Do Better.

 

Do better. 

 

This is something I posted on Facebook recently and I think it needs to be a blog.

 

The Christian community needs to do better in this area of thought.  I work nights and on Saturday and Sunday it’s two 7pm-7am shifts.  The nights before and after are 11pm-7am.  It’s not that I don’t want to attend church, but this is my work schedule that barely pays the bills.  I’m trying to provide for me and my dog and this is what my job set up.  I’ve had friends even tell me to take days off to be around them.  Ok but are you going to pay my bills.  I still watch First Baptist Church, Corpus Christi, and Real Life online.  There are people who start listing all their service times trying to think I’m out in the daytime.  I sleep during the day because I work nights.  I even get looks of disdain for saying I watch services online.  Seriously as a Bible study blog writer I find it sad that we aren’t encouraging people to watch services online when they can’t be there in person.  My blog in times past was used by people who were Sick and couldn’t get to church.  There is a reason for doing services online even after the Covid crap.  How are we to spread God’s word to the uttermost part of the earth when church members seem afraid of using technology?  We are commanded by Christ Jesus himself to share his word.  

 

Matthew 28:19-20

 

“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely, I am with you always to the very end of the age.”

 

 

 

Friday night of this past week I was watching Real Life’s online service before work and Pastor Micah was talking about how God created us to do certain things and how in the past he wanted to quit.  I’ve been there so often with this blog thing.  Never more so have I wanted to quit since everything that happened with my marriage. I keep asking how I can go on sharing God’s Word and trying to give others hope when I’ve lost my hope and direction in life.  I’ve mentioned I keep praying for a sense of direction.  Lately I’ve seen medical things about myself that aren’t good, and I’m trying to eat and live better.  This may be the direction I’ve been praying for.  Just a small step.  But God keeps sending people who have mentioned how much they have appreciated my blog.  Like I’ve told my friend David many times.  It’s not my blog it belongs to God.  I show up and share what He lays on my heart and I’m the feeble human in the equation.  Never in my life have I doubted what I’m supposed to be doing as I have since being divorced.  I don’t know where to go or what to do from here.  But Micah’s own story about wanting to quit hit me in a way that has had me thinking.  Sharing God’s Word through online technology is something that needs to take place.  Just like I need online services well someone else needs the blog.  God made a promise about his Word being shared that I still cling to.  

 

Isaiah 55:8-11

 

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, ‘declares the Lord.  ‘as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the Sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes forth from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’”

 

What most of you don’t know is before I hit go live when I do this blog as a video is I pray, and I ask God to use the things shared in it to draw people closer to himself and give them hope.  You get the things God shows me and I share it with you because God wants me to encourage people.  I use technology to do so.  This is another reason why the church should encourage online things because they don’t know who they’re reaching or when.  I desire one day for another person to carry on this online Bible study blog thing I’ve been doing.  

I have always tried to keep this blog as simple as can be because you can either read it or watch it as a video.  I even provide links to the music that goes with it.  My goal is simple.  If one person draws closer to God, then I have accomplished what I set out to do.  It’s not rocket science, it really isn’t.  I’m not trying to be famous or do something crazy I’m just trying to share God’s Word with someone else in the hope that it changes them.  If you ever come to this blog to see Zac, then I failed because I’m just trying to point people back to the cross of Christ because if I point you anywhere else I have failed.  I try to do what my dad’s mentor taught him.  “Keep the cookies on the bottom shelf.”  Keep things simple to where any one can understand.  Maybe one day God will call you to blog and encourage others.  If you have a phone and a tripod and most importantly a Bible, it can be done.  

 

 

 

 

If you want me to by Ginny Owens

Face the nation by 4 Him 

God so loved by Jaci Velasquez 

Let my cry

 

Let my cry 

 

Some days we need to remember to pour out our hearts to God.  On Tuesday Nights I have a tendency to spill my soup from Taco Palenque when I try to pour it into a bigger bowl.  When we pour out the mess of our hearts and lives to God it doesn’t spill or make a mess because He can handle the messes we can’t.  We forget that too easily and try to deal with it on our own.  

 

 

Psalm 102:1-2

 

“Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry for help come to you.  

Do not hide your face from me

When I am in distress.

