I got the right to definite myself!

Definite Myself--
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Looks way better in that mockup than in the customer supplied images.  Average rating leaves me compelled to say this: buy at your own risk.  Funny seller name, tho.  Kinda reminds me of that book about the alternative rock music of the late 70's to mid 80's titled OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE.  So many bands that people look up to like "their music made me feel less alone".  I don't get it, but what else is new?
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How soon is now?

I finally figured out what "now these three remain" (Corinthians 13:13) means.
I was so confused,  I was like "remain?"  I'm not even sure how to express why I thought that was confusing.  I somehow got the sense that he was excluding something(s) from that list of "these three" that remain.  How I got that sense I have no idea.
But someone answered this, someone on Quora
NOW it makes sense!  The confusion seems stupid now that its been cleared up.  I was trying to think "How did I not notice that?"  I think I was confused by Paul's inclusion of the word "Now".  "Now" means "the present time", which is NOT what Paul was referring to, so I don't know what the deal with that is.  I guess that's just how some people talk.  Whatever.  Ig.

Hmm....

I tried to make a point to someone.  I don't know if he understood what I was trying to say.  I don't remember his response.  He struck me as having a better education, both academically and spiritually.  

Anyway, I don't know if I wrote it here or not.

I was thinking about people's demand for a visible God, a God that they can see and touch.  And then I suddenly realized ----- if you (whoever that may be) could see God, would it really change your status with Him?  Would you love Him and respect Him and obey His commands?  Or would you even believe He is God?  There's billions of people in the world.  Up until Moses wrote the Torah, laws regarding incest were not established.  And in the first days of man, it was the only way of reproducing.  So not every man looks the same as another.  Generally speaking, we all look the same.  You can usually identify a human being based on its' anatomy.  But there are variances in our facial features and even the shapes of our heads and other indications that we are not all identical.  And Adam & Eve are long departed from this Earth.  We have no record of what they looked like.  So if God were visible, how would you spot Him?  And if Adam & Eve were duplicated directly by God instead of by our reproductive systems, would we really be able to tell God apart from that of another human being?

That's aside from the fact that God doesn't want to threaten us into submission.  God never makes anyone worship Him.  He may cause one's heart to produce lethal venom, but no one's heart is free of guilt.  We are all responsible for some level of violence, weather it be by inaction (failure to act/selfishness), mean spirited-ness in varying quantities, or physical abuse toward another or murder or somewhere in between those four examples.  God is merciful and he is just.  He didn't give King David the kind of fate he gave the Pharoh circa the events in Exodus.  The Pharoh of that time was a perfect example of unrepentant.  He had the best of everything that could be imported into Egypt, and the best of Egypt itself, and he imposed punishment on the Jews so that they would not overthrow Egypt.  He had power over others and he treated himself and others as if his kingship would sustain him beyond this life.  It's hard for me to understand why someone would reject Christ.  Christians are not always good examples of themselves.  We are called to be representatives of Christ, but we are also human and that fact often ultimately wins over.  To refuse Christ because of the hypocrisy of Christians never made much sense to me.

It seems like I had more to say.  I'll edit this later if need be.  I don't like editing these posts, but occasionally that's really all I can do short of re-writing the entire thing with a couple added pieces.

Thankful for another day?

Someone posted a thing on Facebook saying "Who is thankful for another day that God has given?"  I seriously could not bring myself to click "like" or respond on any way.  I didn't feel it was appropriate to give my 2 cents on that post, but I thought I'd post it here...since I feel like there's either a problem present or some kind of mystery that looks like it could be a problem if left unattended to...I don't know who all of the 10+ people that read my blog are, but whatever......I feel like I can at least vent on my "own" blog (even though it's free, via Google, which means it's google's).

Seriously...there are some days when I'm up.  Things seem to be gelling somewhat and stuff is happening or might happen.  Today just isn't one of them.  Yesterday was even worse.  A bunch of 9-12 year old special ed kids overtook Target while me and my mom + my nephew were there.  And I swear, it was the same crap I dealt with when I was in special ed.  My mom was f***ing oblivious, like she always has been.  The place was not worth any amount of $, service was slow AND THE FUCKING PLACE WAS PACKED LIKE A CAN OF SARDINES!!!  Nonetheless, I sat down and waited for the slow cooked shit food that "The Target cafe" as I call it --- don't know or care what they label it as --- was taking its' slow ass time getting there and then by the time I realized that my attempt to ignore this prick who was giving me this sarcastic hard-to-describe smile had half the other kids rooting for me to cry, I had two choices.  Sit down and deal with it or get up and go somewhere.  Where?  Same shit as it was when I was actually IN school.  Some uncaring authority figure decided on some random bullshit without my input, so I was stuck there.  My mom would say "Well, he could walk home".  Yeah......sure.  She recommended me not to walk to Wal-Mart in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, b/c I might have a heart attrack (this was before I turned 30) but....I can walk to my home in Loganville GA from Target in Snellville, GA.

