The Paperboy

Wow. The last nine months of our lives have flown by. It's been like a blur...

At the first of this year, under extreme financial pressure from many different angles I decided to take on a second job. With a new baby on the way, and things the way they were, it seemed another stream of income was definitely needed. 

So I prayed about it and almost immediately was led to send Johnette Dawson a message on FB. She is the publisher at the Cartersville Daily. I asked her did they have any openings in the delivery department, and she said yes. I wanted a job delivering because it seemed that working early in the mornings would be easier and not interfere with my other job. I was blessed to get a route in the city near my house that was only 12 miles long. 

So march 1, I began my route... Seven days a week. Getting there around 5 am and getting done around 7. And for the last nine months I only missed one day of work outside of our daughter being born. Not hard work, but a grind all the same. And the people I met at the paper were all very nice. But working two full time jobs was beginning to wear me down both mentally and spiritually. As our financial situation began to improve dramatically (Praise the Lord!) I began praying about the right time to let this job go. 

And then when an opportunity to go on a mission trip came up in January. God told me it was time. The job had served its purpose. He told me to use December to rest up and prepare for the trip. 

As I threw my last paper I eased over to the side of the road...Not much traffic at 7am on a Sunday morning. Before I knew it tears began to stream down my face. Burying my head in the steering wheel as sobs escaped me. And for the first time in my life I had this feeling come over me. 

And it was not an "I made it" sort of feeling. 

Because this year I had failed. A lot. It was different. It was one of the first moments in my life where I realized that I truly was not alone. God was right there with me. And through this summer and fall when I was too tired and too beat down to carry on, He carried me. Gave me strength when I had none of my own. 

This year I have learned a lot. How close to the edge we all are sometimes. Praise the Lord for the strength He gave me to get my family through these difficult times.... 

I know life is full of hills and valleys, and this Christmas I am so grateful that God is there no matter which one we happen to be on at any given time.

 And as I rest on this hill for a moment....I just want to give Him all the glory. 

Abba Father

Grace is my heartbeat...

  Where would a Christian be without Grace? Dead, In our trespasses. Separated from a holy and righteous God. Unable to have access to Him. However; we know that Jesus’ work at the cross paved the way for our reconciliation. His precious blood opened up the pathway to grace and mercy. Grace then becomes my spiritual heartbeat. Pumping away the sins of my past, present, and future. As a Christian I can't function without it.

 

1 Timothy 2:5-6 (KJV)

5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

 

   So how do we attain grace? We put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. It sounds so simple. And if we can do just that, then Gods grace becomes His gift to us… Salvation is a one on one transaction, though. And we must all do our own business at the cross. 

 

  But what good is grace and mercy to an unsaved man? About as good as a parachute left in a plane that he just jumped out of. If he doesn't have it on him, it's useless to him. 

   A lot of teachers would say that grace has no limits. But this would only apply to someone that truly has accepted Christ. The world tells us to live how we want. Aspire to the things of the flesh. But it's a false teaching because the emphasis is always on this world. Gaining blessings here. When a Christian should be more concerned about is what lies ahead in the next world. 

  This over extension of the grace we have received, into the world around us should not go unnoticed. Because it's a lie. A deception. If we truly belong to the shepherd we would hear His voice. We would recognize His word and turn to Him. Leave behind earthly ways. No doubt we all fail sometimes, but there should always be a striving in each of us like a child that wants to please their Father. While we can't earn grace. We can be appreciative of the cost of it. Grateful enough to put God first. 

 

  Praise The Lord for His grace and mercy of my sinful condition. And as Christians we are supposed to show His love to the world. Extend grace and mercy to the hurting and to the lost. But we cannot transfer it. Because it was never our gift to give. 

We could never afford it. 

Excuse to lose...

 I have to admit that I have always been a movie buff. Maybe through the years wasted a little too much time on them. Clinging to little quotes here or there... But one little nugget changed my life when I was a young man. It was a line from the movie "The Hustler" with Paul Newman. 

