Category Archives: Living the Word

The First Kingdom

Bible Talk, Church Culture, Living the Word, Politics

I am a Christian.  This does not mean I am perfect but it does mean that I strive to be like my Master. My Master lived and walked the earth and his biography is aptly recorded in the Scriptures. Therefore, I read and study his life to learn NOT what WOULD He do, but WHAT DID JESUS DO? This question should be central to all followers.

I grow weary with both major political parties using God’s Word to justify their various positions and actions.  Haven’t they ever heard of separation of church and state? Of course they have! They site it when it is to their advantage.  There was a reason that the founding fathers of our country, who probably had a collective I.Q. twice that of any group of citizens we could put together, today, touted the principle regularly.  Did you know that it was their idea of a way to ensure that the church is protected from the government- protected from tyranny?

We who are followers of The Way are citizens of his heavenly kingdom first.  Our allegiance belongs to God in Christ first and to our nation second.  This enables Christians of all earthly kingdoms and nations to be a collective “nation” of our own, of God, that is unified and overrides all other systems when it is necessary to obey God. This is not a difficult Truth, if you read the book and look for the answer with the sincere motive of finding how to be like Christ by learning what Jesus did.

Let’s not continue to drag our facsimiles of God into our political squabbles. He genuinely exists and He is everywhere.  He continues to make Himself known to all who are paying attention to Him.  We are primarily a part of a bigger better system.  Our first loyalty is to a King who has issued his law and identified it as the most important, the greatest of all laws:  The rule to love God FIRST, as He defines it, your neighbor second and equally with yourself; and to avoid any confusion He further interprets his law:  Do unto others- any other human being- as you would have done unto you.  Our efforts to mold and make God into something other than He has declared Himself to be are futile at best, absolutely foolish, and at worst, evil.

Copyright 2018. L.L. Shelton.

Ever An Illusion

Humanity, Living the Word

In a moment, a truth can occur with sudden clarity, as when I read his post celebrating the wedding of his sixth and youngest child, complete with final tag: #lastweddingforever. Granted there is every reason to rejoice over nearly any wedding as in a world often clearly displaying hate, it is truly refreshing to focus on a celebration of love. But, that is not the truth to which I refer, rather it is this: We do not have any idea whether or not it will be the last wedding. But It is easy to forgive the naive perspective. Control is ever an illusion.

Copyright 2018. L.L. Shelton.

Are You Spiritually Naked?

Bible Talk, Devotional, Holistic Health, Living the Word

As it becomes more complicated on a daily basis to monitor the input of the world into our own minds, as well as our children’s, I am comforted by the recollection of a sermon I heard Dr. Adrian Rogers preach a few years before his death.  He reminded us that moral impurity comes not from what is going into us but from what is coming out, as Jesus said.  (See Matthew 15:11, Mark 7:15)

Dr. Rogers explained with tremendous articulation that if we are who we should be on the inside, spiritually, we can experience anything and our reaction will be a Christ-like response.  He gave the example of seeing the public nudity of a beautiful woman and mused that Jesus would seek clothes for the poor unfortunate soul and would Himself cover the person, and would then likely pray over that one, and possibly attempt to convert that fellow human being to The Faith, all of this rather than lusting after the poverty-stricken creature; reasoning that though endowed with physical beauty, she was indeed spiritually poor and naked.  (See  Revelation 3:17)

I have come to the conclusion that we should place our emphasis on what is right rather than on what is wrong.  This is the way to become who we should be on the inside.  It is the way to a pure heart.  Certainly, we should be aware of and we should help others to notice what is wrong, and we should be initiators of change as well, but our emphasis, our priority should be to know and to focus on what is right.  The good should be given preeminence in our hearts and minds.  We should be learning and teaching what is excellent and praiseworthy.  We should always be wearing our clothing, our spiritual armor.  If this were more often the case, there may be less wrong to confront and to manage.  (See Ephesians 6:10-10, Philippians 4:8)

Copyright 2018. L.L. Shelton.

To Tell The Truth

Bible Talk, Health & Dis-ease, Holistic Distress, Holistic Health, Humanity & Sin, Living the Word, Mental Health, Mental-Physical-Spiritual Health

Suspect yourself or someone else of dishonesty if there is a need to retell something again and again and again- in other words there is a genuine yet strange emphasis on the event.  I refer not to the continual resurfacing of the happening and referencing of it, but to the continual need to repeat the story itself,  usually to the same people as often as to someone who may have never heard it.

Of course, there are those who may repeat a scenario over and over and over in their own heads, but are able, by way of temperament or different affectation, to restrain from a consistent public retelling or reworking of the event.  In this case one still should suspect and examine himself or herself for dishonesty, and if necessary seek assistance.  Interestingly, it appears that those given to public display of their stories are often perseverating both publicly and in private.

