Learning to love my neighbor

 

This is my leg

Many of you may be wondering where or what happened to me over the last few weeks. I admit, I wonder myself a bit. I am not even sure what I can share as it is still under investigation as to what did happen and who did what to me. 

What I can say is this. People ask me what I did to myself, and I answer, “I did nothing, someone else did this to me.” I go on and state that there was a party at a neighbor’s house that seemed to be getting a bit out of hand. I went over to see if everyone was safe and apparently they were, but I was not. I ended up punched in the face, at which I fell back hitting my head giving me a concussion. Then someone decided to stomp on my ankle, severely fracturing it. Then they went back to their party to discuss how they should get away, leaving me in my driveway to crawl on hands and knees down my sidewalk, up my stairs, and call my wife for help. 

The police seemed to arrive fast and found the party was gone. My daughter (Ciana) came up about the time the police arrived and looked at me, and then matter-a-fact way stated, “Mom, dad’s head is -bleeding and I am hungry.” Bless her non-traumatized heart. 

The police took pictures and the ambulance people agreed my ankle was broken, but we decided to not take the ride in the ambulance. They did help me to the Durango and TES took me to the emergency room.

Much of the time I was on morphine so would fade in and out. I was cleaned up fairly well as the nurses and medical staff pulled gravel from my foot, legs and head. Someone stated they believed they had gotten all the rocks from my head and I asked them to put some back as I had to have something in that empty place most people keep a brain.

Again, much is fuzzy as pain killers knocked me out at times. I needed surgery so they took my blood sugar, which of course was high, so they decided to wait until it went down. After around 16-18 hours, my blood sugar seemed to just want to run high although I had not eaten since I arrived at the hospital.

My blood sugar finally went down under 200 and they rushed me into the OR. You can see the pictures of the fine work they did on me as I will post some soon. The next day I was put in a boot and after the rehab people walked me around a bit I learned how to move about on crutches. In a way, I am recovering from surgery (had the staples removed today) and waiting to recover enough to have a cast put on.

The nursing staff was great; I had no complaints at all. The Dr. seems to be doing his job so no complaints there. The Dr. does seemed to be using my break to show how a normal break differs from a trauma break via stomping as I hear him say that something’s are not as straight forward as with a normal break. I for one am thankful there was not a gun or knife involved.

Please pray for me of course, but also pray for my neighbor, and his friends who assaulted me. I pray that God uses this for good in some way.  While I am not happy with the situation, these are young guys and one who was once a young guy, I know what stupid things they can do ( I did enough stupid things myself). Right now, all I am trying to do is love my neighbor under these crazy circumstances.

I have been home for the last few days. Mostly, I sleep and wait for the next time I can take my pain killers. The doctor seems to agree that I need them. I hope to become more present on Twitter, FB and G+ soon.

Thank you all for your prayers and love.

Three questions on evangelism

I was asked these questions today and thought I might share my answers here:

1) How do you model/do evangelism in your faith communities?

1) I model what Jesus did as far as evangelism. He did as the Father was already doing. So I keep my eyes open to what God may be doing in and with someone and just be their friend. Many people only see others as selling or wanting something from them, so developing the skill to love without agenda is crucial. Letting God work in the instead of pushing my own will for their salvation is core to this idea. Trusting that God wants them saved more than I ever would is hard to do at times. Yet, in the times God has allowed me to do this it has been very effective.

2) What ways of evangelism have you found to be least effective? Most?

2) The least effective is door to door and being pushy. Often people are inoculated with the gospel and think they already know all about it and often when pushed shutdown. Again, listening to them and hearing what God is doing with them is a skill to develop. As for me the most effective is #1

3) In what ways do you think/feel that evangelism methods should change for the future of the American church?

3) Often the focus is on me saving others. We may not say that out loud but in reality many times I have encountered “How many people have you saved today?” In the past I felt guilty for not doing enough, then one day I realized (maybe it was revealed to me?) that I could not save myself, so how could I ever save anyone else? It is God who saved me and God wants to save others also. This took the focus off of me “saving” and back on Jesus who can save people. If I am “me” focused then it is about “me” and not Jesus. Also, making the focus not on getting to Heaven but in becoming a New Creation has opened my eyes to being able to just be there and watch God do His work. I am not as concerned about Heaven or Hell as they will get to either place eventually… I focus on how they can have a new identity in Christ Jesus.

Each person is unique but the same. It really does take time to get to know that person and learn how to accept them and love them as Jesus would. I am not saying just be all “nice” as at times Grace is tougher than we think. I have told drunks they are drunks and other harsh sounding things yet, somehow Grace comes through. Often they have never heard directness with acceptance. They have only heard directness with condemnation.

The bottom line is everyone wants to be loved. The world’s love is a sick and twisted thing that barely represents God’s love. By being a conduit of God’s love we can reach people His way and not create other ways that really in the end mean nothing and may work for a generation, yet will lose it’s power over time… God’s way will never lose it’s power.

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Three questions on evangelism

I was asked these questions today and thought I might share my answers here:

1) How do you model/do evangelism in your faith communities?

1) I model what Jesus did as far as evangelism. He did as the Father was already doing. So I keep my eyes open to what God may be doing in and with someone and just be their friend. Many people only see others as selling or wanting something from them, so developing the skill to love without agenda is crucial. Letting God work in the instead of pushing my own will for their salvation is core to this idea. Trusting that God wants them saved more than I ever would is hard to do at times. Yet, in the times God has allowed me to do this it has been very effective.

2) What ways of evangelism have you found to be least effective? Most?

2) The least effective is door to door and being pushy. Often people are inoculated with the gospel and think they already know all about it and often when pushed shutdown. Again, listening to them and hearing what God is doing with them is a skill to develop. As for me the most effective is #1

3) In what ways do you think/feel that evangelism methods should change for the future of the American church?

3) Often the focus is on me saving others. We may not say that out loud but in reality many times I have encountered “How many people have you saved today?” In the past I felt guilty for not doing enough, then one day I realized (maybe it was revealed to me?) that I could not save myself, so how could I ever save anyone else? It is God who saved me and God wants to save others also. This took the focus off of me “saving” and back on Jesus who can save people. If I am “me” focused then it is about “me” and not Jesus. Also, making the focus not on getting to Heaven but in becoming a New Creation has opened my eyes to being able to just be there and watch God do His work. I am not as concerned about Heaven or Hell as they will get to either place eventually… I focus on how they can have a new identity in Christ Jesus.

Each person is unique but the same. It really does take time to get to know that person and learn how to accept them and love them as Jesus would. I am not saying just be all “nice” as at times Grace is tougher than we think. I have told drunks they are drunks and other harsh sounding things yet, somehow Grace comes through. Often they have never heard directness with acceptance. They have only heard directness with condemnation.

The bottom line is everyone wants to be loved. The world’s love is a sick and twisted thing that barely represents God’s love. By being a conduit of God’s love we can reach people His way and not create other ways that really in the end mean nothing and may work for a generation, yet will lose it’s power over time… God’s way will never lose it’s power.

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