Wake Me Up

As the end approaches, so does our denial. Our world and way of life, it was never meant to be sustainable, and now that mankind has rejected God and turned from his ways, our world verges on catastrophic calamity…

I've been in the streets to follow Jesus 10 times, at least approximately, every time a new lesson, failures and success, but God is always good. "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.", I feel the inclination, the calling of his voice. It drives me crazy sometimes… “You’ve got the wrong guy!” I’ve wrestled with God many times… “God there are righteous men out there way better than me, choose one of them.” 

God’s commands are not just commanded… they are a hedge around us, security and guidance away from everything that brings forth death. It seems the question with each Law is, “What is God trying to protect?”

“Blind, I must be blind, how often I stumble, I can’t imagine getting it right, still… I hear his voice calling me. Why me?”

Nothing makes sense to me anymore; with this great clarity, I am dumbfounded… What does it all mean? The visions of the Apocalypse, the Dreams? The Revelations I’ve been given, and the hidden message in my Son’s names and mine… and that I Recited the Sermon on the Mount for the second time on the Solar Eclipse on August 21st, 2017. The first time on my birthday, the 20th… God gave me a birthday present, he gave me the Sermon on the Mount… the next day, a Solar Eclipse.

It's been years… I can’t even speak those words anymore… I am not worthy. Every time I try, I stop… after the life I’ve lived, how can I speak those words? God keeps telling me to recite them I just can’t… it’s been years since I recited the whole thing, but I still feel it in my heart. I can’t bring myself to pray those words knowing the sinful man that I am.

God wrote his words on my heart, and they dwell always with me. The realization of my faith is altering my entire conscious being, I feel that I’d do anything just to get it right. “Cut off your right hand if it causes you to sin.” Not that I would cut my hand off, but I am willing to sacrifice what is of the flesh, to obtain that which is of the spirit.

It frightens me to imagine complete subjection to the Gospel, not fear that I won’t do it, I fear how far I might go. “Born again” by baptism into his death, the cleansing and forgiveness of sins by the Holy Spirit, by His resurrection so our resurrection, into the newness of life, a new creation in Christ Jesus. “Born of water and the spirit.”

I must put to death the old man by the baptism for the remission of sins which of John Baptist’s baptism of water, and Jesus Christ the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, resurrected into new life. I am crucified with Christ, slain by the Law, a transgressor according to the Law, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. I am dead according to the Law, alive in Jesus Christ who now lives through me and I through him. I feel his grace, his love, and forgiveness, his faithfulness. I am compelled to serve him… he is calling me.

I must become the man God is calling me to be. My heart is prepared to receive him, I am repentant, my heart is broken from sin, and I am called to preach repentance and the remission of sins through Jesus Christ who was crucified according to the prophecies.

I’ve just turned 30, and I was only 29 for a couple months, I've been so lost in time I didn't even realize my 29th birthday until after Julia looked it up when she told me and I was in denial until I looked for myself. Where did the time go? All I can remember is studying, traveling, sharing my faith, constant failure, and tremendous suffering, and without my knowing the year passed. The Gospel says Jesus was about 30 years of age when he began his ministry.

Maybe sometimes I am too broken over sin and because I am guilty, I stop talking to God, why would God listen anyway. Every depth of unworthiness, the fullest knowledge of my insufficiencies, I fear that if I came to God that he would only turn me away.

At my very best I stumble, at my worst, I am wretched and miserable, through it all I feel God’s presence always guiding me, always leading me into repentance, into his grace.

At the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed the Father would take the cup from him, that night his disciples has fallen asleep several times, what if I am sleeping? Jesus wakes me up, I fall asleep, 

As I look back at my trial, I realize God has strengthened me, I realize I am Strong. I feel prepared for every trial, for years I’ve studied every day for many hours sometimes 15 in a single day, history, the bible, survival, gardening, herbal medicine, diet, exercise, and wilderness camping, my Hebrew is improving, more than anything, my desire to apply years of study to something purposeful taunts me even further. 

I am exhausted, wearied, and torn… I have forsaken everything to answer his call but now the Lord has taken me from homelessness, something I had come to love, my labor has changed, my training is complete, new labor laying before me, my final labors before I die, a bitter knowing, it weighs on me.