Yesterday started awesome.  It felt like fall for once.  I had sent my mom an email a day or two before then asking if maybe we had enough money between our resources to try the new Maple Pecan latte from Starbucks.  Yesterday would have been perfect for that, but instead she wanted to give her business to the Target cafe while it was already overcrowded.   She did offer, but it was too late.  My emotions had been soured.  Today is just nothing.  I'm sitting at home.  It's been cloudy most of the day.  My mom's been in bed all day.  She was gone with my sister to a yard sale in some place name unknown until 10:30 A.M. or so (I woke up around 8).  And then I pointed out that her voice was indeed rather loud when she was talking to Dharma, when supposedly their hearing is so good that she didn't even need to talk as loud as she talks to me most of the time, which is often not loud at all (too quiet in some cases), and how that goes against what she had accused me of yesterday or whenever that was pertaining to the same thing when my voice was not as loud as that, or even close.  She got all pissy with me and said "I'm not going to argue with you"  Stupid grouping of words.  Maybe she knows this and that's the point.  I don't know.  Maybe that's also part of the solution she had in mind; say stupid shit AND be ambiguously malicious!  And the best part is there's nothing I can say about it!  "Peace at last"  Then when I try to get her to move her fat ass again, the peace process will have to start over.....I guess I should quit expecting her to have a brain AND a conscience...any time she's happy or "in a good mood" or the opposite(s) thereof, she loses brain functionality it seems.  And I never know what she's thinking and/or feeling.  She relies heavily on sarcasm to "prove her point", as if her point is so mind boggling it can't be stated without sarcasm...or exaggeration (in what way does exaggeration prove anything?; I WAS THE CEO AT CHICK FILL A!  Is that an exaggeration of my organization and mathematical skills or is that a lie?  Most applicants looking for a job, according to teachers and the media -- and my mom -- would call that outright dishonesty.  But then again, "job applications are boring".  So then what is a conversation exactly?  Information that may or may not be true.  It's no wonder my mom doesn't get along with me.  I talk too much and it doesn't meet the necessary quotiant (whatever that is) of bullshit!

I guess I'll shut up now.  I probably won't enjoy church tomorrow either.  Maybe I'll get something out of it.  Maybe I won't.  I probably should sign up for a trip to Asia or somewhere and just get the fuck out of this house so I can make a difference and have a reason to be thankful the days that God has given. This day is no more different than all the others except for the fact that I'm not in good mood.  What "another day above ground" means to me is I'm not in Heaven.  Surely there's a reason for that.  I'm either not seizing it or I'm not seeing it.

