Bedeviled by Sean Connery’s Catchy Mantra

Here’s a near-paradox. I love sleep, but I hate rest.

I felt pretty cruddy when I got up today, so I decided to do two things: rest, and stay warm. I think it was a mistake to be active yesterday. And the hotter I get, the better I feel. Except for smelling and sticking to things.

What do you do when you rest? I hate lying around watching TV. I don’t have enough character to do something productive while I rest. This is one of those times when the Internet is actually good for something.

What can I blog about? Here’s something fun. I never, ever redeem my credit card points, and they keep expiring. The stuff you can buy with them is usually not very interesting, so I forget to redeem them, and I lose them.

This year I decided to redeem them for a Sears gift certificate and see what I could find. I decided to get a Fein Multimaster.

This is one of those tools no amateur buys for himself, because they’re insanely expensive for what you get. But when you have a pile of old credit card points and nothing else to do with them, putting them toward the price of a Multimaster seems almost justifiable. It beats not using the points at all.

I have no use for it, as far as I know. Detail sanding, I guess. Cutting things in awkward spaces. That’s about it. I think it’s one of those tools that come into play at random moments, when nothing else works. Like a Dremel.

Maybe I should go lie on my back and listen to religious CDs. I actually enjoy that. If you’ve never had an experience you considered supernatural, this kind of thing can be boring or silly, but when you’ve seen a few kooky things, it’s comforting to hear other people talk about their own manifestations.

What else can I do? No cooking. I’ve gained two pounds. Was it the holidays? Partly. Mainly, I’ve been eating too much because I feel sorry for myself. If I can’t do anything or go anywhere, I should at least be able to eat ice cream, right? That was my line of reasoning. But I am not willing to gain weight, so I had to quit.

I could practice sight-reading, which is like studying Harry Reid speeches while eating liver and waiting in line to have your driver’s license renewed. I’ve decided I’m going to do one of two things: learn to sight-read and give keyboards another chance, or give up the whole keyboard dream. A cousin of mine is married to a famous trombone virtuoso, and she suggested sight-reading as a way of compensating for my deteriorating musical memory. Can’t hurt to try. If I can make myself do it, I might at least be able to compose efficiently, even if I never become a good pianist. Composing was my original goal.

I’m working on improving my memory. I memorize scripture and I am fanatical in my efforts to get enough sleep. And I’m losing weight. I have this idea that being fat is bad for the brain. I’m also taking B1 again.

God gave me a big pile of gifts, and so far, my biggest achievement has been creating the world’s best cheesecake. I realize that’s a major feat which, on its own legs, justifies my elevation to sainthood. But I can’t help thinking I should be accomplishing more. “Cheesecake” makes for a short resume. I hear such beautiful music in my head; surely I was intended to write some of it down.

Christian music was great for a few years, but it seems to be in a slump. Some of the songs they play at my church are so monotonous, you wonder why anyone bothered paying for the copyright registration. If I wrote a song like that, I’d delete it from my hard drive without telling anyone. Christians ought to have quality music again. We don’t want to spend eternity busing performers in from hell whenever we have a party.

I could practice. Or I could go look at YTMND.com for six hours.

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.

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.

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.

Aftermath

I can’t move.

Let’s see if I can critique the meal.

The Showtime turkey was very good, but I found it dryer than a roasted turkey. I got the internal temperature up to 161°, and I knew that wasn’t enough, so I hit it with another half-hour. That came out to about 17 1/2 minutes per pound, which is way above the recommended time. Maybe I did something wrong. The skin was magnificent. It was very dark and loaded with browned-bird flavor. I’ll probably do my next turkey this way, even if it’s not perfect, because it frees up the oven for other things.

Mike told me the texture of a Showtime turkey would be way better than that of an oven turkey. The one I cooked today seemed like every other turkey I’ve roasted.

My dad loved the turkey, so I guess the rotisserie flavor offset the dryness.

I was not thrilled by the mashed potatoes. I tried the ricer again, even though I didn’t like it the first time I used it. I thought it gave the potatoes a heavy texture. I guess that could have been the microwave, though. The microwave makes very good baked potatoes (when I’m in too much of a hurry to do it right), so I don’t see why it would adversely affect mashed potatoes. I guess I could boil a test potato and then use the ricer to peel and moosh it up.

I ate way too much. I guess I can’t be a crusader against gluttony every day. I made a whole bunch of dishes, and a small serving of each would make for a big meal, so there wasn’t much I could do.

Marv and Maynard seem to be enjoying their share. You can always tell when Marv likes his food, because he buries his snout in it and grunts like a small pig.

Scale is Immaterial

I’ll tell you what. Don’t even try to tell me God doesn’t work little miracles in our lives. I have two pones of mouth-watering cornbread baked, the whole place smells like pumpkin pie, there is country ham in the kitchen, I have ham hocks in the fridge, the just-made cranberry sauce is cooling…and I keep forgetting to eat lunch.

Pounds and Pounds of Pleasure

The pork sausage I made is filling my life with joy.

God miraculously delivered me from gluttony. That means these days I just don’t want as much food as I used to, so I eat less. But the custom of having three meals a day is a threat. I’m not all that active, and three real meals–even if small–can be enough to prevent weight loss or cause gain. That means I have to quit eating a lot at at dinner, which is a meal I don’t particularly want to begin with. So I’m shifting the calories to earlier meals.

I’m not hungry in the morning or at night, so I think I’m going to shift the focus of my food day to lunch. That means I need to eat a respectable lunch. This is where pork sausage fits into the picture. I haven’t been able to have a good breakfast for the longest time; it just doesn’t make sense to stuff myself when I’m not hungry. But now I can have breakfast for lunch! I can use my gorgeous antique skillets, which make the best-tasting eggs imaginable! I just had two fried eggs, two sausage patties, and two pieces of toast, and I even let myself have butter!

