This is the goal and the prize that I reach for

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson



Kidnapped, Chapter 4 page 33

I Press, Fred Hammond---

Uncle had no ambition for this boy, other than for his bones to be strewn out his back porch, in an accident. No one would have known, because the boy’s condition was only under the uncle’s care.

I imagine that he falls unconscious and dreams of the dry bones and that God intends for him to speak life to his own generation.

This rich uncle, of the House of Shaws, takes the form of the devil pushing the soul of that poor orphan over the edge of his own limit. God breathes purpose and expectation into his soul. God takes the weak things and the foolish things and the things that be not, so that no flesh should glory in His sight.


The Church, perhaps at that time would have been orphaned. The uncles of the Church having only imperialism on their minds.

Today’s Church is full of mothers and fathers bringing our defiled daughter, the bride of Christ to our Savior and asking for the crumbs from the table to be the healing of our defiled condition.

Show Me Your Face!

Psalms 22: 24--
For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard

Fred reminds me the heart of true confession and repentance. The want to. The prayer of want to be Holy because God is Holy. I am so far below the standard and I see that.
He described how his mother would be washing dishes in the house, when she came home from work and there were times that he wanted to see her face and she was hidden from him. Sometimes she was crying and sometimes he didn't want to see her, because he had done something bad that he didn't want dealt with. Walking into the kitchen meant getting the thing dealt with. Seeing the emotions of his mother.
That prayer of seeing and wanting to see God's disposition toward us. Am I on Your team in this or that endeavor? Is this discipline or just consequences? I want to see Your reasons for what I am going through. I want to see Your favor and peace risen in my soul. I want to know Your embrace after the discipline. I want to get closer to You, as a result of this process of growth. I don't want to run past the kitchen door and hide under the bed, with the situation undealt with, because that means days more of not seeing Your face.

It always is a source of curiosity the difference between the Old Testament's Saints defilement of the body, with food and the New Testament Saint's

defilement of the spirit and the mind.
Daniel is my reference point. There were so many idolatrous philosophies to defile spirit and mind, but the earliest request of his was not to eat the king's foods. The fact that you don't hear of him requesting not to read this or that idolatrous book or subject, always facinates me. I know that they were repleat with wicked practices and thoughts, but God kept the people of God separate, through their diet, it seems.
The opposite seems to be true in the New Testament. Philosophies and spiritual battles are first fought and our bodies are kept in line, through our minds taking thoughts captive to Christ.

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...

Replacing the thoughts of the world and the idolatries of our ancestry, with the truth of Jesus is a daily work.

What Indices?

Last year, the Dow went up 5% or so; the only bright news on the economic horizon. If you had money in the stock market there was good news and bad news. Some years my soul sees improvement and my body and my home. Some years, I wake up at the end and wonder, where I was. I remember certain matches, in tennis, where I was up by a large margin and the next thing I know I am shaking the girl's hand and she won. What happened? I fell asleep. That was a common reproof of my father and coaches. " You fell asleep at 4-1 and lost 6-4. I certainly can live, not having beat my opponent on the court, but the court of life and the court of family and certainly the spiritual court there is an eternal consequence.
The story of Scrooge is the story of Hell opening it's doors and pushing a soul in the direction of Heaven. If you don't listen to the reproof of mercy, justice will hit you very hard. Charles Dickens penned the reproof, carefully.
As I set my scales for the new year, I want to buy a scale and chart my progress, or lack there of and my physical improvements, my financial goals, I want to be aware of, but most of all, I don't want to be unaware of my spiritual condition. I really don't want to wake up in the emergency room saying that I didn't know that I was so close to a heart attack. I want to know if I know God, or not.

Love means we are taking stocking and stocking stacks. What is your blood pressure, weight and spiritual indices.

Teach me, Lord, to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom.