I haven’t really been giving dating any thoughts lately, because I have been waiting for the divorce to be final. It has been a very long time since Michelle moved out (Dec 27th, 2005), and I’ve been basically finding out who I am.

I would definitely say that life has been financially easier for me since then, even though I let her just “take it all”. I have had to repurchase just about everything to run a household, but really that is no big deal. I am not one that needs “things” to be happy.

My life is much simpler now, even though there were some things that I had to just get over. It was tough to be with a person that didn’t know how to just be happy. I learned that you can do everything for someone, and if they can’t be happy, it will frustrate you and make you do things that you regret.

I don’t have any anger towards her, and it isn’t even a temptation to be snide towards her when I hear her still complain about the same things that she blamed me for. Yes it hurt to be told that she “could do and deserved better”, but love will never say “I told you so”.

I am learning that.

After she moved out, I tried to date, but I wasn’t ready. All I would do is compare a girlfriend to how I was treated before, and that wasn’t fair to anyone. Plus, I really didn’t need to be dragging my girls through some mid-life drama because I wasn’t ready to date, and also while I was still legally married to their mom.

They would tell me to date. They wanted to see me with someone who made me happy, but I have to do what is right. I had people tell me to date, and try to set me up, but I had to be ready. I had to fix me.

I have always been the marrying kind of guy, and I hate being alone. I don’t like going to bed by myself, and I really want someone that I can do things for. I want a help mate that shares my visions, and doesn’t have to feel that they have to change who they are, to make me happy. I want someone who seeks to make God happy first (not themselves and not me).

I have been praying that the Father will just tell me who He wants for me. He knows me better than I know myself, and He knows who I need. He knows who will compliment me, and who I will compliment. So I have been doing other things till then.

I got a few emails the last couple days, and they got me thinking. I don’t “go out” much, because it hasn’t been a big priority to me. I went out with a friend quite a few times, because I felt she was “safe”. I have had so much fun just being able to talk to someone, without any drama.

I have a feeling that we both have these walls up, and that has been a form of protection. We just went to eat, talked about Life, Love and Faith, and I need that. I didn’t want any drama to cloud my mind, and these walls have kept it at bay.

Anyway, back to this email… This email offered me hope of closure to several things in my life, and as I responded to it, I thought about the protective walls that I had set up. When I go out with people, I make it a point to tell them up front that I wasn’t going to pursue anything deeper until the divorce was final.

I figured that if I said that, and they walked away, then fine. I was upfront and honest, and wouldn’t lead anyone on. I am not going to hurt anyone. Anyone who knows me, has heard me say that quite often, and most everyone agrees and supports me.

Oh… that email… As I responded to it, I thought about someone in particular and said this…

“She trusts in Jesus, and goes to church.

She thinks computers and the internet are a waste of time.

She teaches children at church.

She has a ministry, and we can talk about Jesus endlessly.

I told her that I was waiting for my divorce, and she respected that.

She is open and honest, even if it reveals a bad side of her.

I could go on…”

As I have been thinking about this list, I realized that I need to lower the walls. The last thing I want is to let walls of protection become walls of a prison. I think that I am finally ready to “date”, even though it scares me…

In High School I never dated, because it scared me. I had so many crushes, but I let fear keep me from doing anything. I think dating is over rated, and really you have to be in a position to love people for who they really are.

I don’t want a relationship with someone who forgets I exist, or rips me up when they are moody. I don’t need a girlfriend for “having a girlfriend”s sake, and I don’t want someone because I don’t want to go to bed alone either. I don’t want to date someone who will compare my every move to their ex, I lived with that for years, and no one should go through it.

We as a society place way to much value on pseudo-marriages. We date till we are frustrated, break up, and move to the next one. We have proms that are fake weddings, and give away parts of our lives to everyone, while saving nothing new for our future spouse. I believe faithfulness in marriage, happens before marriage…. call me an idealist, but I wont go there.

I need someone, that the Father knows will go with me, where ever He needs us to go.

I received a word from a ministering couple about a month ago, and it went like this…

“Don’t be in a hurry, Don’t be in a hurry, Don’t be in a hurry

Because the Lord’s building character in you

The Lord’s building character in you, and that takes time”

When I first heard this, I prayed as to what it meant, because it applied to many areas of my life. I wondered if it was for a ministry, work, getting things for my kids, or whatever. I wondered what “character” defect God needed to fix, and I prayed and gave Him full permission to do what he needed to do.

It dawned on me that this word was more of a confirmation of how I felt about dating. I didn’t want to hurry, and I knew I needed work, and God was simply helping me to close off some of the doors that I had left open. I can begin to see that a certain door is opening up for me, and He will reveal something soon that is life changing.

I have started to tear down the walls that have been keeping me from positive relationships. I think it is time to start building a new place in my life to hold for what God has for me. I am so grateful to my Father for preparing a new life for me, even though I stopped seeking it.

