HAMMERBLOW #6 - at the end of july, 2006, while biking down main st. in souderton i hit an opening car door i never saw at about 25 mph. i had no helmet on. an eyewitness told me i went about 20 feet or so before hitting the pavement with my head and shoulder. i was helecoptered to st. luke's hospital in bethlehem. it was three months until i was able to return to work.
God had been speaking to me pretty clearly about my pride. i love to ride fast. i love to show off. i was wrestling against the constant checks and warnings in my spirit virtually every time i went out biking. several days before this i was nearly hit by a car which turned in from of me at the branch fellowship church in harleysville. i escaped that with a scraped bloodied leg and elbow. but in my arrogance i finished out the rest of my circuit going to skippack and back route 113 into souderton. i was thinking about how good a cyclist i was to have escaped such a close call, how everyone saw my blood but also my speed in going home...wow. yea, it was really disgusting...yet i persisted until God had to spank harder. the classic case of presumptuous sin,,deliberately crossing a line set by and warned of by God.
i guess He wanted me here a while longer but He taught me much. there was a fundamental inner change. i still struggle with pride but it's materially different than before. He provided miraculously, almost to the exact dollar what i needed to live during that 3 month period so that at the end i was in almost the same financial position i was in when it happened. He paid all my 70k of medical expenses. He was preparing me for what was to come.
HAMMERBLOW #7 i hadn't been back painting for my employer for more than several weeks after the bike accident when he informed me that he wanted me to go out on my own. this was thanksgiving of 2006. he wanted me to be independent starting january 1, 2007. I AM NOT A BUSINESS MAN in any way. God somehow kept me from bolting and running back to a normal, 'safe' job and as of january 1st i was on my own for the first time since a friend and i had started our own landscaping business to put ourselves through college by going door to door asking, 'do you want your lawn cut?' that winter i often found myself in a fetal position in bed..in stark fear. what God was to do..to see me through 4 years of business was a story of miracles. i'll only share one. i felt incapable of giving a job estimate that would not involve me losing my shirt. in 4 years i only had one estimate and only lost $600. God abundantly provided, on a yearly average, that year 40 hours, the next 30, then 20, last year 10 just as it had come to me to do. the most important thing He did through this was to slowly strengthen my faith to the point where when i entered the 'no more work for pay period starting around november 15, 2010 i was concerned but not anywhere near paralysis and terror. God's good hammerblows..
HAMMERBLOW#8 june 6 was my last sunday at emmanuel leidy church in souderton. a church about .5 miles from 54. a church full of people who i feel very close to till this day and, most likely, always will. for the last year before leaving, after an extremely hectic involvement in church life for 5 years or so, i began to sense i should become less involved. this grew to the point where i began to sense a bit more than just less involvement. there was an unrest in my spirit. i had gone to a wild at heart men's retreat in march and it was there, for the first time, i even had any thought of the possibility of leaving the church. this was not even on my radar. i had assumed i would live and die having attended leidy church and then being buried in their cemetary! but with this unexpected thot i began to wrestle and commit to pray. the unrest increased and i decided to cast a lot on 'shall i leave leidy church?' the answer was yes. in calling the people i knew to let them know i would be leaving the ? came up: where are you going? i had no idea. there was no where i wanted to go. then, well, can that be of the Lord if you don't have a place to go? well, abraham was sent out from his country not knowing where he was going, so maybe this is somewhat similar. i definitely had a peace. during the next 2 months i visited a number of local churches and sensed that the Lord was leading me to mision evangelica, a spanish speaking church on railroad ave. .25 from 54. there i am seeking to do what God shows me to do. recently He reminded me from hebrews 10.25 that to His negative instruction 'not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together' he added the positive 'but EXHORTING one another and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching'. i still am a member at leidy but for now this is where He has me. my prayer is that i will be able to communicate His love and truth in spanish as well as in english.
HAMMERBLOW#9 2010 was a textbook case of the scripture that talks about a man making his plans but the Lord directing his steps. i went into the year thinking i would hopefully get the 520 (10 hr a week average) hours out of the way quickly and move on to other things. it was not to be until november i completed those. it was a year of almost uninterrupted spanking. the Lord had been making it clearer in 2009 that He didn't want me to do anything, including take painting jobs, without FIRST consulting Him. again and again i failed to do this, not only in 09 but all the way through 2010. every single time a lot of bad things happened. too long to tell the sad tale but it was a rough year.
i worked for one individual whose situation and whose manner of relating made their job, by far, the worst i have ever encountered. i don't want to say too much but will say that i was uncerimoniously kicked off the job three times, had to endure untold difficulties because of the decisions made by this individual and put hundreds of hours of my time and thousands of dollars out of pocket to help this project come to a successful completion. toward the end when i was finally enabled to finish the painting...as if that weren't enough, the Lord put it on my heart to continue to work with this person and even get some other men i knew to help bring everything to completion. one long 15 hour day when i was really working hard to get to a certain goal, this person was largely unemployed, walking around the house, talking to others. that day i experienced just a little bit what a slave must feel like...and then the Lord reminded me of romans 12.8. i had been feeling pretty uppity for not giving this person what they deserved (i am merciful...aren't i great) the verse says 'those that show mercy with cheerfulness'. i still have a long way to go. the last time i worked there was another 15 hour day finishing up everything in time to catch the night before christmas show on xtu on the way home. it was the most wonderful christmas gift i think i have ever received. what music! i was transported right into His presence. He was so real, so precious, so loving...all the way home...it was so good i scrounged around and found an old hanger to enable me to hear the rest until it ended at 1 am...warm and beloved..thinking of He who allowed Himself to be so vulnerable for my never-ending good! the perfect ending to a harrowing year.
HAMMERBLOW#10 2011 i entered another new world. i will, to avoid continuing with too many words. hope to just type exactly what is in my journal. the vision of beyond 'work for pay' has all along been matt. 6.33... now two months into the year it has expanded to matt. 6.19-34...absolute and CAREFUL obedience down to the detail... live each day by design rather than whatever... growing awareness i have no heart for God nor man (so what am i doing trying to seek God and His kingdom if i have no heart for it. insane!)...this, driving me toward a spiritual desperation and to more prayer (and fasting...but i have no desire!)...call to leave man's estimation of me in the trashcan and seek only God's favor...utter weakness and perplexity with greatly heightened temptations in strength and number and spiritual warfare...am filled nevertheless with the glow of His love, it is always with or not far from me...thrilled at my reality: once i was dead to God, i still richly deserve hell but THERE IS NEVERENDING LIFE WITH IN ME THAT CAN NEVER BE TAKEN FROM ME...once i thot i was good, now i know i will never do one good thing here...my first task (other than being involved in FLOOD PHILLY..an effort to share the gospel with as many children in philadelphia as possible, june 23-july 1 and leidy's stormer lake mission trip to canada to have a bible school with ojibwe children from july 7-17) is to conquer 54...my fondest hope is that i will be freed soon of all that binds me to begin, for the rest of my earthly life, a concerted and continuous non-violent, non-cooperation with the u.s. government due to the genocide it is pursuing against voiceless, defenseless, innocent human beings..to be able to stand with them that are massacred day by day and to share a tiny bit in their pain..in their life being cut off..prison is the only place, at this time, for any self-respecting man or woman...
may my Lover keep raining His HAMMERBLOWS OF LOVE down upon me so that i may be privileged to be corrected for my many sins and also to have a share in His sufferings for me and every human being...
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