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Evangelist Judah Smith spoke at my church last week. Today he has a prayer request, via Twitter:

Hey everybody could REALLY use your prayers right now for Dad- he has a mtg at Mayo Clinic today @2pm- we need great favor! Thnk u!

Don’t know what’s happening, but people don’t go to the Mayo Clinic over trifles.

I Cannot Have Problems

More interesting stuff is happening.

Last night at church, I worked as an armorbearer. When I do this, I carry a two-way radio with an earpiece and microphone. You know those curly plastic things Secret Service guys wear in movies? That’s what I’m talking about. The correct name for the earpiece rig is “surveillance kit.”

At the end of the service, I tried to pull the earpiece out of my ear, and the tube came loose, leaving the end of the kit deep inside my skull somewhere. Whoopee.

Ran into a friend hosting a prayer group in the back of the church, and I told the group what had happened, and I suggested they pray I manage to get the thing out of my ear. I was laughing, but I was not kidding. You can’t expect anything to go well if you don’t prepare in prayer.

At home, before attacking the earpiece, I prayed about it, and I said I was determined to see this annoying event turn out to be a blessing. I thanked God that it had happened. I always do that when I have a setback. To understand why, read Corrie ten Boom’s book, The Hiding Place. Her sister made her thank God for a flea infestation in the concentration camp barracks in which they were incarcerated. Later, it turned out the inmates were able to get away with a lot of things in the barracks, because the fleas kept the guards out.

I found some tweezers with fairly wide tips, and I went to work, accomplishing nothing whatsoever. It’s amazing how hard it is to find something inside your ear with tweezers. It’s not like the location is a mystery. Still, I could not grab the earpiece, and half the time, I missed it completely.

I eventually gave up and went to bed. I figured I’d go to the ER or my doctor in the morning and give everyone a good laugh.

I woke up after 2:00 a.m. The earpiece was starting to cause some pain. I decided to try removing it again, and I preceded the effort with more prayer. I was more determined this time. God has been fantastic about responding to my faith lately, so I was sure I could get the earpiece out, if I didn’t waiver or give up.

I could not find the tweezers, and I was annoyed because I couldn’t find any of my other pairs. I was afraid the wide tips on the first pair were not right for the job. I prayed for help finding them anyway, and I kept exerting my faith. I went to every room where I had taken them earlier in the night, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Finally, I decided to go to the garage and try needlenose pliers. When I went to get them, I found the wide tweezers on my workbench, and resting on the top of an electrical box, a pair of tweezers with narrow tips and serrated tips for better gripping.

I took the narrow tweezers and went to work. Nothing seemed to go right. I missed the earpiece over and over. I kept yanking hairs out of my ear canal. But I stuck with it, praying the whole time. I would put the tweezers in, establish contact, close them, and pull. Finally, on one pull, I felt the earpiece move. That meant it was possible to grab it.

I kept working at it, and in a few minutes, I got a good grip, and the entire earpiece came out. I felt like I had delivered a baby from the side of my head.

I don’t know if you understand how unlikely this seemed at the time, from the natural viewpoint. During most of the process, I didn’t really know how the earpiece was shaped or whether it was possible to grab it. You would have to have an unfamiliar object stuck deep in your ear to understand.

I took a look at the earpiece. It had a narrow hole in the tube side, which had been facing out when it had been in my ear. There was no way the wide tweezers could get in that hole, and it was necessary to get one tweezer tip in the hole to get a grip on the earpiece. If I hadn’t misplaced them and then had to hunt them down in the garage, I would never have found the narrow tweezers, which turned out to be the only tool which could solve my problem.

Classic God move.

I started thanking God, very sincerely. It’s not hard to be sincere at a moment like that. I was extremely grateful for the relief. And I started thanking God for all the other rotten things in my life. Why not? It’s a good thing to do.

I spent a little time in prayer about some stubborn problems. I prayed about some things I needed, and I prayed about my sister’s difficulties. I felt a powerful flow of faith going through me. I could tell problems were being solved. Things were happening.

This, I believe, was the blessing that came from the annoying accident. The ear thing was unimportant, and the inconvenience was minor, but the powerful prayer I experienced later was a very big deal.

I have another praise report. Remember the guy whose car I squashed? At the time, I told him the accident would turn out to be a big blessing for both of us. I asked him if he needed prayer for anything, and he told me he had midterm tests coming up. Some kind of career program he’s involved in. I told him I’d get on it, and I did.

Last night, I saw him. He told me there were five guys in his group, and he was the only one who passed the tests. How about that? Today he’s doing something or other regarding this project, and I am still backing him up in prayer.

Walking by faith will lead you to victory, but it also leads you into battle. Bad things are going to happen. When you choose to serve God, you are very literally entering a battlefield, and you are attracting the attention of a large army of enemies. It’s not imaginary. It’s not insignificant. As soon as you start to pose a threat to the enemy, you will draw fire. That’s just how it is. You can’t expect to be protected from all adversity. Instead, you can expect every adversity to turn out to be a benefit. God will see to it, if you don’t give up on him. Psalm 32 says, “I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Either he’s there, or he’s not. If he is, he will return to you eventually and turn your manure into strawberries.

The big difference between believers and nonbelievers is that the misfortunes of nonbelievers are just misfortunes. Sometimes they turn out well, but very often, they do not. If you stick with God, he will always bring you out on top in the end.

I am better off today than I would be, had the earpiece not gotten lodged in my ear.