Many times my Lord saw me stuck in “a rock and hard place”, and he lifted me out of it, in many ways. He revealed so many things to me, and confirmed them more than once. I am ready for the next step, and will take it when the time is right.

Thanks again Jesus, for your willingness to save me…

Thanks Father, for lifting me up, so that I can lift you up…

Thanks Sweet Holy Spirit for being there 24/7…

I am ready

I was talking to my kids the other day, and mentioned the term “spiritual eyes” to them in passing. I had been praying that God would grow me up spiritually to the point that I could see the “hidden” things of God. I know that my Heavenly Daddy has so much for me, and He is waiting for me to be mature enough to recognize those things.

When I mentioned that (spiritual eyes) to my kids, one of them told me that her teacher told them that “the reason that God closes our spiritual eyes, is so that we wont go crazy from what we see through them.” I was taken back at first at how childish her teacher’s perception was concerning this, and I prayed about it. I was reminded several months back as I was praying, when a question came to my mind about this very thing.

I don’t know where the question came from, or where in me I heard it, but I remember it clearly. I felt as if God was asking me “If I wanted to show you the spiritual as plain as the natural (where angels and demons were as clear as trees and people to my eyes), would you want to see it?” I remember my reply was first an attempt to be “humble and lowly”, and I thought “No I don’t think I could handle it… It would be to scary to see a huge demon standing before me”.

After a couple of seconds I responded out loud “But God, I would be able to see how much bigger you were than those tiny little demons, so yes… yes I would” I could see that satan was trying to get me to be afraid of the hidden unknown things of God.

As a couple weeks went on, I was praying in 1 Corinthians 13 where it was talking about “when I was a child I spoke, thought and reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. I heard the same voice tell me that “the hidden things were not hidden, but because of my childish spiritual condition I was unable to see them.” I asked the Lord what He meant, and he used the analogy of a newborn baby.

When a baby is born into the world, they can only see what is right in front of their face (their hands). The room isn’t hidden from them, but they don’t see it. As their eyes mature, they start to see further away but are limited by their location. They lay in their crib, and can see the carrousel and the ceiling, but the door or floor isn’t visible.

As they learn to sit up, crawl, stand, walk, jump, run, ride a bike, drive a car and so on, their location changes as does their scope of vision. The hidden things are revealed as they grow up, and it can be a very frustrating for a parent to have kids think they are know-it-alls with every revelation they get.

The scripture tells us that the revelations will become useless and are only a part of the big picture. When my kids learned to ride a bike, the having “to relearn to walk” is useless. Learning to ride a bike, only reveals a small part of this huge world we live in. That principal is so very true in all areas of our life when it comes to growth.

I get very tired of hearing scientists claim to teach “facts” about the universe when we have not even left the crib scientifically. It is frustrating to hear philosophers ask me if a tree makes a sound when it falls if I am not there to see or hear it, when they breath air that cannot be seen or touched. It can be very frustrating to the Father in Heaven as He tells us to have faith, and we cannot grasp it because we don’t see it.

That teacher meant well, but she of all people should know that a child could never use the excuse for not wanting to go to school, being because they don’t want to be driven crazy by what they don’t currently understand. Could you imagine a student saying they don’t trust the teacher enough to believe that 6+6=12, because they don’t have enough fingers to verify it to be true? We have enough sense to know that a child could never understand history or science, if they cant read or write.

Once a student learns to read or write, to relearn it in order to study science or history is useless. It is silly when a child thinks they can teach a class, when all they can do is read or write, because that is only a small part of the big picture.

The Spiritual world is very real, and the Lord sees it, hears it, feels it, understands it, and is the final authority about it. It is foolishness to not have faith in Him, and childish to think we know more than Him. Just like it is my desire for my kids to grow to be adults and my responsibility to help them to get there, it is the Father’s desire and responsibility as well to see we have everything necessary to grow spiritually.

Learning to see with our spiritual eyes is the baby steps that we need to learn for eternity. The revelations in scripture that we get, are for our life on this earth, and it makes no sense to refuse to learn them until we “get to heaven.” To be afraid to grow because maturity scares us, is complete childishness and unnecessary fear.

I have heard it said that a person can become “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good”, and that is a lie from hell. When a spiritual baby pretends to be an adult they become no earthly good, but a person who takes the time to seek the face of God and walk in His love, will become earthly good by the nature of maturity.

When a teenager claims to be an adult because they can have sex and buy booze, they become a burden to society. When a baby Christian refuses to grow up, they become a burden to mature Christians who have to go behind them and clean up after them. The conclusions drawn about adulthood by a child are never correct, because they draw conclusions from the attitude of “what can I get out of it”

The true mature adult, will seek to walk considering the interests of others first. They will give and not take. They protect and not hurt. A teenage boy, having sex to be a man, will high tail it and selfishly run away in self preservation when he gets a girl pregnate.

