Thanks in Advance

If any of you can direct me to good Christ-centered help with dealing with addicts, I would appreciate it. Books, websites, organizations…I want to learn all I can. Thank you.

How Charismatic Christianity Looks From Inside

Today I got a comment from a longtime reader who is considering looking for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I thought I should write a few things, because I’m sure other people are curious.

There are a lot of people who claim the baptism and tongues are demonic. If that is the case, every believer in the New Testament who received the baptism was a demon-possessed heretic, because every Spirit-baptized believer in the New Testament spoke in tongues. Some spoke in earthly languages others recognized, for the purpose of glorifying God before potential converts, but others spoke words no one understood and which were never intended to be understood. This is clear from Paul’s writings.

If you don’t believe in charismatic Christianity but you read this blog and applaud the changes in my life, maybe you need to ask yourself why you’re enabling a heretic who may be on his way to hell. I have had the baptism for almost a quarter of a century, so if it’s a demon, he has had a long time to corrupt me and turn me into Satan’s tool. With that in mind, let me say this: BOO!

Prayer in tongues has been a big part of my life over the last couple of years. If you have been reading this blog for a long time, think about the difference between 2009 and 2005. Do I seem MORE evil now? Do I seem LESS free? Less happy? More tormented?

Please. If this is the devil’s doing, maybe he’s not such a bad guy. Surely you don’t believe that.

Back in the Eighties, I grew a lot in the Spirit. But I quit going to church, and I quit praying, both with my mind and in the Spirit. So I atrophied as a Christian. The result was a highly critical, angry person who wrote very funny but unproductive things. Over the last couple of years, I have spent more and more time praying in the Spirit, and I think the improvement in me is hard to miss. I did not do this myself. It offends me when people say I did, because whether they know it or not, they are tempting me to deny God. Christianity is not about changing yourself to make God happy. It’s about allowing God to change you. It’s 90% him and 10% you.

I don’t believe you will get a demon if you make a proper effort to get the Holy Ghost baptism. As I said in a comment, if Satan is powerful enough to do that to you, he is stronger than God. God requires us to do a lot of things, and he expects us to have a fair amount of knowledge, but every once in a while, you have to trust him and count on him to cut you a little slack. If you think he’s going to sit around and watch a demon jump into you while you beg in earnest for a gift that will help you serve him in humility and gratitude, I’m not sure why you think he would ever do anything good for you. What kind of God would he be, allowing himself to be tortured to death for us and then looking the other way as we filled ourselves with demons while begging for his help? Does that make sense to you?

You already have demons. Face it. If the Holy Spirit moves in, they will not get up and leave instantaneously. They will stay as long as they can and do whatever they can to hinder the Spirit. They may lead you to do stupid things while claiming the Holy Spirit is controlling you. This has happened to other Christians. It does not mean you got a demon at the moment of baptism.

A Spirit-filled believer is like Joshua and the Hebrews, just after they crossed into Israel. The land was full of heathen strongholds, just as a newly baptized believer has powerful spirits affecting his life. The Hebrews had to go forward, submitting to God and attacking the strongholds supernaturally as well as physically. You have to do the same thing. You are supposed to clear out every stronghold you can discern, leaving no room for a metaphorical Amalekite remnant to build back up, the way bacteria build back up in a wound that hasn’t been cleaned thoroughly. The more strongholds you break, the more you will resemble Jesus, both in power and in character. But you are going to make mistakes, and for some people, that means barking like a dog or even kicking another believer on stage and claiming God said it was okay.

As you progress, you will develop the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). This means you will have positive traits like self-control, kindness, patience, and love. You will develop the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, such as the ability to heal others or the ability to give with supernatural generosity, or the ability to learn hidden facts directly from God (1 Corinthians 12). You won’t get all of this stuff at once, and you won’t be like Superman, wandering around working miracle after miracle and reading people’s minds. But these things will begin to become apparent in your life. You need these things in order to succeed. The fruit of the Spirit will make you a good person in all respects; you can’t do this just by trying. The gifts will give you power when you need it.

Jesus walked in the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit. He worked no great miracles before he received the baptism of the Spirit. Afterward, he was different. He knew things about people, with no natural explanation. He healed people instantly. He walked on water. He had supernatural bravery. I know of no evidence that he prayed in tongues, but since the purpose of that gift is to build you up, I don’t see why he would have needed it. He was perfect. The rest of us are fixer-uppers, so we have tongues as one of the tools that help us grow.

If you want to see an obvious manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit, consider my problems with overeating. They’re gone. They disappeared in one day, along with some other behavioral problems. I’m sorry I don’t have something more dramatic to give you, but to me, this gift is priceless. No man on earth could have given me this. Not for a billion dollars. No one…NO one…has ever solved the problem of compulsive overeating. We cut people’s stomachs up. We suck fat out of them. We give them amphetamines. We put them on regimes that fail when their willpower gives out. But nobody can do what God did for me. It’s a completely legitimate miracle. I know it would be more impressive had I followed up by putting up a Youtube of me break-dancing on the surface of the swimming pool, but I have what I have, so make the most of it.

Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire, and she’s promoting a false messiah named Tolle, and she knows every diet guru on earth, and if that’s the best help she ever gets, she’s going to die overweight, not to mention single, childless, and unsatisfied. When a demon leaves, it tries to return, and if there isn’t a bigger, tougher spirit waiting to drive it back out, it will succeed (Matthew 3:23-28; Matthew 12:43-45). This is what the secular world calls “the Yo-Yo Effect,” and it defeats Oprah about once a year. If man had the answer to compulsive overeating, wouldn’t she be free by now? If not, how many more dollars does she need to spend? Millions aren’t enough. Will a trillion do it? Of course not.

My freedom cost me nothing.

As for spiritual gifts, I have seen at least two spirits, and I saw one of them very clearly, and I got a good long look at it. That is “discerning of spirits.” God has explained incomprehensible scriptures to me as I’ve read them; that happens every day (Acts 8:30-34). And I know I’ve received wisdom when I’ve asked for it. I wish I thought to pray for it more often! Wisdom is one of the gifts. I believe I’ve seen five of the nine spiritual gifts in my life. And I’m nothing special. Jesus said we would surpass him in our miraculous works; do you realize that? Look at the Bible and see (John 14:12).