To some people–myself included–the story will seem silly, but if I had had to get professional help, it would have taken hours and cost a lot of money. I’m very glad it didn’t come to that.

Sorry I don’t have anything more dramatic to report, but I think that, too, is a blessing. And anyway, divine intervention is divine intervention, regardless of the scale.

If You Can’t Breathe, You Can’t do Woodworking

I have to do dust collection. I will never be able to use my woodworking tools without it.

I was waiting for a nice Delta collector to go back on the American Express Rewards shopping list, but the danged thing is still not available. Maybe I should have jumped on it when I had the chance.

I checked out dust collectors on Craigslist yesterday. I can get a giant Dustkop industrial cyclone for a mere $250. Unfortunately, it takes up an area about the size of a kitchen table and has a 3-phase, 3-horsepower motor.

Maybe my failure to acquire the Delta machine is a blessing in disguise. In fact, I’m sure it is, because ALL of my problems are blessings in disguise. Disguises. Whatever.

I’m considering making my own dust collector. Wood Magazine sells plans. For the cost of a small Delta, I can have a cyclone which should satisfy my needs for all eternity. I just have to grit my teeth and build it. One nice thing about it: it would be strong enough to put in a corner, with long hoses or ducts. A smaller machine might have to be rolled from tool to tool, so it would be in the way.

I want to fire up the table saw and make bed covers for my mill, but I am not willing to tolerate a big dust cleanup job. Trying to suck sawdust out of the crevices on two motorcycles gets tiresome.

Today I’m trying to get the garage in order. I need to get the new rotary table and chuck working so I can put them away. When I put a dial indicator on the side of the chuck and turn the table, the radial variation is barely measurable, but when I chuck a cutter in the jaws, I get higher numbers. I was getting something like 0.017″, which horrified me. Then I moved the chuck jaws over one slot and tried again. This time, the total measured variation is about 0.0045″. If I understand runout correctly, the runout is half of that, which is acceptable. But I can’t help wondering what would happen if I took the jaws out and moved them again. And there are twelve possible ways to combine the chuck, adapter plate, and table, so this could turn out to be a long job.

I just learned that you can induce runout by tightening a chuck using only one socket. I refer to the sockets in which the chuck key fits. Can you believe that? I have to go back, tighten the chuck using all three sockets, and start over.

I guess I should look for a 4-jaw chuck. I probably should have gotten one to begin with, but I suppose optimism overwhelmed my common sense. A 4-jaw chuck can be adjusted to overcome runout, although it may have other problems if it’s cheap.

I hate to do this to my male readers, but I just learned about a pretty cool tool. You will want it, I assume. It’s called the Ridgid Jobmax. It’s a battery-powered handle which accepts things like a drill, an impact driver, an oscillating tool, and an autohammer. Popular Mechanics says it outperforms individual tools made by other companies. Get one of these with the impact driver and oscillating tool, and you would be king of the jobsite. If you also had five batteries. That’s the hitch. It would be a neat thing to have around the house, if you had limited space and a limited budget.

Ridgid makes good stuff.

I better get back to the garage and resume rearranging piles.

A Lean Year Can be a Blessing

I had a funny moment this morning.

On Tuesdays, my dad and I have breakfast together at a local restaurant. We have been doing this for years. Today when we walked in and chose a table, a lad–total stranger–stopped me and said she had to tell me something.

This is Miami. You can imagine my thoughts. “Process server.” “Hare Krishna.” “Angry liberal who doesn’t like my NRA T-shirts.”

She said, “You look so HANDSOME since you’ve lost weight!”

I didn’t know what to say! She said she had noticed the change over the last few months. I had no memory of seeing her before today.

I thanked her, and we sat down to eat. My dad was happy about it. Anything good that happens to me reflects on him, as far as he’s concerned.

Why is this a big deal? Because it’s an answer to prayer. I want my father to accept Jesus and be baptized with the Holy Spirit, but he hates Christianity, so I pray for God to show him that I am more blessed than he is, so he’ll want what I have, and so he’ll get it through faith and obedience.

My dad has a real problem with food. When we go to this restaurant, sometimes he moves us from one booth to another because he needs extra room. Since August, he has seen me lose weight without effort, and today, he got a very loud reminder, in a place where he has to face the temptation that causes his problem.

That was pretty cool.

It was one of those things that are so weird, they have to originate in the supernatural.

As for her taste in men and her eyesight, well, we have to make allowances.

The weight loss itself was supernatural. God did it all. I am really sick of people trying to tell me I did it. It actually makes me angry sometimes. Sometimes people have an offensive insistence on “debunking” miracles. If God works miracles for people they know, it poses a threat, because it means God is real, and they need to change their lives and draw closer to him. It’s easier to put the credit where it does not belong. “An earthquake parted the Red Sea.” “Evolution proves God exists.” You know the mindset.

When you try to give me the credit for this, you are encouraging me to steal from God. That is not helpful to me, no matter how grateful you think I should be for the praise. I could not have done this, and I do not want to fall into the trap of thinking I blessed myself. I know you mean well, but so did Peter, when he objected to the crucifixion. And you know what Jesus said in reply.

Speaking of the supernatural, I saw something interesting on Sid Roth’s show yesterday. The show is called It’s Supernatural, and it always features Christians who have experienced supernatural manifestations. Sometimes I’m very suspicious of these people, but I liked the folks he interviewed yesterday. Their names are Ken and Jeanne Harrington.

