DUMPING THE REPUBLICANS AND FOLLOWING LINCOLN

By James Wilson

 

            The failure of Republicans to replace John Boehner with a principled Speaker is the last straw for me.  Voters gave the GOP a ringing mandate to roll back the program of the Obama Administration.  The House had only to fund government through February – with whatever the Administration wanted – so Congress could begin its real work when the new majorities are installed.  The President and Senate could accept, bury, or veto what the House enacted in December.  Nobody smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time could argue the House was shutting down government.  Yet Speaker Boehner funded everything – including dictatorial and blatantly unconstitutional executive decrees – with his so-called CRomnibus Bill.  But my issue is not with Boehner; it is with the members who did not remove him.

 

            More than half a million letters were delivered to Congress demanding new leadership.  Thousands of phone calls – some member offices received a thousand alone – demanding members do what they were elected to do, what they had promised to do.  Yet only twenty-five of two hundred forty-six paid the slightest attention to their constituents.

 

            We all know the script.  “No one else was officially running,” – not true.  “Observing party discipline is the only way to get things done in Washington,” – has anyone read up recently on the Constitutional Convention or the Congress that set the slaves free by amending the Constitution?  “If I buck the leader he might retaliate and I will become marginalized and ineffective,” – which Boehner has already done; does it occur to anyone that what you do with this kind of tyrannical leader is to stick together and remove him?

 

            This month the putative front runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Jeb Bush, announces he is okay with re-defining marriage since it is now “the law of the land.”  Bush is – of course – the current darling of the Republican establishment and I can promise readers any candidate who wishes to enjoy establishmentarian goodwill is going to have to accept as law what is anything but settled.  By the Bush logic freeing the slaves was nothing but a rebellious mistake; from 1857 forward the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court supposedly made slavery settled law for all time.  Give me a break!

 

            Republicans have put up weak presidential candidates the past eight years – and in the eight years of the Clinton regime.  Bush One could not keep a tax pledge; Dole was – what?  McCain gave us the McCain-Feingold assault on the 1^st Amendment and Romney was a decent man who could not separate himself from the bankers; their errand boy actually endorsed carpetbagger Neil Kashkari for governor of California. Speaking of governor candidates – in this century the Republicans gave us Schwarzenegger, Whitman, and the carpetbagger.  The best of that bunch was the Governator, so wimpy the nurses’ union beat him bloody and lacking the courage to defend his own laws.

 

This is how the game is played, according to some of the pros; you have to go along to get along, and they are correct.  But the game is sick, dysfunctional, and just plain wrong.  What is needed is not renewed understanding of how things are done, but new things to be done – a new game.  That is what Lincoln gave us; he called it the Republican Party. 

 

The GOP showed plenty of corruption following Lincoln’s death.  But Lincoln did inspire a vision of freedom and re-engagement of the American Dream for all.  Teddy Roosevelt called for and led a renewal of that vision.  Ronald Reagan did the same.  Even in the heart of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society – when they were corporately depressed – it was Republicans who gave Martin Luther King the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  But at this point the fix has been in too long.  When Abraham Lincoln and his friends determined the Whigs were beyond resurrection they formed a new party.  It is time lovers of our nation and her unique place in the world did the same.

 

Lincoln’s party lost their first elections; third parties always do.  But they hung in there until their gifts and God’s grace brought them 1860.  Only a man of Lincoln’s stature and charisma could hold them together during our bloodiest conflict.  Lincoln was God’s gift, not our achievement.   The leadership molding the new political community will come from the same source.  Our contribution will be courage, faithfulness, and humility.

 

Jesus wept over Jerusalem just days before His sacrificial death.  He sobbed at how He and His Father longed to take the people into their arms and they would not have it.  Then He died and rose for us; he gave us a new world.  Jesus formed no political party.  But His model is sound for any human enterprise.  We need to look upon the horror we have created, express our despair, and move on.  We need to die to agenda, expectation, and prerogative.  We will then be free to seek new life amongst the roots of what was once great and can be again.

