Add Your Brick to the Wall

Richard from It Baffles Science! is changing his life for the good. He is turning over a new leaf and turning things over to God. He and his wife and daughter have had some trials, and he has decided to ally himself with God in order to get himself and his family healed.

He says:

please pray for my wife’s depression, fibromyalgia, anxiety disorder and PTSD. her name is Beth. pray that the spirit of forgiveness will be opened to her, not just for me but for the other’s who have hurt her in her life.

pray for me and my growth and to strengthen my walk and as spiritual leader of my family and the renewal and transformation of our marriage.

If you are a Christian, you know Richard is in for a renewed assault, so if you have time, please intercede for his protection. I am asking God to send him powerful spirits to war on behalf of his family.

I can’t believe what my blog has become. It may finally be useful for something.

Chewy and Tasty

Okay, try this. Make garlic roll dough, but leave the yeast out. Keep oil away from it. Dump the yeast on a flat surface and knead the dough into it, folding the yeast into the dough over and over.

You don’t have to make the blending perfect. Just get it in there pretty good. Like 90% mixed. Make sure it’s instant yeast, not active yeast.

Make the rolls, using the recipe I gave you earlier.

It will take a long time for these rolls to rise. Maybe three hours. That’s okay, though, because they’ll be very good.

I don’t know if this is autolysing or what, but the baked dough has a nice leathery, chewy quality, and the flavor is better. I’ve added yeast late to pizza dough, and it works fine, even without a significant interval between the mixing of the dough and the addition of the yeast.

To make sauce, use about a quarter-cup of garlic cloves. Add around a quarter-cup of oil, a teaspoon of parsley flakes (dry is fine) and a lot of salt. Oops. Before you add the parsley, grind the garlic and oil in a tiny processor. I suppose you can nuke this stuff to cook the garlic, but you don’t have to.

I made rolls using this recipe, and I ate them. All six. Man, they were good. I wish I had time to use this recipe at church, but the day would be over before the crusts rose.

I would post photos, but there is nothing left to photograph.

MAN, I can cook. Pizza and rolls, at least. This is amazing. God will give you some strange and unexpected things. There has to be a reason for this.

Roll Experiment

Yesterday I decided to try a garlic roll experiment. Big shock, I know.

I have noticed that I get good results when I add yeast long after making the dough, and commenters and other web types have been offering reasons for this. For one thing, there is a phenomenon called “autolysing,” which means letting your flour and water sit for a while before you add the other stuff. Supposedly it improves flavor and texture.

Last night I decided to mix flour, water, and salt, and I added a little fluid from a container of sour cream, hoping the lactobacillus would do something. I stuck it on a table overnight. I’m going to add yeast in a while and make rolls. May also add some sugar. I intended to do that last night, but I forgot to put it in with the other ingredients.

This isn’t the right way to do it, but I wanted to try it anyway, because the right way involves omitting salt, and that would be a pain.

We will see how well it works.

Healing Testimony

Richard at It Baffles Science! has a wonderful testimony up. Came as a big shock to me; he emailed me today out of the blue. There is more to it than what you will see on his site, but here is a start: CLICK.

I’m in Here Somewhere

I have to run a fairly joyful errand today. It’s time to give away these huge, baggy, size 32 cargo shorts and get some in 30.

Pick your jaws up off your keyboards. I don’t know what the real size of these pants is, but it’s not 32. It’s probably 34. Manufacturers mislabel clothes because they know fat people like wearing small sizes. Still, this is pretty great.

This weekend I had to go to the Gap and get a 32″ (nominally) belt. That felt nice.

I was worried about my weight because Mike came to town. We did all-you-can-eat ribs at Sonny’s. We tried Five Guys. You can imagine the carnage. But I’m okay. I may have picked up a pound or two, but the crisis is past, and the trend is still downward, as far as I know.

I should have realized: only fat people have to worry about occasional excesses. I’m not a fat person. To a fat person, a visit from Mike would be a pivotal event leading to disaster. To me, it’s a speed bump and a pleasant break. The miracle God gave me is not going away. I will not be brought down by a few days of good eating.