They talked about the supernatural things God had done in their lives, and if I understood them correctly, they tied all of it to obeying certain Biblical principles, such as humility and honesty.

They made a good impression on me, and I can tell you why. They’re not sharp, oily, polished people. They seem very nice, but they are extremely ordinary. They’re not highly educated. They don’t have a bunch of cribbed preacher jokes to sling at the camera. They dress normally. No chin beards or hair gel or funny suits in colors heterosexual Caucasian men ordinarily shun. And they don’t push an overpriced seminar or a set of pricey tapes, as far as I know. They host “workshops,” and they have a book called Shift!, and I think that’s about it.

I enjoyed listening to them, because they reminded me that while transformation through the Holy Spirit is the most powerful thing in a Christian’s life, the earthly approach matters, too. You can’t just sit around praying in tongues all day. You have to read the Bible, and you have to try to change. The Holy Spirit guides you and gives you the power to succeed at this, but you have to act. Sometimes I underemphasize the importance of earthly tools.

They talked about the importance of avoiding attempts to justify yourself, even when you’re wronged. When you have a conflict, you are very likely to be wrong to some extent, even if the other person is almost completely at fault. Instead of insisting that person take all the blame, you should take responsibility for your part in the mess and apologize.

That makes sense, because Christianity is about growth. If you insist you’re right, and you believe it, you will not try to improve yourself. You will cut off the flow of growth. You can’t grow without admitting the need to grow. This is a lesson I am trying to implement in my own life, and I am not doing a great job.

So much of evil has to do with holding onto unprofitable things. Covetousness is an example. To covet is to set your heart on something. When you set your heart on something, you exalt yourself. You’re saying you know what the future should hold. You can’t walk by faith, if that’s your attitude. If you read the Bible, you’ll see story after story of people receiving the unexpected from God. They hoped for certain things, and God gave them different things, and it turned out God was right. This is the essence of Christian living. You can’t live this way if you covet. When you covet, Satan tells your flesh you need a certain thing, and your flesh tells your mind, and in the end, Satan rules your mind through the flesh. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. God is supposed to rule your mind, and your mind is supposed to rule your flesh.

When you covet, you refuse to grow. You’re like a kid who never learns to eat solid food, because he insists on continuing to breast-feed.

I think addiction is the most powerful expression of this principle. An addict refuses to move forward. He is so in love with the pleasures of the past, he will not try to free himself from them in order to make room for the greater pleasures God has planned for the future. If you know an addict, you know what I mean. They’re obsessed with the past. Blame. Offenses. Other people’s sins. Anything that excuses the refusal to grow. We’re supposed to move forward constantly, without letting anything get a grip on us and hold us back. Addicts never grow past the ages at which their addictions start. They remain immature, like teenagers, all of their lives.

We are told not to love this life. The reason is that the next life is better, and we have to let go of this one to get it. By worrying too much about success and pleasure in this life, we treat it the way an addict treats drugs. We become addicted to it. We covet it.

I might buy that book. I suspect that some of Sid Roth’s guests are con artists, but I don’t see how the Harringtons can do me any harm.

They mentioned something interesting. We have had many revivals which have failed. We have seen miraculous manifestations of God’s power in revivals that failed. God will let us perform miracles sometimes, even when we are not walking in his will. They said the emphasis on character was missing.

As Paul taught, the spiritual gifts, without the fruit (righteousness derived supernaturally from the Holy Spirit) can actually be liabilities. It’s a good thing to keep in mind, especially if God has started allowing you to use his power. The charismatic churches have had a lot of problems caused by allowing the flesh to use the spiritual gifts. I don’t have to name famous pentecostal preachers who have disgraced their offices; we all know who they are.

Carbide is the Bomb

I found the AC adapter and lithium battery for my camcorder. I therefore present THIS:

I machined something successfully! This is a pivotal moment in American history!

Wonder What it Will be Like When I Turn 99

I am wiped out. Again.

On Saturdays, my church has a thing called Rhythms Lounge. The kids take over the cafe. They recite their own poetry, sing, and play music. Some of them are very talented. “ALL of them,” my pastor would probably say, if he were reading this.

I help out with food. I was not expecting to cook yesterday, but Christian rapper Dre Marshall showed up in Miami and decided to grace us with an appearance, so I got a frantic call at 10 a.m.

By three, I was at church, and by 7:00, we had twenty pounds of baked ziti, six dozen garlic rolls, and 72 brownies. I could not attend the 6:00 service because the cooking and shopping took so long. I’m getting very efficient. I started cooking at four, and putting all that junk together in three hours–alone–is not easy.

At 8:30 today, I was at the volunteer prayer meeting in the cafe, putting my surveillance kit in my ear and making sure my Glock was concealed correctly. I worked as an armorbearer for two services, and then I attended the third. When you work, it’s not considered attendance.

They had me roaming around, which is a good assignment. You get lots of exercise, it’s not boring, and if you sneak into the cafe for a snack, no one knows.

The Assemblies of God had some kind of big function today at 6 p.m., and our pastor suggested we show up in support, but my dad invited me to lunch, and by the time I got back and took a few minutes to rest, it was about 5:50.

I drove to Hallandale on Saturday morning for my usual 8:00 a.m. prayer group meeting. There were some screwups, so only two of us made it. Anyway, I have been on the go since about 7:20 a.m. yesterday. I am ready to become one with the mattress.