That sausage is the bomb. It has no gamy smell, the seasoning is perfect, and it seems like the quality lard I used to bulk it up makes it fry up better than store sausage. It’s funny how simple foods can be better than fancy-shmancy dishes served at expensive restaurants. If you can make a really good cheeseburger, you won’t have the slightest interest in mastering complicated cuisine.

Maybe one reason we overeat is that our food is so unsatisfying.

Hmm…I used to overeat when I was eating really good food. Well, it was a fun theory for the ten seconds during which I entertained it.

I can’t wait to make sausage with apple juice in it. I can do that as soon as I eat the…ten and a half pounds of sausage I already have.

Argghh.

Oh…oh…turducken made with pork sausage made with apple juice instead of sugar…oh…

I need to breathe into a bag for a sec.

Ham for the Holidays

I decided I needed a ham. You know how that is. So I went online to look for one.

My cousin Wade says Col. Newsom’s hams are the way to go, and the one I bought back when I was writing the cookbook was jim-dandy. That’s why I recommended Col. Newsom’s. But their prices are out of whack now. They want $89 for a ham.

I found a couple of interesting options. First, I looked at a Tennessee company. When it comes to ham, I like Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. I know Virginia is famous for ham, but I’ve never had any Virgina country ham that I thought was worth eating. Tennessee, I have no problems with.

The company is called Benton’s, and they have a very tempting offering. They sell two types of hams. First, relatively young hams. Second, hams aged until they get a little funky. This is what real country ham is. A ham aged six months or less is a fake. It won’t have the complex flavors and the acidity an old ham has. Benton’s sells hams aged 12-18 months. They run around 15 pounds, and they cost $65.

I thought I might give that a shot, but then I came across Scott Hams, in Greenville, Kentucky. Their hams keep winning prizes at the Kentucky State Fair and other festivals and what not. The fair is held in Louisville, which is practically the same as New York by ham standards, but surely there must be a few people there who have a clue. I called them up, and they told me their hams go a year. They said they would be happy to pack the ham the way I wanted it, which means sliced and bagged, with the hock in its own bag. The ham’s price is $48.50, and that’s a 16-pounder. You can’t beat that deal with a stick. I placed my order. I may try Benton’s eventually, regardless.

I just called them again. I was looking at their site, and they sell good Kentucky sorghum molasses. This stuff is nothing like the nasty molasses most people eat. And they’re selling it for $8.00 per quart, which is very reasonable. I put that on my order.

I just did some Googling, and I learned something interesting. The reason most molasses is no good is that it’s real molasses. The stuff they make in Kentucky is made from sorghum. True molasses comes from manufacturing by-products or something. Stuff they sweep off the floor at sugar mills. It comes from sugar cane and sugar beets. Okay, whatever. I guess what I like is actually “sorghum syrup,” although I have never heard anyone call it that.

Kentucky ham producers have gotten smart and started selling their own versions of prosciutto. I’ll bet it’s excellent.

In a couple of weeks I may have to make me a Kentucky breakfast, with fried ham, redeye gravy, cream gravy, scrambled eggs, bacon grease biscuits, and molasses and jelly. And a big glass of tea. And fried apples. And a portable defibrillator.

I gave up gluttony recently, so I guess I’ll have to find a way to make really tiny biscuits.

More

I unpacked my meat grinder, and it has no impeller! My sausage plans must wait until I can get to Northern Tool.

Bring me More Free Stuff

I got appalling news this morning.

I got up and got on the scale and got a very pleasant reading. I weighed myself again a few minutes later to confirm it, and I got the same reading. Before getting in the shower I removed everything I was wearing and weighed myself a third time, expecting a slightly better result. The weight shot up seven pounds! I reset the scale and tried again. No difference!

Looks like my scale is crazy. I have since weighed myself on a balance scale, and it looks like I am seven pounds fatter than I believed. So my recent weight loss has been merely fantastic. Not shocking and extreme.

I can live with that. Fantastic is not bad. I may have to amend my weekly McDonald’s breakfast order, though. I don’t care. It doesn’t mean what it used to mean to me. The good Lord has made portion control extremely easy, so I guess I can do whatever I have to.

Time to toss the electronic scale. I thought they were more reliable than that. Seven pounds is a huge error.

It’s wonderful to know I don’t have to worry about rebound weight gain. For the first time in my life, I don’t have to think about that. What happened to me is better than having the weight disappear instantly. If that had happened, like virtually every dieter who ever lived, I would be a fat person who was temporarily thin. Instead, I was permanently cured of fatness. That means that now I’m a thin person who is temporarily fat. That’s incredible. Once the fat is gone, it can’t return unless I invite it back.

I was thinking about grace this morning. What a hard message to preach. For centuries, we’ve been telling people they were bad because they did wrong, and we’ve been condemning them and even wishing punishment and failure on them. And we thought we were right. “God helps them who help themselves”; isn’t that what we’ve been told? It sounds evil and self-indulgent to say God will fix your behavior for you. But it’s absolutely true.

Think about it. How did Adam live? He was the first person God created, so presumably, his lifestyle tells us what God intended the rest of us to have. What did Adam do for a living? Did he plant corn? Did he slop hogs and cut hay? No. His job consisted of reaching up and picking fruit off trees God had grown for him. That, quite literally, was his livelihood. God did not want him to work, in the sense that we “work” today.

We are not supposed to earn things. We’re supposed to cooperate and obey and have faith. We’re supposed to go to school and get jobs. We’re supposed to try to be good. But it’s not supposed to be drudgery. The work of our flesh is not supposed to make heroes and martyrs of us.