I think I should add one more thing. The Spirit will help you get answers to prayer. One of the gifts is supernatural faith, and faith gets prayers answered. On top of that, a clean, righteous life will help get prayers answered. You’ll be more likely to ask for the right things, and you will be giving the enemy less power to oppose you. The enemy is like a rat or a roach. He feeds on the garbage we leave in ourselves, and he gains power from it. Remember the man Paul turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh? That was the result of bad behavior. God expressly approved of Satan’s efforts to harm that man, because the man needed the pain in order to be corrected. A better life means weaker enemies and more protection. See what I wrote about Joshua, above.

A month or two ago, I was driving along, praying about something, and a wave of faith hit me, and it was so strong, I grabbed the truck’s center console and held on, to keep from being blown over. The same thing happened to me again, while I was lying in bed. I dug my fingers into the mattress and clung to it like a climber trying to keep from being knocked off a mountain. Call me a heretic if you want. I think that’s a wonderful gift.

I have explained charismatic (or “Pentecostal”) Christianity as well as I could. Maybe I can’t make you want it, but perhaps after reading this you will at least be willing to tolerate it. At worst, you could spend some time praying God will free me from my heretic, white-trash, holy-rolling demons. I’ll take prayer no matter how it comes.

He has Established my Goings

If I were to say I had had a weird couple of days, I would barely scratch the surface.

Let’s start.

I have a bad habit of volunteering for things at church. I now have conflicts. That’s how bad it’s gotten. My dad and I have been trying to help my sister with her problems now that she has cancer, and a few days back, I actually got cross with him, because I had to do something for the church, and he wanted me to drop it and do something for her. I said, “I made a commitment to my church. It’s not a joke.” I’m sorry about that now, but it’s important to the story.

A couple of weeks back, I volunteered to help drive people to services. The guy who was to be in charge of this ministry is named Danny. I didn’t know him very well, and I didn’t know what kind of people we were going to be driving, but the church was very serious about it. They’re even willing to buy me a hack license. Unfortunately, I also joined a Saturday morning prayer group, and I volunteered to cook food for the cast of the Christmas play.

On Saturday, I spent a good part of the morning at a Denny’s in Hallandale, with my prayer group. I made some real connections. We met for two hours. Then I called Danny, intending to cancel because I was so busy. He was very nice about it, but I felt awful. I called the associate pastor who was directing the play and asked what I should do, and he advised me to go with Danny and to let cooking go for this week. I called Danny again and got back on track. Then I realized I would still be able to cook, if I made cookies instead of something difficult. I had two cookie recipes in my cookbook. One was so simple, it was in the super-basic chapter called “Five Greasy Pieces.” I went and got ingredients, and I made over three dozen oatmeal-raisin cookies.

When the cookies were finished, I drove to church and met Danny. We got in one of the church’s smelly, scary old vans and headed to Broward County, to the Broward Outreach Center. This is a shelter for the homeless, domestic violence victims, and convicted criminals released under supervision. Danny is one of their case workers.

I don’t know what I should tell you about Danny, because I don’t know what he makes public, but I can tell you that he works with a lot of addicts. And I discussed addiction with him.

He said addicts have to hit bottom and resolve to change. No big surprise there. But he also made a disturbing comment about the three main ways addicts hit bottom. The three ways are institutionalization, jail, and death. He did not name a fourth.

He gave me a tour of the center. I was surprised. It’s extremely clean. The dining hall still had water on the floor from the last mopping, and the smell of bleach was in the air. The floors all through the place shined. The bunks were made, and the bedclothes were so clean, the air near them smelled like clean laundry.

They have a five-step program, starting with the intake phase and ending (I think) with job placement. They give people remedial classes. They help people get GEDs. They teach them how to market their skills over the Internet; some have never used email before.

They have to memorize eight principles, which I can’t recall right now. I guess I’d fail their program. They have to complete a lot of requirements. There are little graduations along the way, and they get certificates, and their relatives show up and cry with joy.

He said the vast majority of them score below the 9th-grade level on tests, which may explain how many of them ended up where they are.

While he talked, I knew I was walking by faith. It was just like being in Israel in 1984. In those days, God dragged me around and brought me people to show me things and guide me. For no intelligent reason, I volunteered to help Danny, and we ended up at the shelter, and he started pouring out their story, and I knew it was as if God himself was talking to me, because he wanted me to be there, and he wanted Danny to show me the center and tell me these things. I can’t tell you why, because I don’t have that information yet.

We got the residents (“clients”) in the vans, and I drove my bunch down I-95, and I could not help but overhear them. It was moving. They didn’t tell filthy jokes or fight or cuss. They talked about their progress. They coached each other and gave each other tips. I can’t tell you how impressed I was.

Touring that place full of humble belongings, dedicated to humble yet vital and lifesaving achievements, I thought of people I know who have had much greater opportunities, yet whose attitudes can’t compare to those of the BOC clients I met. If you’ve been to college or have a skill, and you have a little money in the bank and no criminal record and no disabilities or diseases, you are so far ahead of these folks, you might as well be from another planet. But does your attitude reflect an appreciation of the depth of your blessings? Think where you could be, instead of where you are. Tomorrow, you could be having your next class on coping with HIV, or you could be studying eighth-grade history in order to get a high school diploma.

It may be a week before I have the nerve to complain about anything again. I’ll miss it.

We got these people to church, and they enjoyed the Christmas play, and then something like two-thirds of them went to the altar call. I got to sit in the front row last night, so I was able to get up and pray with them. Two hardcore gang kids accepted Jesus and stood holding each other and weeping. Danny was floored by the way his busing project paid off.

Now we have to figure out what to do when they want to attend regularly.

I got home at about 9:15 p.m., and I made over four dozen chocolate chip cookies for the play cast. I got to bed at 11, and I got up at six. Off I went, to work with the “armorbearers,” or the male volunteers who keep the church going during services. They put me and Danny in the kids’ ministry, helping people drop off and pick up their children. There are so many well-behaved kids at that church, it’s hard to believe it’s located in Miami.