 

Should Republican leadership prove – not promise – commitment to integrity I’ll gladly change my tune.  Meanwhile I will follow my Lord Jesus and Abraham Lincoln.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

LET US IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT

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By James Wilson

 

            Let us imagine for a moment.  Imagine my own state of California.

 

            Imagine California surrounded by Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon – as she is.  Imagine Texas and Colorado pushing their way in to border California as well.  Conjure up seething hatred for California and an armada of tanks, artillery and aircraft dedicated to her destruction once ordered.  Visualize a state-within-a-state the size of California’s Central Valley running from the Bakersfield oil farms to well north of the state’s capitol – more than half the length of the state; imagine the death of California enshrined in its charter.  Finally, imagine California reduced in size by seven eighths, and her population of forty million shrunk by the same proportion.  What you have is Israel.

 

            Some will say analogy is dangerous; the parallels fall apart after awhile and no longer apply.  This is no analogy.  It is simply a description of Israel and her neighbors today with the names changed to reflect American realities.  Expand the vision to take in the majority of the other United States and imagine they are blaming California for the implacable hostility surrounding her and threatening to grant independence to that state-within-a-state, even threatening to support all-out war against California if she does not withdraw behind borders determined by her enemies.  This too is Israel today.

 

            Many people say Israel is aggressive; she shoots first and asks questions later – if at all.  Sometimes she does – shoot first, that is.  In 1967 she was surrounded by five enemies bent on her extermination, just like our imagined California.  Unlike our fantasy state, they had twenty times her population and an even greater disparity in military resources.  They blockaded her ports and announced imminent war.  They had already fired on her people but had not yet crossed her borders.  Israel struck first – with devastating impact.  She drove these homicidal bullies from her ancient territories and reclaimed her stolen capitol city.  This is Israeli aggression?

 

              Israel has never fought a war of aggression in her sixty-seven year history.  It was the same in the recent Gaza conflict, except this time she was attacked with thousands of missiles instead of artillery and kidnap/murder squads instead of aircraft.  She now faces the same militant Islamo fascists – spiritual descendants of the Nazis who harbored and mentored them seventy years ago – augmented by a host of new ones.  To their strength is added the one hundred thirty-five nations now clamoring for them to cede to their enemies the land and security they won nearly half a century ago.  Is it strange that they resist?  Imagine California fighting for her existence as Israel now does.

 

            Many American voices declare Islamic militants to be a lunatic fringe of an otherwise peaceful religion.  They point to the millions – perhaps hundreds of millions – of Muslims who are law abiding citizens, content to care for their families and worship God as they understand Him.  Indeed there are many such, and many of them live right here in the United States – even in California.  But where in the world has Islam become the ruling power and repression of non-Muslims does not follow in its wake?

 

            Deal with it.  Every nation in which Islam rules imposes restrictions of some type or another on the freedom of faith and speech of their inhabitants.  Some are as brutal as Saudi Arabia – in which a man has just been sentenced to ten years in prison and one thousand lashes for setting up a web site demanding freedom of speech.  Many are much less so – thanks be to God – but none understand freedom as we do.  Where Muslims are a minority they move as quickly as possible to establish enclaves in which they can rule by some form of Sharia Law.  In France – prior to the attacks on a French newspaper and a Kosher market – there were more than seven hundred zones into which French police refused to go for fear of attack; non Muslims are forbidden to enter.  Efforts are underway in our nation to establish such zones.

 

            Don’t get me wrong.  Jesus Christ gave His life for every Muslim as well as for every other human being.  All who confess Him on their lips and believe Him in their hearts (Romans 10:9) are destined for eternal and abundant life.  He is determined to love even those who do not.  But He does not love a religion of brutality against non-adherents.  He – Word of His Father – sent the armies of Israel against those who threatened her yesterday and today.  He expects the rest of us to accept truth and seek justice for all – especially His chosen ones, Israel.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

THE PRAGMATIC FRUIT OF CONCERTED PRAYER

 

By James Wilson

 

            I encourage a lifestyle of prayer and repentance – understood as progressive re-focus of attention on God in Jesus Christ – as keys to the abundant life He came to bring.  Skeptics wonder about the pragmatic benefits of seeking and praising an alleged all-seeing yet unseen King – and they are right to wonder.  Tentative Christians say prayer does not change God; it changes us.  They are right as far as they go, yet wimping out if they really think that is all there is to relationship with God.  The pragmatic fruit of concerted prayer is all around us and easy for a repentant heart to discover.

