On the flip side, think about the spiritual, emotional and social deaths when harsh, threatening or negative words are spoken. Telling a child they are stupid or no good, only curses them for future hurt from someone they loved to nurture them.
Read the Entire Article – Click HERE
This was fun. Going to the gym and not really sure where to move to get out of everyone’s way. So there’s this guy, big guy, and he’s pushing the earth off his chest on the bench press.
There’s like two feet of space between him and the other guy grunting like he’s trapped in a mouse hole with an angry cat on his trail.
I grab a kettlebell and begin doing something useless to warm up that involved a lot of bending and stretching, but just shy of becoming a Richard Simmons’ routine.
The mirror shows both guys impatiently waiting. I suddenly feel like I’m there as entertainment for them and I pick up my kettlebell and slip into a corner.
Yeah, I’ll admit that standing in the middle of the open floor space probably wasn’t wise, but hold on, I’m going to say it, “Nobody puts baby in the corner.”
Thankfully it got much better after that. Mostly because Atlas set the world back on its axis and grunty-grunter’s wife showed up and they became more interested in what was on TV than my location.
The best part of this workout was when I experienced for the first time in about 7 years that my t-shirt felt more snug around my chest and arms than it did around my gut.
I snapped this pic of a barbell I found on the floor. No actually, I was using it. But, for the first time in so long I cared nothing about how much it weighed, and everything about how it made me feel. It made me feel healthy.
It’s way too early in the fight to proclaim that I’ve reclaimed not just my health, but my joy. Although, this is the best I’ve felt about my chances of taking control in a long time.
It’s an odd shackle when the devil tells you that there’s still too much work left to be done at the desk, and I shouldn’t leave Leah to go exercise. The last few weeks I’ve been able to free myself of the guilt of turning in less than a 16 hour day, to dedicate an hour to my fitness.
So, in reality, who cares how much weight sits on either end of that bar? I’m here and that’s what counts.
Do Good,
Scott
FIT@50: An Odd Space For A Kettlebell
This is my latest article for Law Enforcement Today
I’ve been so blessed that they have featured these articles in a Faith & Family section. This article really applies to everyone dealing with pain from an unresolved past.
Which are you most like?
David
Solomon
Absalom
CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL ARTICLE
“This is where you begin to believe the lies you are living. You can tattoo up, goatee down, ball cap spun around, and the Grunt-style t-shirts get rubber-banded around your new-found, pumped up pythons, but your soul knows the difference.”
Read the rest of my latest article – 1-Click
Our ability to contribute to life is dependent upon our ability to suffer and sacrifice. He whose sacrifice is the greatest, contributes the most.
Recently I donated blood at a local clinic travelling through town. I’ve often scolded myself for allowing so much time to pass between donations.
It wasn’t much of a sacrifice…about an hour of time, no physical pain (nor squeamishness in my case), and some refreshments to boot.
However, the results could be of the greatest good. It’s deemed the gift of life for obvious reasons.
Usually, the themes of life and sacrifice are attached to blood. Billy Graham has said that the blood of past generations has become a blessing:
“The human world is tinged with the blood of sacrifice. The strong must sacrifice for the weak, the good for the bad, and the innocent for the guilty. The mother suffers for her offspring, the father for his prodigal son, and the soldier for his country. Nationally, the blood of past generations has become a blessing. The blood of patriots is our boon; their battles, our victories; their suffering, our success.
Our ability to contribute to life is dependent upon our ability to suffer and sacrifice. He whose sacrifice is the greatest, contributes the most.”
(https://billygrahamlibrary.org/living-out-the-gospel-sacrifices/)
Bringing it Home
It’s difficult to argue otherwise: One whose sacrifice is the greatest, contributes the most.
Sometimes we romanticize thoughts of monumental sacrifices for “king” or country, or for damsel in distress, likely due to our ridiculous exposure to movies.
Most of us, however, will never be in a position for one of those heroic sacrifices. Only law enforcement or military could occasionally or regularly be subject to highly sacrificial situations (as in one’s very life), otherwise it’s just one’s presence in a fateful circumstance.
So we must contribute the greatest good where we’re at in life. Sacrificial opportunities are readily available in our marriages, in our parenthood, and in our servanthood within communities.