At one point, I went to the men’s room, and I heard a tiny voice yelling, “I want to wash my hands! I want to wash my hands!” A kid about nine inches tall was jamming himself against the counter, but he couldn’t reach the knobs to turn on the sink. I couldn’t believe it! How many grown men wash their hands after using the bathroom? Maybe one in five? Some parent or pair of parents did something right with this boy. I helped him out, and then I went back to my post.

This was supposed to be a special day, because my sister was scheduled to come in and be baptized with the Spirit. Her cranial irradiation starts tomorrow, and she has been very scared, so she developed a sudden and urgent desire to get the baptism.

I had been hoping and praying for this for a long time. The baptism is the biggest difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Afterward, God lives inside you and changes you day by day. You receive some of his power and much of his character. It grows inside you and crowds out everything else. This is what prayer in tongues is all about. It builds the Spirit’s works in you. If you don’t pray in tongues regularly, it’s like not watering a plant.

If you’re Spirit-filled, and you have a relationship with someone who hasn’t had the baptism, it is likely to be turbulent. And the baptism makes it easier for you to confront and overcome your problems and failings.

I wanted to be present when my sister showed up, because I figured if she didn’t get the baptism today, it might be months before she gave it another shot.

Unfortunately, there was an obstacle. When I left the house this morning, I was having strange and unpleasant sensations. I couldn’t figure out what they were, but because this was a big day, I ignored them and got in the truck. After a couple of hours of work, however, things started to get worse quickly, and I realized what was going on.

I had a kidney stone.

I could not believe it. These things only hit on weekends, when treatment costs ten times as much. And why did it have to be this weekend, when I needed to be there for my sister?

I told everyone I had to leave, and I got back in the truck. I figured I’d go home and ask my dad to drive me to the hospital. Hopefully, the pain would not be full-blown by that time. I would have to leave my sister in the hands of the folks at the church.

In the parking lot, I prayed for healing, and I did the whole rebuking routine. And as I started driving toward the exit, I felt a couple of very unpleasant sensations. My best guess was that they meant I was getting worse.

A little farther down the road, I realized I felt somewhat better. Maybe the pain wouldn’t be too bad when I got home.

By the time I had gone maybe two miles, there was no pain. And I realized I had been freed from a very general feeling of sickness. It’s hard to describe, but when you have a kidney stone, there is an oppressive feeling that fills your entire body, as well as your mind. I know this now, because I know how I felt when it left. The bad things I had felt in the parking lot were probably caused by the stone dislodging and moving on.

As I got close to home, I saw a bunch if birds on some power lines. White ibises. I had never seen an ibis on a wire. I hadn’t realized they were given to sitting on wires. For some reason, I decided to count them. Seven. The number of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says there are seven Spirits of God, and the menorah in the Holy of Holies (which represented the Holy Spirit) had seven branches and seven lamps.

I went home, drank a lot of water, confirmed to my satisfaction that I was okay, and drove back to church! I was fine!

I went back to work with Danny, and after my sister showed up, one of the guys in my prayer group relieved me. At the end of the service, a bunch of us went into the green room behind the stage with my sister and the pastor. In a smaller room beside it, we prayed for her healing, and then we prayed for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. We didn’t get a result. The pastor asked all of us except my sister to go out into the green room. We waited while he and she prayed. I was outside the door, praying as hard as I could. I didn’t know if unresolved problems in her life could prevent the baptism, and I was afraid she would be rejected, somehow.

I can’t go into the details, but he tried a new approach that came to him while they were praying. And when they came out, he said they had gotten the victory. I was overwhelmed. How long had I waited to hear that? Years.

I’m home now. I got myself some magnesium pills on the way. Years back, a reader recommended them to prevent kidney stones, but I had quit using them. I’m going back on them. I don’t think magnesium was the problem. I think my sister and I are the objects of a very special hatred, and the kidney stone was an effort to keep me home so I would miss this wonderful event. It’s like the first time we went to church together. While I was getting ready, I fell down the stairs.

I will give Pastor Rich Wilkerson credit. He did not give up on my sister, and he cared enough to try something new and to stick with it until it worked for her. And when he told everyone in the green room how it had gone, he said, “This is real. This is NO JOKE.”

Naturally, I thought of what I had said to my father. Pastor Rich didn’t know.

Now I feel completely drained, and I intend to hang out with Maynard and Marvin and do absolutely nothing.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that I’m not in the emergency room, zonked out on Dilaudid again. I enjoy Dilaudid a great deal, but this is considerably better. And like so many of God’s great gifts, it’s free.

Last time I had Dilaudid, they charged me six grand!

Being healed of a kidney stone is a tremendous thing. It would have ruined my week. I am unable to describe my gratitude adequately.

I better go talk to the birds. It’s a wonder they still remember me.

Ammo Stacks Make Nice Furniture for Profiteers

Outdoor Marksman has Federal 9mm ammunition for $11.95, if you buy a scant 20 boxes. Not too bad. To me, ten bucks a box is reasonable. We are getting closer to that point. Sellier & Bellot is down to $13 per box at Natchez Shooters Supplies.

It seems like commodities prices aren’t the problem. Copper is getting more expensive, in spite of the bad worldwide economy, but ammunition prices keep dropping. That leads me to suspect that profiteering is the big problem. Obama created an artificial ammunition market by threatening our Constitutional rights, and the people who make and sell ammunition may have been cheating us since it began.

I know there has been a lot of profiteering, because only a fool would believe there was any market justification for a $30 box of FMJ 9mm rounds or a $50 box of primers. But can it really be that greed is responsible for most of the price increases? People are basically evil, but ordinarily, they exhibit some restraint, especially when bad behavior offends their customers.

The folks who tried to corner the market seem to be starting to bleed. I see GP11 480-round battle packs selling on Gunbroker for $259. That’s only $30 above the market price. And a search of completed auctions shows GP11 is not selling. Great. I’m all about capitalism, but cheating people in a time of national upheaval is wrong.

Let’s see what else I can learn.

