Help! It's Dark Outside.

Help! It's Dark Out Here!

Author: Pastor Gary Keesee | Posted: Friday, April 13, 2012 - 3:28pm
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When I got married, I was broke. God brought me my beautiful wife and I drug her through hell for the first few years of our marriage. I was supposed to be the head of my house, but we had no money. Everything we had was used and broken and dysfunctional. We owed a lot of people a lot of money. Everything that happened set off emotional fires. I made money. I just didn’t make enough.
We loved God. We really truly loved God. I had an Old Testament degree. We led praise and worship at our church. But fear was my middle name. I was having panic attacks. I couldn’t sleep at night. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. I had no peace. There’s no peace when fear speaks.
Then, I got a tooth infection and it hurt. I had taken two Tylenol every four hours for several days in a row. But the problem was that I hadn’t been sleeping, so I had taken at least an extra dose each of those days, if not two extra doses. On the third day, I was reading the Bible and fear started screaming, “OH MY GOSH GARY! You’ve taken too many!”
Now, fear will also offer you a solution. That time, fear said, “Call poison control and find out.” So, I called Poison Control and told them what I had been doing and the first thing out of the girl’s mouth was, “We have never had someone live that took that dosage.” The first sentence! I said, “WHAT?”
Then she said, “Either you drive yourself to the hospital, or I’m sending an ambulance after you right now.”
So I drove myself to the emergency room and two guys were there pacing back and forth out front waiting for me! I walked in and my name was already on the dry erase board. It said, “Keesee – overdose.” That’s what it said.
Then, they ran a bunch of tests and the doctor walked in and said, “Why are you here? You don’t have enough Tylenol in your system to cure a headache.”
See, fear can warp your mind. And fear will make you pay. You think a hangnail could cause blood poisoning. That bump could be cancer. One credit mishap and you’re going to go bankrupt. One rumor at work and you’re going to lose your job.
Shortly after that, I got a call from an attorney and I hit my breaking point. I gave up. I threw myself across my bed and I cried out to God. I had tried to do things myself. I had worked hard all day every day, but my life was chaos. My family was suffering. I couldn’t do the things for them that I should have been able to do for them. My life felt like hell on earth.
So, I cried out to God and He said, Philippians 4:19: But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now, I knew that scripture, but I didn’t KNOW that scripture. I didn’t understand the Kingdom. God told me I had never learned how His Kingdom operates.
I told Drenda and we agreed to find out how the Kingdom operates. When I began to apply these laws, my life changed drastically. I got out of debt in two years!
I was a believer, but no one had taught me about the Kingdom of God or it’s laws—about living the Kingdom while you’re here on the earth instead of waiting until you get to heaven. I had grown up in church. I was a Christian. But my life looked like everyone else’s, except I had fire insurance—I was going to heaven. I was a good guy with a good heart, but I was clueless about life.
I knew all of the rules. I learned all of that stuff. And they didn’t help me. No one had explained the Kingdom to me.
Living like that is like living in a dark room with no light.
Isaiah 60:2 tells us that a thick darkness is over the people of the earth, but the LORD rises upon us and his glory appears over us. Matthew 4:16 tells us that the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
The light is Jesus, and the good news of the gospel. Notice I didn’t say the good news of attending church or the good news of doing good deeds, or the good news of wearing proper clothing. For years the church has tried to get religion to sound like good news, but religious do’s and don’ts aren’t good news.
The good news is that people who were enslaved in sickness and poverty, death, and disease are no longer enslaved. The good news is that you don’t have to put up with fear. The good news is that you don’t have to be enslaved by the rat race.
The good news of the Kingdom is the evidence and the freedom.

great post Doug!

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Doug,
Just got this in an email thought you
like it.
_______________________

This is just one of the best I've seen. Lotta wisdom here!


https://mail.google.com/mail/?accoun...=emb&zw&atsh=1
Every time I am asked to pray, I think of the old fellow who always prayed, 'Lord, prop us up on our leanin' side' After hearing him pray that prayer many times, someone asked him why he prayed that prayer so fervently.

He answered, 'Well sir, you see, it's like this.... I got an old barn out back It's been there a long time; it's withstood a lot of weather; it's gone through a lot of storms, and it's stood for many years.

It's still standing. But one day I noticed it was leaning to one side a bit.

So I went and got some pine poles and propped it up on its leaning side so it wouldn't fall.

Then I got to thinking about that and how much I was like that old barn. I've been around a long time.
I've withstood a lot of life's storms. I've withstood a lot of bad weather in life, I've withstood a lot of hard times, and I'm still standing, too. But I find myself leaning to one side from time to time, so I like to ask the Lord to prop us up on our leaning side, 'cause I figure a lot of us get to leaning at times.

Sometimes we get to leaning toward anger, leaning toward bitterness, leaning toward hatred, leaning toward cussing, leaning toward a lot of things that we shouldn't. So we need to pray, 'Lord, prop us up on our leaning side, so we will stand straight and tall again, to glorify the Lord.''

https://mail.google.com/mail/?accoun...=emb&zw&atsh=1
If you stare at this barn for a second you will see who will help us stand straight and tall again. Do you see HIM?

I have seen that before Bruce. It is a definite Classic.