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CONFESSIONS OF A (FORMER) PREPPING JUNKIE
It never ceases to amaze me that Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights without any preps at all. Not even water. And yet, even after having starved for nearly 6 weeks, he still managed to outwit the devil.
How’d he do that?
People are starting to furiously prep again, like they did just before the “pandemic” was declared nearly three years ago. I overheard a woman today in the dollar store breathlessly detailing her latest prepping acquisitions to a friend she’d run into. She said she got most of her ideas from survivalist videos she saw on YouTube. Her friend was ooh-ing and ahhh-ing over her overfilled grocery cart and congratulating her on her alleged prepping acumen.
Meanwhile, in grocery stores all across Canada and the US, shelves are being emptied out of basic necessities like rice, pasta, canned vegetables, etc., causing food shortages for everyone else. That they’re causing food shortages doesn’t seem to faze the preppers one whit. They’re only interested in their own perceived needs.
Jesus, as demonstrated by his 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, was no prepper. In fact, he stated his position on prepping quite clearly:
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink…. Is not life more than food?”
Jesus was notorious for having only enough supplies at any given time to get him through the day. When he needed food and none was available, he relied on God to supply it. Think of how he fed the thousands who’d come to listen to him preach the sermon on the mount. Even his disciples were at a loss to figure out how so many people could be fed in the wilderness, but Jesus just calmly held up the few fishes and loaves they had, said a silent heartfelt prayer, and God took care of the rest.
Because that’s what it’s all about – letting God do his job while we do ours. Jesus was able to go 40 days and nights in the wilderness with no food or water because God set that task to him and then supernaturally enabled him to do it.
When you prep, what you’re saying is that you don’t trust God to supply for your needs. You’re relying on your own strength and ingenuity and turning your back on God.
You’re showing zero faith in God.
Now before you start huffing and puffing, allow me to let you in on a little secret. I know that God doesn’t want us, his born-again children, to prep, because I was once a prepper myself. I still have around 10,000 pristine tea light candles in storage to prove it (lol). But then God started getting on my case a few years ago. He pointed me to various scriptures to show me that my prepping revealed I had a very low level of faith in him to provide for me in some future SHTF scenario. I got the message loud and clear, and from that point onward I stopped prepping altogether. Instead, because I move around so much and occasionally live out in the boonies, I only buy what I think I’ll need until my next shopping trip.
I know what a buzz it is to prep, because I’ve done it. It has addictive properties, in that no matter how much you buy, you still feel you don’t have enough and have to buy more. Many Christians have become prepping junkies who invest a good portion of their income on food and other supplies they may never actually need.
Imagine if they had instead invested all that money, time, and energy in the Kingdom.
If we follow Jesus, we live as Jesus lived. If he didn’t prep and he relied on God to provide for him, then so should we. I’m not talking to unbelievers here or to nominal Christians – I’m talking to born-again believers. The only prepping we should be doing is spiritual prepping, which means working on our relationship with God, treating other people as we want to be treated, and following ever closer behind Jesus. If unbelievers what to prep, let them. Don’t interfere with them. It’s not our business to tell them what to do. If nominal Christians want to prep, maybe remind them that Jesus was no prepper, and leave it at that. They may take the bait, but whether they do or not is between them and God. It’s out of our hands.
But for us born-again believers, we need to understand that prepping food and other items is not what we do. Prepping shows a lack of faith in God to provide for our needs. We are not in Old Testament times, where prepping was actively encouraged, such as in the time of Joseph, where his job was to prep in order to provide for his family. Let other people prep, if they want to, but we born-agains need to remain faithful to our calling to follow closely behind Jesus, who never prepped, not even when he knew he’d be spending 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness.
Whatever task God sets for us, he will provide for us ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. The “one way or another” part is really important for us to take on, because, like the disciples who wondered where all the food was going to come from to feed the thousands, we won’t always know how our needs will be provided for. That’s where having faith in God comes in handy. You may not be able to see how you’ll be provided for, but trust that God sees very clearly how it will be done.
And it will be done.