Turn your ear to me;

When I call, answer me quickly.”

 

 

At the beginning of this Psalm in my Bible it says “A prayer of an afflicted man.  When he is faint and pours out his lament before the Lord.”  

 

It’s a short blog but again there’s no guide for doing an online Bible study blog.  Maybe like me though you need a reminder to pour out your heart to God. 

 

Lord I’m ready now by Plumb

 

God Help me by Plumb

What does that look like for you and me right now?

 

What does that look like for you and me right now?

 

Months before my marriage ended, I bought a book by Sheila Walsh called It’s okay not to be okay: moving forward one day at a time.  Yes, that is the exact title.  Some of you have noticed I don’t blog as much and with all I’ve been through I don’t have a lot to say.  This is something most people I talk to who follow God don’t quite understand, you can listen to sermons and Christian music and read your Bible but I still haven’t found the exact message that talks about what to do when your wife leaves you and divorces you but I found part of it in Sheila’s book.  I meet with these guys on Tuesday night and no offense to any of them but just pointing people to the Bible without a specific place makes it a little more difficult to find the answers you need at the time.  I also understand it is hard to point someone to the right place when they may not understand or perceive all the emotional damage the person, they are trying to help might have been through.  I can tell you for me it was a lot.  I didn’t always get it right as a husband but each day I tried to win the husband of the year award.  I don’t try to say bad things about my ex-wife because we both had our flaws.  She made her choices I was no longer one of them.  We hurt each other emotionally, not on purpose and I’m trying to heal, and the answers aren’t always simple.  In fact, they are never simple.  I have good and bad days like anyone will.

 

My friend Aaron told me I needed to be around people and it’s true.  Because friends and family help.  Sometimes me being around people is just Zac going to a restaurant and talking to the wait staff and observing them.  I’m at a point where I must rediscover who I am by myself. There are days that are much harder than others.  I talk a lot to my dog Arisia.  I rescued her from the Humane Society, and she is rescuing me each day.  I met with my friend John a few weeks ago and he humbled me by telling me how God had used me sharing my blog to help him and his wife.  Sometimes I need the right book to read and that’s why I needed to get back to this Shelia Walsh’s book.  I have a friend Carlos who told me that the sense of direction I keep praying for is to simply trust God.  That’s hard because a lot of days I feel numb.  I just exist.  I try to find some connection to anything happening in my life.  On the nights I work I have purpose in the things I do. My nights off though I really don’t.  I’m still up most of the night.  I play video games, watch whatever, eat, sleep, and play with my dog.  I take care of things that need to be done.  It took a lot for me to figure out how to do the most mundane stuff again knowing I was alone.  But even months later I’m still at a loss for what I’m supposed to do on my nights off.  I go to Most Wanted Comics and talk to Bethany and Stephen, they know me and make me laugh and smile.  I miss blogging and I don’t know what to even say to help me or someone else.  Right now, my life is a mess.  I’ve got one working hearing aid I don’t have a solution for that yet.  My marriage is gone, shattered, exploded, whatever but I still have a job, my house, and family and friends praying for me.  I’m learning to be more grateful.  I have a dog that loves me.  I’m breathing so God must not be done with me.  If God can hold the world together, destroy the walls of Jericho, raise Jesus from the dead, well then at some point he can heal the mess that is Zac.  Some days the hardest thing to do is to pray, read my Bible, listen to Christian music because the devil is not going to make it easy on me.  Depression will hit you when you least expect it.  

 

But I read this passage in this book and I can’t keep it to myself. I have to share it with someone else because maybe you have struggles like I do.  

 

This is what Sheila Walsh said in her book and it’s so powerful.

 

“Think about it this way: I’m not living by faith if I have an answer to everything.  If I understand everything God does or doesn’t do, then all I need to do is love him with my mind.  We are called to love him with more.  When an expert in religious law asked Christ what he had to do to inherit eternal life.  Christ asked him what his understanding was from the laws given to Moses.  His response was, 

 

‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind and Love your neighbor as yourself’ Luke 10:27

 

Christ told him he’d answered correctly.  Heart, soul, strength, and mind.  What does that look like for you and me right now?  We love with our heart, even when it’s broken.  We love with our soul, even when our humanity wrestles against our situation.  We love with our mind, even when we don’t understand.”  