 

The California Governor’s Prayer Team – one example of the many organized prayer efforts in our state alone – deploys teams for regular prayer in thirty-two of California’s fifty-eight counties to date.  (The governor in the name refers not to an elected official but to the Governor Himself.)  We have prayed for the past two years, and in concert with the coalition of thirty-five other prayer ministries called the Rain and Reign Coalition, for the past year.  We have – of course – asked the Lord to end the drought, but our focus has been in the spirit of 2 Chronicles 7:13-14.  In it the Lord promises to hear and forgive in times of drought when His people humble themselves, seek His face, and repent of sin.  Our prayers have focused on the historic sin patterns common to California (and virtually everywhere else) of idolatry, covenant breaking, shedding of innocent blood, and sexual sin.  In the past two months rain and snow has averaged 150% of normal.  The primary reservoir in my region has made up half of its deficit.  Dry streams and rivers are flowing with waters bubbling from the ground in three counties following an earthquake.  While the drought is far from over, this is a clear case of God’s mercy in response to heartfelt prayer from a critical mass.

 

            In this time of prayer we’ve seen a number of horrific bills fail in the California Legislature.  One would have forced pre-schoolers into Kindergartens staffed by teachers uneducated in Early Childhood Education; another would have forced all children into Kindergarten regardless of their developmental readiness; still another threatened the tax exempt status of youth organizations not permitting homosexual leaders.  A medical marijuana initiative given a broad chance for success in last November’s elections did not even muster enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.  By the way, we do not pray failure for the bills; we pray that justice, wisdom, and the will of God be manifested.  Just as important is that all these bills sailed through their committees, hailed as surefire by insiders, before crashing and burning.

 

            Concerted prayer must be sustained for lasting impact to occur.  PrayNorthState has conducted more than a decade of whole-Bible readings in public forums.  Several projects of targeted prayer have accounted for large drops in crime rates, hospital cancer admissions, and plummeting rates of suicide and youth deaths.  We pioneered Christian radio and television in secular venues beginning in 2001.  Our programming expanded from one to five outlets and has enjoyed wide popularity from the get-go; it is no longer unusual for new offerings to do well on secular media.  Secular periodicals that did not have them are now hosting Christian-themed features.  Our blog has expanded from one thousand to four hundred thousand readers; the invitations to expansion have all been unsolicited.  Prayer concerted across denominational and congregational lines and sustained over seasons has literally modified the cultural atmosphere on the ground; our region is not the only one in the state or nation to bear such fruit.  Our ministry is just one leader of prayer plowing and preparing ground so others can plant and gather the fruit.

 

            In my city of Redding a local church leased and took over the running of the city-owned – and bankrupt – convention center.  There was the expected outcry over church-state-separation and so forth but the city council gave the church’s separate holding corporation a chance and the center is flourishing under the new management as it has not in many years.  Hard and creative work by management achieved this, but before the bedrock of concerted prayer over years this move was unthinkable.           

 

            Redding’s convention center is only the latest God-intervention coming in the wake of concerted prayer.  FAITHworks is a coalition of some seventy churches-in-support birthed from a half-day retreat where half a dozen pastors prayed, worshipped, and asked a vision of God’s plans to address regional unemployment.  The vision was grandiose – as authentic visions are.  The pastors mobilized their congregations in prayer as others signed on.  Eighteen months after a 1997 launch the coalition – in voluntary partnership with a softened county government – had reduced unemployment by half while sharing the Gospel and life-skills training with all who consented.  The coalition built and operates two transitional living projects for marginalized families. 

 

            Another seventy-church coalition in our region followed concerted prayer with multiple community service and evangelistic concert events shortly after 2001.  Hundreds came to the Lord and hundreds wounded by the Church came home as a result.  The coalition engaging similar unity and fruit in Sacramento numbers almost five hundred churches at this time.  When Jesus says, “My father’s house shall be called a house of prayer,” in Mark 11:17, He is not making a statement of obligation only, but of opportunity.  And the verse offers a prescription for authenticity to churches.

