All of your life.

“How could we have such a low view of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we have to manipulate men psychologically to get them to come down and pray a prayer? …How many times have I heard evangelists say, “It’ll only take five minutes.“? No my dear friend, it will take your life–all of it! “We’re just trying to attract people and then we’ll gradually bring them in further and further.” That is what the cults do, that’s not what Jesus did. Notice that in the gospels every time a great crowd is following Jesus, he turns around and says something so radical to them that most of them walk away. Of course Jesus probably would not get invited to teach evangelism [in most churches today]. ” --Paul Washer--


I read this quote the other day and it really resonated. What are we tiptoeing around? Why are we so afraid ... why am I so afraid to put it all on the line? And am I really putting it all on the line? What are we really putting on the line; what people think of us? Better people turn their face from me and hear the promises of Christ, than for those people to "love" me and never understand the life beyond this one.

It will take all your/my life. Time to stop sugercoating everything, making everything taste just right for everyone. The truth is actually pretty sweet all on its own. Its only bitter if you've become addicted to the candies you're surrounded with. This is not a 5 minute exercise and then your life will be perfect. I worked out once, a year ago and I still have this belly. What gives? ha ha

What are we doing? When Jesus said; "go out into all the world and make disciples" ... what part of my life is doing that? I think that as a dad, that part of my life is effectively working. Not saying I am a great dad but I do think that my wife and I are training up our children in the ways of the Lord. And I let them hammer things with real hammers. ha ha So that some day, as an adult, someone doesn't hand them a hammer to help out and they look at it with a weird scrunched up look on their face. "What is this?" They are getting a chance to "hammer" out some ideas now; early and before the world can get a claw in them. And when they are older they will be able to wield a sledgehammer and really beat back those attacks.

See how that flowed? No? I don't blame you; I tend to ramble sometimes.

A last thought to the quote above "...then we’ll gradually bring them in further and further ..."

How long before gradual runs out of road?

Motivation.

I feel inspired already.

So here I am ...

What sort of post should a first post be?

I have considered the foray into blogging for quite some time before my wife finally just went ahead and created this spot and said .. here you go. Now write already.

I enjoy writing. I have for many years. But I haven't really written much for several years. I've written some speeches, some poems (awww - you know you're saying it), misc things like that but my real love would be to write a novel. A book. A story. A tale. An epic. I like Lord of the Rings, Terry Brooks, George RR Martin, Patrick Rothfuss; I like fantasy. I like to read it. I like to write it. But you can't really hope to achieve that if you don't actually write. For some reason the books don't just materialize after thinking about them long and hard. You actually have to work at it. Strange.

I guess I hope this blog will perhaps stir the creative juices in me. Inspire me to write what I know I have in me to write. Hence the title of this blog. The road has to be travelled. You can't stand back and look at the road and wish you could be at the end. You have to step out and walk. Unless you have a car, then you can drive it. But I'm going to walk and enjoy the sights and sounds. Hopefully. If the mosquitos are bad I might hitch a ride.

I don't know that anyone will ever actual read this. Well, I know my wife will. But I guess that's not really the point. The point is to forcibly make my mind operate in the writing mode and in the process rattle some ideas out and inspire great works. I actually tend to have ideas rattling around quite frequently so maybe this will be the place I jot some down. I will ignore the rest of the rattling, that's just my age talking.

So what will you read in this blog? I promise you I will be all over the map. I'm not schizophrenic. Mostly it will be about what I find interesting because, well, it's my blog.

Any questions?

Good.

Let's walk.