 

That was in her book.  It floored me when I read it.  Why? Because I’ve been broken, I currently don’t understand and every day I pray for direction, hope and purpose and my humanity is wrestling with all of that.  So, the question returns and in pro wrestling terminology this would be your go home line of the promo or the concept that leaves you asking the same stuff I have been.  “What does that look like for you and me right now?”  I have to love God and trust Him even on the hardest or best days.  

 

Like Martina McBride sang

 

“God is great. 

But sometimes life ain’t good

When I pray 

it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should.

But I do it anyway 

I do it anyway.”

 

 

Anyway by Martina McBride 

When life gets broken by Sandi Patty and Heather Payne

Hurt and the Healer by Mercy Me

Acoustic Medley by Point of Grace

 

The Update and Struggle

 

The Update and Struggle 

 

There’s a few who know.  There will be more after this.  I said not too long ago that two major things happened to me in October.  Now I feel I can talk about the big one because it’s over.  I got kicked off a job site for reporting a manager of favoritism.  Allegedly I was seen as “disruptive “the only charge they could come up with for me and one of my coworkers.  Another coworker was fired for suggesting there also may have been sexual activity involved by the manager as well.  It was an ugly day.  I didn’t know the next few days would get worse for me.  That became a blessing because I got away from a horrible job and boss.  While I was in training for a new job my wife left me.  That has been a major source of pain in my life.  This past week I got the finalization of my divorce.  It was no contest.  She divorced me.  We didn’t fight over anything.  If I find stuff of hers I simply give it to her mom.  She is a grown woman who made her own choices.  She even took the dog with her which was fine though because the dog only liked her and tolerated me.  

Currently I have no sense of direction or purpose to my life other than going to work, eating, sleeping and taking care of my dog Arisia.  Arisia has been one of the best things to have happened.  My family helps me a lot.  I have a Bible study group I try to go to on Tuesday nights.  I’ve been through hurt, pain, depression, anger, lots of tears and more.  I’ve been on an off an antidepressant.  I even wrote a fictional story channeling all my hurt into my fictional alter ego the White Shadow.  For 10 years I was married I went through good and bad days.  I loved my wife and I treated her the best I could everyday.  I tried so hard to make my marriage last and prayed so hard for us as a couple every day.   This is my life now.  

 

Each day I try to seek God and draw closer to Him.  I don’t always get it right.  If I don’t seek Him though I would lose my sanity after all I’ve gone through.  I’ve experienced more hurt than a man should ever deal with.  If anyone ever tells you guys don’t cry, they’ve never met me.  I’m 46 years old I fear being invisible to women.  I don’t know what to do with my life but I’m trying to take those feelings to God in prayer because it’s all I’ve got left.  A lot of days I’m just numb.  I feel a bit relieved since the divorce is over.  It gives things some finality.  

 

I’ve often pointed the readers of the blog to 1 Peter 5:7

 

“Give all your worries and cares to God because he cares for you”. 

 

I need that verse more than anyone because I’ve come to a point where I feel I’m not capable of being loved.  Like I said it’s a daily moment by moment of praying and asking God to help me deal with all of this.  If you meet someone who has been divorced, I can tell you in all honesty you don’t know their full story.  They need friends more than you could ever imagine.  I’m not fully emotionally healed, and I don’t know when I will be.  But I continue to seek God.  That’s what I urge you to do as well.  You’re going to have good and bad days just like me but seek God!  

 

I want to close with a few song lyrics.  

 

“When I thought I lost me

You knew where I left me

You reintroduced me to your love

You picked up all my pieces

Put me back together 

You are the defender of my heart”

 

“When I think I’m going under 

Part the waters, Lord

When I feel the waves around me

Calm the sea

When I cry for help, O hear me Lord

And hold out your hand

Touch my life

Still the raging storm in me”

 

 

Part the waters by Selah 

Defender by Francisca Battestelli

Needyou now by Plumb

Sparrow Missile

 

Sparrow missile 

 

