Window into my Soul

personal sharing of emotional highs or lows I am experiencing for prayer or rejoicing

The Guy Who Came in From the Cold

It had been a frustrating day for me. Several attempts at sharing my faith as a grad student and employee at the University of Minnesota had fallen flat. My evangelistic zeal as a recent Christian convert was flagging and in my discouragement I removed the button I always wore identifying myself as a believer. Later that cold February afternoon, as was my custom, I drove for home through downtown Minneapolis to pick up my wife Susan from her place of employment. As I was approaching her building and looking for some on-street parking I saw a shabbily dressed man standing on the corner causing a scene and harassing people who walked by him. Just down the block I found a parking space. As I exited the car and headed for the parking meter I looked back down the sidewalk and to my alarm, saw the man walking my way. I could see he was obviously drunk or on drugs, and from his disheveled appearance and erratic behavior I determined he was someone I did not want to have anything to do with.

To avoid him I quickly turned to put money in the parking meter so I could be on my way. But no sooner had I finished plugging the meter and turned to go, he was right up next to me. He was middle aged, with a scraggly beard, unkempt hair, and wearing an old dirty ankle-length winter coat. He appeared to me to be homeless. The stench of alcohol mixed with B.O. almost overwhelmed me and I drew back. Simultaneously he moved closer with an outstretched hand and as he spoke I realized he was toothless. “Can you spare me a dime?” he gummed.

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Poem for Parker Lee

Poem for Parker Lee

His name was whispered long before his birth
And those who heard it knew the measure of its worth.
A holy heritage this young prince would receive
A double anointing from on high to him would cleave.

Hanging upon the wall of his future room
Soon to be occupied with his sister whom
Was calling mommy’s tummy by his name
Were the words Parker Lee cradled in a frame.

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3 lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

Some lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life. It’s been said that experience is the best teacher. Unfortunately that is not necessarily the case. Actually the best teacher is evaluated experience. Only those who seek to learn from bad experiences are destined not to repeat them. Evaluated experience leads to wisdom. And there is no better source of wisdom than perspective that comes from God inspired evaluation.

That is what this short prayer from Psalm 90 is all about. It is a prayer that I now pray frequently and have adopted as one of my life verses. It is noteworthy that Moses is the author of this Psalm. There is probably no one better qualified than him to pray so authoritatively for wisdom. After spending forty years exile in the wilderness evaluating his deadly misjudgments in Egypt he knew what it meant to number his days aright. And the heart of wisdom God imparted to him during that time positioned him at age eighty to begin a forty year run as one of the greatest leaders of all time.

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Update from radioactive iodine treatment

As is often the case there were times over the weekend that I felt like the cure was worse than the disease. The second day the ill effects of nausea and extreme fatigue caught up with me. But don’t get me wrong, as has been the case over the past three months my posture has been one of fighting this thing speaking words of faith: confessing the promises of scripture, thanking God for His healing power and believing mightily in a prayer answering God.

Between 10 and 10:30 AM yesterday morning (Sunday & day 3) I experienced what can only described as a miraculous breakthrough in the Spirit.

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