Nothing simulation about this blog.
I have often told people that I felt like John Nash, a schizophrenic
mathematician, but we all are just a little crazy. Have you felt the presence
of other people around you that no one else felt, maybe saints, angels, demons,
other spirits from another dimension in our quantum universe? Ever hear voices,
audible or just barely discernible in you subconscious? Ever feel as though
someone has walked past you, sensing the slight breeze left by their passing,
but looking up to see no one? I would have laughed at you if you admitted any
of these phenomena, and told you to not watch so many movies.
Then it started happening to me. I
had been suffering from a severe sinus infections along with vertigo, and with
those conditions and the medications used to treat them, I should not have been
surprise if my cat started talking or I woke up with my head stapled to the
carpet. However, I do not have a cat, and I am not Chevy Chase, and Cousin
Eddie is not here for Christmas.
But there are some guys in my
basement, real or imaginary, natural or supernatural; I see them nearly every
night. We don't talk, and we barely pay attention to one another. I never see
their faces, they do not seem to want me to. They sit and rise as quickly as
they sat. They move back and forth. They have shown no sign of being good or
evil. But if I am not in my basement at night, the call out to me with a sub-audible
voice, requesting my presence.
Pretty weird so far? Well it has not
gotten any weirder yet. Except tonight I thought they wanted me to bring my ammunition
and consecrate it. I was not sure what that entailed and I don't know how to do it, and while I was sitting there
trying to figure it out, I began to think "Bless my hands for war."
Strange except I have said that many time to God between 1981 and 2005 when I
was a soldier warrior. But why would God or anyone for that matter want me to
have blessed war hands. War is for young people, who can do forty push-ups and not
wind up in traction. War is for the young at heart and the quick at mind. But
David prayed to God in Psalm 144 saying this:
1 Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
Who trains my hands for war,
And my fingers
for battle;
2 My lovingkindness and my fortress,
My stronghold and my deliverer,
My shield and He in whom I take refuge,
3 O Lord, what
is man, that You take knowledge of him?
Or the son of man, that You think of him?
4 Man is like a mere breath;
His days are like a passing shadow.
New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 . The Lockman Foundation: LaHabra, CA
I am certainly no king fighting to
gain control of a kingdom from a man whom I swore I would never bring harm to,
and thus proved it many times as Saul was often within David's reach. I am not
on the run from a king and his soldiers as they seek to take my life, and thus
my claim to the thrown. And before you get carried away with analogies, I do
not see any resemblance between this account and our current situation in America.
This was specifically regarding God's chosen people, his chosen King, and His Chosen nation, Israel.
Do not try to take it out of its proper context!
So what is the point? And then it
hit me like a .380 hollow-point square in the forehead.
Psalm 144:3-4. "O Lord, what is man, that You
take knowledge of him?
Or the son of man, that You think of
him? Man
is like a mere breath;
His days are like a
passing shadow."
Well, it seems that the whole
encounter has nothing to do with becoming John Nash-like (I am certain not to
win a Nobel prize). It has nothing to do with weapons and ammunition, wars nor
rumors of wars. It only has to do with "what is man, that God would even acknowledge
his very existence, it being like a breath among an eternity of breathing. Yep,
I am here for one tick on the timeline. And so are you, and so are our leaders.
If our current administration were to serve five terms, it is just a breath to
God.
David had figured out two important
things: (1) Saul's reign as king would pass, and (2) David's own reign would
pass, and even his own kingdom would pass.
What a dreary thought. Someone has
said that we begin to die the moment we are born. Perhaps they had insight into
the quantum.
If you look at the remainder of Psalm
144, David cries out to be rescued from his desperate situation. But by the
time he reached verse 15, something has changed, and he requites saying:
"How blessed is the people whose God is the Lord."
God need not bless my hands to war, my country to greatness,
my works to Pulitzer caliber. God has already blessed me, forgiven me, accepted
me, and the rest is just a breath...
I don’t know if my “friends will be returning”, it looks
like they have left for the night and I feel like I have permission to go to
bed. I hope the guys in white jackets will not be here when I awake.
Jeffrey Strickland, Ph.D.
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