Today Pastor Rich talked about Pentecost. This is what Christians call Shavuot, which actually started last Tuesday. “Pentecost” comes from the Greek language, and it means “fiftieth.” Shavuot commemorates the day on which God gave the law to Moses. Pentecost is the day on which God wrote the law on the hearts of Christians by allowing the Holy Spirit to fall on them in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.

Shavuot is also the festival of the first fruits; Jews used to bring the first fruits of their labor to the Temple. Sheep and wheat and so on. When I was living on a kibbutz, they brought out fruit and young livestock.

Pastor Rich discussed Pentecost as a day of restoration. He talked of five blessings we should expect in return for our faith, obedience, and offerings. First, we should expect to be relieved of debt. Second, we should expect God to restore and save our families. Third, God will reveal himself to us in a new way. Fourth, there will be a redistribution of wealth (but not the kind Obama wants). Fifth, we will have power over weakness.

I don’t know exactly where this doctrine comes from. We were given scriptural support for it, but I’ve never seen it taught before. Maybe it’s an Assemblies of God thing.

I was fascinated by the sermon, because “fifty” has been very important in my life lately. I wrote about it a while back.

I “happened” to go to a Messianic synagogue on the first day of my fiftieth year, and they were singing about the Jubilee. That word describes the Biblical fiftieth year, or the “year of God’s favor,” as described in the Isaiah passage Jesus read to announce the beginning of his ministry. The Messianics sang about it, and the rabbi taught about it, and in an offhand remark he referred to Yeshua (Jesus) as “our jubilee,” and he even mentioned the Isaiah passage, in a seemingly unrelated part of the service. Now my pastor is singing the same tune, more or less.

I think this is the year of my restoration. God keeps hammering this theme. I don’t know why it should be true, but he won’t let it drop, so there must be something to it.

God seems to be promoting me in the background. Other people are getting attention and honor, but weird things keep happening to me, and I keep getting revelation. None of it gets much notice from the people around me. I don’t know where I’m going to end up, but I think God is going to move me into an important position of service, while sidestepping the man-ordered paths promotion usually takes.

I can’t figure it out, but I know God likes to remind us that man is not the one who bestows favor. When he wanted to change the world, he didn’t work through the High Priest, and he hasn’t worked wonders or explained his mysteries through Popes. He picks people from the periphery of the faithful, probably for the same reason he made Abraham refuse gifts: when he raises people up, he doesn’t want others to say man did it. Maybe the point is to avoid rewarding human pride.

If we could use our little minds to choose the prophets and the savior and so on, it would be a lot like the building of the Tower of Babel, which was supposed to allow man to control his own destiny. We were never intended to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps. We are intended to walk by faith, and as long as you think you don’t need God to help you achieve your goals, you will do what you want instead of what he wants. Humility is essential to walking by faith, and if we achieve too much using our base tools, humility will elude us.

Today at lunch, I got an opportunity to explain the Pentecost/Shavuot/Babel parallels to my dad. How about that? These metaphorical similarities are among the strongest evidence that Jesus is who he said he was, and that the baptism of the Holy Spirit (including the gifts of tongues) is real; these seeming coincidences could not have been planned or faked. This is the kind of stuff that makes an impact on intelligent people who resist the faith. I’m so grateful that God gave me the chance to present it.

Father’s Day “happens” to be coming up right away. Wouldn’t it be funny if it gave my dad an excuse to visit the church?

According to Jesus, in Sheol, Abraham told a rich man that if his brothers didn’t believe Moses and the prophets, they would not listen to a man raised from the dead, and that is absolutely true. Like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, we can explain anything away, if we don’t want to believe it. People who should know better make up shallow, specious arguments “debunking” Christianity. But there are a lot of people who haven’t heard about Moses and the prophets or the endless list of Old Testament evidence which proves Jesus is the Messiah. Today I got a chance to present some of this material to someone who needed to hear it.

Ultimately, the Holy Spirit, and not evidence, convinces people to believe. If evidence would do the trick, every person who has heard the evidence would be a Christian. Supernatural blindness and human stubbornness outweigh mere evidence. But for those who are susceptible to the call, evidence is a great help.

To get back to the notion of “fiftieth,” I think Shavuot is very much like the Jubilee. Jesus was crucified, and fifty days passed, and suddenly, the Spirit fell on 120 believers. They became the first fruits of his harvest. They became the beginning of creation’s restoration; its jubilee. Sometimes the Bible uses years and days almost interchangably, as when God sentenced the Hebrews to wander in the desert one year for every day during which the spies investigated the land of Canaan. Maybe Pentecost and the Jubilee are reflections of each other; the same idea, expressed in different ways.

In the year of Jubilee, slaves were given their freedom, and people who had sold their birthrights got them back. After Jesus came, people who were slaves to Satan were freed, and they received the birthright Adam and Eve sold for a piece of fruit: eternal life. These things are not coincidence. On Pentecost, the believers in the Upper Room received the power that would eventually grow to liberate the world. Eternal life is wonderful, but the Holy Spirit gives us power to use here and now, to rip this world back out of Satan’s hands. That’s a completely different blessing. For two thousand years, it has been hindered, but it seems to have resumed growing into its fullness. The war is heating up, and God is arming us with Holy Spirit power.

I see this year as my Shavuot. I hope it’s not just my imagination. So far, things are looking good. If “first fruit” status has spread to me, it will spread to others, and eventually, we will be a huge and powerful force before which Satan will find himself utterly inadequate.

Saved Fifty Bucks!