"What's the trouble losing when you got a good excuse?"

Once upon a time I had aspirations of being a professional pool player. I spent a lot of time traveling out on the road trying to work my way up the semi-pro ladder onto the pro-tour. I remember I had just got knocked out of a tournament and was doing my usual whining about bad breaks when a friend told me... Man your attitude stinks. And he was right. When I lost it was always...not my fault. It had to be because I had the wrong gear... Or the table was warped... Or this or that.

So I started looking into the philosophy of sports. How to play your best. How to stay in the "zone" so to speak. It was about that time that I came across this old movie. And there it was. A long speech from the antagonist about human psychology. And it rang a bell.

 "What's the trouble losing when you got a good excuse!" 

So simple, yet so full of wisdom. Watch anyone perform. Watch them lose. And then immediately nine times out of ten they will provide you with an excuse, a reason they lost. And to take it a little further, the more I studied the game of pool, the more I realized some guys go into the match with their excuses already planned out. These are the ones I looked for. They already knew they were going to lose. 

So I developed this habit. No excuse was good enough. Nothing. If I lost I owned it. No excuses no matter what. And something funny started happening. I went from being the best in Cartersville to one of the best in Atlanta, And then on to be one of the best in Georgia. With one simple mindset...

"No excuse is good enough to give myself permission to lose."

So back to real life. A new life. But some things I have learned in the past are not useless. And I see people everyday that have their excuses, we all do. But some would rather die clinging to them, than listen to the truth. 

"Well I would go to church but (insert excuse)."

"Well I would get involved in that (but)"

"Well I would help them out (but)"

"Well I would believe.....(but)"

They hang on to that excuse like somehow it will save them. Like somehow they can reason with God on judgement day. In the end, God doesn't want to hear any excuses. He sent His Son to die for you... What excuse can compare to that? There is only one way to win in this game of life. 

Eliminate excuses. Humble yourself and cry out to God. He will draw you to Himself. In this life if you lose it's all on you. But unlike some silly pool game, this game has eternal consequences.

Old Adam... I mean Wayne

  Thanksgiving was so good this year. It felt like everyone in my family was on an upswing. Gathered together at my sisters house, the food and fellowship was wonderful. It was there that I was introduced to Wayne. 

"Hey Robby, I'd like you to meet Wayne. He's got a testimony like yours!"(Which normally equates with...he's a stubborn old fool just like you were!...lol)

So most of thanksgiving I talked with Wayne. An older gentleman. Nice guy. We talked a lot about the car business, since we had that in common, and also about a jail ministry he was a part of. At the end of our gathering he and his wife ended up leaving a little earlier so we said goodbye and he was on his way. 

After he left someone said something that struck me... Just small talk of course, but they said old Wayne under that nice shirt was all tattooed up. Like somehow I didn't see the full version. His nice button down shirt had hidden all that. And it wasn't "mean" gossip, it was more along the lines of showing how much of a transformation had happened in his life. 

The spirit nudged me...but on the inside, aren't we all... Tattooed up? Isn't that what original sin is all about? Underneath all these nice new clothes aren't we all like Wayne? 

But let's go one step further and take it all the back to Adam and his original sin. As a matter of fact deep down inside we are all actually Adam. The first man. We are born with his curse. A fallen nature even the sweetest little old lady can't escape from without the help of Jesus! 

When Adam sinned he broke our relationship with God. To repair that we must put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can fix that which was lost. He is the only one who can make that relationship whole again. That's why we spend our whole lives "looking" for something. We know deep down inside that we are not complete. We are all born broken. 

But by putting our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and by reading the Bible, we put Jesus on. Like Wayne's button down shirt HE covers our scars. And then the world only sees our light. 

It's funny I been thinking about old Wayne all week... In my mind I still can't remember seeing any tattoos, about the only thing I can recall is that big smile he had on his face...