Hornady 17 HMR V-Max is failing to sell, at $10/50. That’s good news. That would have been an okay price before the Obama crisis.

I’m checking 9mm prices. The prices are a shock to the conscience, and I haven’t found one lot that has sold.

I’m checking 7.62x54mm 7N1, and apart from some sucker paying $285 for a case, it’s not selling.

Maybe the vultures are finally getting caught with excess inventory, as they deserve. Who on earth would pay $15 for Sellier & Bellot? This stuff is one step above throwing rocks. I’ve never had any problems with it, but it’s among the cheapest factory ammo around.

Gunbroker is such a ripoff. It’s virtually useless.

In other news, I had an interesting thought this week. I was thinking about the strange freedom God has given me from overeating, and about my church’s request that I get involved in making food for their cafe.

Back when I was working on my cookbook, I had extraordinary luck with recipes. It seemed like one dish after another was a startling success. I made some stupid things that didn’t work, but I had bizarre victories. For example, I made my coconut flan recipe up in one try, with very little experience to go on. I don’t like baked beans all that much, but I put together a recipe so good, I couldn’t quit eating them.

I got fat, especially after I got pizza under control. I could not stop making and eating delicious food. I couldn’t take the weight off.

Then God took away the compulsion to overeat, and the weight started coming off by itself. I can even resist pizza. And suddenly, my church needed help with their kitchen.

We always want God to give us stuff, and I’m sure he wants to do it. But would he be a good god if he gave us things that hurt us? Of course not. If I had been asked to work in the cafe before I got power over what I ate, it would have been a real problem. There is no way I would have been able to resist stuffing myself. But now I can go in there and cook anything they want, and I know I won’t get fat.

I got the blessing, and I was spared the danger inherent in getting what you wish for. That’s a big deal.

It makes me think about other things I’ve wanted, as well as things other people have wanted. I look at these things and see how they could cause harm if they were suddenly dumped on us.

I strongly suspect that God changes people, through the Holy Spirit and miracles as well as through work and scripture, so that when they get what they want, it will only bless them. I think God is cleaning me up so the good things I want can come my way, without making me rebellious or proud or ungrateful or fat.

We are told that he will give us the desires of our heart (Psalm 34), and that he only gives good gifts (Matthew).

I suppose, then, that if you want a thing, you have to want the power to avoid being harmed by it. If you want money or possessions, you have to want to be freed from greed and covetousness and selfishness. If you want power, you have to want compassion and generosity and gentleness. And if you want to cook for God, you have to want the ability to eat moderately. God doesn’t want to give us new idols or new masters. Doesn’t that sound plausible?

I’ve noticed that the less things control me, the more I enjoy them. I enjoy food a lot more, now that I’m not shoveling it down at every opportunity. I enjoy the things I own, now that they aren’t as exciting as they once were. I wonder what’s next.

The more you surrender, the more you win. That’s how it seems to work.

Maybe this is why many people who give to ministries and charities have little money. They overspend, they default on debts, they borrow at outrageous interest, and then they expect God to give them cash because they max out their credit cards to support missionaries and charities. How can God possibly repay them in kind, before he makes them fit vessels? Would you pour water into a reservoir with holes in it? And besides, what if these people gave money God never asked them to give, because they didn’t ask for his guidance? And if you give to a ministry while you cheat a creditor, whose money did you give? Not yours; that’s for sure. You stole from another person in order to give to God. Is he supposed to encourage that?

I think the charismatic “word of faith” crowd needs to think about these things. I don’t doubt that God wants to do stuff for us, but you shouldn’t ask him to be an enabler.

So once again, I have more to be grateful for than I realized. That’s the bottom line. If you can’t be grateful for discipline and instruction, you are utterly lost.

Can Prince be Far Behind?

My church gives out a daily devotional booklet every three months. Some of us actually read it, which goes to show you how gung-ho charismatics are. We may be wrong, but we will be on time for judgment, and we will bring food.

Today’s entry was kind of sad. It contained the bit about the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 1):

26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: 27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.

Some people think the part about “not many might, not many noble” and so on applies to the church as a whole. That is a terrible thing to consider. Think about all the smart, accomplished people you know. Can it really be true that a higher proportion of them are headed for hell, or at least for very lowly entrances into heaven?

It probably does. Let’s face it. Who turns to God and gives up home rule? People who are on top of the world? Not usually. It’s criminals. People with dysfunctional families. Cripples. Addicts. Like the 400 men who banded together with David in the cave of Adullam. People who do well tend to think they do it in their own strength and that they don’t need God. If you can give yourself up to God when things are going perfectly, you are way ahead of many of your brothers. Some have to get cancer or cry on the floor of a federal prison before they find the base of the altar. Some hit rock bottom, taking as much punishment as God is willing to inflict in order to wake them up, and still refuse to admit they’re wrong.

I wonder how well I fit into my church’s demographic. I know a lot of the people there are barely getting by. Many are not educated. I haven’t met any other lawyers (surprise). But I’ve met a cardiologist and a successful real estate broker.

It’s funny, but the gifts you have in the flesh, while useful to God, don’t correlate very well with your power as a Christian. I thought about this the other day while I was listening to Fred Stone. I enjoy him tremendously. He’s a simple guy. I don’t think he went to college. He’s as country as can be; he would be nearly interchangeable with any of my relatives from my grandfather’s generation. But when he gets a question about his walk, he has the answer, just about every time. Right on the money. If I knew him personally, I would be thrilled to have the chance to ask his advice about nearly anything. But I know a lot of professionals who don’t have enough sense to get out of bed.

The Holy Spirit gives people wisdom. There is no doubt about it. He may not give you a genius IQ, but he will tell you what you need to know, and he will tell you what other people need to know, too.

The hard thing to remember about earthly blessings like good looks, brilliance, talent, and wealth is that once you’re dead, they vanish. I don’t mean that you won’t be good-looking or smart in the afterlife. But other people will be just as gifted. People who aren’t much in this life will have everything you have now, and more. I try to keep that in mind when I deal with people who seem ordinary. I have a few remarkable gifts, but in the long term, they are no better than beads and trinkets. And people who have gifts I don’t have are in the same boat. So who will the beautiful people be in heaven? Must be those who had faith and obeyed in this life. Isn’t this necessarily part of what “the last shall be first” means?