Listen to me and try to get this for yourself. Don’t let me sit here and blather about it, to no constructive end. Put it to use. Fast and pray. In particular, pray in the Spirit every day, for a good long time. Cast your little visitors out. I’m free. You should be able to get free, too.

Don’t assume it’s limited to food. Do you have allergies? Depression? Chronic illness? Unforgiveness you can’t shake? Anger? I would think that any problem originating in the flesh or the spirit realm would be vulnerable to attack. God gives us the fruit of the Spirit (strength of character) to beat the flesh, and he gives us faith (a fruit of the Spirit and also among the gifts of the Spirit) to beat demons.

My nighttime allergies have disappeared. Can’t figure that out. I didn’t do anything. The other day I awoke and realized I had been sleeping on my back. That’s new. Allergies and a fat neck make sleeping on your back difficult.

Perry Stone said something interesting. Demons like to try to come back after certain amounts of time. He mentioned six months as one such period. I can’t recall the others. They were shorter. I think one interval was two weeks.

This makes sense. Satan is called the Lord of the Flies. What do flies do when you shoo them away? They buzz around and then return. And Jesus informed us that demons like to go back into their hosts.

Some believe “Lord of the Flies” is a corruption, and that the original term meant something like “Lord of Poop.” I am not an expert on the devil’s names, but I saw a spirit stuck to the wall of my house, and more than anything else, it resembled a winged insect. More like a beetle or roach than a fly, but it had wings, and it flew.

And like demons, flies are attracted to rot and death. Some types bite and sting and suck our blood. So I think “Lord of the Flies” is probably correct.

I think it makes sense that as you grow in the Spirit and drop chronic sins, certain negative things will start to fall off without explanation. The other day it occurred to me that increased righteousness will make you “slippery” to Satan. Sin is like a handle he can use to control you, so the less you sin, the harder it is for him to get a grip. And the spiritual power that grows inside you probably drives a certain percentage of your tormentors off, even if you don’t address them intentionally. To a demon, it must be like living next door to a poorly shielded nuclear reactor.

I really look forward to driving all of my giant pants to Goodwill.

Book Recommendation

I want to recommend a book. It’s called A Warrior Culture, and the author is Donny Prater. It’s about the militant attitude Christians should be taking toward Satan’s kingdom. When I say “militant,” I am referring to supernatural warfare. I mean things like prayer and Bible study, not forming a militia to shoot up federal buildings. Let’s not put me on a no-fly list, okay?

Not that I ever go anywhere. To affect me, you would need a “no sit” list.

If I had to sum up the book quickly, I would say it’s about the need for Christian men to get off the couch, go to services, form groups, and stop forcing their wives and daughters and mothers and sisters to do all the work at their local churches. If heaven is anything like the church, there will be three women there for every man. Imagine how miserable it will be. The TV channels will all be about decorating and sewing. The food will be salad. There will be no gun ranges. You won’t be allowed to put your feet on anything. Come on. Are we going to stand for that?

How did the church get so feminine and fruity? Look at the Bible and tell me that makes sense. The Apostles carried swords–on orders from Jesus–and Peter whacked a guy’s ear off. David put a rock through a man’s skull, into his brain, and sliced his head off. Then he carried it home. All of this was God’s idea. Elijah had 450 defenseless idolaters held down and slaughtered like pigs. The temple in Jerusalem could be described accurately as a combination barbecue joint and slaughterhouse; the blood ran like water, all the time. Prophecy says it will run again, so let’s not make up a false vegan New Testament ethic that has no scriptural basis.

Christianity and Judaism were never intended to be built on feminine models. Authority has always been a masculine concept, and God is at his most masculine when he exercises his authority. This ought to be clear to any conservative. Leftism is a perversion which feminizes government, and look at the misery it causes. A leftist nation is like a family where the husband has abandoned his responsibilities and forced his wife to lead.

Evangelist John Gray put it well. He said, “I don’t HAVE a feminine side.” He said God removed man’s feminine side when he opened Adam up and used his flesh to create Eve. We have the ridiculous idea that sensitivity, compassion, and caring are feminine traits. That’s just not true. Women seem to be designed to nurture and comfort and support, and they do those things better than men do, but that doesn’t mean every type of love or unselfishness is feminine.