God wants us to desire to see through the spiritual eyes He gave us, but there are some mature guidelines. Believe His word even when you don’t understand (he is the teacher), ask Him what He wants you to learn (a student doesn’t demand to the teacher what will be taught in class), understand that a revelation is a small thing in the grand scheme of His vision (don’t get puffed up and stuck on your pet revelations), and by all means walk in love (we all grow at different speeds in different areas, we all have different talents and callings, we all live with different needs and live in different locations, but we all serve the same loving Lord Jesus and have the same Father in Heaven).

Father, thank you for opening the eyes of my understanding, I ask that you lift me where you want me, teach me and use me, help me to consider others better than myself, and I am so very grateful for using me in your Kingdom despite myself. I want to grow up to see and know you Father just as much as you know me.

As I was praying the other day from Ecclesiastes, “there is a time to tear down, and a time to build up”, the Sweet Holy Spirit revealed to me a simple nugget of truth that has been on my mind these couple days.

It would seem that walls in of themselves are not a bad thing as some would suppose. There were times in my past, when I would wince at the thought of there being a wall in my life. After all, a wall prevents us from going where we need to go, seeing who we need to see, or living life like we need to live it.

As I was praying the verse over, and declared that Prison walls need to be torn down while Fortress walls need to be built up, the Spirit dropped into my heart that a prison keeps us from being free. When a fortress is built up, it is usually done so that freedom can be preserved. The Father has done everything necessary to provide for us His Children, true freedom.

The Lord made this statement to me, “To live for yourself is to be in a prison, but to live for Me is to be in a fortress.”

There is true freedom in coming home from a tough day, and that is also true when you can come home to the Father’s house. He has afforded to us full access into His presence, where we can be totally free to live our life to the fullest.

A person who is in prison cannot go home to his family, but he must make his bed far away from those who he loves the most. When I used to do prison ministry, I remember hearing those steel doors come crashing to a close. It was a sinking feeling that was only made better by my knowing, that I could leave anytime I wanted, and go home.

The prisoner is there because they made certain choices in life that got them there. While some might still deny committing the crime, the accuser did a good job of making sure that the price for that crime was paid for by them. They are stuck behind those walls, and are unable to enjoy the freedom to go home.

It seems that humanity has a stubborn attitude of wanting things done “my way”. Burger King made a fortune with that slogan, Frank Sinatra sang it proudly, and many have ended up in Hell trying to do it. Living life “my way”, is how prison walls are built up in our lives.

If we make the Lord our fortress, the Most High our shelter, no evil will conquer us, no plague can come near our home. When we are in a prison, we are at the mercy of the accuser, but when we are in a fortress, we are at the mercy or the Lord almighty. I am unsure about you, but I trust my Jesus much more than I trust myself or the devil.

Can you imagine being in the will and covering of God Almighty, and knowing that nothing can touch you, because it would have to go through Him first, to get through to you? The attacks of the devil, seem like rain drops hitting on a skylight. You can look out of them, and see the rain bouncing off, and know fully that you are high and dry.

To be in God’s will is to be in a fortress, and that is freedom preserved.

If you have been feeling like life is a prison, maybe you need to see what area of your life that you have been trying to do “your way”. When you find yourself trapped in a situation, and the accuser is trying to make you pay for the crime, remember that the debt has already been paid. You need to tear down the prison walls that you have built for yourself, and run home to the fortress of God.

We need to stop allowing our pride to keep us prisoner, and we need to start humbling ourselves so that we can stay in the freedom of God.

Thank you Father for these simple revelations…

I was leaving a comment to Brandy about my blog, and figured I would Copy/Paste it into my blog…

I have been hacking away at my “Official Website” and created a new look. I started bloging exactly 2 years ago as a form of soul searching, and it has been helpful in many areas of healing.

I found this company that will take the contents of your blog, and print them into a book. I have been working on making that book, because I would like to have it in tangible form for my heirs.

It is hard to believe that I only made 60 or so posts in the last 2 years, but there is no better way to have proof of the faithfulness of the Father. I made the choice to be very open and honest about my posts, because now that I look back on them, I can see how totally awesome The Lord was to me.

My life has had so many ups and Downs, and I realized how I am truly capable of being pushed by the waves and the wind, but God is so ever rock solid. I refuse to try to celebrate my failures, but I choose to rejoice in Jesus’ victories.

I could never go by my own personal memory, because even the human memory is fallible, but by writing down my thoughts even as the events are going down, I can see how I am made the righteousness of God in Christ firsthand, and the only glory that I can give, is to my Daddy in Heaven for filling in the areas that I fall short in.

He is such an awesome God!

I am going to start a new chapter in my life in a month or so, and while I am expecting it to be a rough road, I have all the proof necessary to remember that God is Faithful that promised. I am not concerned, because He will never leave me or forsake me.