I believe the afterlife will be like a high school reunion. The jocks will be pumping gas, the cheerleaders will be cashiers at KMart, and the nerds will be millionaires. Metaphorically.

I haven’t had any trouble fitting in at the church. I think God shapes his troops so they work together well. Also, the things we talk about don’t have much to do with education or worldly experience. We talk about things we’ve learned in our walks. We discuss God’s promises. We recommend books to each other. I can learn as much from a cab driver as I can from a biochemist. That is literally true. We’re not discussing quantum mechanics. Some of the best people to learn from are blue-collar workers.

If it’s true that a lot of upper- and upper-middle-class people will be left out, then I am even luckier than I already knew. I was smart enough to realize that my problems were really blessings, but in view of my background, it’s considerably more obvious. Had I come from a perfect family and had a perfect life, I would have seen no reason to involve God, and I would have entered the next life as a very confused and surprised beggar. And let’s not even discuss the blessings I would have missed in this life. What percentage of people get to have a close relationship with God and experience the supernatural on a daily basis? How many people know what it’s like to have God’s presence drop on them and surround them like a fog?

The world is full of people who run around claiming no one has seen proof God exists. What huge lie! I’ve seen proof, and so have a lot of other people. There aren’t many such people in relative terms, but in absolute terms, there are probably tens or hundreds of millions. God has given all sorts of signs. The problem is that people reject them because they don’t want to give up the illusion of control over their lives.

I think I just squeaked by. I think I dodged a bullet. Thank God I don’t have the guts or determination a successful unbeliever needs.

Attack!

I am really sorry for not posting this yesterday. I got caught up in cooking for the church, and I have had to work on family business, and it just got away from me.

You may recognize my name – “Kyle” from comments on your blog.

My sister in law Jade had a stroke this past Friday night. 33 years old.

It’s a freak thing caused by not cholesterol or blood clots or anything like that, but an odd flaw in a blood vessel. The vessel had multiple layers at one point just feeding into the jugular, so it was trapping blood and built up pressure until it burst. A fragment of the vessel was driven up the jugular into her brain.

She is in ICU and they are testing her respiration tonight to see if she is able to breathe on her own.

Also, the swelling is basically at its peak, and they are going to be taking her off sedatives to test her responses as thoroughly as possible to get a diagnosis as to where we stand.

Her left lobe was affected, so the right side of her body has been minimally responsive, although we’ve seen some decent movement a few times over the past two-three days.

Let’s show this illness what God can do in response to prayer.

God Freaks me Out Again

I was supposed to have dinner with my dad and my sister tonight, but it did not work out, and I had no backup plan. I decided to make myself a small pizza. I was worried, because back in August, I experienced a miraculous delivery from the compulsion to overeat, and pizza is something I have never been able to eat in moderation.

I ate three pieces and threw the rest out. Didn’t feel a thing.

Don’t ever try to tell me God is not real or that he does not deliver people from their problems. This is incredible.

In other news, I am losing my touch. Less salt and oregano, next time. And Costco cheese. This Gordon Food Supply cheese is very good, but Costco mozzarella is pure magic.

Chow Delivered

I just dumped a bunch of desserts off at church. I didn’t get to try a single one! All I got was a couple of tablespoons of batter and such. I hope the food is okay.

I don’t know if it was smart to make chocolate flan. I like it, but not everyone is crazy about the combination of chocolate and burned sugar, and in any case, it will look sad among the cheesecake, brownies, and coconut flan, which are all bona fide blockbusters.

They have decided to close the church’s cafe until January, because people will be out of town, and the place is dead. So I won’t have to cook on Monday. I have time to plot.

I still have to fix stuff this weekend. The cast of the Christmas play will need food again. Last week I made macaroni and cheese and chili. I’m not sure what to make this time. Maybe people familiar with my cookbook could recommend something. I was thinking maybe doro wat and rotis.

Rotis are kind of a pain to make. You have to roll them out on a dining table or something. You need a lot of room.

People are buying the book this month. As a Christmas gift, it’s a natural. Everyone knows some fat guy who cooks. I guess it will sell at Christmas time for the rest of my life, or until it becomes dated.

I’m pooped. Try making two flans and two batches of brownies in one day, while making goop and putting berries on top of a big cheesecake. I don’t plan to cook at home any more. It’s just too much aggravation. And of course, I left my pans at church again. I hope they don’t walk off.

People steal at church. If there is a faster ticket to hell, it’s hard to think of what it might be. If you think there is no God to punish you for stealing, why are you in the building?

I’m wiped out. This is what happens when you do work that doesn’t feel like work. You’re too caught up in enjoying it to realize you’re tired.

I have half a mind to make a pizza.

Hey, it’s for the glory of God.

Desserts

Busy morning today.

I have to finish the strawberry cheesecake I started making yesterday. The danged thing cracked on top, as always. I have no idea why that happens. I cooled it slowly, and I was careful not to overmix it. Doesn’t really matter; after one bite, no one cares what it looks like. They want to marry it.

I have to make two flans and some brownies. I may do two trays of brownies. That would be pretty easy.

Let’s see. Twenty-eight servings of flan and cheesecake. Forty-eight servings of brownies. That makes 76. There will be 125 guests. So 39 people (at least) will get nothing. More, if the women charge the table and grab multiple servings.

Oh well. We need a loaves-and-fishes moment, and supplying those is above my pay grade. Perhaps someone can pray to Obama and he can redistribute someone else’s desserts to us.

I think I may make lasagne for Monday. It’s easy and good. Not the best thing I make, but still, beyond reproach. It’s hard to make bad lasagne.

Calculating ingredient amounts will be hard. Okay, it will be impossible. I can probably come close, however.

Power is Already Rotting my Brain

I ran down to church to see what kind of help they needed in the cafe. The upshot is this: I will have dominion over a small arsenal of commercial cooking equipment every Monday from now on. Now no one is safe!