If you earn things, what does it mean? It means you don’t owe them to God. It means you did it yourself. If that describes your belief, what are you? What word describes you? “Righteous”? No. “Proud.”

On the other hand, what if God gives you the strength to behave, and he gives you peace, and he allows you to prosper without working yourself to death? How are you going to feel? Grateful. Unworthy. Somewhat ashamed. What word sums that up? “Humble.” Doesn’t the Bible tell us over and over that God likes humility? Is there anything it condemns more than pride?

God would rather give us things and have us humble than make us earn them and have us proud. I’m sure of it. How else can you explain the crucifixion? God could have given us tasks that would purify us, but he didn’t. He insisted on making it a gift.

God wants us to have his nature. That’s why he wants us to give all the time. God has a compulsion to give. Generosity is a fundamental aspect of his nature. No sane Christian would deny that; it would be blasphemy. If that’s true, aren’t we obligated to humble ourselves and receive? How can God give if we won’t take?

Am I saying God would spoil us? No. What you give people doesn’t determine whether they’re spoiled. Their attitude determines that. Abraham and Job were obscenely rich. Were they spoiled? I wouldn’t dare say so; it would be a slander. On the other hand, we have poor people in America who are horribly spoiled. They wait for the eagle to fly instead of going to work, they do nothing for others, they vote for people who give them other people’s money, they indulge every unhealthy desire they have, and they still say the system is unfair to them. You can’t hurt a humble, grateful person by giving him stuff and doing things for him. On the other hand, an ungrateful, proud person can only be hurt by gifts. That’s why God often withholds things from people he cares about.

I don’t deserve to be thin. I don’t deserve the other types of deliverance God handed to me free of charge. I will never deserve these things. I have sometimes felt that I had to respond to these gifts by trying to be worthy of them, but that’s stupid. I can’t be worthy of them. I still have to be good, but the purpose isn’t to earn anything. It’s to show my gratitude and to acknowledge that sin and iniquity (evil inclinations) can bring these things back on me.

I am a charity case. I am not a hard worker who earned a just wage. I am receiving welfare and food stamps from God, because I am incapable of taking care of myself. I have nothing to be proud of.

I’m politically conservative, but you could call me socialist in my religious beliefs. Man’s socialism, imposed by governments, is evil. It’s a vile mimicry of the pure, right socialism of the kingdom of God, which is based on voluntary participation by individual believers motivated by the Holy Spirit. I resent giving money to wasteful government programs that addict the poor to handouts and teach them to be proud and weak. I am grateful for the opportunity to donate to the church and religious charities. The money is not the issue. The issue is whether a charity is secular or God-guided. The second type is a fountain of blessings. The first is a money toilet.

Look, Jesus said his yoke was easy and his burden was light. Was he a liar? Seriously, would he lie to us about that? Am I supposed to go on pilgrimages, crawling up and down the streets with bloody knees and a cross on my shoulder? Should I abstain from marriage? Should I beat myself with a flagellum and wear a hair shirt? I don’t think so. I think actions like those are rooted in pride, regardless of how they may look on the surface. I think I’m supposed to be thrilled with what I received and that I should try to help other people receive it. I’m supposed to enjoy the good things I get, without letting them become more important than the one who gave them to me or the other people he wants to help.

If we spend our time yammering at people who misbehave (as I have), telling them how awful they are, we hold ourselves out as superior, which is wrong and counterproductive. The way they are now doesn’t matter. It passes away when they accept Jesus and get filled with the Spirit and begin to get free of their demonic bondages. We need to be telling them that their problems are caused by sin and lack of faith, that they are surrounded by invisible enemies much stronger than they are, that they can be fixed right here on earth, and that it doesn’t matter what they’ve done in the past.

The Bible compares us to unfired pots that have been marred. You wouldn’t throw one out; the clay can be reshaped. It’s stupid to fixate on the defects, because they’re curable and have no relationship to the quality of the final product. And when the repair process begins, you don’t get upset over setbacks. You don’t worry that it takes time, and that it’s a gradual process. You know it will work, so it doesn’t matter if it’s not instantaneous. These things are true, so how can condemnation be a good idea? Warning, sure. Condemnation? Probably not.

It’s so easy for the enemy to fight this message. Our consciences agree with him. They tell us we can’t expect to be spoon-fed and pampered. It feels so righteous when we claim we need to work real hard and bleed and suffer and deny ourselves. But there’s nothing righteous about it. It’s evil. You are not supposed to obey your conscience. It makes mistakes. You’re supposed to obey God.

Many times, God commanded the Jews to ignore their consciences. He forbade them to pity the people he had selected for death or punishment. Under Joshua, the Hebrews had to slaughter children and pets and old people. What you think is right isn’t what matters. Fortunately, we don’t have to do things like that any more. But we do need to give up the idea that we have to earn things from God, using our own strength as the primary means. God is like power steering. We provide a little bit of strength–in faith–and he provides the rest. Admit your faults, repent, fast, and pray. Fight your demons God’s way. They will lose, and you will change.

The enemy hates this message because it provides acceptance and hope, and because it’s based on the reality that evil spirits exert control over most people, not just a few. We can run these spirits off and experience greater self-control and happiness; then we’ll be able to help others do the same things. That’s what we’re supposed to do. Jesus told us to preach the gospel, heal the sick, and cast out demons. If you’re casting out demons, you’re overthrowing Satan’s kingdom. It’s a revolution, and Satan is being deposed. He’ll do anything he can to shut this message up, and he has pretty much succeeded for almost 2000 years. I believe we are now seeing a reawakening, and that grace–God’s unearned help–is going to set hundreds of millions of people free from sin, disease, and curses in the coming years. I think the war has resumed in earnest.