Traumatic memory is often caught in a feedback loop.  The need to continually, even obsessively, remember the event is rooted in the fact that it was never fully processed, and certainly not in a healthy manner.  The happening remains unresolved in the person’s psyche.  The dishonesty arises as, in the attempt to process the authentic structure of a circumstance, particularly a disconcerting event, the memory is altered to make it into something easier to bear.  This may be intentional but sometimes takes place at the level of the subconscious.  Therefore the author of the memory is not always aware of the restructuring and certainly is not fully aware of why and how the memory was changed.

I believe that the supposed need for the dishonesty occurs at the level of a person”s heart motive.  I work with my clients as a person of faith and understanding, attempting to draw those motives out into the Light (Proverbs 20:5).  For instance, a victim of trauma may have been harmed by someone closely related to her and will attempt to alter the memory to “see” someone else as the perpetrator, or he may “reason” that he was behaving in an inappropriate manner inviting the perpetrator to commit a crime against  him.  Perhaps the victim is one of secondary trauma, having observed a violent happening and failed to intervene.  Occasionally, I encounter someone who has dismissed a large portion or portions of his or her life due to some type of chronic traumatic situation.  These changes soften the impact of the memory for the one who has been victimized,  allowing the victim to maintain some ability to function in the face of tragedy.

On the other hand, a perpetrator of violence, and it should be noted that the perpetrator has sometimes first been a victim, may attempt to rewrite a memory because he or she cannot bear to think the self is capable of the horrendous act. This can arise due to the conscience being severely wounded but not quite dead, or due to the presence of a personality disorder which suggests to the person that they may not be, and indeed in the person’s mind are not, less than perfect.  However, the desired result is the same- a lessening of the severity of both the internal and the external impact of the behavior.  From either the victim’s or the perpetrator’s position there is a convoluted reward for the dishonesty.  The problem arises due to the twisted nature of the prize.  (To avoid confusion, it should be noted here that genuine lack of empathy, as in the case of true character disturbance, has no need to reconstruct memory for the other’s sake. )

My clients are often surprised to find the genuine culprit of the nearly incomprehensible past that has lead to a painful present and a bleakly viewed future, is the person himself or herself.  However, once the revelation has occurred, the path to healing, while requiring a cautious engagement due to the fact that a person’s mental composition can be fragile, is generally swift.

Nevertheless, there are some who have engaged in habits of dishonesty for so long and even willfully, they are unlikely to heal this side of heaven, and some will not reach heaven.  They are those who refuse to acknowledge the possibility and certainly will not acquiesce to the probability that the author of the confusion is the self.  These persons are regularly sent for professional psychological or psychiatric evaluation and are often eventually diagnosed with a personality disorder, or as character disturbed.   At times,  they are found to be psychopathic.

Genuine honesty is a rare strength.  One of noble character, who can find? (Proverbs 31:10)  The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9-10)     Truth is sometimes as difficult to locate as is the perfect gem, but it is without fail, worth a great deal more.  Ultimately, it is the truth that liberates  us (John 8:32-38).  “Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed, save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise,”  Jeremiah 17:14.

Copyright 2018. L.L. Shelton.

Morning Thoughts

Bible Talk, Living the Word, Poetry, Spiritual Health

One of the greatest misconceptions about God is that He demands our allegiance, inspiring our obedience, for Himself- to feed His giant ego or something… God demands our allegiance, inspiring our obedience, for our sakes- to keep us safe from greater harm than the fall will naturally do us…

And yes it brings Him great glory to be the perfect benevolent father that He is- always looking out for His children, keeping our best interest at heart, putting us ahead of Himself, doing what is right for us in spite of our willfulness and our misunderstanding of Him; in this sense it is for Himself.  He longs for our best.

The Bible is the beautiful flawless love letter of a perfect parent to His children- and IMHO the perfect document.  I’ve read it a few times.  I’ve read it cover to cover.  I’ve read it in chronological order.  I’ve studied through it verse by verse.  I’ve prayed through it and read it just for the joy of it, and though I remain imperfect until that day, I believe it and I am encouraged.

God is good all the time. ❤🙏🏻

Carry On

Church Culture, Living the Word, , , , , , , , , ,

A bit of testimony for those of you who are acquainted with trial:

In two thousand nine, I was purposefully tending to my tasks, meeting the day to day challenges sometimes with nothing short of what seemed to me a herculean effort- and managing (for the most part) to do so cheerfully, when “stuff” happened in my personal life that threatened to derail me.

Contrary to popular teachings of church culture, a healthy person rarely forgets, so we must learn to forgive ourselves and others anyway, and expect that past troubles may never be completely finished- in this lifetime.

Therefore, my new stuff piled on top of the old stuff and I began to unravel. The junk threatened to rip out every carefully managed seam. But as my eldest son is fond of reminding me, I am undaunted; and as I am accustomed to doing, I began to cautiously and with as much care, re-ravel.