They have one other volunteer who can cook. The rest are grunts. I will break them and indoctrinate them and mold them into mindless culinary shock troops. You got to make de food first. Den when you get de food, you get de power. Den when you get de power, den you get de womengs. Oops, I’m channeling Scarface.

Okay, I take back “grunts.” I mean the rest are not ready to bring in recipes, plan meals, and cook stuff from start to finish. But they are nice people who want to do what they can to help, and I am lucky they are offering. And they will give me someone to blame if I screw up.

I had to look up “shock troops” just now. I realized I had no idea what it meant. It just sounded good.

If I understand the picture, it works like this: they have a certain number of items they can throw in the fryer and slap onto a plate without much effort. But they need a daily special and a couple of sides. About forty servings. I can handle that. I usually make twenty when I’m cooking just for myself. More or less.

They’re having some kind of function on Thursday, with 125 people in attendance. I had to demur on that. I’m sufficiently intimidated by a six-day lead and forty servings. I don’t need to deal with a giant crowd on two days’ notice. I would rather fail on a small scale.

They’re thinking of getting a pizza oven. They’re in real trouble if they do that. I am totally ready to be a pizza warlord. They want to get one of those jobs with a conveyor belt, which is fine by me. They seem to work great, with very limited attention.

I stopped by Gordon Food Supply on the way home and looked over the merchandise. They have boneless picnic hams for $1.55 a pound. That has potential. Big time. I can turn them into caja-china-style pork very easily, and I can crank out yuca and moros on the side. But I have to find out if the quality is there.

I could not resist getting some pizza sauce and cheese at GFS. I think I’ll donate it to the church and wangle an opportunity to make a couple of pies. If they go as planned, they will cement my position as chief principality and power of the kitchen. I could also make a calzone or two. Maybe a pan con lechon calzone. Man, those things are good. I wish I hadn’t thought of it.

I hit a normal store and picked up some stuff for cheesecake, brownies, and flan. I plan to bombard the Thursday function with desserts, since I can’t cover the main dishes. Coconut flan, brownies, chocolate flan, and strawberry cheesecake. I guess there won’t be enough for everyone. We’ll see how well their holiness holds up when they have to play musical cheesecake. This will be a test that would have humbled Job. The goats will feed, and the sheep will have to wait for their reward in heaven.

Here’s a thought. God delivered me from overeating in August. Now suddenly I have been asked to help run a restaurant. Could I have survived this a year ago? No way. It would have killed me. But now maybe it will work.

Coincidence? Another one of those remarkable coincidences that seem to happen EVERY SINGLE DAY when you’re a Christian?

Must be.

If I can have pizza stuff in the house without going Jabba in a week, I can do anything.

Stuff That Has Worked for Me

Yesterday I pointed out that I was going to launch a big prayer offensive this week. It’s nothing radical. I’m setting time aside every afternoon for concentrated prayer. I fasted yesterday, but I don’t plan to repeat that unless an angel appears between me and the TV and knocks the doughnut box off my belly.

I am already seeing results. I wish I could go into details about the problems besetting my family, but I think that’s a bad idea. I can say general things, though. I am suddenly seeing more peace and compassion and cooperation.

I don’t think modern Christians understand prayer very well. I am trying to learn how to do it right. I can tell you some things that have been helpful so far. I think they’re probably sound, but I am no expert.

First, the more time you spend praying in the Spirit, the better off you will be. We are supposed to have the fruit and gifts of the Spirit, and if I read the Bible correctly, prayer in tongues acts like a weight routine. It somehow magnifies the power of the Spirit within you, the way watering a plant every day makes the plant bigger. I believe the first psalm refers to this metaphorically. Lots of Old Testament stuff which had a literal or a primary symbolic meaning to the ancient Jews has a secondary and different symbolic meaning to Spirit-filled Christians.

My morning prayer routine was getting to be a little bit of a drag, but recently, I got an idea that helped a great deal. I absolutely hate jumping out of bed when the alarm goes off, even if I feel good and have things to look forward to. And once I’m up, I can’t manage more than 15 minutes of praying in the Spirit. But if I start as soon as the alarm goes off, without getting up, I can go 30 minutes, easy. And during that time, my body comes to grips with the fact that I have to get up. I also feel strengthened and energized (better than coffee). Then later, during my regular morning devotion, I can omit this part, making things easier.

This isn’t costing me anything, because I used to spend this time trying to convince myself to get up.

Second, when you have a problem you can’t shake, it’s a great idea to set aside time and seclude yourself and hit it with prayer until you feel a breakthrough. And this is what you’re supposed to do when you fast. Don’t sit around watching TV, thinking God will help you just because you’re hungry and miserable. When I fast, prayer is the last thing I want to do, and I think that’s because something that fears fasting is trying to get me to ruin the experience by failing to pray enough.

Third, don’t make yourself crazy declaring a long fast in advance. Instead, fast until you get your breakthrough, and then quit. I think I’m going to start taking this approach instead of going 36 hours or 60 hours or 84 hours, which is what happens when you skip entire days at the table. Dinner to breakfast is roughly half a day, and then breakfast to breakfast is a day, and that adds up to a day and a half. That’s a long time, and it only makes sense if the misery is accomplishing something. If you get where you need to be by 2 p.m., why suffer until the next morning?

Fourth, use a prayer list. Praying without a list is like doing a different workout every day. It’s a very bad idea. You should keep hitting the same targets over and over until you get somewhere. Jesus said, essentially, to keep pestering God until we got what we needed. He said we shouldn’t get into “vain repetitions,” but judging from the rest of the New Testament, he was not referring to praying repeatedly about the same thing. He probably meant we should not babble rote prayers as though they were magic spells, without connecting to God in the process.

Fifth, try to have time when you just talk to God, without asking for stuff. Just relax and socialize with him in a respectful way. This seems to be very helpful. You will find yourself concentrating more on him and less on needs. Prayer shouldn’t always be a chore.

Fred Stone says that when we are told to “pray without ceasing,” it means to talk to God throughout the day. That sounds believable to me. The more I do this, the less I have to worry about finding that I have been far from God’s addictive and satisfying presence for too long a time.