new shoes

I got some new shoes @ WalMart.com with my WalMart credit card.
Other than that spending, I haven't used my WalMart credit card this month (so far so good...[!!...])
The cool thing is, thanks to my sister's mad budgeting skills and my lack of ability to argue with them, I had at least $30 saved up from Sept & this month to spend on clothing.  I do think that's a bit excessive, but I figured I would take that money and put it to good use instead of continually pressuring my sister about it for the next 3 or 4 months......I'm sure by the 6th month everything will reveal itself.
So I managed to pay off the cost of the shoes and a pack of socks.
I had forgotten that I was already ahead on my WalMart credit card before I even submitted my minimum payment.  It was only $9, so I was like "yeah...uh...'ahead'...that's one way of saying it", and for the last couple of days I've been more concerned about making sure my deposits to my bank acct don't negatively overlap with my withdrawals, since I generally don't have access to my bank acct transaction history as it happens, since it's nestled under my mom's bank acct, since my psychiatrist doesn't think I should have unfettered access to my bank acct...actually, the psychiatrist I see since living in Metro-Atlanta has never mentioned it nor have I to her.  So I really don't know what her professional opinion on the matter is.
Anyway...I have $38 in available credit on my WalMart.com credit card.  That's still out of this world when considering the $700 credit limit I was initially given and the $150 that was added to it a few months back.  That $38 will be cut by almost half when my statement gets generated sometime early in the month of November, but that's still $20 or more in available credit and when I pay my minimum payment in November, that credit availability will go up to $46 or so, and then of course by the end of December, I'll have $50.  Still have a couple years to go before I get even 1/3 of it paid and that's assuming nothing comes up.  If I end up TV-less, I can probably make do with this desktop computer for at least a while...I'll probably use my credit line to buy a TV tho, if my current one gives out on me.  It seems to still be going strong.  I only paid $75 for that thing.  It's a 22".  I cancelled my extended warranty about a year before it was set to expire and got a $7 refund.  That extended warranty would have expired by now.  It was a 3 year warranty.  I've had that thing for 3+ years!  My 26" in-house-brand from Best Buy was 4x what I paid for the Seiki TV and might have just barely lasted that long.  If I had paid $75 instead of having paid $300+ for it, I would not have been so flabbergasted by the lack of longevity of that TV.  It's not like it was a really high quality HDTV.  It was 720p, not 1080p and there were very few if any "bells and whistles"...no automatic adjuster based on detection on the presence of light in the room...Not even a fancy frame that the machinery would sit in; not even the PQ was anything to write home about.  The crazy thing is, the price, even at that time (2007-ish) was not *that* much lower than that of a variety of other TVs I could have bought.  So I'm very pleased with the outcome of this purchase.  Nonetheless, the TV won't last forever.  It might outlive me if I don't get a handle on this weight situation of mine before too much longer, but that seems unlikely...Not only is it possible to survive a heart attack, but I'm still only 34.  I got another 3 or 4 years to get a handle on my weight problems and hopefully by then my understanding of Christ and my relationship with Him will have cleared up enough to give way to an increase in the "natural high" that negates the need for "comfort food".....even though I usually just eat regular food, I eat too much of it...and then I also eat junk food sometimes...and too much of that as well (eeeek!!)

the prodigal son =

I guess ignorance is not a sin.  Using words wrong is not a sin.  And I don't remember or know for a fact that anyone has ever mistakenly used the word "prodigal", but I just kept getting the sense that people were using the word "prodigal" to refer to people who have knowingly rejected God.  I thought "prodigal" was a word used to describe a "prodigy", except I wasn't sure if that was correct, because there was nothing in the passage in The Bible referred to as "the prodigal son" that I can tell that indicates this son had any kind of special abilities...however, what I kept/keep sensing people refer to in their use of the word "prodigal" is not what the word means.  I can't even remember if the actual text of The Bible refers to the son in question as "prodigal".  Does wasting money equate damnation?  If so, I guess 99.999% of people in the United States are damning themselves to Hell...and aren't even aware of it.  Maybe sexual immorality isn't what caused The Fall Of Rome.  Maybe it was too much money being generated and/or mis-spent...I realize there are people in the U.S. who by no means deserve the money they have.  They either didn't work for it or they did nothing significant to earn it.  Buying a piece of land for instance is not a laborous task.  There are people who do a genuine service to society who deserve some amount of the money they generate.  Some of Bill Gates' wealth is justified, despite what detractors have said.  Does that mean he's right in stockpiling his money and giving a mere 1/10 of 1% (if that) to good causes?  As a Christian, we are to acknowledge and solve the needs of others and work for God to accomplish as much good as possible.  Stockpiling money does not accomplish anything of the sort.  If Bill Gates gave 99% of his money away, he would still not need to beg anyone for money.  And even if he did, what harm would that bring?  He might get told "no" if he asks a handful of his neighbors for money to buy a yacht?  Oh, you poor kinfolk!  I don't think Bill Gates is a Christian.  I don't know much about his personal life,  I've certainly never heard of him speaking up for or about God.  He's certainly had plenty of opportunity to do that.  But it's not like I pay much attention to news stories about Bill Gates or celebrities in general.

