A New Creature. . . an Apostolic Pentecostal blog

I've been in the midst of my twice yearly spring/fall episodic depression.  This fall installment started early.  It is typically arriving in October.  This year it arrived somewhere in the middle of September.  I can only ever detect its coming in hindsight.  It dawns upon me like some dark day. I am very much in the depths right now, maybe as low as I have ever gone.  It is difficult to do anything.  Getting out of bed and going to work is a victory maybe unknown to most.  I prayed today for God to make a way for me to go on an extended road trip.  I greatly desire to be carried in the close womb of a car driving down the road for hour upon hour.  Buckled tightly in the seat, gripping the steering wheel with steely hands, as the long miles pass beneath the wheels of my rolling ark of salvation. . . cruise control set, all I have to do is to keep the car upon the road as I meditate and pray. Those who know me, know me as one passionate about life and as giving myself fully to anyt...

Tonight I was getting ready for our monthly church services at the Elkhart County Jail.  I was praying for the Lord to give me words in case I was called to speak.  In my minds eye, an image blossomed of two African boys standing next to one another.  Looking like brothers, they are dressed in loin cloths and little else.  The older one had something, a bead, maybe a small piece of carved wood hanging from a cord around his neck.    The older one is maybe seven years old or so and the other at least two or three years younger.  Their bellies are grossly distorted in the classic form of dire hunger.  Their arms and legs, impossibly frail, cannot seem to support even their malignantly thin bodies.  It's not a static picture.  Flies are buzzing, their noses run. . .Their eyes pierce me. . . I don't know.  I don't understand.  Why are you showing me this Lord?  What does this picture mean?  A small voice in my head replies, "How did they get this way?". . .It comes to...

A couple of weeks ago I closed the season of street ministry. I created a final message flier for the neighborhoods explaining that the daylight is growing too short in the evenings and soon the weather will turn cold and wet making it difficult to minister on the streets of our city. In planning on how this street ministry would work, I had considered this interval between September and March as a season of rest, and rebuilding. . . a time or preparation for the next year, but it has been gnawing at me that this is not right. . . I read in Genesis: Genesis 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. It's not said that God told Noah this. . . (v22) the LORD said in his heart . . .This was a thought directly from God's heart. The Lord divided time on the earth into cycles and these cycles will not end as long as the earth exists. That is His promise. He has given us two positions, two al...

Turn the Page. . . Another day passes. . . another month begins. . . tear off the old calendar sheet. Look at the fresh picture on the new month's page. . .To most the beginning of a new month means a new cycle of bills begin. . .possibly a monthly income check arrives, but not much else. For me though, the landscape of my year is not a plain, but rather two plateaus with two valleys of varying and unpredictable depth between them. October and March are my months of depression. I've written past entries on my seasonal battle with darkness, but each year it seems to catch me unaware of its arrival. This year it has started early. It was maybe 10 days ago (only seen looking backward) that it began this year. Jackie could probably pinpoint the day better than I. My most noticeable symptom is increased irritability. I become very critical. Lots of things bother me that normally I would give no thought to. Life becomes very much less fun. I have trouble finding anything t...