Saul, o now...

 I have been wicked to the extreme.  I have tasted The Lord's goodness and have continuously rebelled just as Saul did.  I find my heart moved toward God and then pushed away again.  I agree with mercy and love and then end up ok a rampage again.  I strip myself of evil and then bind myself to it again.  Wretched man I am!!  Please God, purify my mind!  I pray I'm not too little and late seeking You!

The freedom of religion and speech....

 

I cannot believe the generic arguments that people come up with.  Gay people are not forced to live out their gayness.  Black people literally have no choice.  Hating black people is akin to hating your own self.  Black people are human beings that deserve every bit of consideration that anyone else does.  Granted, with enough money, given the technology we have nowadays, changing skin color is not impossible but hatred of black people predates that by many centuries.  It makes no more sense today than it did in the 1600 and 1700s.

Communities do have a right to deter people that they don't want around from being there.  If all the business owners in the entire state of Colorado were discriminating against gay people, gay people have two options -- move out or consider repenting and then do so.  If they repent and they still are not wanted in their community then that's just wrong and despicable but the government has no business getting involved in that.  

If a gay person is unable to find service, that's because their choices are against the standards of the community they live in. Gay people don't by any means deserve the physical and verbal abuse they've suffered over the years.  The laws against physical assault and murder should apply to gay people just as much as they apply to anyone else.  The fact that Emit Till suffered the way he did is an injustice that can never be atoned for.  It is beyond atrocious.  I don't believe there's an adjective that can describe it.  The only thing that can suffice are the screams of a mother having lost her child.  And if I could insert the name of a well known gay person that suffered similarly I'd do that.  I'm not aware of one although I do remember reading about a case in a non fiction book I was reading back in highschool but the specifics escape me.

I don't think it'd be right or justifiable for a full line grocery store to reject a customer for being gay, but again, the government has gotten way too involved in this.  I've heard people call me much worse things than "ma'am".  I don't know how sympathetic the Biden administration or anyone in that school of thought would feel about me going to court because of all the people who scorned me and humiliated me when I was in high school.  I experienced hatred at the discretion of numerous people.  90% of it never did and never has counted as "hate speech". If I brought the other 10% to trial, when people erroneously referred to me as fg-- it would be of no help.  People need to recognize their error.  Deterring people from saying what they genuinely think is not helpful.

Aw, hell!

 I confess that I have difficulty fully agreeing with God's word..    I don't know if The Bible actually says this but it's Orthodox textbook understanding that every person who has ever lived either goes or went to heaven or hell and that nobody goes to heaven except people who trust in Jesus.  I don't know if that's true, but I believe it's true of me because I've hears the truth.  Weather it's true of other people is not relevant ultimately because it is a Christians 'duty to proclaim the excellencies of Him.  Believing the truth of God and dismissing that duty is, I don't think possible.  Granted, it is very possible to neglect the task, to have a greatness of difficulty recognizing and seizing opportunities as they arise, but to completely dismiss it and instead hide the truth for fear of condemnation of those who hear it is NOT in any way excusable.  You'd be trading your own salvation for a remote possibility that someone else might escape God's judgement on actions that they, if there's any lasting value in them, will recognize and repent of so that Earth will be a slightly better place to live in.  If enough Christians opposed evil, evil would cease its' grip.  But if the few devout Christians that exist refuse to do what they are ordered to do, to fulfill their very purpose in existence, to provide at least a smidge of return on the investment He poured into you/me, then what chance does life on earth have?  What chance will it EVER have?  The zeal of Christians jumpstarted orphanages, modern medicine, this nation [the USA](as rocky as it is these days, although everyone has it a lot better nowadays than the African Americans of 30-75 years ago (# of years more or less varies by the particular part of the area), even if their so profoundly spiritually def that they just don't know it or even care) and it's not because they kept their light hidden.  I personally am of the pursuesion that the world's end is at least somewhat near.. if I'm not a fugitive from the Antichrist by the time I'm 70, that's cool and it wouldn't greatly surprise me if I'm not, but I'd be at least a little surprised if my sister's grandkids, should it come to pass, live in security through their lives being Christians.  I don't know if my nephews will be saved, honestly, but I do hope so for their sake.  I hope my flaring tempers over the first couple years of my nephews lives hasn't got them off on the wrong foot.  🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

But regardless of my opinion, regardless of weather it comes to pass as I expect it or not, a revival is not out of the question.  If it is, no human being has any authoritative statement they can make about it.  God has His plans and such, but it's not over until it's over.