 

            This is not about designated intercessors gathering for prayer.  It is about houses of worship – led by their pastors and those specially gifted in prayer – gathering in spatial separation and spiritual unity to plead for God’s people as Moses pled for the Children of Israel and Jewish minions down the centuries pled for the restoration of Israel herself.  All these prayers were answered – in their time – by God’s sovereign choice to bless His people – but not before they were prayed.  God’s Word in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, who are called by my Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”  He does not say, “If those people,” but “If my people…” 

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

MOB RULE AND A REPUBLIC CANNOT CO-EXIST

 

By James Wilson

 

Large majorities – according to polls – believe Michael Brown was the aggressor and Officer Darren Wilson shot him to protect the public and his own life.  Yet protestor-rioters – from Ferguson, Missouri, to Oakland and Berkeley, California, know better; they self-righteously keep burning and throwing makeshift weapons at police and anyone who crosses their path.  Other polls show 60% of Americans – including nationally known pundits on both left and right – believe the grand jury got it wrong in the Eric Garner case.  Is this democracy in action or a mob mentality that forgets we are a nation of laws and legal processes? 

 

            In the Old Testament Judges 21:25 says, “In those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did as he saw fit.”  The upshot is no one held people accountable to the ethical standards of their covenant with God; without these standards there is no real commonwealth.  But the Israelites got themselves a king who was no better than they and the situation remained chaotic.  Covenant – and for that matter, commonwealth – depend on shared commitment to values larger than ourselves, coming from a Superhuman Source.  Our American Constitution and its body of law is a covenant.  Mob rule – even where the mob is democratically grounded – is the antithesis of covenant.  Yet the mob has ruled in Ferguson, New York City, and the other places where might makes right in these days.  It never ends well.

           

            Mobs have burnt Asian-owned businesses in retaliation against white police officers for killing blacks in self-defense in cities in which the incidents to be avenged did not take place.  That defines mob operations; incoherent rage that achieves nothing but greater injustice.  It was the same in the day of the Klan, and when mobs of the army and militia groups massacred Cheyenne and Arapahoe at Sand Creek in Colorado and Shasta and Wintu people at Etna and Natural Bridges in California.  Mobs always act in defiance of law, and even law – unrestrained by covenant or constitution – is no more legitimate than a hanging vote in an oak grove.

 

            Inciting to riot and making terrorist threats are illegal in every state, just as crying, “Fire!” in a crowded theatre is grounds for arrest.  Al Sharpton and every one of the other agitators who orchestrated shouts of, “What do we want?  Dead cops.  When do we want it? Now,” should be in jail.  This is not protected speech except in cases where authorities are too corrupt or too cowardly to protect the innocent.   

 

            Mob rule is not always overtly violent.  The teens demonstrating for Michael Brown and Eric Garner in Denver had no intention to harm anyone.  Yet they knew they were supposed to be in school, as did the school officials who looked the other way when they left campus.  So who should we blame for the serious injuries to four Denver police officers protecting the marchers when an SUV slammed into them?  (The driver became ill and lost control of his vehicle.)  And if the police are so violent and repressive as a species why did they protect those kids at the risk of their own lives?  It defies logic, but when the mob mentality takes over logic is the first casualty. 

 

            There is simply no way mob rule and a republic can co-exist.  The latter places reasonable limits on behavior that all might have opportunity to live in freedom.  The former gives license to every impulse and endangers everyone by enslaving to injustice. 

 

It is not a question of whether defiance of the establishment is acceptable.  There would be no American republic had patriots not defied an establishment in declaring independence, abolishing slavery, and founding unions to address corporate injustice.  But each of these movements was grounded in covenant from Declaration to Constitution to the laws emerging from it and amendments enacted to it.  Mobs are grounded in rage and the end of the line is always a reign of terror – whether in revolutionary France or Russia or China.  Not all mobs go that far – thank God – but they have no other destination.