I had some fun yesterday. I managed to modify my Hornady Lock-N-Load shell plates to fit the new EZ-Ject kit I put on my press.

This involved cutting a slot underneath each plate, going all the way around the bottom. The EZ-Ject base has a nub sticking up from it, and the nub fits into the slot. As the plate turns, the nub enters the shell pocket and pushes the shell out. You need a slot about 1/4″ wide and 0.060″ deep to make it work. The newer shell plates come with the slot, and Hornady will fix shell plates for ten bucks each, but I was determined to do the job on my milling machine.

A while back, I put my enormous rotary table on the mill and mounted a shell plate in it. I tried to cut the slot with a 3/8″ HSS cutter, but the hard shell plate just giggled when the cutter hit it. Enco put carbide cutters on sale, so I got a couple of 1/4″ jobs. Yesterday I stuck one in the collet and gave the shell plate another try. It was like cutting through wax. It wasn’t even necessary to take multiple passes. Not for depth, anyway. I had to move the plate over 0.010″ and run the cutter around it again to make the slot slightly wider than 1/4″, but the depth worked fine on the first try.

I have two shell plates that work now. I can fix the rest in about half an hour. I love it when machining works.

Carbide is really something. The difference between the utter FAIL of the HSS and the ease and speed of the carbide is incredible.

If you have Hornady shell plates, I highly recommend you not do this. I did it because I’m crazy, and it’s very easy when you have the right cutter, but for sane people, it’s simpler to spend ten bucks and get it over with.

I’ll try to take photos of the next plate as I machine it.

Get Good Medical Care While it Still Exists

My friend Linda, who works for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, is going in for surgery to correct a narrowing in her spine. It causes problems with her legs. Please pray for healing and safety.

Thought I Felt a Bump

I’m having a fun day.

I had an accident in the church parking lot after the revival. It was after eleven, and I was dying to get home. I saw a car parked next to my truck, and I looked at it as I passed, and then I got in the truck, turned the wheel, and ran my tire into the car’s left front corner. I was exhausted, I guess. I can’t explain it any other way.

My truck had a flat tire, a scratch, and a gouged-up rim. The car…ouch. No bumper. Two headlights gone. One fender mashed beyond hope.

While I was in the parking lot, at the edge of the ghetto, struggling to change a tire in the dark, two of my friends came out and helped. One of them refused to let me tighten the lug nuts, which was a real job. Very nice of him to do it for me. I was about to drop.

I was so tired, I forgot I was carrying, and I took off my flannel shirt. I guess I looked pretty weird out there, wallowing around on the pavement with a Glock on my hip.

It turned out the car belonged to another security guy. Being a big Christian, he was all worried about me and my problems. He didn’t want me to get a ticket or have insurance aggravation. We decided to handle it ourselves. Today I had to go to a body shop in Opa-Locka to hand over a 50% deposit on the work.

It wasn’t all that much. I was surprised.

I felt really bad for him. I told him to make sure he went to a place that would do a good job. He went to three places, trying to get a good price, but I told him not to worry about that, because I wanted it done right.

It turned out there were a couple of things I could do for him. He’s having midterm exams, and he said he had had “bad luck” all month. Someone borrowed his scooter and didn’t bring it back. So I’m putting in time, praying for him. And I found something else I could do for him. I had something lying around which he can use.

When the accident happened, I told him not to worry, because it was going to turn out to be a blessing for both of us. I was sure of it. God was not going to let us leave a 3-day revival, where we worked long hours without pay, only to be punished for it. Something good will come of it. I’m not worried at all.

I got a tour of Opa-Locka today. What a weird area. There are a lot of big lots up there. It’s surprising. There are homes that should be very nice, but because of the area, they’re not exactly in demand.

The body guy is named Conroy. I found the shop where he works, and I gave him the check and got a receipt. He tried to help me with my wheel. He got in the truck, and he took me to a few places, but nobody had the right wheel. Says he’s from Jamaica. I invited him to come to church this Sunday, and he may show up.

He gave me an estimate on fixing the bad paint and the new scratch on my truck. If he does a good job on the car, I may let him do it. I also need some Moto Guzzi side covers painted, and he says he can do that.

I ended up driving to Hub Cap Heaven, near the county line. The road was under repair, so I had to wait in a long line of cars. No wheel, naturally. But they’ll call me if they find one.

Came home and tried to get my new chuck working so I could put it on my new rotary table. The gears were balking. I emailed the seller, and he said it was probably dried oil. I knew that wasn’t true, but I opened it up one more time to make sure there was nothing I could fix, and while I was opening the jaws, the chuck balked, and it twisted out of my hand and tore up my left thumb. It is surprising how well a 90° edge can cut, when it hasn’t been deburred.

Pouring hydrogen peroxide under the big loose bloody flap of skin was most enjoyable. I hope I get to do that more often in the future. I got it bandaged up and went back to work. When I tightened up the bolts holding the pinions in place, the chuck started working. Thank God.

I put the chuck on the rotab and tried to dial it in on the mill table, but the silly thing doesn’t want to move on the rotab. I don’t know if it sits in a recess or what. I don’t feel like taking it apart to see. My 8″ chuck moved around fine when I hit it with a deadblow hammer, but this one doesn’t want to go anywhere. I abandoned it. Now I’m thinking about ice cream.

I wish I had some super glue so I could try to glue my thumb back together. Sometimes that works.

This is the hidden price for a Chinese bargain.