Maybe things are getting better? Dieting

 750y grape nuts

850 tuna and mayonnaise

600 on bread

350?? coffee

-------

2550

I was thinking I'd undereaten yesterday but I wasn't factoring in the giant mayonnaise ness ....  I didn't do real super bad tho, I don't think... I'm not sure how much grape nuts I'd had yesterday because I remember last night trying to hold off on eating because I felt like I'd gone way overboard with food... I don't remember if I broke down and had some grape nuts around 9:30+/- or 10ish or not... Those numbers are not concrete anyway, they could be bigger or smaller than they really are....

Today it's about 1800?? so far, I had a late breakfast with Mike and Jay and just now had some pasta... I'm not sure what the vanilla latte was , maybe 600? calories....  Hmm.  I very well might cross the 2300 mark but I might not.  I haven't had grape nuts today so I could do that for dinner but if not --   maybe oatmeal.  That's actually slightly more calories than grape nuts largely due to the syrup but it's way more filling 

The perfect wisdom;

 I was recalling a conversation I had with my oldest nephew, now 7, I think he was 5 or so when we were having this conversation I recalled...
  where I was telling him this whole world will be destroyed.  He asked me "Why?"  I told him that God is going to make everything better.  And I got to imagining other stuff that I would have said if the moment hadn't gone passed me, one thing was "He's going to fix everything that's not working"  And I figured he'd ask something to the effect of "Such as?"  And I had to think for a minute.  And the bottom line is people and their sinful inclinations and actions.  And I imagined him asking "Why?"  And I got to thinking -- there's really no explanation in The Bible as to why every living and dead human being is a sinner.  It really doesn't even specifically say that.  The man Job was described as being at least *almost* without sin, and the only occassion it describes him as having sinned -- or at least almost having sinned -- is when he starts doubting the fairness with which God has treated him, which I don't think God took any issue with particularly.  When God steps up and speaks in that writing, it doesn't sound as if he's really all that happy with Job, but He doesn't say what exactly Job did wrong or weather Job did in fact do anything wrong.  Seriously, there is nothing in that writing that says Job was guilty of sin.  Now, that's not to undermine the grace that I've been given, which is over and beyond what I have any conceivable right to expect; if anything, Job's lack of sin, or sinlessness, simply underscores the grace and mercy that God has bestowed upon me and millions of others throughout history, especially this point in history where evil of all kinds has infiltrated even the church!  And Enoch was taken up by God, never having to undergo death.  And if you were to assume that drunkenness has always been a sin, in any and all circumstances, then you could assume Noah was in fact a sinner, although, again, it doesn't say that.  I mean, I'm sure Noah, and Jesus' earthly parents were not doing everything the way God would have them do it.  I would imagine that they were all guilty of a harsh word from time to time, or a snap judgement that could have stood to have been more carefully considered,
But if every human being was and is guilty of sin, the question still remains: Why?  People have likened sin(s) as a force of sorts, like an infectious disease that people inherit, but The Bible doesn't say that either.  I do get the impression from The Bible, and especially hearing people talk of what it says, that sin is like a germ that grows.  I don't specifically remember this being indicated in scripture.  But you see Cain being urged to NOT LET SIN RULE OVER!  God said sin is crouching at your door.  MASTER IT!  But through the ages that capacity of mankind has been lost as has, for a very vast majority of people, the ability to clearly understand what God is trying to communicate to people.  

Anyway....   Just a random musing.  I actually started writing this over a week ago but then got caught up thinking about "the doctrine of election", which, as far as I can tell, is simply an acknowledgement and accepting of various passages in The Bible that reference and talk about election.  I have said this before, but I'm saying it again that I accept this reality but I don't understand it and I might as well speaking Pentacostian if I'm going to explain or talk about anything that I don't at least feel like I understand.  I don't appreciate it being "exposited" like it sometimes is, because all it does is give tangled up sinners like me an excuse to wallow in my weakness and iniquity, not even bother to try.  And The Bible is not just God talking about Himself for His own entertainment.  The Bible is instruction for humans.  It is more than that, I realize, but 75% of the Old Testament is exposition of God for human beings to live in accord with.  Things like God's election are like trying to explain the air quality of Heaven.  Or trying to write out an exact timeline of one's salvation.  I can write out a better timeline of my salvation and than I can an explanation for how it's mankind's fault for going to Hell when God is the one chooses their very capacity to even be aware of it.  Things that don't seem to make sense are exactly that.  The Bible does not say that every word in His book needs to be explained.  It needs to be read from and understood but there are simply things that we aren't going to understand.  That's all on that subject... until it comes up again because of my own obsessive mind........