Marriage for Thanksgiving

Today is November 21, 2009 and it is 48 years after Karen Judy Mayer and I said, "I do!" Karen and I had known each other for a few months when we decided to marry. It is popular for counselors and "experts" to insist that people date for a long time and really get to know each other before tying the knot. In fact, some even suggest that living together for a year or so before marriage will really cement things. The research data indicates otherwise. People who live together "without benefit of clergy" are most likely to divorce and more likely to find that they are really incompatible.

Karen and I were incompatible but we have lived together very successfully for 48 years. I am a man and she is a woman. That alone sets up enough incompatibilities to make divorce certain if other factors were not also available. Add to the male/female thing our differences in Temperament, (I am an ENTP and she is an ISFP), our family backgrounds, (She was reared by a single mother with one sister and I have two brothers and no sisters). But we had a very important commonality: Christ and Christian values.

Karen and I were married on the Thanksgiving holiday because I was a teacher. So, we always celebrate our anniversary with great thanks to God. Today we were able to be with daughter Julia's kids, Jacob 14 and Lily 7. It was a blast. And, HH Gregg delivered a new refrigerator to the lower level of our house as my anniversary present. (This allows our son Tim and family to come home for special occasions and stay with us. In other words, family makes it all worthwhile.

Karen and I also had a tendency to laugh a lot and have lot of fun. This and a deep attraction to each other overcame a lot of differences. Vivie Le difference!

Islamic Terror Knocks on our Door

I have been a therapist involved in the healing ministry for several decades. During that time I have seen thousands of men and women whose mental states were a mixture of angry, depressed, bitter and despairing and some whose behavior was often compulsive, hopeless, hurtful and self defeating. In the case of Nidal Hasan, whom I never saw in therapy but whose mindset was familiar, the mental state was a mixture of fantasy and extreme bitterness.

Hr. Hasan was following in the footsteps of other terrorists who have flown airplanes into buildings full of workers, blown themselves and others up in marketplaces and homes and mosques, led suicide attacks on hotels and churches and acted in other seemingly inexplicable ways. But is it a mystery why these men do such things? Not according to the Bible, God's book of psychology and behavior.

Read this prophetic passage in Hebrews 12: 12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

In the passage above the writer encourages the sick and feeble to prepare for healing. In many instances people with problems and pain need to work at getting better. Mr. Hasan did the opposite. He diligently pursued illness of mind and soul.

14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Verses 14 and 15 tell us exactly what will cause murder: self pity, unforgiveness, hatred and bitterness. Mr. Hasan had evidently rehearsed his perceptions of US mistreatment of fellow Muslims and it drove him to madness and murder. It literally did what was predicted in Hebrews by causing a bitter root and that causes trouble and defiled many families.

What else can drive so many Muslims to murder thousands of innocent men, women and children? Anyone who ruminates over and over on being a supposed victim will develop a deep suspicion or even paranoia about the people who have, in his fantasy, victimized him. Mr. Hasan was paranoid and complained often and loudly about how the American Army, of which he was a well paid officer, was persecuting Islam and Islamic countries.

The people who suffered as a result were men and women standing unarmed and helpless in a line at an Army base in Texas. Let his mental, emotional and moral derangement be a warning to all of us that the Bible is right when it comes to the main causes of violence: a root of bitterness from a refusal to forgive past wrongs by offering others mercy and grace.

By grace we are saved, healed and delivered not by works lest anyone should boast.

Hasan and The Afterlife

According to ABC News, the terrorist Nidal Hasan was ready to die.

United States Army Major Nidal Hasan told a radical cleric considered by authorities to be an al-Qaeda recruiter, "I can't wait to join you" in the afterlife, according to an American official with top secret access to 18 e-mails exchanged between Hasan and the cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, over a six month period between Dec. 2008 and June 2009.

Other messages include questions, the official with access to the e-mails said, that include when is jihad appropriate, and whether it is permissible if there are innocents killed in a suicide attack.

"Hasan told Awlaki he couldn't wait to join him in the discussions they would having over non-alcoholic wine in the afterlife," the official said.

Cable TeleVision's Top Jocks

Whos is the most popular TV shows on cable? You might be surprised. I was but here are the data from the Drudge Report.

FOXNEWS HANNITY/PALIN 4,200,000: More than MSNBC & CNN
FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,868,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,512,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,383,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,235,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,980,000
_______________________
FOXNEWS TOTAL 18,000,000--WOW!!
_______________________
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,041,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,036,000
MSNBC MADDOW 957,000
CNN KING 835,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 625,000
CNN COOPER 611,000

Who do you watch? who does President Obama watch?

How is Obama Doing

I just wrote a post on my Seasoned Believers blog about Obama's talk in China. Take a look and see what you think.

Growing up in Christ

I am writing again on my other blog. It has my thoughts on being a Seasoned Believer with maturity, talents and gifts that God will use to change the world.

Many of my friends are Seasoned Believers with no place to unleash their ministry skills. The world is dying for a lack of Christian service and many churches are dying for want of ministry. At the same time there are multiplied millions of well off, mature believers with enormous personal experience and business acumen who are wanting to find meaningful places to help people.

What is the hold up?

Who is to blame?

The Jesus Movement

What difference does it make that we are in the midst of The Fourth Great Awakening? Well, it makes a big difference. Every world wide revival brings major changes. Revivals have babies called Awakenings where spirit filled believers grow up and change society. This means that everything we have grown used to in church life is changing before our eyes.

Here is the problem, most Bible schools, seminaries, books and media are still operating on the old paradigm.

Pastors, Professors and Church Leaders are stuck in an outmoded, old fashioned and failing approach to life and ministry. Starting in the rebellious Sixties and continuing in the Seventies, Christianity made some radical shifts in focus, practice and process. The anti-authoritarian mood of students, radicals, Viet Nam protesters and young believers turned everything upside down. The result was dramatic, especially in college campuses.

Campus ministries shared the good news of Christ with millions of students and many came to faith in Christ. Inter varsity Christian Fellowship, the oldest of all the groups, increased its focus on college Campuses and their annual missionary gathering at Urbana grew to over 20,000 in attendance. The world is a different place because of IV and their emphasis upon missions. And, the IV students took their new ideas overseas.

The radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)drew about two hundred students at their conference. That paled in comparison to Urbana but received all the publicity from a media interested in promoting politics.

Bill Bright's Campus Crusade for Christ recruited thousands of staff and started aggressive evangelism programs on hundreds of campuses all over the USA. Their Four Spiritual Laws and disciplined follow up studies showed all of us how to reach out with the gospel.

Young Life joined Youth for Christ as dynamic forces for evangelism, Bible study and good works in high schools across the land.

These changes were powerful because millions of young people came to Christ. However, the impact was much greater than simply evangelism. I think they did something that was even more far reaching and it led to The Fourth Great Awakening.

What could be more important than reaching millions for Christ? Establishing a new, focus with a new process of discipleship and growth for those who had come to faith. The new process proved that young, lay persons could do effective evangelism and discipleship. These campus groups were led by non clergy and proved that the Bible's call to "Equip all the believers to DO the WORK of MINISTRY" works. It is possible, effective and essential.

In the First Reformation, God took His Word out of the control of the few and gave it to all His people.

In this New Reformation, God has taken His Works out of the hands of the control of the few and given it to all His people.

This is the essence of the Fourth Great Awakening and it is largely due to the outpouring of the Spirit on young people and their leaders in the Sixties and Seventies.