Anyway.....kind of getting off the point.  I don't think sexual immorality is any small matter.  I don't know what exactly constitutes sexual immorality myself.  I know using our flesh and blood as sex toys, publicly and/or privately, is not what God had in mind when he designed us and we certainly don't have time to be wasting on such matters if we are taking the "Great Commission" seriously.  Key word being "if"...I for one do feel like I have time to do everything and more.  I haven't traveled the word and the 7 seas because that costs too much money and honestly I get bogged down in negativity really easily.  It's easier to wish the world away than it is to get out and love the world as God does enough to have sent us His only begotten son.  And I'm a coward.  Would I get up and out of my house to be a missionary in some foreign land where I know people are in great need of hearing God's love and seeing it in action if I had funds to do so?  If I wasn't busy not asking people for money to Go and tell?  Honestly, I don't think I'm remotely close to being qualified.  I'm not even looking at myself in the mirror any other reflective surface, but most of the time nonetheless I feel myself scowling and I don't even know why.  I try listening to joyful music and so often it just seems like I'm being pushed.  This Michael W. Smith song on the overall excellent album SOVEREIGN (2014) opens up the album -- the single "You Won't Let Go" --- The title is that of thanksgiving.  The problem I find in such a song is that Yes, God will not let go.  Or will he?  His love never leaves us.  But HE *will* leave those who don't finish the race successfully.  He speaks of numerous people knocking at His door begging to be let into Heaven and his response is "I don't know you".

I'm probably waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off topic and counterproductive in my train of thought....It's hard to tell how much of the new testament to take into account and how much to write off as exaggeration.  So much of what Jesus spoke was parables and even when he wasn't speaking in parables, he was using really vague speech.  He told someone who He had healed "Stop sinning or something worse might happen to you".  Stop sinning?  Oh.  So I'm guilty of sin...but now I've been told not to sin.  So I'm cured!  I guess Jesus' death and resurrection simply cover sins that we were not aware of as being sins.  I don't know.  I know I would find more favor with God if I were more obedient in my life overall.  Time spent away from God, choosing other activities, watching porn et al, and wasting my time on art&entertainment are not conductive to The Holy Spirit working within me.  I don't know why I have such a propensity to make bad decisions and think bad thoughts.  I don't recall creating this path.  I did make choices that have made this path easier to take.  I don't know how to undo them or break from them.  I don't feel strong or courageous enough to *JUST STOP*  My willpower is almost non existent.  I have will, but I don't feel any power OVER my will.  What does that even mean anyway?  God told David, 2nd King of Israel (well...third if you count God Himself...), that "you did well to have this in your heart".  How is having something in your heart an accomplishment?  Maybe I'm misunderstanding what God meant.  Maybe he was simply softening the blow to telling David that his intention could not be carried out as he had initially planned.  I mean, God and Man are divided enough already in ways that are excruciating even to Christians who have unlimited access to The Holy Spirit.  David perhaps benefited from being told something to the effect of "good job!", same as when a child does well, you don't discard the fruit of their good intentions by telling them "God gave that to you.  Get that pride off your face!"

Yeah...us humans are a wreck.  "The heart is deceitful among all things.  Who can know it?"  God knows more than we can ever understand.  He forgets our sins if we ask Him to.  And if we don't, He chooses to forget that we even existed.  The pain Jesus suffered was enough.  God doesn't need to put up with any more.

U.S.A. law vs. the U.S. citizen

U.S. law needs to be precise.  It needs to be bulletproof so that when someone breaks it, the fault does not get shifted to the people/person who composed the law.  How can someone obey a law that they don't understand?  Obviously, with public education now mandatory for everyone under the age of 16 or whatever, sure, it's easy to enforce teaching of law, but the law doesn't remain unchanged after a U.S. citizen graduates high school.  The fact that high school hasn't always been mandatory just increases the difficulty in that fact, not to mention in and of itself proves that to be fact.

And so how do you implement the law without teachers?

MANDATORY ATTENDANCE OF U.S. LAW 101 -- SATURDAYS AT 10AM

Yeah...freedom of religion sound familiar to anyone?

And that's assuming U.S. law needs to be some complicated thing that everybody needs to walk on egg shells to avoid stepping on.  The law of USA is supposed to be FOR the people.  If it's not FOR the people, who IS it for?  THE PEOPLE are for God.  God created us for His company.  Those of us in this nation who refuse His company are currently en route to the trash bin.  Thankfully repentance has no expiration date except that which is stamped on your death certificate (which may be off by a few days or weeks depending on how the person dies and how many people routinely check on said individual out of interest for the individual).  Obviously, your life on Earth will be more meaningful and you'll have less tears for God to wipe away if you accept His salvation sooner.