On the religious front, things are going great. This morning, as usual, I woke up and started praying in the Spirit, but now there is a melody to it. This happened to me a couple of weeks ago, and now it’s back. So I was actually singing in the Spirit, although I was praying silently. This is much better than plain old prayer. It adds a dimension of musical worship.

Robert Morris suggests people sing to God when they spend time in private prayer. It’s a good idea, but it’s not that engaging. It’s very different when the song is part of prayer.

Naturally, I am all freaked out. Again.

It’s like I said. The revival took existing believers to a new level. It’s no joke.

The garlic rolls came out great, although I was too lazy to get real garlic. I used powder, which was still very good. I melted provolone over two rolls. Really sick. Here are photos:

I think this is a fantastic idea. If I added another cheese with more flavor, these would kill. They could be an optional dish at church, with little side containers of pizza sauce and pesto.

Here’s hoping I make it to bedtime with no more lacerations.

Garlic Rolls for the Lazy

Here’s how to make incredible garlic rolls with ten minutes of work. This is how I make them at church.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups high-gluten (or bread) flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup water

Put the flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor with the basic blade. Mix briefly. Add water and mix again. Don’t add all the water at once. Add most of it and then continue dribbling it in until you get a single glob of dough which is a little sticky but not too sticky to handle.

Let the dough sit in the food processor for at least five minutes. Some cooks would probably suggest 20.

Add the yeast and blend until it’s mixed in. Roll the dough out into a circle about seven inches wide. Use flour to keep it from sticking to the pin and rolling surface.

Cut the dough into twelve equal-sized pieces. Tie each piece in a simple knot. If you want to make the rolls better (a little more work), make a 12″ circle so you can double the slices before tying them in knots.

Roll the knots in cheap olive oil and set them in a nonstick pan which can take high heat. Cover the pan with foil or plastic and let the rolls double in size.

Bake at 550° for 8 minutes. Check. If they look done, take them out. If not, give them more time.

Put about half a cup of garlic cloves in a blender or miniature food processor. Add oil to cover them. Add salt to taste. Grind them to a paste. Adjust the oil amount to your liking. Mix in flaked or fresh parsley.

Pour this stuff over the rolls and toss them. If you want, you can nuke it before adding the parsley, but it works fine raw.

That’s it.

If you add the yeast at the same time as the other ingredients, the rolls won’t be as good.

I have a sick thought. What if I melted provolone over a couple of these?

After Three Days, I Failed to Rise Again

I’m sorry I haven’t written more lately. My church just had a three-day “Rendezvous” conference, which was actually a revival. I worked all three days, leaving early in the morning and returning late. Today I’m convalescing. I got up at 10:30.

Our speakers were Judah Smith, John Gray, Carl Lentz, and Harrison Conley. We also had our homegrown talent, headed up by Rich Wilkerson, Jr.

I have not recovered to the point where I have the energy to write about it.

John Gray nearly melted the church on the first day. People filled the aisles, trying to get to the front for the altar call. After that, I wondered how things could get any better. But they did. Each speaker built on the foundations laid by the ones who preceded him, without knowing their material in advance.

Judah Smith finished us off last night. His message was this: God sees all of time, from one end to the other, at every instant. When he saves you, he knows you’re going to stumble and sin. He saves you anyway, and he loves you all the time, and he is not angry with you.

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say God doesn’t get angry with us, but I would say there is never a time when he will refuse to hear you when you come to him for help and admit your sins. And I don’t believe you can become unsaved, barring some extraordinary act of defiance.

Here is what Psalm 32 says:

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.

To me, this says we suffer internal condemnation, through the Holy Spirit, when we cherish and cling to and deny our chronic sins (iniquities). We block God’s earthly blessings during those times. The Holy Spirit continues warning us, taking away our rest. When we turn back to God and admit wrong, the blessings return. One such blessing is that the “flood” of curses released by the enemy will be turned back.

Robert Morris says “flood” often refers to slander. I would broaden that and say it applies to hostile words in general. After all, don’t curses begin when they are spoken? Aren’t they founded in words, somewhere back at the supernatural source?

I would also say that Jesus is utterly crazy about us. I know that because he came into my room and touched me twice, and his love could be felt physically, like the heat of a spotlight. It will sound silly, but when his presence touched my leg or my shoulder, those parts of my body felt loved and at peace, independently of the rest of me. I know that makes no sense, but it is completely true. And it’s not just mature, sober love. It’s not just God wanting what’s best for us. It’s also affection. Jesus LIKES us. Go figure.

John Gray talked about lightning. He talked about “leader” strikes, which begin the process. He compared God’s power to lightning hitting the earth, and he compared us to leader strikes, which connect lightning to its targets. I thought that was wonderful, because on one of the occasions when Jesus manifested himself to me, I felt lightning entering into my upraised palms. I don’t know what it meant.

I guess you could say God’s blessings are like lightning, and our chronic sins are like insulation.

Psalm 37 says:

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord,
and he delighteth in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down,
for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.

We are like sculpted figures, slowly chiseled free from marble by God’s hand. Chronic sins are like the overlying marble between the hidden figure and the point of the chisel. I believe prayer in the Spirit is the chisel. Maybe that’s why God refers to his word as “sharper than any two-edge sword.” Prayer in the Spirit is a completely pure form of God’s word. The phrase “God’s word” doesn’t always mean “the Bible.” It means anything spoken by God. If you have lunch with Jesus, and he orders a cheeseburger, his order is God’s word. If the Holy Spirit speaks through you, it also has to be God’s word.

