Keep The Faith

I’ve been thinking about the game of Chess lately. As I was thinking about it, it suddenly hit me how much this game is like dictators and their people. As I was doing some research about the game, I came across a website that said it has sometimes been called “The game of Dictators”. For those of you who do not know much about the game let me try and explain how the game is played. It is a strategy type game played on a checker board. There are two players and each player try to capture their opponent’s king to win the game. The two players start off with an equal number of pieces to play with. Each piece can only move in specific directions and can capture opponent pieces in specific ways. Some pieces are considered more important than other pieces because of their power. Next to the king, the queen is the most important, the pawns are least important. Here is what struck me about how this game is much like dictators and their people. In the game, it is just as important ...

Faith • Truth • Hope A reflection born during quiet moments of exercise, prayer, and honest questions before Father God. My Thoughts While Exercising During my “almost daily” exercises, my mind becomes very active. I think, I pray, and I talk with Father God. I have to stay faithful to these exercises because of the issues with my spine. If I neglect them, I pay for it later with debilitating pain. Naturally, some of my thoughts drift toward the medical challenges I’m facing. I wonder why these things are happening to me. I think about the book of Job. I think about my dream — the “ Funny Dream ” — where the Lord and I shook hands, and He told me my spine issues wouldn’t be as bad as I feared. I think about Satan, why he is the way he is, and why God allows him to continue for now. So many questions rise up during these moments. In my last post, Dictators and Wannabes , I wrote about dictators, their characteristics, and what happens when ...

In every generation, God calls His people to stay awake, stay discerning, and stay faithful. What follows is a reflection on history, power, deception, and the unshakable hope we have in God. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana History has shown us how easily nations can be led into darkness when people place their trust in leaders who crave power above all else. Hitler promised to “make Germany great again,” and in one sense he did—Germany became powerful, but at the cost of millions of lives. Under a dictator, obedience is demanded, opposition is crushed, and even private conversations become dangerous. The only law that matters is the dictator’s law. Putin is a dictator. He has openly said that the only law in Russia is “Putin’s law.” President Donald Trump has long shown the traits of a dictator‑in‑waiting. His words and actions reveal it plainly to anyone willing to look. During the presidential debates, he said he...

There is scripture in the Old Testament of the Bible (same as the Jewish Bible called the Tanakh) that I think about sometimes. Isaiah 11:6-9 Lexham English Bible (LEB) 6  And a wolf shall stay [ a ] with a lamb,      and a leopard shall lie down with a kid, and a calf and a lion and a fatling together      as a small boy leads [ b ] them. 7  And a cow and a bear shall graze;      their young shall lie down together.      And a lion shall eat straw like the cattle. 8  And an infant [ c ] shall play over a serpent’s hole,      and a toddler [ d ] shall put his hand on a viper’s hole. 9  They will not injure and they will not destroy on all of my holy mountain , [ e ]      for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh,          as the waters cover the sea...

Love Thy Enemy Walking the narrow way of Christ’s love — even toward those who oppose us. “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies…” (Matthew 5:43–44) Loving those who love us is easy. Anyone can do that. But loving those who oppose us, wound us, or stand against us — that is the work of Christ formed within us. That is the narrow way. Jesus doesn’t call us to tolerate our enemies. He calls us to love them. Not because they deserve it, but because He loved us first. ⭐ Why Love Your Enemy? Jesus reveals the heart of the Father: “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good…” (Matthew 5:45) God does not withhold His goodness from those who oppose Him. When we love our enemies, we reflect His nature, not theirs. ⭐ The Real Enemy Is Not Flesh and Blood “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood…” (Ephesians 6:12) People are not the enemy. They may act like enemies, speak like enemies, or wound us like...

When Everything Hidden Comes Into the Light (Part 2) Some topics weigh heavily on the heart, and this is one of them. Every time another school shooting happens, especially close to home, it forces us to confront the darkness that hides beneath the surface of our society. These tragedies raise painful questions—about loneliness, hate, influence, and the unseen battles people carry inside. And they remind us that what remains hidden eventually comes into the light. Another School Shooting Close to Home There’s been another tragic school shooting—this time in Santa Fe, Texas, not far from where I live. The shooter was a student from the same school as the victims. It’s heartbreaking and difficult to understand how someone so young could take the lives of classmates without empathy or remorse. Since I first began writing about this, more mass shootings have occurred. They’ve become so frequent that they almost feel like a grim rhythm in our nation. It makes you wonder ...

From  Homework Help website "The quote “"Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”" is attributed to the American philosopher George Santayana and it can be accurately quoted as "“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”" as stated in his work, The Life of Reason : Reason in Common Sense." Why did I bring up this quote you ask? It is because I believe that we have forgotten the horrors that happened in World War II and how that cancer grew. Are we repeating history? I believe we are. The cancer is hiding and growing. Our American forefathers came from countries that at some period of time had tyrants in control of their countries. When they came to this new land, they wanted to protect future generations from tyranny so they formulated our constitution. We were to have three branches of government; Legislative (Congress), Executive (President), and Judicial (Federal court system). These three branches were to stay sep...

Recently I've been thinking about our United States Constitution. Back in grade school we were required to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution and be able to recite it. This morning I tried to recite it to myself and was not able to remember the whole thing. It has been way too long that I have even thought about it. Preamble to the United States Constitution From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, [note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." I wonder how many of our elected officials who swear to defend the United States Constitution can recite the Preamble or much more, to know the soul of our Constitution? I think it wise for all of us Americans to...