A New Creature. . . an Apostolic Pentecostal blog

This is going so much slower than I would ever have anticipated.  I'm walking a couple hundred yards twice a day, and my legs are so weak.  I get back and almost invariably I am exhausted and take a nap.  I'm not seeing significant improvement in my strength or endurance. I am not an easy patient for Jackie.  I am miserable much of the time, withdrawn into my own small world, trying to cope, and liable to snap at intrusions from the outside world. My appetite is just about zero.  I must force myself to eat most of the time, and when I do eat, it's maybe ½ of what I would have eaten pre-surgery.  Nothing tastes good.  A couple of days ago, Jackie fixed tomato soup and grilled cheese/ham sandwiches, a favorite meal of mine.  If you had blindfolded me, I could not have identified the tomato soup.  My taste buds are very muted.  I'm wondering it is has to do with the meds I'm on? Last night I tried doing without my meds for sleeping.  I...

  Transformed. . .  Last night, 11th post surgery, was by far my best night so far.  I could walk across the hall, use the restroom, and get back into bed without gasping for breath for an hour or more.  I was back to breathing more normally in 10 minutes or so.  I could roll over or change positions in bed without effecting my breathing much at all.   A few minutes ago, I got up, let out our dog, Gideon, walked to the kitchen, made coffee, took my meds and maybe 10 minutes later my breathing is almost back to normal. I am being transformed by all of this that I am experiencing.  I don't want this to be a temporary wound, which when the bandage comes off leaves no scar.  I want to remember the details of the journey that I am on. . . a year from now. . . five years from now I want this post to come up on my memories.  I never want to forget the lessons I'm learning here.  They are too precious to me to lose. The sacrifice of others....

 The Hand of God. . .  This   page of the story begins with a text message I received April 23rd a little after noon, from a co-worker of my daughter's, saying that she had not showed up for work which was very unusual for her, and they were wondering if I knew what was going on. I was at work, I let my wife Jackie know, and she began calling the local hospitals to see if Adrianne was a patient.  She found her at the St. Joe Medical center.  Adrianne was in their ICU sedated and on a ventilator. I went over there.  She had sepsis, pneumonia, and stage-two respiratory failure.  I learned later that she had begun feeling ill, and having trouble breathing the evening before, and had called 911 for an ambulance, which transported her to St. Joe. Subsequent medical tests, CT scans, etc. revealed that her aorta was grossly enlarged with a 5.9 cm aneurysm which was in danger of dissection (rupture) , greatly endangering her life.  Adrianne’s sepsis,...

  My life is so different today than the day before my heart surgery. Before my surgery I was walking two miles every day during my lunchtime at work. Today I gasp for breath after a walk from the bathroom to the kitchen, Trying to honestly evaluate why I share this with you, maybe in truth I'm looking for a small bit of sympathy or compassion, but more largely to share my discovery of a world I've been blind to before. From outward appearances I look healthy and whole, but from the inside my view is completely different. My world is a very different place from what it was two weeks ago. While in Cleveland Clinic's ICU for a few days, and after that for another 10 days, I was totally dependant on others for my most personal needs. To have to ask someone for help, and stand there while they cleaned me, was humbling beyond anything I've known since the lost memories of when I left diapers . It was totally humbling. . . humiliating to have to depend so completely ...

  Listening this morning to the book of Exodus this morning on my way to work, and my mind began wondering at the miracle of manna: Exodus NKJV 16:14-17 And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat. 16 This is the thing which the LORD has commanded: 'Let every man gather it according to each one's need, one omer for each person, according to the number of persons; let every man take for those who are in his tent.' " 17 Then the children of Israel did so and gathered, some more, some less. The Jews ate this manna for 40 years.  It is not said that they ate anything else.  Therefore on the surface of it, it must have been a 100% nutritionally complete food.  It had to provid...

Reading the Bible today about the New Jerusalem talked about in Revelation chapter 21, and how large it will be.  I looked and looked, and could not find anything, so I spent a couple of hours drawing up a CAD model of the United States, and then drawing the city of New Jerusalem to scale, and placed that model on the United States.  The picture is below. Revelation 21:9-25 (NKJV) Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, "Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife." 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. 12 Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of...

 Jackie and I's lives are full of dogs.  We have four.  We call them our fur-kids, and that is indeed what they are.  Our children are grown, and have their own lives.  We treasure our grandchildren, but weeks go by without our seeing them.   After a lifetime of raising kids, our dogs fill a role formerly held by our children.  As Sarah, our goldendoodle rescue lay on my lap this afternoon, it dawns on me how my relationship with my dogs, in some ways mirrors God's relationship with us. Our dogs can do nothing for us.  Some dogs are service dog, or guard dogs, or herding dogs, which perform important functions for their humans.  The only things our dogs do is love us, and if I might say, they worship us.  They are in great despair when we leave, and mightily celebrate when we return. They want to be near us, and keep us in sight no matter where we are in the house. . . kitchen, bedroom, and yes even the toilet. . . if we are th...

Coming back from Canada yesterday, I listened to Ecclesiastes on my audio Bible app.   Written by the richest man, in all likelihood the world has ever known.  From a Google search "Wealth of Solomon in today's dollars: King Solomon's total net worth is estimated by economic historians to be between $2 trillion and $3 trillion in today's U.S. dollars. I don't know that we've yet had our first official trillionaire?  In a melancholy mood he writes this book of perspective on his life, of the fruitlessness of all his life's work and efforts. I think to my own life, mirrored in the engineers who trained me. . . Jim Tweedy, Frank Whitmyer, Charlie Carlton. . . giants of their day, but with my passing no one will have any memory of their names, and their huge contributions to the workholding field. . . Now only digitized signatures of long gone paper drawings. . . rarely viewed. . . all vanity as the preacher said so eloquently.  Their earthly works, all fading ...

