Just who are "they"?

Do you ever wonder who “they” are?   You’ve heard it before or even said it, “I wonder what ‘they’ say about that.”  Or perhaps, “I heard ‘they’ say that was a good idea.” Another, “I wouldn’t do that; you know what ‘they’ say.”   So who exactly are “they?  I Googled it with no luck..nothing. Whoever “they” are they are very influential and powerful and secretive because so many of us live our lives by what “they” think but have no idea who “they” are.

I wonder what would’ve happened if Noah would’ve been afraid to build the ark because of what “they” may think.  Can you imagine? Where would we be if he did? Let me give you a hint, we wouldn’t be because we wouldn’t be here!!  You see, Noah did what God told him to do and that was to get ready for a flood, even though no one had ever seen it rain at all at that time. We don’t know exactly what opposition he went up against but I can just imagine what everyone around him were saying and not only saying but pointing a finger and laughing. Yet Noah kept on building and building…a big boat. Maybe it was his old age that made him not care what “they” thought. For goodness sake the man was 600 years old! When you reach that age you can do anything you want and don’t care what “they” think. I’m just glad Noah didn’t care what “they” thought and went on and built the big boat.  You should be too, or you wouldn’t be here either.

Perhaps we should take note of Noah and his tenacity to do something without caring what “they” think.  Some thoughts….. Are we missing out on doing something great just because we are afraid of what “they” may think?  Is there something that we always wanted to do but haven’t, just because of what “they” may say about it? Are we not living to our full potential just because of what “they” might have said about us in the past? Just some thoughts I have.  I think “they” may have too much power over us and our lives and we don’t even know who “they” are and what makes “them” the experts.

I think it’s time to listen and care about the “One” that Noah listened to instead of what “they” say.  There is nothing else to say so I’ll stop. You now what “they” say…

Perfection and Forgiveness

As I think about the reason and purpose of Jesus dying on the cross and his resurrection on the third day there is so much to ponder.  It is referred to as the perfect sacrifice for all of mankind, and it is.  Man finally had a way to a direct relationship to the Almighty Creator, The Holy One. 

The life of Christ, while He was on earth, was not one of glamour or fame.  I think if TMZ would of been around they would have had a hay day following this “King” as they took pictures and asked Him questions.  If one wants to know the personality of The Almighty, just follow Him around in the Bible and see how He lived his life while here on earth. He loved, taught, was very direct in his teachings whether it was an individual or to the masses and we can’t forget that he forgave sins.  He was the only human that had the resume to forgive sins because He is perfect and He is the Son of God the Father of the Holy Trinity.  What is interesting is that He forgives and forgets where man has a difficult time forgiving and a very difficult time forgetting.  Yet Jesus is perfection, God is perfection.

Several questions come to my mind as I think further on this subject but one stands out and I can’t let it go.  If God is perfect and holy and His forgives, which includes completely forgetting the sin that is committed after forgiveness if given, who am I to continue to hold grudges after I forgive someone?  Seriously, am I better than God? I think not, but yet I struggle.  You have a difficult time too?  I’m glad I’m not the only one.  We use our reasoning that we area only human, well yes we are, but so was Jesus and He forgave and forgot.  I think sometimes I forgive because it makes me feel like it gives me power over the other person, whereas, our God forgives out of complete love. There is a difference and one that I will strive to follow.

Going back to the cross, Jesus was on the cross and His physical body was near death, He spoke of forgiveness.  The one thief that hung next to Him asked for forgiveness and Christ said “That today you will be with me in Paradise.”  Then Christ continued in his pain and agony prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Wait, was man asking for forgiveness at that time? No, but Jesus knew we need forgiveness.  That is love. 