The people speaking at the church and running things didn’t have much time to talk to us. I wish I could have buttonholed a couple of them to tell them all the stuff the rest of us were seeing. God was working all over the place, among people lower on the food chain. I had some wonderful conversations with my friends, and we strengthened each other and helped each other with our needs. And the speakers said things that were like laser-guided bombs aimed at my personal issues, about which they could not have known anything.

I think you need to tell your authorities when God works through them, so they will be encouraged in what they do. And they need to make time to hear you, for their own good. It’s great to be so strong you’ll serve God without reward, but a little honor and encouragement can be very helpful.

When we were planning Rendezvous 2010, I didn’t realize it would be a revival. At first, I didn’t plan to go, because our regular Tuesday night Rendezvous is aimed at younger people. I used to think it was a singles thing for the young, which ruled me out.

After I had been at the event for a while, working security and helping the VIPs and witnessing the things that were happening to me and around me, I realized a revival was underway. And I came to realize what a revival does. We all know a revival attracts the lost and brings them into the fold. What I did not realize is that a revival touches those who are already on the path. I figured we would serve and have a good time and hear some great things, and that would be it. But we found ourselves promoted to higher levels of faith, knowledge, and power.

I prayed so much during Rendezvous 2010, I feel like my “faither” got sore. I really mean that. The part of my mind that exerts faith literally felt worn out at times. But I thought it was extremely important for people at the church to be praying for the speakers and authorities at all times. They don’t have the time to do it all themselves. Over and over, I found myself with convenient down time when I could be alone and pray.

During John Gray’s second talk, I got stuck in a hallway outside an empty conference room adjoining our green room. There was no reason to put me there. They could have just locked the door. It looked like a bad assignment. But I was old enough to know better. I knew God speaks through apparent adversity, and I also knew he expects us to serve at the bottom if we expect to be promoted. I knew that God was telling those above me what to do with me. I refused to be disappointed, because I knew I was getting a blessing. I used the time to listen and pray.

I found that by moving a bench, I could command a view of the entire backstage hallway I had to protect, while seated behind a curtain next to the stage. John Gray was maybe forty feet behind me. I didn’t miss a thing, and I wasn’t distracted by people who needed to be herded and managed. It was wonderful. When my relief came, I went to the sanctuary, but I made a quick trip back to the bench to let him know that he didn’t have a bad assignment, and that God would make something out of it.

Later that day, the guy who relieved me sat at my table at lunch, and I got to hear about his life. I learned about the attacks he’s facing, and I found out how driven he is to serve God and bring in the lost. He has lived on the streets, and he knows the people, and he goes to them and preaches and brings them in. He rebukes spirits during services to help people make it to altar calls. I told him what little I knew about being built up and fighting attacks, and we had a great time. I hope what I said was right and useful. Maybe it was his blessing for sitting on that bench.

Last night, I heard beautiful worship music in my mind as I tried to fall asleep. I wanted to get up and try to write it down, but it was just too late. Today I woke up full of the urge to praise God. It just poured inside me.

More than ever, I feel that I am walking by faith. I have become a very hard person to hurt. When you walk by faith, whatever is intended as evil toward you turns out to be a blessing. I don’t know where things are going, but I feel almost manic when I consider the changes in my life.

I think God is going to start speaking to us more directly than he used to. We’ve all been at emotional sermons where speakers talked sincerely and zealously about the power of God, without making it clear how we could put that power into action. We’ve been inspired and encouraged, but practical information about getting the required tools has been lacking. I think that time may be over. Some say the heavens are polarizing and heating up with conflict, just like the earth. If that is true, we need to be serious, and we have to become effective. Vague instructions like “pray a lot” and “quit sinning” aren’t going to get the job done. Those aren’t the tools the Apostles used. They healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead. You can’t get the power to do those things by going to church a lot and trying to be good.

The age of real supernatural warfare is beginning. That’s what I think. We are going to come to a realization that prayer and fasting and worship are more important than anything we do with our physical or mental abilities. When we understand that, we will automatically start walking by faith. When that happens, God will be beside us all the time, so how will anyone stop us? We’ll be protected from all sorts of harm, and even when harm touches us, it will turn into blessings. It’s kind of unfair to the enemy, if you think about it. But I can live with that.

I was Right About Cheesecake, Wasn’t I? Same Deal Here

If, like me, you “collect” anointed teachers, you need John Gray. He spoke at Trinity Church again tonight. God said so much to me through him, I can’t even try to capture it here. If you get a chance to see him in person, don’t miss it. I know what it looks like when the Holy Spirit will not leave a person alone, and that is this guy’s situation.

Join his mailing list. He won’t try to sell you anything.

I’m pretty sure he won’t.

Join anyway.

Prop me Up if I Pass Out

Went to prayer group at 8 a.m. yesterday morning. Went to a gun show with one of the guys. Went to church at 6 p.m. This morning, I started making pizza and garlic rolls at 8 a.m. I left at noon and came home to clean up. At four, I’ll be back at church to serve as an armorbearer for our Rendezvous conference. I’ll be serving until Tuesday night, on and off, and I have also been asked to cook.

I’m thrilled to be asked to do stuff, but the laws of physics will prevent me from being in two places at once, so cooking is out. Two and a half days with no pizza or rolls! Unless someone takes my place for a while.

