TRAILBLAZER

In the hushed and muffled silence of the newly fallen snow,

There’s a longing deep within us, for unbroken paths we’d like to know.

Trails of wisdom through the whiteness, to be broken each new day.

 And in the breaking, leave behind us unstained signs to mark the way!

We will need a guide to lead us, a paradoxical, guiding beam.

Casting shadows in His likeness, inspiring pilgrim, fulfill our dream.

In our ignorance, we are learning; there are no trails that have not been trod.

 For in our journey, pressing onward, we find the markers, left by God!

God’s plan for salvation is so wonderfully simple and so beautifully portrayed it becomes  a paradoxical guiding beam.  So much so that it is difficult for the intellectual mind to grasp its significance and accept its truth.

When a person accepts Christ they, sooner or later, tend to read, study and interpret the Holy Bible with a feeling from the heart rather than the mind or intellect.  I believe that is what Jesus meant in Matthew 22-37-40   “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hangs on these two commandments.”  You notice that he said heart, soul and mind; thus the feelings of love within the heart takes precedence.

When you do this a wonderful simplicity and beauty is portrayed within your soul and your mind.  Thus, this completeness becomes truth.

We are all trailblazers or we should be in this search for truth. There is a longing for things we’d like to know. We all started this journey simply on faith. In a court of law we are unable to prove that God even exists; but faith then takes us beyond reason and understanding and in this journey as a trailblazer we are amazed to find ourselves cloaked and protected by the eternal promise of absolution.

Thus, we should be bold in our search for truth.  We are all subject to this thing called divine inspiration.   It is something that is alive and well today especially since more and more Christians are communing with the Holy Spirit as the divine authority for their actions.  The intermediaries and theologians, those lacking this previous mentioned completeness, have stifled the use of divine inspiration for centuries simply because they wanted control.

God, from Adam to the present, has chosen some unsavory characters to abide His pleasure.  Saul, the tent maker of Tarsus, later known as Apostle Paul is by far the most fascinating of all. As a young man I used to ask elderly people and authority figures within the church body, “What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh?”  I along with many other people merely wanted to know if our original and first impression of the truth were correct since Paul never really identified this thorn.  I got as many answers as I had fingers and toes.  No one knew for sure and I figured that my original thoughts and impressions were correct.  I always thought that prior to being struck down on the road to Damascus that Paul lived a homosexual lifestyle.  I still do!

2Co 12 7-10.  To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, for when I am weak, then I am strong.   

Let us not read more into this statement than there is; Paul was merely saying that he had prayed that God would take away the temptations of his former homosexual lifestyle.  These temptations were referred to as a thorn in the flesh and they were correctly identified as messages from Satan. God gave his reasons for denying his request and Paul accepted God’s reasons.  He went on in verse 11 to say that he had made a fool of himself and he said more than he intended to and thought they should commend him for obeying God.  He displayed ambivalence throughout all his writings; yet he truly wrote from the heart and said what he felt, always.

As a recovering alcoholic I can understand Paul.  I prayed and pleaded with God many, many times to take this thorn of the flesh, this addiction for alcohol, away from me.  He gave me the same answer he gave Paul.  His grace is sufficient for me and like Paul I am beginning to recognize God’s power is truly made perfect in weakness.  Like Paul I am much stronger in my weakness to be effective for Christ’s sake in carrying out my duties required of me by my Christian faith.     

If a premise, a proposition upon which an argument is based or from which a conclusion is drawn is in error the correct outcome is an impossibility.  In this case, I along with a lot of other people are contending  one thing and others are contending something else, to determine Paul’s affliction. It appears to me that this truth we are seeking flows from a genuine continuous consensus of opinion of the faithful. Always, from the completeness of the faithful.   This process has been a slow tedious struggle and it always will be, since it is impossible to define this glorious thing called God.

Never before in the history of mankind has Satan had the audacity to challenge God with one particular sin as that of homosexuality.  The gay and lesbian communities in the guise of discrimination are reeking havoc in our families, our churches, our schools and our sense of justice.  They are a sinful and lost bunch of people who have recently discovered an old friend and a new leader – Satan!

As a recovering alcoholic I agree with the old saying, “It takes one to know one.”  Let us see what Paul has to say about this subject.  Remember the Apostle Paul is the only writer to specifically condemn homosexual conduct in the New Testament!  I am quoting from The Living Bible - Paraphrased for better understanding.

When addressing a group of recovering alcoholics the first thing I do is say, “My name is Barney Shepherd and I am a recovering alcoholic.”