One hears a lot about love and how to love and what we need more in the world is love, but who is our example in how to love.  I have a suggestion.  Let’s follow the Perfect One who is love.  He loves, forgives and forgets.  I strive in my life to follow in His example as I live.  Something that we should all think about when we think about how we want to live our lives.  I have a long way before I am perfect, but I am going to try my best to follow The Perfect One.  Wow, not only did He forgive in his last words on the cross, He defeated death by rising on the third day afterwards and continues to show us how to love and forgive.    Happy Easter     Tim

An Introduction

I used to write several years ago and then I stopped.  Life happens.  I got married again and got my mind on marriage again.  It is great and would not change it for anything.  Anyway more on that when I write more.  The writing that are posted below are ones that I wrote in 2005, not knowing it was my last year as a single dad.  I remember writing these and reading them to my two sons, usually before I posted them.  They would sit and listen intently and always say.."Dad don't ever stop writing, please.  We love these."  Well I would like to think I haven't stopped I just took a pause and now, hopefully the pause button is off.  I have the desire to write again.

I don't know what you call these, are they really blogs or just my ramblings.  Are they devotions or just rants?  Either way every other person has a blog why not me again?  I'm not going to tell you what is all going on in my life.  Just will write about thoughts I have.  Everyone has thoughts I'm just going to write about some of mine.  That's what writers do, or so I'm told.  Maybe one day I will be a published writer, until then it will just be on cyber world. 

Peace,
Tim

Friends for a Season

Here it is my 41st birthday, well actually just minutes away from being over. It was just a normal day, nothing unusual or special with the exception I got to spend the majority of it with my sons. Other than that, just another day. I guess that what happens when you get over 40. As always around my birthday I do a personal inventory of my life. I don't know why, but perhaps everyone does.

Having my birthday in the Autumn is quite fitting for me. Usually this time of year the leaves are changing from their color of life to their dormant hues of red, brown and yellows. The leaves are preparing to leave their source of life and will eventually fall gracefully in the air down to the earth never to be part of that life source again. After a season of lifelessness the tree will begin to bud new sprouts in which will be the beginning of many more leaves to provide shade, color and personality to it magnificent structure. It's the cycle of life.

In my forty one years I have gone through many cycles in my life of friends. In high school we make close friends that we have great experiences together and with the whole world ahead of us we feel like these friends that we have will be there forever. I look back and wonder where are they now? I have seen a few through the years and we have exchanged email addresses but we don't keep up. We go through the same things in different seasons of our lives, college, graduate school, different places of employments. I also can not forget the married then divorce cycle. After one becomes divorced most of the close married friends are no longer around , I was left to make new friends that are single.

It's just that way sometimes, we have friends for a season. The friendship begins as a small bud just getting to know each other. The bud of friendship begins to bloom over time because you nurture it, you feed it, you make an investment in it's beauty with the hopes that it will last a lifetime. An everlasting leaf of a beautiful friendship. Then the cool breeze begins to blow and the days become shorter and the dark nights begin to be longer and the sun begins sets on that friendship. You notice in the autumn sunlight that it is changing from the life color of green to a shade of brown. The beginning to an end. No matter how much I love that leaf, no matter how much I nurture it and care for it, it in return has nothing it can give back. It was there for only a season. Then cool breeze becomes a chilling wind and it's just a matter of time that the leaf will break away and float off with just the memories of it's beauty. My heart breaks and my tears fall as I see it float away, I want it back, it was part of me and I don't want to let go of it, I'm not the same with out it; but it has nothing to give in return and so despite the pain I feel it must go. So at the autumn twilight that leaf becomes smaller in smaller in the horizon till it is no longer in sight. What is left is the imprint that friendship leaf has left in my heart and memory. The beauty of that leaf remains in my soul.

The "what ifs" begin to cloud my mind as leaf of friendship is no longer in sight. Yet in my mind I know that no matter how much I cared for that leaf it was ready to leave. I could of pour more and more of my life into that leaf yet no matter how much I gave to it had nothing to give in return. It was a friendship for a season.

So as Autumn continues it's place in the seasons, so will my life's Autumn. Then there is life's Winter where I may just lay dormant for a season, resting to get energy for the spring of my life where there are hopes of new buds of friendships to occur.

Being 41 is not so bad, it just means that I have more seasons of life ahead of me and I've grown because of the seasons behind me. There are those leaves of friendship that drifted away that have left an empty place in my heart. In my remaining years ahead I must accept, however difficult it is, that there will be more friends and maybe only for a season.