One test of the validity of a doctrine is the anger it stirs up in well-meaning Christians who cling to error and live in failure. If you don’t make the blind guides furious, your message is probably just making things worse. The enemy has always killed and persecuted those who told the truth. He doesn’t usually crucify his servants. He loves opposing the truth from within the church. Many prophets have been killed by believers instead of heathens. Believers tried to push Jesus off a cliff on the first day of his ministry. The Romans had no interest in him until some of his own people demanded that he be killed.

I can see why the Bible predicts increased persecution toward the end of the age. This message is getting more popular, and it has always drawn a violent response.

Bigger Pantry Needed

I guess people get tired of reading things like this about the food I make, but…the sweet pickles I made turned out to be the best I’ve ever had. Even better than my grandmother’s. I can’t believe pickles can be this good. After a day in the fridge, the salt and seasonings did their thing, and the result was magnificent. Now I’m worried about having these things around. Dills are virtually calorie-free, but sweet pickles are loaded with sugar. I was miraculously delivered from gluttony back in August, but that doesn’t mean I need to tempt myself.

I’d post the recipe, but it came from a cookbook, so you ought to just get the book. Besides, I’m sure there are a million similar recipes on the web. I omitted the onions from the book receipe, and I used white sugar instead of brown. Other than that, it’s exactly what you’ll find in Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes, and Honest Fried Chicken.

Church was amazing last night, and this morning, I got a startling answer to prayer. Unfortunately, I can’t describe it in any detail, because it involves another person’s private business. All I can say is this: when you know someone whose behavior is atrocious, and you want to change it, fasting and prayer will give you surprising results. People have free will; no doubt about it. But that doesn’t mean God won’t work his persuasive powers on them. Besides, some bad behavior is due to demonic oppression, and your fasting can clear that up in another person.

This morning it occurred to me that I should always attack problems spiritually before acting in my own strength. I can’t say all problems are rooted in spiritual causes, although maybe they are. I can say that all problems should be attacked via spiritual warfare before we step in and screw things up with our blind bumbling. I think maybe this was what Jesus was getting at when he talked about turning the other cheek and so on. It wasn’t so much that it’s good to be a loser. His point, I think, was that your first response to hostility or adversity should be spiritual, not fleshly. Maybe I’m wrong. Either God put this stuff in my head, or it’s wrong, and I came up with it myself.

Last night at church, I told my pastor and one other person that things are going so well for me now that I don’t have any real problems. I have relatively trivial difficulties, but nothing major. I said that these days, it’s the people around me who have problems. They’re the ones I think I need to apply the bulk of my energy to. I may have sounded arrogant when I said all that. I certainly hope not; I was trying to comment on God’s goodness to me.

Here’s a funny thing about Christianity. When you talk about the great things God is doing for you, other people may take it as boasting. We’re all trying to get our lives sorted out and walk in blessings, so when someone else does well, it may seem like that person thinks he’s a better Christian than you. That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m just saying…this stuff is WORKING.

The Psalms say, “My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble [or ‘needy’] shall hear thereof and be glad.” That seems to indicate the intelligent and constructive way to receive another person’s good news. If someone else gets something good, the smart thing is to try to find out what they did right.

I guess I was wrong to get up and do the Church Lady Superior Dance during the altar call. That, I regret.

I forgive the lady who sacked me and sat on me until the ushers arrived with the wheelbarrow. I wish I knew her name so I could return her weave. I probably shouldn’t be using it to dust my CD collection.

One of the funny problems I have right now is that my weight loss has made my skin break out. The weight loss has irritated my gall bladder, and the end result is slight skin problems. I guess I can live with that. It’s not like I have leprosy. Fifteen or twenty pounds from now, the weight loss should stop, and then I’ll be at equilibrium, so the stress to my body should go away.

Gall bladders are catch-22 organs. If you get fat, you become susceptible to gall bladder trouble. If you lose weight, during the process, you’re likely to have gall bladder flare-ups. Your gall bladder wants you to stay fat so it never gets well. Presumably, when I’m no longer fat or losing weight, I’ll be just fine.

I started taking a disgusting daily tonic of lime juice, olive oil, and oil of oregano, and I feel a whole lot better. And it gives me a use for my gigantic supply of fresh limes. Oil of oregano is loaded with terpenes, which are supposed to be hard on gallstones. It amazes me that medical science has absolutely no effective treatment for gall bladder disease. They know virtually nothing about preventing it. They don’t even try. I guess jerking gall bladders out at $5000 a pop is just too easy. Medical science has decided God made a mistake when he gave us gall bladders. They used to feel the same way about tonsils and appendices, but that’s changing. Bodies are like cars. I trust the engineers who design cars more than a slackjawed mechanic who tries to fix them.

New Milestone

Yesterday I felt like McDonald’s was getting an unhealthy grip on me. I decided to forgo my usual Saturday McMuffin breakfast. I felt led to do that. Today I got up, and THREE MORE POUNDS WERE GONE. I’m down over twenty.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. I can’t believe it! Don’t even try to tell me this isn’t supernatural. For months, I’ve been losing weight because I’ve had the God-given willpower to eat like a normal person instead of a food addict. But yesterday, the fat just plain fell off, with no explanation. I’m within TEN POUNDS of my goal. If I can take another five pounds off after that, I’ll be almost as thin as I was when I boxed.

I don’t know why I talk in terms of goals. I’m not doing this in my own effort. I don’t know where it’s going to stop. But I have a weight I hope I reach.