The sweet irony is that sacrifice brings greater good. Sacrifice within marriage brings about a stronger marriage. Blood, sweat, and tears in the work place usually result in greater performances and output.
Don’t resent sacrifices you make within your family. Consider them your greatest opportunities to contribute to society and individual lives.
The Greatest Sacrifice of Blood
Here’s one of today’s greatest contradictions. Non-Christians or wayward Christians will revile talk of the blood of Jesus as a sacrifice for sins. They will use it as an excuse to reject Christianity or to falsely alter its truths. They will detest its death of a Savior for the unsettling, nauseous feelings it causes.
They enjoy making God out to be a bloodthirsty monster. YET, the manifest and shameless spilling of blood is a boon to the entertainment industry. You may find the same protesters glued to their devices, enjoying a “good” slasher or shoot-em-up film.
This contradiction is just another example of making excuses to suppress the truth of the Gospel (Romans 1:18).
However, the doctrine of the atonement is the most beautiful of truths when not watered down. Jesus bore the punishment for our sins and was the perfect sacrificial substitution on the cross so we could be forgiven and made right before a Holy, Loving, and Just God.
Crime without punishment is unjust. Unethical and bad behavior is just plain wrong and increases exponentially without stern consequences. Why, then, should we excuse sin?
If your sister or daughter’s rapist went before a judge and pled for mercy, you would be furious if that judge reprimanded the accused but gave him freedom with only a warning. A righteous judge would convict and penalize.
God is the righteous judge and won’t let sin go unpunished. However, His Son stepped in and didn’t plead for our innocence; rather, He accepted the necessary punishment as a sacrifice for our sins.
It’s a beautiful, wonderful, purifying truth that all should accept. Only then can we allow the Holy Spirit to transform our lives, and begin to replicate the image of the One who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Leviticus 17:11
For the life of the body is in its blood. I have given you the blood on the altar to purify you, making you right with the Lord. It is the blood, given in exchange for a life, that makes purification possible.
Anytime we begin to discuss pain or addiction in the public square, people get real quiet. This article that I wrote helped shake things up. Posted on 01-16-18 in Law Enforcement Today
It was true 30 years ago and it’s still true today. The first time I was told, “Your badge will get you sex (he used the “p” word), and sex will get your badge,” was in the police academy. I kinda smiled because honestly, I didn’t have a clue what the sergeant meant.
I wasn’t naïve, but it was a new world, and assimilating into the cop culture exerted constant pressure to fit in. It’s tough to go against the flow with an all-for-one fraternity. After decades on the job, I was curious to understand the powerful allure, and how it transformed everyone from high school dropouts to college grads to military crossovers into a blue sea of homogeneity.
READ THE REST OF THE STORY –
I wrote this piece for Law Enforcement Today. I once contributed to this great resource from a chief of police perspective on policy and leadership, but now focus on well being, spiritual health and family because that’s where God has led me to serve.
Healing from your past is about gaining freedom from the things, people or events that have shackled you down and prevented you from knowing God’s glorious plans for your life.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11
I wanted to share this article in hopes of it helping you to begin the process of healing, and gaining your ordained freedom. Jesus died on the cross and conquered death so that we may know salvation and an abundant life in Him.
Stop by LET and drop a comment or say “Hello.”
Much Love/Much Respect,
Scott
Policing & Personal Pain: Freedom for Healing from Your Past
I wrote this piece for Law Enforcement Today. I once contributed to this great resource from a chief of police perspective on policy and leadership, but now focus on well being, spiritual health and family because that’s where God has led me to serve.
Healing from your past is about gaining freedom from the things, people or events that have shackled you down and prevented you from knowing God’s glorious plans for your life.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11
I wanted to share this article in hopes of it helping you to begin the process of healing, and gaining your ordained freedom. Jesus died on the cross and conquered death so that we may know salvation and an abundant life in Him.
Stop by LET and drop a comment or say “Hello.”
Much Love/Much Respect,
Scott
Policing & Personal Pain: Freedom for Healing from Your Past
Mission Statement: HA is for recovering hypocrites to remain mindful of their innate hypocrisy and to promote genuineness in public discussion/social media…or silence.