"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever;
wisdom and power are his.
21 He changes times and seasons;
he sets up kings and deposes them.
He gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to the discerning.
22 He reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what lies in darkness,
and light dwells with him.

(Daniel 2:20b-22 NIV.)
 
Tim Morgan (written October 16, 2005)

Unfinished Business

I'm a procrastinator by fault. I am working on being better about it but I just keep putting it off. Don't laugh you probably do the same thing too. You know the procrastinators' motto, "Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow." Unfortunately being a procrastinator has many downfalls, more downfalls than benefits it seems.

One of the problems with being a procrastinator is all the unfinished business that is left undone. I search within myself to find out the reason I do this when I know it is much better to take care of business at the appropriate time rather then putting it on the back burner. There are several reasons I have come up with for myself. Fear of failure: afraid of doing it wrong and failing. Fear of rejection: saying some vulnerable things to someone, opening up my heart to someone just to be rejected by them. Fear of reality: thinking that if I don't have to deal with the situation it will go away and I will not have to face up to it, which is a false idea.

I have a fear which is I will leave a plate full of unfinished business behind if something was to happen to me and God takes me home. I'm not talking about dirty laundry or dirty dishes in the sink; I keep up with that pretty good. Unfinished business with relationships: words that need to be spoken, feelings that need to be shared and expressed, and actions that need to be taken. The fears that I have drawn me to retreat though and it is often lonely at times.

Am I being a coward? Perhaps so, but I like to think of it as self-preservation. Building up walls to avoid hurt and pain that accompanies the loss of a hope, the death of a dream. It's somewhat ironic that one will create his own pain to avoid the pain that is the result an action or denial of another party. I continue though to use the excuse of self preservation which in turn leads to unfinished business in my life. I have learned from experience that a guarded heart hurts as bad and perhaps even worse as a wounded heart. Yet at least the source of the pain is from myself and not the result of someone else's word, actions, denial or rejection. I am in control of the pain. (Or is the pain in control of me?)

I have put myself/my heart "out there", before making myself vulnerable for the "what ifs" in life or the "what ifs" with relationships with others only to have the door shut over and over. I do not make a good salesman; I do not take rejection to good after continual door slams. After a while the smell of the wood and paint of those slammed doors becomes a detestable stench that I can no longer stomach. So I go back to my home, retreat to my island and realize that I may have a life of unfinished business.

I do have a hope. A hope that my friends and family realize that I have a heart full of love and acceptance for them. A hope that God will refill my life with strength, with love and even with confidence so that when that day comes and I am called home that there will be less unfinished business in my life than I have today. I know that I could start again today to work on my unfinished business but today I am empty and wounded and need to be healed before I can continue to work on my life's unfinished business; there is always tomorrow.

Psalm 116 (NIV)
1 I love the LORD, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
2 Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came upon me;
I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.
4 Then I called on the name of the LORD :
"O LORD, save me!"
5 The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
6 The LORD protects the simplehearted;
when I was in great need, he saved me.
7 Be at rest once more, O my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you.
8 For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,
9 that I may walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.
 
Tim Morgan (written June 25, 2005)

Difficult Places

Solo Serve, to most people those two words don't have much meaning but for me, my brother and my two sisters, my best friend Jason and his brother and sister it has a meaning of maternal torture. We remember quite well those summer days in which our moms would get together and decide to take us kids who they might of thought were bored and go to Solo Serve a.k.a. "kid's torture chamber". Solo Serve was a material store, I'm not talking material like Home Depot or Lowe's, I'm referring to textile, fabric, and then there are the Simplicity Pattern books that our moms would sit and look at for what seemed as HOURS. This particular store was located at the corner of Military Drive and South Flores in San Antonio, just blocks from our homes. Why would two sane mothers take seven kids to a store like this is still beyond my comprehension. To us kids, it was not a place that we looked forward to stay what seemed to be hours upon time. It was not a place where we wanted to be, it was a difficult place for us.


Our poor moms, I have no idea how they kept their sanity with us in the store. We would run underneath the tables of material. We would play hide and seek and anything else we could conjure up in our little minds to keep us occupied for the hours upon hours that we were in the four walls of that place. I'm sure our moms gave us grace for all the tribulation we put them through, and if I got a swat or two or three on my bottom for misbehaving I'm sure I deserved it, it was not a place where I wanted to be and I rebelled.