Everyone thinks I’m a kook, so I’ll continue being honest and adding fuel to the fire. I think uncontrollable weight gain (the kind most fat people have) is imposed on us by demons. I strongly suspect that a typical fat person has more than one spirit working against him. And I think they depart in stages. The toughest, meanest one is the one that puts the first twenty pounds on you. That one is nearly impossible to get rid of. You can overcome the other ones in your own strength, but the primary one will stay and fight, and it will beat you over and over. When it beats you, the others come back, and they like to bring new friends. I seriously believe that. I think this is what Jesus referred to when he talked about a spirit returning to a clean house and bringing seven spirits worse than itself.

When you get what low-carbers call a “whoosh,” which means a sudden loss of several pounds, it probably means one of your enemies just gave up and left. This is warfare, and warfare works that way. When you lose, you give up positions one by one, until the enemy is in your country. Whatever has been oppressing me is losing, and I am taking ground in steps. Like the Hebrews under Joshua. First Jericho, then Ai, then the rest of Canaan.

I think these things get power over us because of the way we and our ancestors act. We say horrible things. We do horrible things. Demons get permission to afflict us, and God doesn’t listen when we ask for help, because we haven’t repented. Then we and our kids end up with persistent, seemingly hereditary problems like alcoholism, food addiction, divorce, failure in business, and violence.

If you decide a little bit of sin is okay, and you carve out a place for Internet porn, gluttony, drunkenness, greed, anger, workaholism, vanity, arrogance, self-righteousness, or some other failing, you leave the front door open, and you don’t know what will come in. You can’t say, “I’ll be 95% pure, because that’s pretty good.” That’s like trying to stay six weeks pregnant forever.

I have control over what I eat. I have sexual self-control. I have also been delivered from unjustified anger, although it keeps trying to get back in. My deliverance wasn’t just a fat thing. It’s not a mystery illness. I don’t have cancer. It hit several areas. Please don’t try to tell me I did it, or that I lost weight because fasting days dropped my average daily calorie intake. That wouldn’t explain sexual self-control. Those explanations are all filthy, stupid lies. I could not do all these things for myself. I don’t know how. I wasn’t particularly upset about being fat. I wasn’t lying on my face praying about it all day. God picked this time to deliver me, for reasons of his own. It came as a complete surprise.

And it’s going to spread to even more areas. Hopefully, it will spread to other people.

Every morning, I take communion, and I search myself for bad acts (sin) and bad attitudes (iniquity), and I confess it and repent and ask God to drive it out. I think this is the correct purpose of communion. It’s not really the blood of Jesus. It’s not really his flesh. There is no miracle change. Come on; flesh and blood do not taste like crackers and wine. Jesus was not a cracker. The miracle–which truly is miraculous, because the means is supernatural–is deliverance from problems you and your ancestors have imposed on you through rebellion and ignorance. This is why communion can bring physical healing. Illness is often the result of sin and iniquity. God does punish people physically. He did it in the Bible, and he does it now. Why would he change?

I am not stating all of this as fact, althought the parts supported by the Bible are definitely true. This is how I see things now. I am no authority, but my experiences bear out these observations. If it all rings true to you, take it up in prayer and see if you get what I’ve gotten.

This week someone tried to tell me these good things happened to me because I was special to God. I corrected that revolting lie in a hurry. It’s not because I’m special. It’s because he’s special. Anyone can have what I have.

Here’s what I think you have to do.

1. Accept salvation, properly, giving yourself completely to God.
2. Get baptized in water, to acknowledge your salvation before other people.
3. Get baptized with the Holy Spirit.
4. Pray every day with your mind.
5. Pray every day in tongues, as much as you can make yourself. The Bible says this builds you up, and I have found it to be true.
6. Take communion often, searching yourself for sin and iniquity, confessing and repenting on your own behalf and on behalf of your ancestors, and asking God for deliverance. Never stop. Never decide you can tolerate a chronic sin or a bad inclination.
7. Fast and pray often, and when you fast, make sure you spend a good deal of time praying for the things from which you need deliverance.
8. Give to ministries and the poor, and to help the Jews and Israel.
9. Try to be good.

If you can do all that (pretty easy), I think you’ll have such a powerful foundation, the rest will take care of itself. I know there is more to Christianity than this, but I found that doing these things got God working in my life, and that caused the other things to get done. I found myself reading the Bible, going to church, listening to good teaching, reading helpful books, and so on.

If you can’t do it all, do steps 1-5. If you blow a day, start again the next day. If steps 1-5 are too much to ask, you are beyond help, because you won’t help yourself.

Think of this as your fallback position. Your base camp. This is as far back as you will let the enemy push you; you will always do this much, even if you don’t do anything more. If you can hold this line, you will end up taking ground sooner or later. You will end up doing more and seeing blessings in your life. I really believe that.

Use a timer to make sure you spend enough time in private devotion. You can spend three minutes a day praying in the Spirit, surely. You can spend five minutes praying with your mind, and five reading the Bible. Start with what you can do, and later, you’ll have the character to do more. Start with a mustard seed and water it daily. It will get bigger. Don’t expect it to happen instantaneously, although sometimes you’ll get huge, instantaneous leaps in progress. Your direction is more important than your location. Never forget that. At one point in Columbus’s first trip to the New World, his ship was three feet from a dock in Spain. That’s the nature of a journey. It shouldn’t discourage you. And it shouldn’t bother you if you get pushed backwards once in a while. That happens to everyone.

Jesus told his disciples to preach the gospel, heal the sick, and cast out demons. These were the right things to do two thousand years ago, and they’re the right things to do now. If believing him makes me a kook, so be it. I will be a thin and healthy kook, and lots of Christians who disagree with Jesus will be fat and miserable.