We have been taught that Jesus was an emaciated little guy who should have had “Push me in the Mud” tattooed on his forehead. A person who would have made a fine wedding planner or hairdresser. Mind you, we are talking about the guy who sent an angel to kill 185,000 Assyrians in one night. This is an all-powerful being who, according to prophecy, will personally massacre so many of his enemies that his robe will be drenched in their blood. That’s one tough florist.

As Donny Prater points out, Jesus was a carpenter, and he worked without power tools. Think about that. A typical table saw runs at 3600 RPM and has something like two hundred carbide teeth on the blade. My saw has a 5-horsepower motor. Imagine trying to do that saw’s work without electricity. Imagine cutting mortises and tenons by hand. Imagine shaping furniture legs and planing boards. Six days a week. We’re talking about a fit, muscular man who worked with razor-sharp tools. Jesus was not a wimp, and he does not expect us to be wimps.

We need to meet regularly and acknowledge God together. We need to admit we can’t do it all on our own. We need to summon our determination and grit and start doing supernatural warfare together. This is what I took away from the book.

When I read about the lukewarm men’s ministries Donny Prater had been part of, I realized how blessed I am. Every Saturday, I meet with a bunch of men. We have breakfast together, but that’s not the point of the gatherings. We open and close with prayer. Our leader presents scriptures and other materials (like A Warrior Culture) for us to discuss. We give our testimonies. We encourage each other. We do exactly what we should be doing.

The book has stories about men who get together, make small talk, stuff themselves, and leave. Prater talks about the difficulties he experienced, putting a real men’s ministry together. Thanks to God and the faithful leaders at my church, I’m not dealing with that.

I also belong to the Armorbearers. We support the pastor from behind the scenes, and we keep the church safe. Some of us carry arms. We just got our first female member, but the organization is primarily male. It’s fantastic.

Every church should have men who work together the way we do. And we’re not the only ones. We have lots of male volunteers in other areas, and there are other prayer groups. The women are way ahead of us, but I think my church is doing better than most.

We have to remember that Christianity is a war. Very literally. It’s the only real war there is, and it’s the oldest and largest war. There are beings we can’t see, attacking us day and night. And we are not independent. Each of us has others depending on him. We need to think about things like that when we’re tempted to slack or give in to sin. The dumb things we do hurt others. You can’t sin against yourself or against God without harming someone else.

Check the book out. You can find it on Amazon. It’s short; you can knock it off in a couple of days. It will help you remember what you were intended to be.

Tic Tac, Please

I’m dying, here. I just made more rolls, and this time I pretty much got it right. I had to eat SIX GARLIC ROLLS. I could not stop. This is the way I usually become aware that a recipe is out of the conception stage and ready for public consumption and fine tuning.

I’ll just tell you what I did. Why keep this from the world?

INGREDIENTS

1 cup high-gluten flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
3/8 cup water (roughly)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar

I do not know why, but it seems like bread tastes better when you make the dough without yeast and then knead the yeast into it. If you have the patience to do that, go for it. Mix everything but the yeast, using whatever method turns you on, and then fold the yeast into it. It’s okay (preferable, in my opinion) if the yeast is distributed in the dough a little unevenly.

As for the water amount, you want dough that is wet enough to work but not too sticky to handle. You’ll figure it out.

You can go two ways from here. You can make a dough ball, oil it (cheap olive oil, not green) and let it rise, or you can roll the dough out, make it into rolls and then let it rise under a sheet of plastic. The second way is how I just did it. The first way may be a little better, since you get two rises and more yeast flavor.

Either way, you will eventually want to flatten the dough into a rectangle about 9″ by 14″. Cut it down the middle, the long way. Cut each half into three strips. Pick a strip up. Double it back on itself. Tie the resulting double strip in an overhand knot and put it on a seasoned pan. Repeat with the other strips.

Cover the pan and let the dough poof up until it looks ready to bake. Put the pan in a preheated 550° oven. Rolls this size will bake in about 5 minutes.

SAUCE

3 oz. (weight) peeled garlic cloves, pureed or pressed
3 oz. oil
salt and parsley to taste

You don’t have to cook the sauce. Mike taught me that. Just dump the hot rolls in a bowl, pour the sauce over them, and toss. Use lots of salt.