I have to take Marv and Maynard out, pound them silly, shower, dress, fill up the truck, and head back to Miami Gardens. Full day!

The rolls were incredible today. I’m really getting the hang of it.

Needs Wheels

Here is some good news. It turns out Plano makes a good, economical case that will hold an AR10 with a scope. Unfortunately, it’s so huge, you really need to put two rifles in it. Fortunately, the case that came with my PSL was pretty bad. So…

Ultimately, Imitation is Praise

I feel like I’m going though life on God’s horizontal escalator. You know those moving walkways at airports? That’s what it’s like. I get on and wait, and stuff happens while I do very little.

Last night the leader of my prayer group texted me to ask if I could lead the group today. That was just perfect, because I had a lot to tell everyone. Last week, I went to DC for the National Day of Prayer, a tour of the Holocaust Memorial, and a meeting with the Israeli ambassador, and the whole time, God pretty much buried me in favor. It took me quite a while to download the information to my group today, but I covered the essentials.

God always tells you more than you can tell everyone else. Frustrating. He isn’t kidding when he says your cup will run over. It happens over and over, in different areas of life.

I had a new insight today, while I was talking about the Holocaust Memorial. You may recall what I wrote about the pile of desecrated Torah scrolls I saw there. You can read about it at this link. The Holy Spirit rose up in me and made me feel his outrage and disgust, or at least that’s how it seemed.

Today I was talking about it to my friends, and I said it seemed to me that the sheepskin construction of the Torah was intended by God to show us that the Mosaic law, though priceless and vital, was external to human beings. Skin is an outer covering, and sheep represent people. The letters of the Torah are written on the outsides of sheep, and the Mosaic law was a system of commandments originating outside the person. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, bubbles up within us and motivates and guides us so we come to share God’s nature. It is God’s law, written on our hearts, as predicted in the Old Testament. “I delight to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart.”

One of my friends mentioned the lampshades and other articles the Nazis made from the skins of Jews. I remembered seeing photos of these things. Some pieces of skin were used as parchment for propaganda and crude cartoons.

I know that Satan has no new ideas. God is the creator; Satan is the imitator. I started to see how the Holocaust was a weak, clumsy, profane mimicry of things precious to God.

God wrote his law on the hides of sheep, to show that the law was to be upon his people. His use of sheep in this fashion is similar to his use of sheep and other animals at the Temple. Only a human sacrifice could take away the sins of the world, but sheep were put in their place until the real sacrifice was prepared two thousand years ago.

Similarly, when the Nazis wrote and drew on the skins of Jews, they were creating Satan’s Torah. His insult. Through these revolting articles, Satan was lampooning the sacred scrolls. I firmly believe that. It was just like the pig sacrifice Antiochus performed in the Temple. It was an extremely pure revelation of the barren and putrified state of Satan’s heart.

I believe the crematoria were mockeries of the Temple itself. The Temple was a place where animals were burned all day, to please God. In the camps, people were burned in obedience to his enemy, and their ashes rained down like manna. And how did the Nazis get people to enter the gas chambers? They convinced them they were going to be given showers. They were going to be bathed and purified. Perhaps this was Satan’s attempt to ridicule ritual immersion, which the Jewish high priests had to undergo before and after entering the Holy of Holies.

Nazi killed the Jews with gas, which is inhaled. What does “spirit” mean? It means “breath.” Look it up. God breathed into Adam to give him life. Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit onto the disciples. God gives charismatic Christians new life, from inside, by breathing the Holy Spirit into them. Hitler, on the other hand, caused Jews and other death camp victims to breathe in death.

The Temple priests ate of the sacrifices, and they lived on the gold and other things offered by the people. The Nazis mined Jewish bodies for gold and hair. Even the Sonderkommando, who were like temple officials, were unwilling participants in the twisted harvest. They lived in special rooms stocked with food and other goods taken from those murdered in the gas chambers. Improbably and inexplicably (as with so many things that have a supernatural cause), the Nazis shared the goods with them, as though mocking the commandment to refrain from muzzling the ox that treads out the grain.

Finally, the forced stripping seems to be a Satanic allusion to the requirement that priests cover themselves with appropriate attire, including linen shorts that came between their nakedness and the Temple structures beneath them. God covered the priests. Satan stripped people naked when he sent them into his version of the Temple.

Satan loves cruel sacrifices. In the days of idolatry, it was easy to get people to perform the rites willingly. They even provided their children as fodder. During the Holocaust, Satan had to deal with people who either believed in God or had no beliefs at all, so no one was willing. He still got his way.

These things seem obvious today, but a month ago, they were not apparent to me.

I could go on. The prophets talk of baldness (even baldness of the body), sackcloth, and ashes. The Nazis shaved their victims from head to toe, dressed them in coarse cloth uniforms (I saw them at the Memorial), and turned them into ashes. The prophets talk of bodies littering the ground, and this is one of the horrors that recur regularly in the photographic record of the Holocaust. I just don’t have enough time to write everything that comes to mind.

Anyway, the prayer group meeting was wonderful. And afterward, a couple of us went to a gun show. I was disturbed to see an object that appeared to be a swastika belt buckle, on a table of items for sale. I guess the murderous nuts–the embarrassing few–are trying to blend in with the sheep. Very sad. I should have complained to the show’s promoters.

My church is having a conference that starts tomorrow, and I have to help out. I may blow off pizza in the morning. People will survive without it.

That’s how it’s going today. I have to wonder what the coming week will bring.