No Biscuit Today

I love my weekly McDonald’s breakfast. I got in the habit back when I observed “fat day.” I limited my calories during the week, and then on the weekends, or just Saturday, I ate whatever I wanted. You can lose weight this way, but if you’re not careful, one day of gluttony can overcome six days of starvation, and you’ll add fat.

I don’t do fat day any more, but I still like to have my Mickey D’s on Saturday morning. My yankee uncle taught me that ketchup and eggs go together, and when I eat McMuffins and McDonald’s biscuits, I dip them in ketchup, and it’s heavenly. The rest of the week, I eat senior citizen fiber cereal, to avoid becoming a colonic casualty. Cereal is okay, but it’s not exciting.

Today I decided not to go to McDonald’s. Just because I had the power to say no. God delivered me from gluttony, and I’ve lost a lot of weight, but I’ve eaten a little more than I should on Saturdays, and I’m afraid I may have plateaued. I’m not having that. I want to lose thirteen more pounds. For the first time in my life, I have complete control over what I eat and drink, so I’m flexing my muscles and saying no.

I feel like I’m showing off, spiritually. Not to you, but to myself. It’s almost a snotty thing to do. I’m confident there are little beings assigned to me to make me overeat, and this is my way of shouting, “In your FACE.” I would rather enjoy that than have the food. Yesterday my sister said she wanted to get ahold of a demon some day so she could beat the tar out of it. What Christian hasn’t felt that way? I wish I could pummel one, too, but for now, I am enjoying frustrating them by not gorging.

I don’t care if I ever have another McMuffin. I suspect I will. I think you can bet on that. But if I don’t, I do not care. God has made McMuffins my McFootstool. I got something better than McMuffins.

Which is really saying something.

I picked up some canning equipment yesterday. It was either that or throw out a great number of hot peppers. I’m going to try to can them today. When you can stuff, you can do it at 212° for acidic foods or 245° for non-acidic foods. Acid keeps botulism down; if you don’t have acid, you need high temperatures to kill the spores. I don’t want to put vinegar in all my peppers, because it will affect the flavor when I use them in food. That means 245°, so I’ll have to use a pressure cooker.

I already had a pressure cooker, but it’s an expensive Magefesa with a small bottom. Not great for canning. I picked up a much cheaper Presto yesterday. I doubt it will get as hot as the Magefesa, but it will be fine for canning.

It amazes me that I found this stuff locally. No one cans in Miami. Everyone in Kentucky does it. There are some foods you pretty much have to can for yourself, if you want to have them at all. Pickled beans. Canned pork sausage (way better than it sounds). Sweet pickles that beat the daylights out of store brands. My grandmother and aunt and lots of other female relatives canned stuff. Some men up there can, too. Women aren’t the only ones who like food. Anyway, canning supplies would be easy to find anywhere in rural Appalachia, but finding them in Miami…that’s shocking.

The place I went to is called Goodman’s. I found it on Ebay, and I noticed they were in Miami, so I saw no point in doing mail-order. They were very helpful. The girl who took my order even carried my jars to the truck!

I think I’m supposed to get a special chemical to keep stuff crisp. Calcium chloride or something. Other than that, I’m all set.

My dad and my sister will be all excited. They miss home-canned stuff as much as I do. I can’t wait to try my hand at sausage. I loved that stuff. I thought I’d never see it again.

The jars are insanely expensive. I suppose intelligent people amass collections and take good care of them. I got 24 half-pints and 12 pints. I don’t think quarts are practical for me. Maybe if I start making tomato juice. If I could find ripe tomatoes, I could make incredible tomato sauce. Maybe I can use grape tomatoes. They’re fantastic, and they’re fairly cheap at Costco. Cheap enough to justify the effort.

I got a couple of pepper recipes. We’ll see how it goes. If it works out, beans and sausage and pickles won’t be far behind.

Food Seems Big

Today I had a new experience. I went to a restaurant, and when it was over, the waiter asked if I wanted him to box up the remainder of my food.

“The remainder of my food.”

My food never had a remainder before! I didn’t know what to do with it. I decided to let him stick it in a box. I felt like a woman. What man brings half-eaten food home from a restaurant?

The weight loss continues. I can turn down bread. I can turn down fries. All these foods that used to be stronger than me…they roll over and give up.

I am reminded of a story the psychologist Fritz Perls told. A violinist came to him and complained that he had cramps and discomfort while he played. Perls watched him play, and he saw the problem. The man was standing with his legs crossed, so his body was contorted. Perls made him stand up straight, and he found himself playing without discomfort. He started to cry, saying, “I won’t believe it. I won’t.” In an instant, his life was changed.

God confirms himself over and over and over, but the more blatant he is, the harder I find to accept what he has done. I’m down about 17 pounds now, and there is no end in sight, and it’s such a beautiful gift, a little voice in my head keeps telling me it can’t be true.

I had something really strange happen last night. A guy from church–his name is John–called on very short notice and said he needed some help with a business function in Fort Lauderdale. You can imagine how much interest I had in this, but Christians help each other, right? And he does all kinds of things for the church, and he was in a bind. So I got it together and drove up there. I had to borrow a car because the truck’s “check engine” light was on.

It was raining. I mean torrential rain. The kind of rain you only see in Florida and Texas. Cars were creeping. And I was all dressed up. I had put on some of my expensive lawyer duds. I was very worried that I’d ruin the jacket, walking in that downpour. The rules say that when you have a problem, no matter what it is, you pray. So I did. I prayed that the rain would stop before I got out of the car.