Admission Requirements: Formerly or presently a staunch hypocrite.(I am a card-carrying member). One who pretends to have admirable principles, beliefs, or feelings, but acts quite differently.
Present State of Our Unions
The great thing about social media and public discourse is the ability to consider various issues and events, while participating, celebrating, communicating, or promoting them in community.
The bad thing about social media and public discourse: all participants have hypocritical tendencies which promote ulterior motives, untruths, exaggerations, and wastes of time and space.
And we all know it. So we don’t really listen with trusting ears because we know there may be as much bias and rhetoric presented as there is truth and fact.
Greatest Erroneous Tendencies
1. Some proudly think of themselves as tolerant yet berate those with differing opinions.
2. Many consider themselves to be rational yet produce self-defeating and contradictory arguments.
3. Countless numbers deem themselves to be very loving, yet confuse permissiveness with love. They offer no standards for moral societal behavior-would they do the same with their children?
Due to the onslaught and
increase of blogs and information, divisions and emotions increase. What should be an increasingly intelligent society is producing less wisdom and more Neanderthal behavior.
Debates descend into name-calling and one-upping. I often cringe when I see some call others “hypocrites.” One must be eternally untainted to toss that one around!
History has borne out that Jesus was the only non-hypocrite worthy to label others.
But the rest of us go on listening and accepting whatever we prefer rather than what is true.
2 Timothy 4:3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.
It’s also important to note that Jesus was tougher on the hypocrisy of religious people than others, basically holding believers to a higher standard:
Matthew 15: 7You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: 8 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
A Whale of a Tale
Many unbelievers point to the biblical story of Jonah as a laughing stock and proof of the Bible as a collection of fairy tales.
They shouldn’t be most astounded, however, by a prophet surviving three days and nights in the belly of a great fish. There is something much greater going on here.
Most remarkably, this hypocritical prophet, who claimed to fear God, tried to escape from his divinely appointed assignment of proclaiming impending destruction upon the Assyrian city of Nineveh due their evil.
God caught and sent Jonah anyway. Nineveh was a great, powerful, and proud capital city in the seventh century B.C. Historical sources speak of its evil.
What’s so amazing?
Nineveh listened…and acted on God’s warning through Jonah. (Even the mariners who tossed Jonah overboard became believers due to God’s command of nature.)
Nineveh listened to the hypocritical prophet Jonah’s one sided, “biased” decree. They fasted and repented of their evil. God relented and saved Nineveh from destruction. (Jonah was angry about this by the way; Jonah 3 and 4).
Can Modern Day Ninevehs Get Over Themselves?
Ancient Sodom wouldn’t repent of their sexual immorality and was destroyed (Genesis 19:29). Nineveh repented of their cruel ways/idolatry and was saved. Though Assyrians were later ruled by others, they survived and became some of Christianity’s first converts.
Will loud and proud modern day powerhouse cities repent and produce a Christian revival? It’s highly doubtful due to the comforts and deceptions running through western civilization, the self-delusional claims of tolerance, and the revered “separation of church and state.” But who knows what God will do?
What’s vastly more important: will individuals repent of their hypocrisy and for suppressing truth?
Romans 1:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
Character Declaration or Defamation?
In my public school setting, there is a great effort to teach character attributes like respect, empathy, courage, perseverance, kindness, etc. However, without a solid foundation of purpose and coherence, like a biblical worldview, it sometimes gets discouraging. Yet we press on in love.
2 Timothy 3 warns of the character that accompanies godlessness in the last days. Can we be like the Ninevites who recognized themselves in Jonah’s words, rather than becoming defensive and prone to denial?
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
Suppressing Truth Will Destroy Your Family and Freedom
Though hypocrisy is usually related to hiding truth about oneself, it is interesting to see the likeness and connectedness to suppressing truth in general.
In the end, I would recommend you join the recovery group. The more you remain aware of the tendency to suppress truth, the more likely you are to accept truth and refrain from its denial.
Like Jonah, in our humanity Christians and the Church are far from being perfect, oftentimes in our hypocrisy. However, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is absolute perfection.
Matthew 8:
31 Then Jesus said…“If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. 35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. 36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.
Blue Marriage 