The J Man's Thoughts

Back in the end of September of 2010 God started a work in my life that was to start a massive domino effect in me that was unknown to me at the time.  God told me that the time for excuses was over and he wanted me to start by losing a lot of weight.  I was scared at this at first because I knew the kind of commitment and effort that was required for this to happen.  What I started to understand threw God hounding me from all of my sensory inputs was that God had been telling me this for years. I had not been willing to listen to this for years so God said that we were not going any ware in our relationship until I fixed this. That went on for years until the end of September when I think God got tired of my excuses and my unwillingness to change and let him take over. Because of this he made the over indulgence of food a Sin in my life.  This hit me like a ton of bricks because I felt bad every time I ate too much and at the time that was most of the time.  After God made food a Sin this really brought me around to actually listening to God and what he wanted.  What he wanted was for me to start by losing a lot of weight. So I went to 1500 Calories a day which helped me loose 14 lbs the first week.  Then I started riding my electronic magnetic resistance stationary exercise bike. The same week I talked to a coworker who had built a weight bench and asked him if he was willing to build me one. Jim the coworker who built the bench said he would build me one and it was finished a week or two later. I bought free weights and started at the beginning of November using the weights and bench along with the bike three time a week with a two day weekend recovery time. Since that time and at the point I am writing this letter I have lost 84 lbs.  This weight change in my life is only possible because God loves me enough to make my life miserable so that I would listen to him.  I do not plan on stopping my weight loss ever I plan on making it a life change and with God helping this should be no problem.

During these months I have been exercising I have been praying for many things one is that God would let me get rid of any remaining skeletons in my cosset. He answered that by helping me get rid of many over night. But there was one that I was not going without a fight. God used two people to help whit this sin one was Tom Harmon at Camp Barakel and the second was John Barnett at Calvary Bible church. This sin that God wanted gone was horror movies.  I loved horror movies and I did not want to but decided that God was always right and he promised to never let me down. God told me that he not only wanted me to stop watching them but also to get rid of all that I had.  When I decided to do this he added one more thing he didn’t want me to sell them he wanted me to throw them away in a way so that no one would ever find them.  When I physically let go of the bag of movies into the trash there was so much instant relief.  One of the other prayers that I was praying for was wither God wanted me to be married or to be single for the rest of my life. I wanted God to tell me if he wanted me to be married or to take away the feelings of wanting to be married. He answered that by basically having a good female friend of mine hit me with the fact that this other Girl liked me. She hit me like a baseball bat to the head because of the fact that this girl was beautiful and she liked me. That was weird because I am so use to only rejection and eye rolls from beautiful females. We went out for the first time and I was so nervous that I was forced to let God take over. How God decided to help me out was something only God would do to help me. He threw me said ” I just want to tell you that I am really nervous right now!”. That was God saying the one thing that would help me because of the answer to lose the fear I had of this Beautiful frightening lady and start the first of many wonderful conversations. I am dating this lady right now and I am excited about the future that God may have for us. One thing I am sure of is that wither God has her to be only a learning experience for me or to be my future wife either way God has answered my prayer of wither I am to be single or married.  I now pray for my future wife on a daily basis that God will be at work in her life and use any relationships that she may have getting to me to only draw her closer to the wonderful and amazing God of the Bible. I also pray that as I date I draw all the dates I have to God.

I am now willing and want to be the man god has been wanting me to be for a long time. I am done with all the piddly excuses that I can come up with and done with giving the devil a foot hold in my life. Finally I am done being my own worst enemy. With God’s help I am now in his will again and on my way down this rocky road of life. I pray that as I travel down this road I can listen better than I have been in the past.

To my Future wife.. Here is a quick prayer taken form a song for you:

Jesus the keeper of this life you are my refuge my savior my guide watch over this girl tonight and guard her every footsteps as she travels this life and in that quit moment draw her closer to your side that she may come to know you Jesus As I have come to know you Jesus As the keeper of this life

To God:

Thank you God for being willing to do whatever it takes to get me straightened out. Thank you God for the abundant grace you show me over and over again. Thank you God for your love of me and the people in my life and the people I love.  Thank you God for watching over my dates. Thank you  God for watching over whoever my future wife is. Thank you God for watching over all my days. Thank you God for being horribly beaten and dying on the cross for my sins. Thank you God for knowing me and my thoughts better than I do.  Thank you God for being the wonderful artist of creation. Thank you God for a godly upbringing and parents and family members that love you.  Thank you God for taking care of all the little things in this life from amebas to the rotation of our solar system. Thank you God that all things in this life are little things for your great wisdom and power. Thank you God for salvation. God you are the only one worthy of my praise. God you alone are worthy and to you be all honor and glory forever.

John 10: 10    The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

God has been doing a number on my life recently by making me deal with areas in my life I refused to give over to him.  I never understood why someone would not just give over areas in their life to god and instead pay the consequences for the sin. But when it came to my sinful areas it wasn’t a problem because I refused to see that there was a problem with them.  Among the many areas God is working on Media and advertising is one of those areas that god is hitting hard.  In our world today satin is really attacking our media by slowly attacking it like the tortoise and the hare.  Slowly attacking us threw passivity.  If it was a fast hare attack our culture may have issues and refuse the change, but slowly changing things will make us not see the changes.  Recently in January of 2011 a court decided that the FCC cannot fine for nudity on TV. Talk about a slow attack on the morals of America. If we ignore TV and Movies and look at advertising most ads use good looking men and women more than likely in very few clothes to advertise their product.  The recent trend is to advertise in a way so  that the add has nothing to do with the product but will shock you enough to remember the company or product that they are advertising.  So what happened to being mentally pure[1].  There is more to being mentally pure then just staying away from the obvious. As part of this process for me God was talking to me about Movies. I am a big horror file guy and I owned 20 or 30 horror films. But God said it was time to root them out of my life. Not only was I to not watch any more bad horror films but he wanted me to throw away all the movies I had. He would not give me peace selling them I had to trash them so someone would not find them.  But as I go through my days I notice billboards that do not please God and TV and even people and how they dress.  Plus I am wired as a male to be stimulated by all of these potential sins.  I feel like I am surrounded on all sides and the world does nothing but laugh because the world does nothing but Satan’s will and it is all around me.  What is a man or woman seeking God to do in this corroded world?  Luckily God said he would not test us more than we can handle and that in every situation that he would give us a way of escape[2].  One thing that I have learned through all of this is no matter how hard life get there is one thing that can help guarantee victory in life’s battles.  The best thing to do is to fall on your knees and pray to the one and only real God who can solve all of life’s trials and who loves us more than we can even imagine. Praise God.

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[1] Psalm 24: 3-5 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the LORD, And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

1 Peter 2: 11 Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,

[2] 1 Corinthians 10: 13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.