When I was less than half a mile from the hotel where the function was taking place, the rain was still hammering I-95. John called and informed me that there was a parking garage, so I wouldn’t get wet. That was a relief. Then I took the exit and turned right…and the rain had stopped. I looked at the windshield of the car, and I couldn’t find one new drop of rain. Looking out at the road, I saw a few drops landing here and there. I didn’t know what to do. I heard myself tell God that it would be a better story, for his testimony, if the rain stopped completely. And it did. And I didn’t need it! There was a garage!

That really happened. I should have said, “While you’re at it, how about filling the trunk with hundred-dollar bills?”

After the function, I got to talk with John and a couple of other people from church. They started talking about going to the gun range. Why is it all Christians shoot? We also talked about my cookbook. I enjoyed it a great deal. It’s okay to be the lone kook in the crowd, but sometimes you want to be with the other kooks.

I hope I get to shoot with them. While roasting a pig and using machine tools. That would pretty much combine everything I like.

The Belt of Truth is Too Big

Today I have to go shopping. I have to give up on my size 34 Old Navy cargo shorts. They are too danged big. They’re going to charity.

They’re not really 34″ shorts. I would guess they’re more like 36s. Retailers know fat people like to pretend to be smaller than they are, so sometimes they put misleading labels on their clothes. Still, I am swimming in these things, and it’s getting on my nerves. I also need to replace my aging Abercrombie & Fitch 34″ belt. I’m on belt loop number six, and there are only seven. A couple of months ago, I was on three. Now the loose end flaps around when I walk. On top of that, between the belt loops, the waistbands of the shorts are sneaking out and wandering around because they don’t fit where they used to.

It’s all God. I haven’t done much of anything. I don’t have the old craving for carbs and grease, so now I can choose what I eat, without fighting an addiction every time. I still want food, but when I have a choice to make, the ratio of willpower to desire is much, much higher than it used to be, so I win consistently.

I think there are stages of iniquity and bondage. If you weigh 800 pounds, it’s pretty easy to get down to 300. It’s harder to go from there to 200. If your proper weight is 170, the last thirty pounds will be impossible to lose, or nearly so, and if they come off, they’ll jump back on in one month of backsliding.

This stuff is spirit-driven. I have no doubt of it. Jesus was referring to diet rebound, among other things, when he said that when an evil spirit leaves a man, it wanders, returns, and brings seven worse spirits with it. I seriously believe this is why there are plateaus in weight loss. The really stubborn enemies keep the final pounds on you. The wimpy ones are not hard to beat.

I don’t care who thinks I’m crazy. Bondage is bondage, whether it’s cocaine or cheeseburgers. Don’t tell me people get up over 400 or 600 or 800 pounds simply because they’re lazy. When you let something that terrible happen to you, you have a major, major problem. If it were just a laziness issue, in most cases, the sight of the blubber in the bathroom mirror would be sufficient to motivate people to change. I’m sure there are some people who are too sorry to care, but lots of fat people live in utter misery and would do almost anything to fix themselves. At my worst, I’ve probably been 55 pounds overweight, and it drove me up the wall.

I brought the bondage on myself. I ate like a pig, and I had other problems, like self-righteousness and unforgiveness and selfishness and general backsliding.

My big problem now is that I eat so little, I tend to eat a higher proportion of unhealthy food. Last night I came home from the prayer meeting, and I decided I absolutely had to have a Coke. So I got one, and I drank it, and I ate half of a big Hershey bar with almonds. In the morning, I ate a small bowl of fiber cereal that tasted like fiberglass insulation, and in the afternoon, I had a Granny Smith with some peanut butter. Those things were okay, but the Coke and the candy were not optimal choices. It happened because I didn’t fix dinner; the prayer meeting got in the way. I need to plan better.

My blood pressure is going to drop. I’m going to feel lighter. My gall bladder and digestive tract will be healthier. My blood sugar will not be an issue. My knees won’t be stressed. Doctors will consider my visits a waste of time. I’ll be able to move without my gut getting in the way. If I ever had circulatory issues, I can forget about them now. I’ll look a whole lot better. This is an astounding gift. Surely you can forgive me for writing about it all the time.

It would be great if I had a dramatic story about being deaf and blind for twenty years and then suddenly being healed. It would be wonderful to be able to say I was delivered from a meth addiction after living behind a dumpster for a decade. I know fat isn’t as exciting. But this is magnificent! There are no words big enough to express my gratitude and amazement. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t earn it. It was dropped on me like a pallet of airlifted MREs.

I wonder if I’m going to be able to help anyone else get this, or something like this. I wonder if anyone will be impressed enough to listen. If it will work for fat, shouldn’t it work for lust, greed, drugs, booze, violence, compulsive spending, chronic anger, racism, and other types of bondage? Why not? Fat is a pretty tough nut to crack. Getting over it is no joke. People die from gluttony every day, and they don’t want to. It’s a powerful thing.

I think I know why I’ve had so little success in talking to other people about God. The main reason is probably that I was such a phenomenal idiot, I made an unacceptable representative. But now that I’m cleaned up a little, he seems to be bringing people to me. Maybe I’m less embarrassing than I used to be. And the fat thing is a tremendous selling point. Nobody wants to hear from a Christian whose life is messed up. If it hasn’t worked for you, why would I expect it to work for me? Now I have a triumph to point to. In fact, I have a number of things. I haven’t listed all of them here. If I have something that will make people jealous, maybe they’ll be more inclined to try to get it.