Sixth, spend time praising and thanking God. Praise is a strange requirement, and it may seem forced at first, but eventually, you will find you have an urge to do it.

I can’t swear I’m right about all this, but it’s working, so I don’t think I’m far wrong.

Ecce Porcus

If the subtitle is wrong, it’s no surprise. I got a “D” in Latin.

This is a momentous week. One of the pastors from my church contacted me last night. They have a cafe, and because of the bad economy, they had to let the chef go. Guess what they want me to do?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. My campaign of global food domination is finally launched!

They need some people to show up and cook, and they need recipes. I’m somewhat afraid I will kill half the congregation with arteriosclerosis, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

Mmmm…eggs.

All kinds of warped ideas are rolling around in my head. I have a few dishes that are so good they will bring people to church just for the food. Maybe I can get those onto the menu. If I can get Trinity Church to sell my cheesecake, flan, and pizza, I’m sure the people in the neighborhood will notice. There is no good cheesecake anywhere on earth, and good pizza is rare in Miami. Good flan is not that hard to find, but good COCONUT flan, which is what I make, is another matter.

The nice thing about desserts is that I could make them at home, at my convenience, and bring them in and leave them. You could sell a slice of my cheesecake for two bucks, and there are twelve slices in a cake. They could keep it in the fridge and bring out slices as needed. I don’t know if they’d make any money, but I’m sure they’d break even, and don’t even tell me the women in that neighborhood wouldn’t come back for more.

Oh, baby. Strawberry croissants. Maybe I finally have an excuse to use my recipe. Strawberry croissants and pain au chocolat.

I guess I would not be able to eat much of this stuff, but I would enjoy putting my curious gift to work for God. I am still losing fat, due to his generosity.

Because I cook Cuban food and Southern soul food, I know how to make a number of cheap but excellent dishes. That’s a blessing. I could make congri for pennies a pound. Maybe we could serve it with caja-china-style pernil, which is a pork butt roasted with mojo. I could brine it to take the stink out. It would be excellent, and you can get pork butts for a dollar a pound.

I wonder if they’d let me do ham hocks. I love ham hocks, but some black people have a thing about pork these days. “Slave food” and so on. Of course, most of the blacks at my church are from Haiti and the other islands, so maybe they haven’t gotten all stuck up about pork yet.

The church is putting on its three-part Christmas musical these days, so on Sunday, I brought food for the cast. Macaroni and cheese and my startling Unauthentic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Chili. That’s what got me the call from the pastor.

This should be a blast. I better go meet with him.

My Plan

I just looked at the Rasmussen polls. Obama has a 53% disapproval rating. Perhaps there is hope for America after all.

Perry Stone thinks so. I received a copy of the latest Voice of Evangelism magazine, and he thinks the righteous remnant in the US is big enough to motivate God to spare us.

I’m not so sure. God’s judgment tends to work like the delivery of a baby. You get pain and rest, alternating. Eventually, the big bomb drops, or God chooses to spare the people, as he did in the book of Jonah. Here’s what I suspect: sometimes God shakes nations up temporarily so the righteous will get it together and be prepared when the big collapse comes.

Christians all over the US are frantically preparing for hard times. Others are saying, “This is AMERICA. We are the MASTER RACE. We are TOO BIG TO FAIL.” They think we generated our own prosperity and security, because we’re superior to other human beings. They don’t attribute our blessings to God.

Maybe the US will be okay. Or maybe God-fearing people who are preparing will be okay, and many of the rest of us will live in tent Obamatowns. God spares nations, but as far as I know, he only does it when the hearts of the people change, in significant numbers. People don’t seem to have changed much since 2007.

Stone is highly critical of Obama, as he should be. Obama personifies pride, he is the furthest thing from gracious or grateful, his positions on moral issues are disgusting, and he is not good to the Jews, except for the self-hating Jews he employs. Stone is taking chances with his tax-exempt status by criticizing our disappointing secular messiah, but I don’t see how any man of God can keep silent when someone this odd is leading the country.

I don’t understand why a preacher can’t criticize a politician. That seems idiotic to me. Obama advocates allowing newborn babies to die from deliberate neglect. He believes partial-birth abortion, which is unquestionably murder, is fine and dandy. He wants to use our tax dollars to pay for abortion. He wants to slash our religious tax deductions. He believes Israel–the only civilized nation in the Middle East–has been spoiled, and that we need to be “even-handed” with the neighboring barbarians who are plotting to steal the Jewish homeland and kill as many Jews as possible.

Obama can attack the church and its values all day without fear. Why can’t a pastor stand up and tell his congregants Obama is a problem? How is that prohibition in any way reflective of the intent of the First Amendment?

Pharaoh was a politician. So was Herod. So was Hitler. So is Castro. A politician can be an enemy of God. Why shouldn’t God’s servants be allowed to fight back?

This will be an interesting week for me. I’ve decided to have five days of prayer, today through Friday. I want to set aside a certain amount of time every afternoon, to go after some persistent problems. A couple involve me directly. The rest involve people around me.

I love listening to Perry Stone’s father, Fred Stone. I got myself a CD of a conversation between the two of them, and they talked about the power of setting time aside for concentrated prayer. They both said there were times when they had secluded themselves to “pray through” problems. You go off by yourself and get down to business, and maybe forty minutes later, you feel you have found God’s face and gotten the help you needed. I think it’s a great thing to do. The things that happen in the physical world are only reflections of foundations that have been laid in the spiritual world. They are the tip of the iceberg. If you want to get rid of an iceberg, you don’t chip at the top. You have to do something about the part below the waterline.

Fred Stone said there are times in prayer when you push and plead, and finally, “Your faith tells you you’ve got it.” He has been at this for 60 years, so I take his word for it when he says this is the way to go. He also said that when you fast, it’s not always necessary to proclaim a period in advance and then stick to it. Apparently, it’s possible to get your answer during the first day of a three-day fast. He said he had had this kind of thing happen to him. You fast until you get your result, and then you quit. I think that makes sense. Daniel fasted for 21 days, but I don’t think the Bible says he proclaimed a 21-day fast, in advance. The story suggests the fast lasted 21 days because that was how long it took the angel to arrive. I suppose the fast would have been shorter, had the angel arrived sooner.