I had to learn the hard way that prepping was a no-no for me, throwing out dozens of cans of expired peaches, cranberry sauce, kidney beans, etc., in the process. God doesn’t want us to prep in that way. If he did, Jesus would have been an exemplary prepper. Instead, Jesus prepped in the only way that mattered – spiritually, and for all eternity, storing up his treasures in Heaven, not on Earth.
He taught us and showed us that we should do the same.
Now, if you have a basement or a garage full of preps, don’t throw them out. Use them and share them. And then resolve within yourself not to buy any more than you’ll need until your next anticipated shopping trip.
As born-again believers, we don’t need to be prepping junkies; we need to be faith junkies.
PRAYING LIKE JESUS
It always astounds me, what people pray for. Most pray for a miracle that involves physical healing or financial rescue. Very rarely does anyone pray like Jesus prayed, which was to go Home as soon as possible.
If you truly love God, you want to be with him in Heaven, because that’s where we’ll see him as he is. While we’re yet on Earth, we’ll likely only perceive him as Spirit, but in Heaven things will be completely different. We’ll be able to walk with God the way that Adam walked with him. We’ll be able to talk to him one-on-one and face-to-face, and we’ll be able to touch him and hug him (and yes, dance with him, if the spirit moves us).
If you truly love God, you don’t want to spend another minute in this valley of shadow and death than you have to. You’re not praying to stay here longer; you’re praying to get the heck out of here. That’s how you pray if you truly love God: You pray to do his will, you pray to follow as closely behind Jesus as you can, and you pray to go Home.
The world is not a welcoming place for born-again believers. Jesus warned us we’d have problems here, and so we do. What else can we expect, since the world is under Satan? The world will never magically change and become like Heaven. It will, however, change to become more and more like hell on Earth. That’s the satanic mandate. That’s where the world and all those who treasure and put their hope in the world are headed.
Jesus told us that where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. If we treasure God and want to be with him, our heart will be with God in Heaven. It won’t be on Earth or on earthly things. Our sights will be much higher. We won’t be praying for a long, prosperous, and healthy life in our human body; we’ll be praying for whatever it takes to get Home so that we can claim our perfected eternal body.
Some people reading this will be like “But, but, but… Jesus always healed people. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing, too?” Jesus healed people who believed he could heal them, that’s true. But his purpose in healing them was to bring them back into alignment with God’s will, as they’d strayed off the path (as evidenced by their illness). Born-again believers shouldn’t be straying off the path or having to be brought into alignment with God’s will. And if we do stray, we should be self-correcting, with the prompting of God’s Holy Spirit.
Ultimately, what casual Christians pray for is inconsequential. God admits that he doesn’t listen to people if they come to him unrepentant, backslidden, proud, presumptuous, and demanding. But what we born-again believers pray for is critically important. Our prayers (the prayers of the saints) ascend directly to God. We have God’s ear 24/7, if we choose to. So what we communicate to God has eternal consequences.
Jesus admitted that he didn’t pray for the world but only for those in it who were God’s. In other words, he prayed for us born-again believers, the one true church on Earth. He prayed for our protection, but more importantly, he prayed that we would have the same relationship with God as he’d had during his time here. He prayed that we’d have the same intimacy with God and share the same love, and you know that Jesus always got what he prayed for because he prayed God’s will. Our intimacy with God and our love for God should be prompting us to pray to be where God is, not to stay here on Earth. It certainly is prompting me to pray to go Home.
One of the main reasons why God made us to love him was that we’d want to be fully with him, both spiritually and physically. He made us so that our desire to be with him would be stronger than our desire to be with his imperfect and decaying creation. The only place we can be with God both spiritually and physically is in Heaven, so that’s what we should be praying for: to go to Heaven.
Next time you ask God for a favour, ask him to take you Home at his earliest convenience. You wanna bet that Jesus prayed for that favour morning, noon and night. He knew what was waiting for him in Heaven, and he couldn’t wait to start his eternal life. We should be looking forward to our heavenly reward with as much fervour as Jesus did. If we’re not, we’ve got some serious soul-searching to do.
If your daily prayers don’t include a request to go Home as soon as possible, you’re not right with God. Imagine telling someone you love on Earth that you want to be with them, just not now or any time soon. That wouldn’t happen, right? You love someone, you want to be with them in person, one-on-one, and ASAP. If you love God, you want to be with him in person, one-on-one, and ASAP.