If you can use less yeast and let the dough rise for a day or two, it may be a lot better. I will never have the patience to find out.

I truly stink. I have probably eaten an ounce and a half of garlic today. I love it.

Make sure you let the rolls rise enough to prevent them from being heavy and hard. Do NOT put oil in the dough. It adversely affects the flavor of the rolls.

I am dizzy with pleasure. And I can quit making rolls now, since I have the puzzle beaten.

God helps me with this stuff. I am convinced of it.

No photos. I ate the rolls before I could get the camera out.

Stank

I am working on garlic rolls, in hopes that I will be able to produce a recipe that in some way compares to the one Mike uses. My church NEEDS garlic rolls.

I made a couple of batches today. The first batch came out great, but I was not satisfied. They tasted wonderful with the sauce, but without it, they were pretty ordinary. That’s no good. I don’t want mediocre rolls made great by sauce. I want great rolls and great sauce.

The second batch was about the same, except for two things. I cut the dough in thinner strips and doubled them before tying the knots. That makes the rolls more complicated, which is a good thing in rolls you pull apart. I also sprinkled them with kosher salt before baking.

The kosher salt was a really bad idea. It was too much.

Now I’m working on a third batch. This time, I made dough by hand and then kneaded dry instant yeast into it. This makes wonderful pizza crust, so it might be good for rolls. I also omitted the oil from the dough. In the first two batches, I used one tablespoon per cup of flour, and I thought the flavor was inferior to that of the pizza crusts I usually make with this dough.

I can make great garlic rolls already. But what’s the point in making great rolls when you can make rolls that make people faint? That’s a much better goal.

I smell incredible. I wonder how long that will last. I bet chicks will dig it. Yeah.

So Far

These are the rolls with kosher salt. I omitted parsley because I didn’t have any.

I Need a Remote for my AR-15

While I get my truck worked on and make garlic rolls, I am occupying my mind with The Box o’ Truth, which is to guns as Cooking for Engineers is to food. Sort of. It’s a guy who tries to get the real dope on guns, instead of relying on Internet gossip. He tests everything.

He has an interesting piece about shooting a rifle from a rest. It can best be summarized as follows: “Go watch Steve at the range, and don’t do what he does.” This would explain my dubious rifle performance.

If you’re too lazy to go through it, I can hit some highlights. Put a bag under the buttstock. Keep your left hand and arm away from the rifle.

Actually, that’s most of it.

If you do as he says, you will find yourself shooting with a weird-looking rest in front of you, a weird-looking bag under the buttstock, one hand on the gun, and one hand under your arm. In other words, it will not be much like shooting as most of the world knows it, and you will look funny.

I am prompted to ask: at what point do you sacrifice accuracy, just to feel like you’re shooting the gun in a realistic manner? If you tell people how well you shoot, but you do all your shooting in this odd way, are you being completely honest? If you had to shoot somewhere other than the range, would you have all this crap with you, and would you use it? Maybe it’s better to buy a machine that fires the gun. I have one, although I haven’t used it yet.

If you want to find out how your rifle is doing, this kind of shooting makes great sense. But does it teach you how to shoot? If you shoot this way when you train, are you going to be able to hit anything when you have to shoot a deer or a post-Obama neighbor who wants to kill you for your beans and flour?

If this isn’t the best way to learn, what is?

Great site, even if it leaves you confused.

He Will Nail You if You Spill the Beans

I have this feeling. I can’t shake it. The feeling tells me that today, I have to WORK ON MY GARLIC ROLL RECIPE.

Can the feeling be right? I better go to the kitchen and see.

Sunday was not a good sales day at church. A young man showed up to be instructed in the black art of pizza-making, and it turned out that the teaching made the process so slow, we missed part of one rush. But I did make progress toward the day when I don’t have to be in the kitchen every single minute, and I helped a young person learn a vital and rare skill.

Jesus the crazy parking lot volunteer showed up and told the young man that if he revealed my secrets, he would be hunted down like a dog. So I guess he won’t be blabbing.