I would have serious doubts about listening to a preacher who was obese, or who smoked cigarettes, or who routinely said mean things, or who had a mountain of debt. Anything like that. If you can’t win, how can you teach other people to win? If you don’t realize you have a problem, how can you identify other people’s problems? On the other hand, I would not want to hear from a guy who was born perfect (with one obvious exception) and who had a trouble-free life. If you haven’t been oppressed, you don’t know what other people go through. And your skills for fighting oppression may not be strong. Some people who have no major problems are in serious trouble. Their problems exist. They just haven’t manifested themselves yet. When people like that crash, they’re probably like bubble kids without immune systems. Like Nebuchadnezzar, who went insane and grazed like a cow for seven years.

Mmm…cows…steak.

I guess one cheeseburger won’t hurt me.

Nor for the Cheesecake that Flyeth by Day

Back in August, after a fast, I experienced an odd result. I no longer felt compelled to overeat. I had fasted many times in the past, but this change was unprecedented. It had nothing to do with my stomach shrinking or any other physical explanation. And I also found I had more peace, and that I had new and near-perfect self-control in some other areas of my life.

I believe I was under the influence of hostile spirits. Robert Morris says that when we have an evil inclination, it may be demonic, and that it may occur because of our sins or the sins of our ancestors. At that stage, it’s an “iniquity.” When it becomes uncontrollable, it’s a “bondage.” That appears to be what happened to me. I could beat it temporarily, but it always came back.

My dad has a terrible weight problem. My sister has had her struggles. My dad’s sister is worse than either of them. These things go after the children of families they know to have vulnerabilities.

Yesterday I got worried because before lunch, I grabbed a half-empty pint of ice cream and finished it. Breakfast had consisted of a small bowl of cereal, and I was hungry. I wondered if I was asking for trouble. A little voice in my head told me my victory over gluttony was a delusion. It reminded me of the big meal I had cooked on Saturday.

At lunchtime, I wasn’t very hungry, but I had to have something, because I was feeling a little weak. I decided to have a PBJ. I started to think about all the calories in the peanut butter. I decided to use one slice of bread instead of two, so I could make a half-sandwich. And I didn’t feel the old familiar internal urging, telling me to go ahead and have the whole thing because I had been good all week.

When dinner time rolled around, I realized I wasn’t hungry enough to make cooking worth the trouble! So I skipped dinner.

Today I got up and weighed myself. I’m down two more pounds! I’ve crossed another “zero threshold.” You know what I mean. Every time you go past a zero, like from 230 to 229, it’s a threshold. “If I could only be under 200 again.” “If I could only be under 150 again.” If you’re fat, this is how you fantasize.

Overeating was a major problem for me. I could control myself well enough to avoid obesity, but that was about it. In fact, I sometimes crossed the line into obesity. It was a royal pain. My face got big and wobbly. My pants always felt like they were cutting me in two. I felt uncomfortable when I exercised. I was about as attractive as Jabba the Hutt in a wig. I can’t believe it’s gone. I have been supernaturally delivered from it.

I’d give anything to get the same thing for my dad. I don’t want him to spend his remaining years putting up with something that ruins his enjoyment of life.

The other day I was watching Robert Morris, and he said something fascinating. He listed the three things Jesus told the disciples to do when he sent them out. They were to preach the gospel, heal the sick, and cast out demons. Healing the sick and freeing people from bondage were so important to him, he ranked them right up there with preaching salvation by faith. How many churches limit themselves to the gospel? No wonder life is so hard. Everyone on the planet has demons assigned to him, and only a tiny percentage of us have the tools to break them.

Mentioning demons in a mainstream church is a great way to get funny looks from people, but Jesus dealt with them constantly. Was he crazy? Was he just an eccentric character? No, he was God. If God says there are demons, why do we ignore them? I’ve seen the nasty things with my own eyes. I don’t need to be told they’re real. Why are we embarrassed to talk about them and admit they’re part of our lives?

We’re supposed to be able to alter our inner drives, so obedience comes easier. Once obedience and trust are in play, blessings come. Chastisements stop. A Christian who stops at salvation never gets to the point where God can do all the good things he wants to do. I believe it. I’m seeing it in my own life.

I still have some things I want to get rid of. I want to be less cranky and judgmental. I would like to be more empathetic. I don’t want to trust money more than God. If God can make me stronger than pizza, he can do anything. Surely help is on the way.

As things improve, I become more convinced that I have to watch my behavior. The more power I have over myself, the more blameworthy I am when I screw up. And I think any person who gets delivered attracts the attention of the enemy, and when I stumble, he’ll be there to slip in through the crack I made. He has always had a special hate for me; I remember supernatural attacks and hostile manifestations that took place when I was three and four years old. The Bible says God turns people over to torment when they disobey. There are forces out there working to take this away from me and make me sorry I wrote about it, and I don’t want to help them. I’m trying to remember that I’m on a short leash.

Lately, when I’ve prayed in the morning, I’ve asked God to make me and my family the devourer’s devourers. The destroyers of the destroyer. I want us to ruin his harvest, the way he has ruined ours. I want to be his lice. His cockroaches. His fire ants. His leprosy. His cancer. I want other people to get what I’m getting. This was the mission Jesus started; all the jibber-jabber about being nice and not hitting anyone back is just part of the picture. Without the rest of the plan, it’s garbage. Utterly worthless. You can be the nicest, fairest, most honest person on earth and waste your entire life and live in defeat. If it were about being nice, Jesus could have skipped being born and crucified and allowed us all to become Buddhists.

I feel like we’ve all been ripped off, and it’s time to put a stop to it. There are junkies and alcoholics and perverts out there who can’t help themselves–who genuinely want help–and here it is, waiting for them, and no one knows how to get it to them. If a guy who loves food like I do can put down the fork by God’s grace, even crackheads have hope.

Check out Robert Morris’s stuff and see what you think. It seems like the purest message I’ve seen.