It's been on my mind for a couple of days, to do a study on Bible names.  Very often in the Bible names are so significant.  It's not a task that I will ever finish. It would take years to study every name in the Bible, but my mind needs the focus of this task right now. The first name of a person in the Bible, is 'Adam'.  Found in this passage: Genesis 2:19 (KJV) And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. But in the Hebrew the same word is used for 'Adam', and for 'man'.  Strong's Hebrew dictionary assigns two different numbers to the two meanings: H120 = man - 541 occurrences H121 = Adam - 21 occurrences The first occurence of H120 is here: Genesis 1:26 (KJV) And God said, Let us make MAN in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish o...

I've used the following several times  in my teaching in church on the awesomeness, and incomprehensibility of God and God's creation: Many years ago now they pointed the Hubble telescope at the darkest emptiest patch of sky that they knew of.  In that area of 'nothing there' sky, the Hubble telescope found 50,000 galaxies in an area about the size of the full moon.  Each galaxy containing billions of stars.  Multiply that by the 129,600 full moons it would take to cover the entire sky. . . beyond amazing. . .  Yesterday I read where they had performed the same exercise with the Webb telescope. . . .pointed it at the darkest patch of sky they could find. . . The Webb telescope saw 25,000 galaxies in an area the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length. . . How many grains of sand at arm's length does it take to cover the sky. . . beyond my puny mind's ability to calculate. . . AND. . . these are merely the galaxies that we can see with our infantile tech...

Working on my notes for our Wednesday morning Bible study, Matthew chapter 15. I was struck by this passage: Matthew 15:15 (NKJV) Then Peter answered and said to Him, "Explain this parable to us." 16 So Jesus said, "Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? There is a natural process of intake, digestion, and elimination for physical food.  That which is nutritious is retained.  That which is indigestible is passed through and eliminated. Matthew 15:18 (NKJV) But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20 These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man." Things taken in by our ears, and eyes have no similar process of elimination.  They are retained, and becom...

This week we studied Matthew chapter 13 in our Wednesday Bible study class.  We read this verse: Matthew 13:8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. I wondered. . . 100:1, 60:1, and 30:1 return on the planted seed investment. Googling various crops average yield: Corn = 500-1000:1 Wheat = 20-50:1 Soy beans = 75-300:1 Barley = 90-220:1 Lentils = 30-50:1 Today's agricultural methods undoubtedly yield larger returns than in Jesus time.  I don't know that corn or soy beans were grown in that region in that time. So Jesus may have had in mind: 100:1 - barley 60:1 - lentils 30:1 - wheat Jesus goes on to explain: Matthew 13:23 But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." We who have received the seed on the good ground. . . we've heard the Word and understand it. . .where it has taken root, prod...

 I was reading the Bible, and ran across a familiar passage: Luke 1:5 (NKJV) There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division o f Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. I love looking at the original languages, especially names.  Names in the Bible often have significant meanings.   The name Zacharias, being in the New Testament is a Greek word, Strong's g2197, which is derived from a Hebrew word Strong's H2148, which means: From H2142 and H3050; Jah has remembered; Zecarjah, the name of twenty nine Israelites: - Zachariah, Zechariah. Jehovah has remembered.  What a lovely thought. . . God has remembered.  This brings back memories of some favorite passages: Hannah was barren, and deeply sorrowful.  She desperately wanted a child.  She went to the house of God and prayed.  The priest heard her prayer, and also prayed for God to answer her prayer. 1 Samuel...

  Parables. . . I’m studying Matthew chapter 13.  Much of the chapter is devoted to the teaching parables of Jesus. Parable             Verses Sower           4-9 Tares           24-30 Mustard seed           31-32 Leaven                   33 Hidden treasure          44 Pearl of great value            45-46 Net            47-50 New and Old Treasures 52 The parable of the sower has traditionally a heavenly perspective.  The Word of God is spread among men, and has various outcomes depending on the condition of the soil. . . (men’s hearts) The parable of the Tares, likewise has a traditional heavenly perspective.  Tares, false darnel, is a poisonous plant that looks ...

 I ran across this passage in Isaiah a couple of weeks ago: Isaiah 42:1-9 (NKJV) 1 "Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. 2 He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. 3 A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth. 4 He will not fail nor be discouraged, Till He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands shall wait for His law." 5 Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk on it: 6 "I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, And will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the Gentiles, 7 To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the...

I'm preparing for our Wednesday Bible study at New Life Apostolic Church.  We're in Matthew chapter 12 this week, when I ran across this verse: Matthew 12:15 (NKJV) But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all. The Apostle John concluded his gospel with this: John 21:25 NKJV  And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen. In our verse in Matthew we are told GREAT MULTITUDES followed Him. . . not a mere multitude, but GREAT MULTITUDES plural, and HE HEALED THEM ALL! Jesus miracles were not the primary purpose of His ministry.  His deeper purpose and goal was spiritual healing.  Today, we often pray for physical healing. . . Not long ago, I felt a gentle rebuke during my prayers. . . The words came to me, 'You pray  more for physical healing than you do for spiritual ...