Down here about 25% of the men are named Jesus. This particular Jesus is a lot of fun. He’s not really crazy, but he can easily convince you otherwise. And he has a tattoo.

Fifty Bucks Buys More Than You’d Think

This is pretty surprising.

A while back I bought a CO2-powered BB pistol, to practice point-shooting. I have been distracted by various things, so I haven’t used it much. Today I decided to get back to it.

I set a target up in the garage. I shot a few rounds at 10 feet, to see what the gun was like, and most of them went into a pretty small area. I could not get 7 yards away, due to space limitations, but I was able to get past 6 yards. I reloaded and started again. Here is the result.

As you can see, for all intents and purposes, within twenty feet, this thing is as accurate as a Glock. You just have to get used to the fact that the BBs go a little to the right. The consistency is what matters. I don’t care if the gun shoots to point of aim.

The results are even better than they look. I had a hard time seeing the sights in the garage, and I have not eaten in a long time, so I am a little wobbly. The gun will definitely shoot better once I eat and put some white paint on the front sight.

This is a fantastic thing. Any time I want, I can go out and work on my marksmanship, and the results will be meaningful. There is no recoil to speak of, so you lose some of the challenge of avoiding anticipation, but that’s what? Five percent of accuracy? I shoot a .22 a little better than a .357, but not all that much. Most of the BB experience should apply to real guns.

I’m already learning good stuff. For example, lighting matters. I’m glad I put night sights on my Glock, because even in the relatively bright light of the garage, I can barely see where the BB Makarov is pointing.

I should be able to use each target for six rounds of shooting, if I put six small pieces of white tape on it to use as marks. Because the gun shoots to the right, I can’t shoot at the right side of the target, but still, six times eighteen shots (the capacity of the magazine) will be pretty economical.

I can’t swear the gun is the reason the shots are veering, but I don’t think I could screw up this badly with an accurate gun. Ordinarily, my big problem is shooting low and to the left. These BBs went in the other direction, suggesting the gun is at fault.

Pretty impressive for a tiny smoothbore pistol that cost 50 bucks. And I get to reuse the BBs!

To practice point-shooting, I’ll need a larger backstop. A tiny box full of newspapers won’t do it. I suppose one easy solution would be a flat box with a bunch of Miami Heralds in it, but I’d need a box at least two feet square.

The box I’m using works great. The BBs go in, hit the newspapers, and fall.

I wish I could adjust the sights. But what do you want for fifty bucks?

Go Away, or I Shall Taunt You a Second Time

God is freaking me out again.

I went to my weekly prayer meeting this morning. The other guys kept talking about scriptures and ideas that had been on my mind in recent weeks. They talked about things I have been thinking about over the last couple of days. Over and over, they seemed to read my mind.

I told them they had to knock it off. That was humor, however.

I keep thinking about the concept of strongholds, and more generally, about doing to Satan what he does to us. He has strongholds, so we should have strongholds. He uses plagues and blights and locusts to ruin our lives, so we should be his plagues and blights and locusts and ruin his life. He lures people into false religions through the promise of supernatural power, so we should fight him with God’s greater supernatural power.

For all his pride, he has never had a thought of his own. We can learn a lot by looking at the tools he stole. We can take them back and use them against him. Turn yourself into a stronghold, and fire into Satan’s kingdom from cover.

God is a creator. Satan is just an imitator. Hey, let’s put that on a shirt.

My newest Cafepress thing is a T-shirt with the world “STRONGHOLD” in the pocket area. That says it all, as far as I’m concerned.

Finish the Day on a Positive Note

Two things.

1. Peg Kaplan lost her pet budgie, Sunny, to an accident the other day. Sunny was perched on top of a door, and Peg closed it. You can imagine how she feels. If you would like to offer a prayer and comment on her blog, she could use the help.

2. Shepherd’s Gate, a California charity which shelters abused women and their kids, found a donor who will give them $5.00 for every Facebook user who becomes a fan of their page. Here is the page.

Learning is my Bag, Baby

I’m baking a test Sicilian.

I bought Sinatra and 6-in-1 tomatoes at GFS, and I also got Primo Gusto flour and Primo Gusto mozzarella/provolone mix. I have tried 6-in-1 before, and I’ve tried the cheese, but sometimes it’s nice to go back over old ground.

