This comes from my old e-sword files from when I still used Windows “98” in 2005. After finally upgrading my operating system to a more recent release from Microsoft back then, I had to also upgrade the e-sword program to work with the computers new OS. However, after I did I was then unable to recover my old notes form the previous version of e-sword. Well God is good, because after years of languishing in a file I was recently able to recover my old files using a program recently created that allows one to read old dead files from various different programs.
What I present here is the first page to my then e-sword journal, which I wrote sometime in early 2005 . I originally created a daily journal by separating one of the note pages for Psalms and prayers I wrote along with my thoughts while at work. I was working at Dynamic Traffic Systems from 1993 until the owner retired and shutdown the company at the end of the year in 2016. It was a small family business where I was originally hired to assemble traffic controllers, but eventually I also was given control of shipping, receiving, and inventory of products and parts. What follows is the opening statement for my then new journal. It was so good, I decided to share it.
Chucks e-sword Journal
Written Sometime in early 2005
I have decided to keep up a journal that will contain things I normally would not write down. Some of the things I write will be nothing more then who, what, when, where, and sometimes why. However, from time to time I will jot down a nugget that I would never dare write anywhere else. I have wanted to keep a record of my life since I was a youngster, and while4 I have recently began journalling in notebooks after my morning quiet time in the Word, this one will be used while I am at work, and recored in my e-sword note program. Some day I may print them out and preserve them in paper form, but for now I will type up notes and thoughts in my e-sword program.
Like most of the things I wanted to do, it never advanced past the, “I would like want to…” stage. Part of my problem has been the inability to search my own heart for what I truly thought about. My heart is a muscle that I have very seldom exercised, but the closer I get to where God wants me, the stronger my heart gets. I have wasted many years with mindless braindead endeavors, yet now I spend my time learning all I can about the Lord and his desires, or at least that is my earnest desire. I do not know what the Lord has in store for me in the future, but whatever it is, I shall do my best to follow His will. The search for Gods wisdom will one day lead me to eternal life, and in the process I want to pray for guidance and ask for forgiveness when I allow my flesh to get in the way of my walk with Him.
The manna of one day becomes corrupt when the next day comes. Thus I must begin every day with fresh grace from heaven, and I can only obtain it by waiting upon God Himself. I do this by beginning each day tarrying before God, to allow His Spirit to influence me. All men, and women, should take time to meet with God, without allowing the world to interfere. My time is in the morning before the cares of this world can engulf me with it’s worries and complications. In the morning while I am reading the Word, I am in essence collecting the manna my soul needs to survive another day in this septic tank of sewage we call the world.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts,
and see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.
(Psalms 139:23-4)
I look around at the wonders of the world and realize that God created all this for me. Well, when I say me, I mean mankind. I was not intended to spend my life working for another man in order to survive. I was meant to be a gardener in the paradise called Eden, but my first and greatest of grandads failed to keep Gods command. Ahh…. the tree of “knowledge of good and evil”, I could have spent my whole life not knowing of its fruit.
This fruit of evil has. time and time again lured me into its evil web of lies, and I have gorged on hem until I became so sick I almost went blind to good. I know now that I could have accomplished many things had I abstained from the evils this world put before me. Yet, as I follow Christ, I still find myself struggling to always do that which I know is good and that which I know is my fleshes desire to to do which is not good. Thus I find myself asking the same question Paul asked in his letter to the Romans.
“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
(Romans 7:24)
As an answer to my quandary I thank my God my Father, for making His Son Who knew no sin to become sin, which He then willing went to the cross to crucify so that a sinful man like me could become the righteousness of His Father through Him. I now try my best to always look to the heavens, thanking “my Lord” daily for His sacrifice that released me from the penalty of my sin. As I consider my trials and tribulations, my successes and failures, I realize that if I so desire to put the word, “My,” (a pronoun of possession) before the Name of God? Well then, I must be willing to always answer to His voice, and follow Him where He leads me. For Jesus tells us,
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
(John 10:27)
“Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee
from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
(John 10:5)
If I call Him, “mine”, then I must be willing to do as He calls me to do, for Jesus tells us;
“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? Whoever
comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like:
(Luke 6:46-47)
So, my goal is to use this forum to help myself grow in Christ, so that I can be used by Him in any way He so desires to use me. For I am but a creation He formed for His purpose, and while I may stumble and fall at times, In know that he will be true to His word, for even If am faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. So I give thanks to the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Issac whom my heart is in constant pursuit of.
“My God,” “my Lord,” “my Savior,” “my friend,” I pray You will give me the ability to put in words the thoughts of my mind so that when I look back I will realize who You have changed me from what I am today into what you want me to be tomorrow and forever. Converse with me Lord as I meditate on Your Scriptures, and guide me to the fountain that feeds my soul with You living water. I will forever be just but a speck of dust in a sea of sand, yet You O’ God have watched over me all these years, even when my desire was for only the flesh. You called my name many times in the past, just to see me ignore the fruits You offered.
Yet one day when I finally realized I was so lost from living like a common animal chewing on grass, I lifted up my head like Nebuchadnezzar and praised Your Name and extolled You with the honor of being “my Lord,’ and the only true and living God of all creation. You O’Lord reached down from the heavens and grabbed my hand I had lifted up for you. Like the Good Shepherd You are, You lifted me up from the abyss I was mired in. The warmth of that hand has given me a new life and opened my eyes, I now see the world as nothing more than a wayside rest on my journey to the New Jerusalem. I shall be in constant search of the wisdom that comes only from You O’ Lord, and I shall use that gift to bring light to those that who are in the mire You saved me from. Lord Jesus, You are, “my GOD.”
Amen.
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