That’s the simple truth of the matter.
I hope you consider this the next time you talk to God. If you’re genuinely born-again, your prayers have eternal consequences. Make sure you pray like Jesus.
WHEN GOD KISSES YOUR BOO-BOO
I can only imagine what Jesus was mumbling under his breath about the Nazarenes when they ran him out of town for saying he was the Messiah.
But Jesus being Jesus, he likely would have tagged on a prayer and a blessing as he shrugged off the hate in his hometown the same way he shrugged it off everywhere else. Being hated and outcast goes with the territory of being godly in an ungodly world. He knew that when he took on the job of being the Messiah. We need to know it, too.
Still, it doesn’t mean you can’t get a good grumble in every now and then. God understands. Certainly Jesus does, seeing that he spent 33 years dealing one-on-one with the ungodly. Though to be fair, Earth is the realm of the ungodly. Time and space are theirs. God made temporal creation as a resource for everyone, but he put it under the management of a tightly controlled Satan.
The Kingdom is ours, though. All ours. The ungodly can’t get in there, unless they repent and stay the course. Some beings, like Satan, can never get into the Kingdom.
So Jesus would have retreated into the presence of God when he was being run out of his hometown, the same way we retreat into the presence of God when the ungodly world gets to be too much for us. That’s why God made us the Kingdom, so we can take shelter in him. He knew how progressively crappy things were going to get on Earth in every regard, so he created our own personal spiritual safe space of the Kingdom, which we can access only as born-again believers and only by God’s Spirit.
*****
I love God’s creation, but I hate the world. I wish I could have seen Earth before people did a number on it. I wish I could have smelled the air and drunk the water before the manmade pollution ruined them, but I guess I’ll have to wait until I get to Heaven to do those things. I can wait. Heaven is worth the wait.
Heaven is an infinite Earth, perfected, just as our heavenly bodies will be infinite and perfected. Some people lie about Heaven and say it’s a spiritual realm only and that we’ll have a spiritual body only, but that lie comes from the pit of Hell. The fallen beings only have spiritual bodies. That’s where the lie comes from – their own experience of having no bodies for all eternity.
Those who make it to Heaven will have beautiful and glorious bodies, even more beautiful and glorious than at the beginning, before the fall. In Heaven, everyone is not only at least as beautiful as Satan before his fall, they’re MORE beautiful. And Jesus is second in beauty only to God, who is the most beautiful of all.
We’ll see for ourselves just how impossibly beautiful God is, if and when we make it home.
*****
These are the things I think about and the daydreams I dream when the world gets to be too much, when the sugar-coated evil gets to be too galling. I think about Heaven and daydream about God. God loves it when we daydream about him; he fills in the blanks with little details that corroborate with lines and words in scripture that we didn’t understand before. He whispers secrets in our inner ear and says things to make us laugh. He wipes all our tears away. There’s nothing the world can throw at God’s children that he can’t make right for them or help them through, if they rely on him, if they turn to him only. Jesus is living proof of that. So is Paul. So are all the disciples, except for the one who betrayed Jesus. And so are we, God’s born-again children and Jesus’ followers. There’s nothing the world can throw at us that God can’t catch and throw back.
*****
No matter how foul a mood the world puts me in, God turns it around on a dime and has me giggling and singing before I know it. His promise to his children is that he will wipe all their tears away, and so he does, with his beautiful voice and his beautiful hands and his beautiful everything. He wipes all the tears away, and before we know it, we’re singing his praises in words and music that he gives to us only, as a gift.
Let the ungodly run you out of your own personal Nazareth. Let them run you out, and then let God turn your grumbles into his own special brand of joy that he serves up customized just for you. Let them run you out of town even as you pray for them. Let them crucify you even, as you pray for them. How can you not pray and feel sorry for such a people who don’t know God and don’t know Heaven?
How can you not feel sorry for them?
CHOOSE
What choices will you make today?
You’ll choose what time to get up.
You’ll choose what to wear.
You’ll choose what to eat for breakfast (or to skip breakfast).
In between these choices, there will be others that involve your hygiene, your message monitoring, your information gathering.