The flour sack says “high gluten,” and this flour is rumored to be about the same as All Trumps high-gluten, but the protein box on the bag says 3 grams, not 4.

I’m dividing the pie in thirds. Each third will get a different sauce. It’s a big pie. I’m using a half-sheet pan.

The Sinatra tomatoes taste great out of the can. I was impressed. But that means absolutely nothing. You have to bake sauce before you can judge it.

I am so industrious. I deserve a medal. Who else would spend all this time making pizza and trying it? It’s hard work, but then I am what George Bush was talking about when he kept telling us about “good people doin’ a hard jawb.”

No praise is necessary. It’s enough to know I deserve it.

More

Here’s the deal.

1. Primo Gusto flour makes excellent Sicilian pizza. Maybe I did something different this time; I don’t know. But the crust browned beautifully, and it formed nice big irregular gas pockets. Very nice. Now I know I don’t have to fool with exotic flour.

2. Sinatra tomatoes are good enough to use for pizza, but they’re not a dream come true. They seem to lack the complexity of real San Marzanos, and that’s really all San Marzanos have to offer, in my opinion.

3. The 6-in-1 tomatoes are better than Sinatra tomatoes. They’re sweeter and they have more of a round, fruity California taste.

4. The Primo Gusto cheese tastes okay, but it doesn’t seem to cook and melt the way it should. Too much cellulose, maybe. Or maybe I didn’t preheat the oven enough. But if that were the problem, the crust would have been raw.

5. Saporito is still the king. It was fruitier and tastier than the 6-in-1 tomatoes, and they were better than the Sinatras. Maybe the Sinatras would be better if they were boiled down a little. They are pretty runny after you puree them.

This was a grueling experiment, but I did it anyway, because that’s how I roll. I don’t expect gratitude or admiration. But I won’t object if you foist them upon me anyway.

Some guys are working in the yard, so I managed to give most of the pie away instead of dumping it. They must think Americans are insane.

More

Pizza gallery:

Fill Your Barn Until it Bursts

Have you ever had a day that started on a perfect foundation? It happens to me more and more often. If you get up in the morning, pray in the Spirit, take communion, pray with your understanding, and do a little Bible study, it will put a base of granite under the rest of your day.

I’m sorry to say I fail to do a good job when I get to bed late the night before. I hate the idea of abusing my body with sleep deprivation. Maybe I need to get used to the sacrifice.

This morning, I did fine. So now I feel like I’m ready for whatever comes, and I know that today’s events will work out to be a blessing.

I have some stuff that seems to be worth repeating here.

I haven’t studied scripture today, in the usual sense, but I still feel pretty good. Why? Because I’ve memorized a bunch of psalms. This morning I spent a long time going over them in my mind.

This is a tremendous blessing. It’s fine to learn a paraphrased verse or two (if you don’t screw it up or take it out of context), but there is no substitute for having the actual scripture handy. Approximations and snippets just don’t compare.

The Psalms are very powerful. They are not just idle words. The New Testament quotes them a lot; the authors knew God spoke these words directly through his servants. The Psalms contain many promises and explanations, and if you’ve memorized a psalm containing something you need, the Holy Ghost will remind you of it when the right time comes.

Let’s see. “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” “Blessed is he who considereth the poor . . . thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.” “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.” How many do you want? The supply is huge. I only know something like 20 psalms, and I never run out of material.

I actually had to correct two of those after I typed it, but I got the essence right.

Today I was thinking of my needs and picking out psalm verses to “remind” God of his promises. It seems pretty clear that he expects us to do this. It’s for our own good. He knows our needs, and he knows his promises, but he wants us to know his word and use it.

While I searched my mind for material that would help my prayers, I realized I felt as though I were walking in a garden, picking fruit from trees. Every psalm is like a tree, and every helpful verse is like a fruit you can feed on. Isn’t that strange?

For a long time, I’ve believed that we are supposed to live like Adam. He made his living by managing the earth and serving God. It wasn’t a struggle; the toil and frustration came after the curse. When Adam had a need, he didn’t fill it by his own might, which would have led to pride. He took it from a tree God had planted for him. His living was a birthright; an inheritance. It wasn’t something be built up by burning the midnight oil and straining his back.

