hard to get to), so that one was crossed off the list. The next one just didn't look as good in person as it did online, so off the list. The last two were fine and since we didn't have any others we liked, we would go with the realtor to see them the next day.

Very quickly that day, we realized the first house looked great on the outside, but was going to take more renovation than we wanted. Almost a bit sadly, we went to our final house. I mean, we had "struck out" so far, what was going to happen with our last one?

In case you haven't guessed already, we walked into the house shown above. Within 5 minutes of looking Debbie and I both KNEW this was THE house! Good news, bad news- we loved the house, but I knew nothing about the house buying process and wasn't even sure we could make an appropriate down payment. I went into deep thinking mode to figure out if we could do it.

Our realtor said if we liked it, we should make an offer right away, because he was certain it would not stay on the market much longer. To make a long story short, we made an offer and went back and forth a couple of times until it was all settled. Then a date was set for the closing. We went home back North to figure out the process and work through all the paperwork we needed to do.

About a month later, we came back to close and "lived" in our home for 5 days before we returned to work and decided to rent the place until we needed it. That proved to be a God-thing as well, because that extra money helped a LOT in paying for the mortgage and having some money to do the minor renovations we wanted- like painting, carpets, etc.

A year passed. You might remember the housing market went CRAZY in 2021! If we had waited until we had planned on buying a house, we never could have afforded our house or anything like it. The price had gone way above our limit. God had a plan all along. I am glad we chose to listen to His plan and not mine!

God says "My ways are not your ways." Good thing!

God is so good to us. We see our retirement home as a direct blessing from God. And the first of our many blessings he poured down on us as we headed into retirement.

Trust in Yahweh with your whole heart and don't depend on your own knowledge and understanding. If you do this, He will make your path an easy one (my paraphrase). 

- - - - - 

Postscript: In the process of buying our house, I learned a LOT about the process of buying a house. If anyone reading this is interested, I can provide a simple two sheet list of steps.

God Bless America?

There is little doubt about it- America has a lot in common with Israel when it comes to God's blessing. Both nations began with a complete focus on God and God's hand was on them both as long as they continued to follow His ways. 

The other day in my devotional reading, I came across this quote: 

"[Jeremiah's] society suffered from pervasive moral and spiritual decay. The nation of Judah had turned so far from God that it was soon to face His fierce judgement." 

And that got me thinking . . . thoughts that I have wrestled with many times before. 

The scriptures paint a vivid picture of what happened to Israel/Judah when the people strayed from God. God removed his hand of protection and they were (more than once) subjected to God's judgement. 

In the United States, we sing the song: "God Bless America." And for many years, God HAS blessed us. But as I think about this song today, I cannot sing it without conviction that God is no longer blessing us. Can we still ask Him to bless us when we have strayed so far from his ways? When we are doing so many things directly against His will for us? I think not. We have lost our way and I believe it is time for His judgement. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to sing "God BlessED America."

That said, the scriptures also paint as vivid a picture of what happened when God's people repented and returned to Him and again followed His ways. They were restored and God began protecting and blessing once again. This isn't rocket science!

We are never too far away from God that we cannot repent and return. He promises to listen and restore when our hearts seek him and we change our ways.

I'm not trying to be prophetic, but I believe we are in for some serious judgement. We can turn this around, but it's going to take a LOT of prayer, repentance, and turning back; turning away from the things we have put in God's place. Christians won't be exempt- Jeremiah was a righteous man, but he suffered right along with the rest of his nation.

What will it take for America to realize we need to get to a place of repentance and turn our direction around? Will we see the coming judgement as God trying to get our attention? Or will we act as if it was God who turned from us first?

Here's what I pray at least twice every day:

"O Father, have mercy on all humanity. Draw all people to Your Truth."

Pray with me for revival with deep repentance and a return to God.

Bass Trombone

About 3 years ago, I started noticing some amazing blessings God was sending our way- as we prepared for retirement. I could give you a long list of incredible things (and I likely will talk about many of them here in days to come), but want to focus on just one here:

In college, I majored in Performance on Bass Trombone. My intent was to play in an orchestra or pit band somewhere and my efforts went in that direction. That is until God told me he wanted me to be an officer in The Salvation Army. 