 

            There is an antidote found in the Christian’s default resource – the Bible.  It is return – repentance – to covenant relationship between God and man and between man and man.  It calls people on both sides to abandon rage and seek real life.  It is more than ten laws; it is the relationship embodied in Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” 

 

Covenant in no way precludes ordering a society with the punch necessary to do it.  Under covenant we support the police when they do their job and hold them accountable when they do not.  The city of Cleveland – where it seems to be open season on citizens via a rogue police department – should be a case in point of the latter. Ferguson and New York are surely cases of the former.  Covenant also means when we encounter one another across barriers physical or spiritual we speak the truth that is consistent with the facts; we listen to the other point of view whether we think it true or not; and we ask the Lord Himself to re-frame the conversation so that life is available to all sides.  This approach leads from mob rule to authentic republic.  It is both good and doable under God.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

RUSHING TO JUDGMENT AND SKAPEGOATING SYNONYMOUS

 

By James Wilson

           

            The common element shared by historical atrocities like the Klan and Jim Crow and their current counterparts is the unshakable belief that avenging legitimate grievances  justifies horrific means.  Klansmen saw themselves as insurgents against carpetbaggers and a vindictive central government.  The South was indeed laid waste by such people, but countless blacks – and white sympathizers – butchered by the Klan were virtually all innocent of wrongdoing; their suffering redressed only a lust to “feel better” by “getting even” with somebody.  Jim Crow continued this detestable tradition.  The rush to judgment in Missouri and New York – and escalation of that rush in the face of facts contradicting the judgment – is just another case of skapegoating – incoherent rage looking for someone – anyone – to blame.

 

             The facts in Ferguson and New York City are indisputable, although the skapegoaters are unimpressed with challenges to their narrative.  Michael Brown was caught on video assaulting a man in a convenience store; he is no gentle giant.  The forensic evidence demonstrates he assaulted Darren Wilson inside his car; his hands were not raised during the charge that ended his life; he was high on marijuana – a drug that can provoke violence in the user.  Numerous eyewitnesses confirm these facts. 

 

            The truth-cum-facts are just as evident for Eric Garner, the man who died at the hands of Officer Daniel Pantaleo while resisting arrest for selling unregulated cigarettes.  The video shows Pantaleo applying a takedown hold, not a chokehold.  Garner died because of his asthma and a heart condition – things an officer cannot take into account in the heat of battle.  These deaths are tragic and unnecessary; but it is the dead men who could have prevented them.  Instead they behaved consistently with their long criminal records.  Grand juries – processing more evidence than the average media consumer – exonerated the officers. 

           

            There are some horrific ironies that are just as truthful as the facts; ironies that should give serious pause and even provoke repentance in honest people.  One is that Officer Wilson has a vigilante-set price on his head and the destruction of his career for the “crime” of doing his job; this is because the mob “knows” he is a racist who wanted to kill; others simply feel sorry for him but will not stand with him.  Another is that young blacks are exponentially more likely to die at the hands of other young black men than those of a white police officer; few seem interested that topic.  Yet another is that officer deaths by gunfire are up 56% from 2013; officer deaths by ambush are up 300%.  If police seem a bit paranoid could there be a reason for it?  If they do their jobs well despite their fears might we be thankful instead of howling for their blood?

 

            In New York the irony is the DeBlasio Administration ordered police to priority- target street vendors like Garner because his sales cut into their tax revenues.  In a sane world police would be looking for drug dealers and rapists instead of concentrating on unauthorized cigarette sellers.  In the reality of Gotham the real perpetrators deny all responsibility for the consequences of their policies.

 

The grossest irony comes courtesy of the Cleveland, Ohio, and the hypocrites – Al Sharpton et. al. – who masquerade as crusaders for justice against lawless law enforcement.  Greg love is a twenty-nine-year-old black man of Cleveland.  He is suing his city, its police chief, and the officer who shot him in the chest while his hands were raised and he was seated.  Love allegedly made an illegal right turn before being shot June 23, 2013.  Protests against the police?  Not this time.  Love – the black man – did not die, and the officer who shot him was also black.  For the charlatans who make a good living exploiting this stuff there is no race card to play, and so no cause for action.