If you work outside where you’re living, you’ll choose how to get there and how to interact with anyone you meet during your commute.
When you get to your place of work, you’ll choose how much effort you’ll put into your work today.
And all along the way, you’ll choose which thoughts to entertain, which plans to solidify or to dismiss, which information to gather or to ignore.
Our lives, even sometimes during our sleep, are a series of choices. Jesus tells us that everything we do, say, and think we’ll be held accountable for at the judgement. Most of us, although aware of that line in scripture, put that information to the back of our mind. How can we live always conscious that everything we do, say and even think is being recorded, perhaps to our ultimate condemnation?
How can we live knowing we’re always under a microscope?
If you love God, you love that your every waking and sleeping moment is being monitored and weighed. It keeps you on the strait and narrow. It helps you make the right choices, knowing that in order to get the consequences you want, you’ll have to make the right choices – that is, the choices that are right in God’s eyes. God’s constant monitoring presence, through his Spirit, is a gift. You hold it tight and thank God for it.
If, on the other hand, you don’t love God, the thought of being constantly monitored by him (or those he delegates to do so) is anathema. You loathe that there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from what you see as his all-seeing eye. You loathe that even your thoughts are known. None of this is a comfort to you; on the contrary, you feel violated. You feel powerless. It makes you angry. You might even deny that it’s happening or even possible.
I love God. I thank him every day, all day, that he and Jesus are right here with me through his Spirit. I want all my words and actions to be weighed by him, I want my thoughts to be known to him, because then he can guide me away from the words and actions and thoughts that will lead me away from my heavenly reward. My whole purpose in doing what I do here on Earth is to solidify my plan to make it home to Heaven. God delegates us, his born-again children, to learn about him and his Way so that we can teach others about his Way, who will then in turn teach others, and so on and so on to the end of time.
Along with being the Messiah, Jesus also had the mission to teach others about God’s Way during his ministry years. We don’t have to be the Messiah (that mission is over and done and fully accomplished), but we do have to teach others about God’s Way.
*****
What choices will you make today, knowing that you’re being watched and recorded? How will that thought affect your thoughts? What will you do to teach others about God’s Way?
I hope you’ll make good (godly) choices and enjoy the good consequences that come from them.
I hope you’ll do what’s right in God’s eyes.
I hope, that when it’s your time, your choices will be weighed in your favour and you’ll get to go Home.
And I hope that if you make it home and I make it home, we’ll meet up in Heaven and share in each other’s rewards.
Mine is full of my grandmother’s brown sugar fudge, as a start. You can have as much brown sugar fudge as you want when you come for a visit, because there’s a never-ending supply, and it always tastes perfect.
What rewards are waiting for you? Did you know that as much as you get to choose your words, thoughts and actions on Earth, you also get to choose your rewards in Heaven, bearing in mind that nothing evil can get into Heaven?
If you haven’t yet started to choose your rewards, I recommend that you do so. Choose your favourite scenery, your favourite food, your favourite trees and flowers and animals – make it personal. Make it entirely you. Make it all the things you love and treasure. Make it things that have had a hard life here but give them a better place in your heavenly home. Jesus tells us to store up our treasures in Heaven, so store them up. Be generous. There’s no limit to what Heaven can hold.
Yesterday, I saw a stand of trees hundreds of years old be cut down. With them, went the homes of generations of birds and other wildlife. Some of the trees even had nests in them. I couldn’t stop the destruction, but I could pray to God for the trees and all the lives they had sheltered to be part of my place in Heaven, and that’s where they are now, waiting for me. My heavenly home has gained a beautiful stand of birch and pine trees, along with innumerable birds and squirrels and foxes and deer and insects. This is how we choose our Heaven.
*****
What choices will you make today?
I pray that you make the right ones.
OF CATS AND WIND
Today is a windy day.
When my cat was still on Earth in her earthly body (she’s in Heaven now, in her heavenly body), she was terrified of windy days – not because of the wind itself (I don’t think she knew what wind was at that time), but because of the way the bushes and trees would flail and lash at her and the leaves would chase her around the yard. I think she thought they were moving on their own volition and were on the attack.
So she refused to go outside on windy days.