I hope this will be a breakthrough week. I’m sure it will. The more I progress, the more often I feel God’s presence and his confirmation that he will help me. I keep having experiences where the Holy Spirit just descends out of nowhere, for no apparent reason. It happened to me in the drugstore last month, while I was walking by the refrigerated beverage cases. I could not figure it out. I didn’t know what to do with it. I noticed two college students walking in front of me, speaking in Arabic. I decided to pray for them, since they happened to be handy.

I used to look forward to feeling God’s presence at church, and I still do, but now he shows up regardless of where I am, and I no longer see church as the primary place to feel his power. Fine with me. My church is 18 miles away!

Aside from convenience, there is such a thing as becoming addicted to God’s presence. You miss it when you get distracted for a few hours. You want it back, badly. Talk about a gift. Anything you’re addicted to will be a major part of your life. You will get good at anything you do a lot, so if you’re inclined to do something because of a craving, and that thing is beneficial, you’re very, very lucky.

Sure beats the typical American addiction, which is television. An American who doesn’t run the TV five hours a day is a freak. Imagine what your life would be like if you prayed and studied five hours a day.

It’s very sad that we watch the tube so much. By the time you die, you may have spent twenty years watching strangers play make-believe. That’s what TV is. Play-acting. No more important or real than a three-year-old running around with a towel pinned to his collar, claiming to be Superman. Nice use of your time. A typical person, faced with imminent death, would give anything to postpone it. And then what would most of them do with the added years? TV and the Internet. We are strange creatures.

I will get started on my five-day plan later on today.

Plus Prison Ministry Stuff

Today I went to a class for people who want to help out with my church’s prison ministry. Apart from the pastor running the show, there were five adults present. Not a big group, but enough to start.

We didn’t talk much about the ministry itself. I learned that we’ll have a wing of a local jail handed over to us, but that’s about all I know. We talked mostly about fundamentals. Christians should read the Bible. We should memorize scripture. That kind of thing. Good, solid, essential information.

I don’t know where we’ll go with this, but I’m glad I went. Maybe I can accomplish something worthwhile in my remaining time on earth.

On the way home, going against common sense, I decided to give a local pizzeria another try. My area has two pizzerias that keep going out of business: Riviera Pizza and Cozzoli’s Pizza. In the past, these places have failed over and over, and I believe fake cheese is the reason. I can’t prove it, but the cheese always tasted mealy and disintegrated as I chewed it, and it didn’t really taste like cheese.

This morning I noticed that Riviera was under a third (at least) set of owners, and it got me wondering. My policy is to try any new place in the area, or any place that changes hands, because I figure some day someone will make decent pizza in the South Miami region. Right now we have Domino’s and Papa John’s, which are really bad, and we have Miami’s Best Pizza, which is weird and frequently burned or raw or covered with the wrong stuff. To get good pizza, you have to go to Bird Road (La Dolce Vita) or Ludlam (The Big Cheese), at least.

I decided to be bold this afternoon. I went into the new Gables Pizza and Salad (formerly Riviera Pizza) and asked the owner whether they used real cheese. Why play games? I’m tired of spending good money just to find out someone is feeding me thickened vegetable oil or a quasi-dairy product known almost facetiously as “pizza cheese.” Why not just ask?

Surprisingly, the owner did not seem happy to have a stranger barge in and loudly ask if he was cheating his customers, which is sort of what I did, but he told me the cheese was real, and that it was not all mozzarella, and that it was 2% fat. I think I have that right. He said he did not use Grande cheese because he thought it did not live up to the price and hype. He’s right about that. It’s very good, but it’s not the only good brand out there.

He claimed he had never heard of fake cheese. He must not be Jewish. Jews who keep kosher eat some of the scariest fake cheese imaginable. They call it “parve cheesy.” Anyway, you can Google and read all about fake pizza cheese. They may call it “non standard” cheese, or they may use the innocuous-looking term “pizza cheese” to describe it, but it’s lame, whatever it is.

I ordered a slice of regular and a slice of Sicilian. The verdict? It’s okay! I guess that doesn’t sound like a compliment, but it is. The other stuff available locally is so bad it’s only worth eating when you’re starving. Gables Pizza makes pretty good pizza, and around here, that’s a big achievement. Making pretty good pizza is very hard.

The cheese seems real. It didn’t make me want to get up and dance, but it tastes like cheese. The crust is fine, although for some reason the Sicilian was a little wet. He uses too much salt. The sauce is acceptable. Personally, I’d make it a little sweeter and tangier, and I’d use a little more than he uses. A small amount of sugar and some white vinegar would improve his sauce a great deal. But he’s as good as The Big Cheese and not much worse than La Dolce Vita. That will get the job done, as far as I’m concerned.

This guy did not want to hear my input on the local pizza market, and that was a mistake, because he is in an area that is desperate for good pizza. I know exactly why his predecessors failed, and I know how he could improve his product and be virtually assured of a steady flow of customers. If he would start using Stanislaus Super Dolce sauce as his sauce base, he’d be a millionaire in three years. But there is nothing wrong with solid B-plus pizza, which is what he’s making. I’ll return and buy more in the future. Everyone pray he makes money, so the dark days of bad pizza don’t come back to torment us.

Quick Post

From Heather, whose mom is battling cancer and a bunch of other stuff:

Steve could you ask your readers to pray for my family?
We are trying to get a trailer placed on our property and the construction isn’t going well. We really need some heavenly intervention on our behalf. We had been promised a move-in date of 12/15 and we aren’t anywhere close.
As an aside-you have written before about the contractors in FL, their incompentency can’t hold a candle to the hillbilly jerks we’ve had to deal with on this. They simply don’t know what they are doing and we have construction equipment stuck in the mud that may be our new lawn sculpture because it’s been there two days and no one has bothered to try and get it out. The worst was showing up today at 11AM and leaving before 3P. I am in the middle of this high-risk pregnancy and being stressed is really taking a toll on me.
Thanks so much!