 

            When confronted with the unjust deaths of some workers after a tower falls on them (Luke 13) Jesus acknowledges the tragedy but stresses the reality that all have sinned and fallen short of the Father’s glory for which we are created.  He calls on His followers to repent before something worse happens to them.  This is not His insensitivity, but rather His stress of the truth that accepting responsibility for our lives sets us up for the abundant life He came to deliver.  Looking for someone else to blame lead to delusion and greater injustice.  This is especially so when there is no one to legitimately blame.  Sometimes life sucks, but God is good – all the time – and He seeks to make us more like Him.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

OBEDIENCE ENABLES MANIFESTATION OF GOD

 

By James Wilson

           

            I received a wonderful e-mail from a colleague of mine a few days ago.  The last time I saw her was at a church convention; she asked me to pray for both feet and one knee as she was having chronic pain in each location.  She experienced relief in her feet at once; the knee less so, but coming along.  I found myself telling her to tell Abba God she receives her healing each day as the enemy of all life tries to steal it by introducing doubt into the process of progressive healing.  I say “found myself” because this is not something I typically pray or say.  Yet our God has a habit of getting glory for Himself whenever we obey His promptings – even when stepping outside our comfort zone to do it.  My friend announces her feet felt better each day until now fully healed.  The knee is still proceeding.

 

            The span from January 6 to the first (movable) day of Lent is traditionally known as Epiphany season.  The Greek word means to manifest or materialize in practical reality.  The events associated with this season in Christ are the visit from the Wise Men, Jesus’ baptism, and the Wedding at Cana.  In each case God does something big-time to announce Himself but the irreducible human element is obedience against a preposterous backdrop.

 

            For example, pagan astrologers follow a moving star hundreds of miles – on instructions from a God they do not recognize – to a stable where they instinctively recognize the Son of the Father.  They receive the revelation only after obeying the “totally out there” instruction, and their next obedience – avoiding Herod – saves their lives and the Baby. In another instance Jesus’ cousin John is asked to baptize One he knows outranks him in the heavenly hierarchy by a factor of infinity.  John demurs until Jesus personalizes the request to “fulfil all righteousness.”  When John obeys the heavens open and the voice of God is heard. Finally we find Jesus attending a wedding – nothing wrong with that – but hardly the setting for a grand manifestation of power.  He even declares it – when asked – to be neither the time nor the place; yet His mother instructs the servants to do whatever He commands.  When they obey by presenting Him with thirty-gallon jugs of water He transforms water into wine.  By the way, this is not ordinary wine, but the best they have ever tasted.  Only those guests who have obeyed long standing commandments from God to avoid drunken-ness are sober enough to recognize and enjoy what has been held until the end of the feast.

 

            Obedience to God is not complex, just nerve-wrackingly outside the box.  It requires suspension of judgment.  It calls us to evaluate circumstances through the God we know rather than judging Him through our circumstances.  It commands response to a counter-intuitive directive.  (You want me to what?)  But what have we to lose; are we doing so well on our own?  Our democratically produced efforts give us riots and assassinated cops, an economic system in continued disease, a lawless government, and the crises and disintegrations within our own families.  Our God promises to teach us plainly and on the spot (Matthew 10 and Luke 21) what to do and say; we need only obey clearly understood directives.  What have we really got to lose by letting Him work in us?

 

            And what may we gain when we say, “Go ahead, Lord, manifest yourself in response to my obedience?”   

 

            Diana and I celebrated our anniversary at Disneyland a couple of weeks back.  I planned a late flight home so we could spend our last day on impulse, but the flight was repeatedly postponed; arriving home at two in the morning after a long drive from Sacramento was downright dangerous at my age.  I followed my own advice and thanked God for His blessing before I had any clue what that blessing might be – that is the essence of a Eucharistic/Thanks-filled heart.  Having given thanks I heard and obeyed His word to check in early even though expecting a four hour wait at the airport. Having checked in we were given a much earlier flight – at no charge because ours was delayed.  We arrived home before Midnight and I got to introduce a Buddhist man to the Lord because I “happened to be” in line one space ahead of him for that earlier flight.  We had a wonderful time and God manifested Himself – not because of our obedience but through it.

 

            A blessed Epiphany to those who know God and to those who need to meet Him.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net