Smart cat. ;D
Plants do move on their own volition (very very slowly), but that’s not what makes them flail and lash on occasion, nor is it what makes dead leaves blow around. The invisible wind does that.
When I was an atheist, I believed the forces that governed my life were external to me and beyond my control. I believed bad things happened to me not because of anything I did, but because systems were bad or people were bad. And so, to my mind, economic and political trees flailed and lashed at me, and people chased me around like leaves. I was as blind to the spiritual forces working in my life as my cat was to the wind blowing through the yard. But at least my cat had the excuse of not knowing science and the good sense to stay indoors on windy days; I had no excuse but spiritual blindness and the bad sense to constantly throw myself into the spiritual maelstrom. Being completely clueless as to why things were the way they were, I grew more and more confused and desperate every day.
You’re not born with spiritual blindness; you acquire it through sin and pride. Most of the world labors under some degree of spiritual blindness. In fact, metaphorically speaking, most of the world believes that dead leaves are attacking them, and trees and bushes are out to get them. Not knowing how God’s Holy Spirit and all the other holy and unholy spirits work in their lives, they attribute their misery and “bad luck” to influences like political systems or absent parents. Very few understand that the measure you mete out is the measure you get in return, mitigated by God’s mercy. Very few acknowledge that the Ten Commandments have been written on their hearts by God himself, and are as much a part of them as their DNA.
For the first 36 years of my life, I was like most people in the world, believing that trees and leaves were out to get me. Even worse, I always blamed my problems and failures on someone or something else. I never made the connection between my ungodly life choices and the misery that followed. God’s Ten Commandments were written on my heart just as deeply as they were on everyone else’s, but my spiritual blindness made me spiritually illiterate.
Atheism is a form of acquired spiritual illiteracy.
The only cure for spiritual blindness is, of course, Jesus Christ. You cannot come to God any other way but by Jesus. Like my cat taking shelter indoors on windy days, you can take shelter under the mighty hand of God as a follower of Jesus. And then you’ll be able to see. The spiritual winds will still blow and the elements will still lash at you, but at least you’ll know why: you’ll make the connection between the choices you make in life and the kind of life you get in return. From this knowledge, you can then learn to make better choices. You don’t need to see the wind to know it’s there, any more than you need to see God’s Law to know it’s there, because you can clearly see the impacts of both.
By the way, my cat in Heaven now knows what wind is. In fact, she knows a lot more about most things than I do. All of God’s creatures in Heaven are given a full measure of God’s Spirit. Someday, they’ll be teaching us the miraculous “science” of the heavenly realms, if and when we make it home.
WHAT DOES YOUR PLACE IN HEAVEN LOOK LIKE?
My house in Heaven sits on hundreds of thousands of acres. Yes, that’s right – hundreds of thousands (it’s not a typo). We all get lots of space in Heaven, if that’s what we want.
It’s a small house (a cottage, really), just big enough for my furry little loved ones and I to eat and sleep and hang out, but with enough room for friends to visit, too. And you always get visitors in Heaven. Friends drop by every day, including (on occasion) The Big Guy and His Side-Kick.
I mean God and Jesus (lol).
They have a special room that’s just for them.
Inside the house are all my funny little keepsakes that I’ve loved and cherished over my lifetime. Most of them are no longer on Earth, or if they are, they’re no longer in my possession, but I remember them fondly and I used to mourn them. But now I know that all those things I lost or sold or broke or left behind are in Heaven waiting for me. All of them, and just as I remembered them. This makes me happy, thinking about that. I no longer mourn them, and it’s also easier to let other things go, knowing I’ll have them again someday, and that I’ll always have them from that point onward.
There are no good-byes in Heaven, and no breaking or losing anything. Everything is perfected and remains so for eternity.
Outside on my hundreds of thousands of acres are all the animals I’ve loved and wept over and eaten during my lifetime on Earth. They all get to spend their forever doing whatever makes them happy, and they all get along. No growling in Heaven. The ones I’ve eaten don’t know I’ve eaten them, and neither do I. They only remember the happy times they had on Earth, just like I only remember the happy times. No unhappy memories get into Heaven.