So...as I was saying.  U.S. law is for the people.  More about the above paragraph can be read about in the blogpost that immediately precedes this one.  As for how it effects the people, the people can not BENEFIT from being thrown in jail for breaking a law that is not clear.  If someone kills another human being, for instance, it doesn't benefit anyone necessarily to throw someone in jail or even kill the killer.  Ideally you'd want the killer to NOT KILL anybody IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!  The Law of The Land is FUTILE if it's going to be ambiguous about anything.  How do traffic laws benefit anybody if they aren't concise?  

Sucky thing is the English language as it is used in many(most) people's day to day life is NOT concise.  Many words are in and of themselves ambiguous.  People often have to go back and apologize for saying too much or not enough because instead of putting what they say in concise terms, they use analogies or euphemisms.  People say "get a life" when someone has a "petty" grievance.  How does one define "petty"?  In a free country, it certainly is not the government's job to make such distinctions.  If someone wants to bully someone else into leaving them alone by saying "Get a life", they are certainly entitled to do so, but what is "life"?  How do you acquire one if you don't already have one?  Such questions are not in the interest of the person who states "Get a life", because it's not a literal statement.  It is simply a much shorter way of stating "It is my belief that you are not living your life the way you should be and I have gathered this belief by the observation that your grievance toward me is of so little importance in comparison to the numerous other things you could be doing with your limited amount of time on this Earth".

And I'm sure some people can probably find fault with the way I re-worded that three word sentence.

For instnace "Living your life"?  What does that mean exactly?  See, I flubbed it up and I wasn't even halfway finished typing that re-vamp!

That is why we have what is referred to as "legal jargon".  Me and another non-lawyer can talk about the law and we will never be able to be 100% accurate in referring to any law that exists.  I myself get tongue tied when saying words that I'm not used to saying or haven't said in awhile and certain combinations of common words get me tongue tied.  I certainly can't do it.  And I've been known to be overty wordy when I'm verbally communicating (yikes!)

pre-Exile Israel vs. The United States of America

Israel was founded on the idea that God is King.  Idolatry is the first sin listed in the Ten Commandments.  Likewise, there is no punishment for idolatry as there is for things like adultery and being a disgrace to one's parents etc.
Idolatry is hard to avoid.  One thing that makes it hard to avoid is the ambiguity of the word.  What IS idolatry?  How does any government enforce such a statute when man is so prone to dishonesty, both public and even to its own individual hearts where no one can see?  One of the prophets made a famous observation "The heart is deceitful above all things.  Who can know it?"
Thus, the law of the land that I and many other people live in --- the USA --- leaves mankind to decide between Christianity and/or idolatry.  If mankind were universally honest in every facet of our lives, we could read The Word plainly and use The Bible as our law.  But that has never worked for any nation.  Israel never got the hang of it and Israel was established by Abraham's grandson Jacob.  Abraham was chosen as the seed of God's people at a time when the population was so sparse that Abraham was married to his half sister due to lack of available mates to choose from and nations were not really a thing...maybe I'm wrong about that last bit.  There is no reference of the nationality of Abraham prior to God calling him to leave his household and set up tent elsewhere.  Sodom and Gomorrah are also not referenced by nation.  But my point is that the people of Israel were nothing special.  If anything, they were less than ordinary.  They are known for being short people, which at that time was a huge deal it seems.  It makes David's defeat of Goliath that much more astounding, assuming he was average height unlike his predecessor Saul.  What people group has ever thought they could more successfully implement God's law?  The only people who think they can are people who don't believe in a higher being than mankind and choose to believe that The Bible is a group of fairy tales.
The section of the First Amendment stating Freedom of religion did not cause this atheist phenomenon, as I once used to think.  It does give atheists more freedom to influence other people who are weak in their standing with God.  But where are the Christians who are called to do the same?  They are where they always were.  In the minority.  Those whose standing is weak with God need to make a choice --- gain strength or give up.  Many have chosen to give up, just as Adam & Eve chose to neglect God's counsel when tempted by the serpent in the garden of Eden.  Were they ever really Christians if they have such weak standing with God that they choose to wrap themselves up in unabashed idolatry?  Everybody has interests and/or hobbies.  Even people whose life is their job that they hate still somewhere in their consciousness has something their living for, be it to provide for a loved one or to feel the pain of life (some people like pain for various reasons) or whatever...there's probably other motivations for those kinds of people that I can't imagine, at least not at the moment as I'm writing this.
Anyway...