SIR! YES, SIR!

Life cannot get any weirder.

At this minute, unless something has changed, my sister is being tried for two felonies. I decided not to go, because I was up late talking on the phone, and I wanted to sleep late. I guess that shows how concerned I am. But it would not make sense to get more agitated than the defendant herself. That would be typical enabler thinking. Addicts screw up other people’s lives. It’s smart to insulate yourself. It’s very easy to end up brainwashed by the addict, thinking their problems are your problems. Once that happens, you become an extension of the addict. A miserable slave. Forget that. She’ll be convicted or she won’t. My presence won’t make any difference.

God keeps showing me how important prayer (especially prayer in tongues) is. Doing without it is worse than doing without food. A prayer session is like a meal, and you need several every day. Some of the benefits wear off, and then you will find that things start going wrong. Anxiety can set in. So can anger. Whatever your iniquity is, it will try to creep back in. Prayer is like pest control. It requires regular applications.

I have to pray as soon as I wake up, and I have to pray in the middle of the day. It’s best if I get a third session in later, but the first two are really essential.

Today I was distracted by something when I awoke, and I didn’t pray immediately. Later on I noticed I didn’t have the peace and confidence (in God) I usually have. I sat my behind down and prayed in tongues for thirty minutes. At the end I was a different person. Things were so much better. The power was behind me again, propelling me forward.

Over the last week, God has kept reminding me to pray in the middle of the day, and things have started to break loose. The more you pray in tongues, the more miraculous things happen to you. I wrote about this on Friday. Crazy stuff happened while I was dealing with my dad and my sister. Since then more things have happened.

I can’t stand Miami, as I have often said. It’s a godless, stupid city. The traffic is awful. The people are nasty. The ocean used to provide some relief, but I no longer have any desire to fish or fool with boats. I want out. I want to hear English once in a while. I want to live among reasonably polite people. I don’t want to live in a place where it takes half an hour to drive ten miles.

I want a tractor. If I have a tractor when I die, I will consider myself fulfilled.

I thought I might move to Ocala, but lately, the panhandle has started to look good. I have some friends up there, from blogging and Facebook. One friend in particular has had an impact on my life. I’ll call him “Floyd.” Some readers may figure out who he is. He was involved in a church where the Spirit was quenched, and I got him going on tongues, and his life changed. Now a bunch of people he knows are watching my church’s services while “attending” their church.

Anyway, I wondered what I would do for a living up there. I have asked God to provide me with income. Sooner or later I may need it. I would really like to live off royalties from creative endeavors, but I do have a law license. I was talking to Floyd this weekend, and he started asking if I knew anything about a certain area of law. It turns out he may have some legal business to farm out over the next year or so, and while I could do it here, it would certainly be helpful if I could move to the panhandle.

Gee, that would be awful!

I can’t give any details, but it would be a big help to get this work. I keep asking God to lure me to a new location. I don’t want to be driven by misfortune. I want to be attracted by opportunity. Now it looks like God has given me what I asked for.

I wish I could say more, because the testimony is even better than I have made it sound.

I keep asking God to make the work of my hands, talents, and mind relatively slight, so I will have time to serve him and be with him, and so he will get most of the glory. That appears to be panning out. If I got this work, I would be able to maintain a highly satisfactory lifestyle without working a 40-hour week. I am not greedy; I don’t have to max out my earning potential in order to be happy.

I feel that God has forced a surprising degree of passivity on me. For a long time, I’ve believed that God wants to show us what he will do, not what we can do. He hates the motivational crap we hear from preachers. They tell us to get up and work hard. That message is not found in the Bible. You’re not supposed to be lazy, but you are not supposed to mistake yourself for your own provider. Moses was cursed for working too hard. He struck a rock to get water to emerge, instead of speaking to it (Numbers 20), and he deprived God of the glory he should have received for sending the water out supernaturally. God gave the Jews the Sabbath and deprived them of one seventh of their workweek. That ought to tell us how he feels about hard work.

There are so many other examples in the Bible. The Hebrews brought Jericho down by walking and hollering. They weren’t allowed to attack. Altars had to be built from rocks that hadn’t been shaped with tools. Samson couldn’t defend himself with his own strength, but when the Spirit was on him, he killed a thousand men with a donkey bone. The Hebrews fleeing Egypt were armed, but God didn’t let them fight; he drowned Pharaoh’s army while they watched.

My life verse is Zechariah 4:6:

Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

That sounds, and is, wonderful. It means God does most of our work for us. But it carries a strange burden. Sometimes I have to sit by and commune with God when I want to get up and do something in my own strength. That’s sort of embarrassing. A man wants to accomplish things. It’s not natural to have to rest while things are given to me. I feel like Private Pyle, eating his doughnut while the rest of the platoon does pushups.

Hey, I’ll take it. I would rather be an heir to unlimited wealth and power than get by on my own limited abilities. The humility is a little hard to swallow, but it, too, is a blessing.

Your life will change if you pray in tongues regularly. Samson’s hair grew over time, and when it was grown in, it gave him tremendous power. The kingdom of God inside you works the same way. It starts as a tiny seed, and you water it with prayer in tongues, and eventually, it becomes a safe refuge. A fortress bristling with weapons. It might take a year. Maybe you’re teachable, and it will only take a month or two. But it does work.