On my hundreds of thousands of acres are also some animals I’ve never actually seen during my time on Earth because they went extinct before I was born. And there are other animals I’ve never even heard of because they don’t exist in the fossil record. Lots of happy surprises in Heaven, for those who want them.
My land in Heaven is made up of all my favourite places and scenery on Earth, along with all my favorite flowers and trees and other plants. My favorite insects are waiting there for me, too. All of my favorite creatures are waiting for me.
Jesus says to store up your treasures in Heaven, and that’s what I’m doing. Storing up happy memories and beautiful scenes. My little slice of Heaven includes parts of the Grand Canyon, the Rockies and the Alps, a bit of the prairies, some forests and ocean cliffs, a stretch of rocky shore, and some coves and beaches. There are even a few islands dotting a handful of lakes. It’s all there waiting for me, all my beloved animals and plants and natural scenery, all in their own places but forming a seamless expanse as far as the eye can see.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I have neighbours in Heaven. We keep a neighbourly distance from each other. Travel options in Heaven are different than on Earth, so vast spaces can be crossed in an instant.
I’m telling you all this because there are so many lies being told on Earth about Heaven and what it looks like. It’s the devil’s job to downplay the wonders of Paradise (don’t get on his case about that; as I said, it’s his job), so we need to go to God directly and ask him ourselves.
Have you asked God yet what your place in Heaven looks like? Have you asked him to show you what’s waiting for you if you make it all the way home? If you haven’t asked God yet, you need to do it. God wants to show you. He’s waiting for you to ask him to show you, so ask him.
That’s how I know about my hundreds of thousands of acres. I asked God, and he showed me, and every day he shows me a little bit more. He’s not going to show me everything (that would ruin the surprise!), but just enough to boost my spirits and remind me what all the trials and tribulations on Earth are for, just enough to remind me what I’m fighting for.
People forget that; they forget that Heaven is the reward we’re striving for. We’re not fighting the good fight just for the sake of fighting; we’re fighting the good fight so we can go home again. I say “again”, because we were all created in Heaven. Our souls were formed in Heaven and we were reborn in the heavenly realms. Our yearning and love for God is in part a yearning and love for home.
I hope you ask God today to show you what’s stored up in Heaven waiting for you. God wants to show you. He gets really excited when you ask him (the way people on Earth get excited when they’re planning a big surprise for someone they love), so go ahead – ask him. What you see will amaze you and give you the boost you need to keep going. Ask him every day, if you want. God is more than happy to show you. He loves you and he’s storing up everything on Earth that you love, just for you. It’s all waiting for you, if and when you make it home.
ONE DAY CLOSER TO HEAVEN
Every morning I wake up, I’m ONE DAY CLOSER TO HEAVEN.
Every step I take, I’m ONE STEP CLOSER TO HEAVEN.
Every breath I take, I’m ONE BREATH CLOSER TO HEAVEN.
With every heartbeat, I’m ONE BEAT CLOSER TO HEAVEN.
We all have a finite number of days, steps, breaths and heartbeats.
We don’t know how many we’ll get in total, but God does, just as he knows how many hairs are on our head.
We don’t need to know how many more days have been allotted us (or how many hairs are on our head); all we need to know is that every day we wake up, we’re one day closer to Heaven, as long as we stay the course that Jesus showed us. (more…)
TAKE IT
There are only two ways: The right way and the wrong way.
There is no third way.
Something cannot be a little bit right or a little bit wrong: it is simply either right or wrong.
If there is any measure of wrong in a thing, then it is wrong.
If there is no measure of wrong in a thing, then it is right.
A REMINDER FROM JESUS (more…)
QUEER
That sinking feeling when you realize your time is up. No reprieve. Your bags are packed. Your ride’s at the door. Better not to look around. Better not to savor the view one last time. Better not to let your gaze linger on the cheerful kitchen, the comfy bed. You have to leave. This is not your home. You have to leave… and then it hits you (yet again) that you never really had a home. (more…)
HOPE AND CHANGE, GOD-STYLE
God changes his mind. He never changes, mind you (he’s the same yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever), but he does change his mind. There are numerous instances in the Bible when he was about to render his judgement and then, through a last minute appeal, stayed his hand.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 