It seemed a wonder in the beginning that each time I repaired and pieced together a part of my self, a new force (often from a direction I may have never anticipated) popped up, sometimes with true vigor, and made the attempt to rip out my pain-staking work. Oh how I hate being forced to start over…

As a girl I loved to play Monopoly. It was by far my favorite. The game of Life was the only one to run it a close second. A unique aspect of Life was that you could collect children along the way and I thought that the grandest aspect of any game. By the time I was twelve, Baby Island had been my favorite book for awhile, and in fact not even my fifteen- year-old competitors were offered a babysitting gig in my neighborhood unless I had first turned it down. So I spent some time trying to figure a way to incorporate this characteristic play into Monopoly.

These things aside, Monopoly continued to rule from my point of view, and I would do everything short of agreeing to watch my somewhat younger brother set fire to something to entice him into a game. Please, please, please… and to keep him from quitting when we had been hard at it for two days and I owned everything but his skin, I would come up with a million new lending schemes to keep him struggling along.

But though I stood the undisputed Monopoly-loving champion of Branderham Drive, there was something even I despised about the game. I sometimes felt the game creators designed the aspect especially for me. That thing I abhorred in the game, was to be told to return to start. One measly flip of the dice… Go back to the beginning. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. No! No! No! I would reel inside my head, sometimes and probably much to my brother’s chagrin- outside my head.

Maybe I could somehow cheat my way out of this disastrous death to my plans for this turn? After all, going to jail beat the deal hands-down, as first-of-all in any fair society one is there because justice is being served. Certainly not due to circumstances seemingly completely out of one’s control! And there was always the chance one would roll his way out before wasting as much time and distance, and more often than not I seemed to have the fortuitous likelihood of shaking and rattling my way to free parking from there, where our cousins had taught us to keep a five hundred dollar bill waiting for the lucky lander…

But it wasn’t to be, as even then I was insistent on rigorous honesty, feeling certain that the glory of winning at the expense of my integrity was only another way of losing- albeit often carefully veiled. (It is appropriate for me to introduce here the truth that I had no concept of doing anything purely for the Glory of God at this stage of my life- lest we are tempted to give me too much credit for my perspective.)

All this to illustrate, I am putting it mildly when I tell you that this nearly continual necessary re-working of seams has brought me near to exhaustion.

Yet through it all, God Himself did not weary. Many times I confidently told Him that I was sure I couldn’t finish the race- that beyond a doubt I would not finish well, and every time He was there to remind me that I could and I would, but only because I belong to Him and He has my back… And that what I know to be true concerning Him and yet can not see, I should and must trust.

This particular season of accumulating personal loss has not concluded, and maybe it never will… even still I know that I am not to be undone, because I am no longer all there is to me. I may be wounded and I may forever bear the scars of grief but I will not be crushed because God through the death and the life of a part of Himself, his Son, Jesus Christ, has favored me as His own child.

This privileged ownership means also, that today is not all there is, and today will never be all there is… so I will keep mending and reworking those seams by the Grace of God. And I will keep longing for and hoping for and working for tomorrow. And I will continue to pray that by His Grace my brothers and sisters also will retain this very real hope and that it will remain alive and burning in our souls!

Copyright 2017. L. L. Shelton.

Plus-Sized Grace For Wives and Mothers

Bible Talk, Family Life, Living the Word, Married Life, Parenting, , , , , , , , , , , ,

A word for wives and mothers, especially young wives and mothers:

Have you fallen victim to those books and articles that insist that if you simply do this or that- your marriage, your children, your family will become this or that… Burn those. The Bible does not offer any such guarantee.

God through The Bible, His Word to us, gives you and me one mandate: Do your best to learn of me and of my son who stands ready to save you; learn to love me, and to show your love through obedience to me… And you will have my blessing. Everything else is a surprise. Get used to it.  And trust me.

Therefore, if we aren’t sure of what our own obedience looks like, we better dig deep into the Word and become sure; for while God offers no guarantees outside of our own salvation, He does insist that the best chance each of our loved ones has for a blessed and healthy life is to learn of such life and to begin to desire it because we model it for them. He also makes it painfully clear that each one we love may not come to know Him and that the ones who do come to know Him will be made to seek, find, trust, love, and obey on each one’s own private journey of faith. We will not be enabled to give anyone salvation. We will not be invited to directly participate in the inner journey. It is a very private lifetime encounter exclusively designed for the individual soul.

And while I remain convinced that no other work has the potential for greater positive impact on society than that of being a good wife and mother, personally I am truly grateful that by some miracle of grace, every time my job gets harder- I find the strength to pray harder and to work harder; and it is such a sweet surprise to realize that Our Father is working through me to bring about His best will in spite of my own sin, my own lack of this or that, my own lack of perfection. It is an additional gift from a generous Father, and it is available to all of his saved children. ❤️

Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Matthew 22 (22:36-40)

Copyright 2017. L.L. Shelton