The interesting thing is that our moms where there for a great reason, to get the material they needed to make clothes, to save money for our families. They had best interests of our families in mind for going to this place. To us kids it was not a place where we liked to be, we rebelled in our own ways yet the reason we were there was for our best interest.

I don't know about you but for me I find myself in places in my life that I don't want to be. I'm not necessarily talking about that A bad date where you find yourself sitting across a table wondering, "what am I doing here and how fast can I get out of this date". I'm talking about life, looking around and thinking, "This is NOT where I want to be in my life, This is not what I had in my mind." Maybe it is a difficult life situation or a spiritual struggle, but it's a place in life where we don't want to be, a valley in your journey. My reaction may vary from questioning God to reaching out to Him for solace and resting in His arms.

1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.

Selah

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Selah

8 Come and see the works of the LORD,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
he burns the shields with fire.
10 "Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."
11 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 47 NIV)

As I read through the scriptures I see quite a few people that were in difficult places in their lives. For example: Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, David being chased by King Saul, Job losing all that he lost, Jeremiah being thrown into the cistern, Paul being imprisoned and John exiled to the island of Patmos just to name a few. God was always faithful to them and His will was always soveriegn. He had His kingdoms best interest in the situations, and these men were faithful to Him during the difficult times.

I have an oasis when I'm in the "Solo Serves" of my life, and He tells me that He is my refuge and my rock, realizing that He has my best interest in mind when I am at those places in my life where I don't want to be. It's time to stop, breathe and be still to know that He is God, my comfort and my deliverer.

P.S. Mom and Jerry, God Bless you for taking us to Solo Serve. It gave me an insight to life.
 
Tim Morgan (written June 9, 2005)

The Touch

What is it about the touch that we crave so much to have? What is it that when we are touched by someone whom we care about it brings calmness to our inner being? Whenever I see a baby I love to put my finger to their tiny hands to see if the wrap their tiny fingers around my finger; the touch of a new life.


Reminiscing of when my sons were infants brings a unique joy to me. When my oldest son was old enough for his first "real" bed, he had to have me lie down on the floor next to his bed with our hands hand in hand until he drifted off to his dream world. Some nights it would be short time while other nights it could be what seemed forever. If I slipped my hand away too early he would grab it back and I would not let go. There were times my arm would be numb by the position of holding my arm up to his bed for the amount of time it took, but to provide what he needed wasn't a sacrifice, it's what you do when you are a parent. You provide the touch of security.

Just a couple of days ago the three of us were walking around a park lake and my youngest son grabbed hold of my hand to hold it. We walked hand in hand, then my oldest son came up put his arm around me while the three of us walked around the path around the water; the touch of bonding.

There is something about that connection when someone else that you care about transcends your space and touches your skin. When someone reaches out and wraps their arms around you when you are having a difficult time. It goes deeper than just a physical touch it is a soul touch. No words need to be said; the touch of comfort.

If that touch were to go away, what would it be like? Would my soul go dry with loneliness? Would my soul become calloused to intimacy? Would my soul evolve to be so self sufficient to where I no longer craved that feeling?

There are times that my soul needs healing; healing from sin, healing from hurt or healing from loneliness. I read in the Gospels that Jesus Himself uses the power of His touch for healing. It was their faith that healed but the touch that provided the confirmation. 12While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." 13Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him. Luke 5:12-13 (New International Version) The touch of His healing.

Several weeks ago my youngest son had already gone to bed and my oldest and I were watching the television. I was where most men would be late night when we are watching television, I was laying on the couch with the remote in hand, that is what us men do. My oldest son, who is as tall as me now, came to me and said "Dad can you just hold me?" I replied, "Of course." He laid in front of me, I wrapped my arms around him and he placed his hands on mine. A tear came to my eye as I held him. He is no longer that little toddler that needs his daddy to lay down beside his bed anymore to hold his hand, but he still needs that touch; the touch of love.
 
Tim Morgan (written May 19, 2005)