That "call" came along about 2 1/2 years into my studies. Once I agreed with his plan (and honestly that took awhile), Bass Trombone began moving down my list of priorities for things like public speaking and Bible classes. Before I entered The Army's school for officer training, I sadly sold my "baby" (a Holton TR180 with custom modified inline Thayer valves) and bought a small tenor trombone (Bach 16M), because that would be more practical (however it is the same horn Bill Watrous plays!). I still use that tenor today at my corps. I did keep my custom Bass Trombone mouthpiece (a modified Bach 1 1/4 G), however- just in case!

Over the years I have had many opportunities to play Bass Trombone in different Army bands, but always had to use the horn provided. Some were okay, others- not so much! But deep down, I truly missed playing "for real."

Don't get me wrong- I have loved my career as a Salvation Army officer with amazing appointments, people and going everywhere God has led us. I know his way was best and I was blessed to serve as he wanted. I wouldn't change a thing.

Then we retired in December. I happened to find a local community band that needed a Bass Trombone, so I went. And quickly discovered I needed my own Bass Trombone again! So I started looking. Now, mind you, the cost of a decent horn these days is seriously prohibitive. But to make a long story shorter, I found (ahem- God found FOR me) a brand new (only played once) Wessex inline double trigger for an awesome price! I drove 3 hours to my Mom's home town (Columbia, SC) try it out and instantly loved it. You can see it above!

Back in Myrtle Beach, the community band also has a Jazz Band (Jazz is in my blood!) AND Brass Choir (larger brass quintet, which I loved in college). I now play Bass Trombone in 3 different groups (and tenor and sometimes euphonium at the corps)! Retirement is like Frosted Flakes- it's G-R-E-A-T!

SOooo, the other day it dawned on me that God worked all this out to "give my Bass Trombone back again!" I did what he wanted for 42 1/2 years; now he is letting me do what I originally wanted to do for whatever years I have left. God is just SO cool! And I still get to work with the young adults at the corps too (my ministry)!

My Dad used to say "God loves everyone, but he loves ME the best!" 

I know what he meant.

Wow! It's been a LONG time!

So today I came across a link to my old blog! Yes, if you're reading this, this is what I'm talking about. My last post was way back in 2008. Uh let's see, that's . . . sixteen years ago (had to get the calculator out for that). 

I used to blog daily for a few years, then every few days or so. Then . . . I stopped completely. Looking back over some of those posts, it got me thinking maybe I could start back up again, now that I'm retired and have some T I M E on my hands, as it were. Let's see if I can get back into the swing of it. No guarantees!

In 2008, we were stationed in Rhode Island as State Coordinators (2007-2009). Here's the rest of the list if anyone is interested:

2009-2011 Quincy, MA - Corps Officers
2011-2014 Wilmore, KY - SASF Directors
2014-2017 Chambersburg, PA - Corps Officers
2017-2020 Sunbury-on-Thames, UK - Sunbury Court/ICO
                    Doug Business Services; Deb Program Services
2020-2020 (Apr-Jul) Nyack, NY - USA East THQ
                    (COVID limbo upon returning from UK)
2020-2023 Rochester, NY - Area Services
2023-2023 (Jul-Nov) Penn Yan, NY - Empire NY DHQ
                    Young Officer Support
2023          Dec 1 - Retirement to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina!

A lot has happened in those 16 years. Maybe I'll bring up some blog worthy stories as we go along.

For now let's just say God has been GOOD (ALL the time!) and he has been faithful. I will definitely be posting some of the AMAZING things he has done throughout our retirement process. I am DAILY amazed at how he continues to work on our behalf with some simple things and some HUGE things.

We are now enjoying our time at the Conway, SC corps (in the Carolinas Division), where we have found great friends, fellowship, ministry opportunities, and fulfilling worship. Our Corps Officers are incredible! Shout out to Major Jenn and Captain Carl Melton! We love them already.

Make sure I post about 1) our house purchase, 2) my Bass Trombone (yeah, I always capitalize Bass Trombone as it is so awesome an instrument!), and 3) Our car. On a tough note, I should post about our most difficult move and the long process I went through to heal from that deep hurt. God is just SO patient and wise.

Here's to a re-energized Light Seeker. To be sure- I AM still seeking THE Light!
- - - - -

Oh: I need to clean up a lot of the side links and such, so be patient as I sort through all that.