Psalm 127 says, “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he giveth his beloved sleep.” In The Complete Jewish Bible, it says he gives believers good things while they sleep. Life isn’t supposed to be perfect. We face persecutions. But where does it say we’re supposed to be slaves who live in penury and defeat?

Scripture, including the Psalms, is an inheritance. We receive it as welfare recipients receive their checks. We did nothing to deserve it. Like the trees of Eden, it was provided for us before we were born. If you don’t learn at least some of the Bible by heart, you’re throwing away a fortune. You didn’t have to plant the trees. The least you can do is harvest the fruit and store it.

Wow, I feel like an ingrate now. But I am an ingrate. It’s impossible to fully appreciate what has been done for us.

Isn’t that the usual curse, for an heir?

I had some other thoughts this morning, which, I believe, came from God. Here’s one: preachers often describe us as though we were battlefields, where we fight Satan and the flesh for control. I don’t think that’s quite right. I think we begin as battlefields and end as fortresses, or “strongholds.”

Think about it. Before you accept Jesus and get filled with the Spirit and clean up your life, you have no walls. Any spirit can enter and raise Cain. People can defeat you. Diseases can have their way with you. All sorts of misfortune came come your way, and you won’t have the weaponry to deal with it.

Afterward, there is a battle. There is a process during which you fast and pray and give and do good works and study, and the spirits start leaving, because you defeat them. Your habits and inclinations improve. Your thought life gets purified. You sin less. Your prayers get answered. Curses end. Blessings come. Your walls rise up to protect you. You begin as an open battlefield, but you finish as a protected, heavily armed enclosure. Maybe it isn’t completely clean, but instead of sewer rats breeding in your pantry and sleeping on your couch, you have timid ants hiding in crevices. Ants are better than rats.

When I thought of this, I thought of monks. Back in Europe, they used to build walls around their monasteries. What did they do once the walls were up? They grew things. They studied. They wrote. They created music. I’m not endorsing a monastic lifestyle. I’m just pointing out one characteristic of strongholds. They often contain gardens. In fact, Eden probably had walls. When man was exiled from Eden, God protected it with cherubs stationed at the east. If it had no walls, they would have been all around Eden. There must have been a gate at the eastern side, and “gate” implies “wall.”

The stronghold concept is fascinating. Temple, fortress, “walled city,” whatever you want to call it; a stronghold is a good thing to make of yourself. And if you pull it off (by God’s power), your children are likely to pull it off, too. Describing the children of a God-fearing man, Psalm 127 uses the term “arrows” and says, “They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” They will speak–presumably prayer and God’s word–to keep enemies out of their strongholds. A flashing sword guarded the path to the Tree of Life after the fall; the sword of the Spirit guards the path into our hearts. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

A funny thing has happened to me lately. Increasingly, when I find myself thinking thoughts I know I shouldn’t think, I see a door in my mind. A steel door. It’s just a plate, like the brown steel plates you see over holes in roadways. The wall around it is green, like the green of a pool table, only darker and with less blue in it. I see that door, and my thoughts change direction. That’s a good thing, because I know that when I open the wrong door to go out, while the door is open, someone else can come in. And that being won’t be a good guest.

If you like hearing the promises of the Bible, you might consider buying some of Wayne Cochran’s CDs. They’re really neat. He recites Biblical promises, over soothing music. He has divided them by category. Some are about protection. Some are about overcoming fear. You might have concerns about the “Word of Faith” flavor of this material, but my guess is that it can’t harm you if you take it the right way. Something to think about.

One of the reasons I loved The Book of Eli is that it encourages people to memorize scripture. I can’t explain that without spoiling the movie, but I can say that there are scenes that show how a knowledgeable believer can have his access to printed scripture taken away, without missing a beat. Some day Bibles will probably be outlawed. It has already been done in some places. They can take it out of your carry-on, but they can’t take it out of your heart.

Right now, Robert Morris is challenging people to spend 40 days memorizing and meditating on a scripture. Got a notice in the mail this week. Funny coincidence.

Set your feet upon a rock, and let God establish your goings. That’s my advice.