I don’t blog as much as I used to.  I struggle at times with a sense of purpose and direction.  I recently finished writing a story where I channeled a lot of my emotions into one character.  I find myself often switching what I listen to and read to get my eyes fixed back on God.  Problems in life will overwhelm you.  Like Robin the Boy Wonder asked “Why isn’t anyone just whelmed?  It’s always over or underwhelmed.”  Life can at times come at you like a sparrow missile.  But here’s the thing instead of a weapon I needed to be reminded this week what God has done for the birds.  Sometimes we need to look up and remember that the stars, the sky, the sun, and moon aren’t there by accident.  They don’t even fly off into space.  There’s a God in control and he’s taking care of all of this, and he can take care of you and me.  I read two verses Saturday night that got me off my stinking thinking and directed me back to God because I needed to remember that God takes care of the sparrow and the swallow.  Two little birds!  Maybe just maybe you need to look at them too.  

 

Psalm 84:3-4

 

“Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young—

A place near your altar, O Lord Almighty, my King, and my God 

Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.”  

 

It referred to the birds finding a place for a nest near God’s altar.  That brought something to mind that I hadn’t thought about in some years.  I used to go to Zephyr Baptist Encampment at least once a year for youth camp and there was a building where we met for church services called the tabernacle.  This building had bird nests everywhere.  Now here’s verses years before about birds being near God’s altar and years later a place of worship surrounded by bird’s nests.  Yeah, I don’t think that escaped God’s attention at all.  At my job I walk around with Christian music playing directly into my hearing aids while I’m verifying that buildings are locked singing loudly not caring that anyone can hear.  I’m pretty sure God notices that.  If you’ve ever watched the movie the Highlander in it the Immortals can’t fight on Holy Ground.    Sometimes we need to remember where we are with those sparrows and swallows flying around that can actually be Holy Ground.  Maybe there’s not a church or an altar around but we can still pray and sing to God, and we can turn that place into Holy Ground.  Maybe you need to be like that crazy security guard who’s walking around a college campus in the wee hours of the morning singing.  Because I think the best way to end this is would be……..

 

“O, Praise the name of the Lord our God.  

O, praise his name forevermore. 

For endless days we will sing Your praise 

O Lord, O Lord, our God.”  

 

 

 

With everything by Hillsong 

O, praise the name by Hillsong 

God is faithful by Sheila Walsh

Blessed be your name by Rebecca St James

 

Day by Day

Day by Day

 

Recently I posted on Facebook that there’s a conversation at the end of Rambo First Blood part 2 that I very much relate to lately.  Colonel Trautman asks Rambo after his long one-man war and rescue of the POWs.  “How will you live, John?”  “Day by Day.”  Sometimes all we can do is live day by day seeking God in prayer.  

 

I work a strange night’s schedule 2 eight hour shifts with 2 12 hour shifts between them then 3 days off.  Recently a lot of things happened at work.  But before I tell you about that you need to get a mild amount of background.  I’m not complaining about it, just stating facts.  So, one of the guards backed the golf cart we use into a vehicle.  Our main boss took away golf cart privileges from everyone.  Now we walk all over campus where I work.  I had one of the dispatchers tell me to my face I was too slow.  I seriously almost got mad at him.  Then I thought about it.  I’m 46 years old.  I walk with a limp due to having one leg longer than the other because of growth hormone deficiency from birth.  I’m diabetic.  Every building we walk to has a different key we must locate among many keys.  If I’m slow I’m sorry.  I can run very fast to disarm buildings.  I wasn’t even mad because I was giving my best.  By the time you go through a 12-hour shift and I talk to this dispatcher I’m usually exhausted.  I want to tell you about some changes though.  I started the job in October.  I am still learning new things.  Recently one guard my friend Stephen quit for another job.  He and I worked well as a team.  Then another guard got fired for coming to work very drunk.  Well, we hired a new guard since then.  Suddenly the dispatcher who called me slow is treating me like a very valuable team member.  Also, I have been praying a lot on the way to work for the safety of my coworkers.  They can’t stop me because I’m in my car.  

 

On Monday nights I’m usually extremely exhausted after walking Friday-Sunday.  Well, I showed up for work this Monday night and I had told my friend Abbey and only her.  “I’m tired and hurting and exhausted.”  When you get to the point where you’re taking a 12-hour Aleve to get you through work because your legs hurt so bad, and your knees keep popping it’s about to be a long night at work.  I love my job.  I like what I do but it can wear you down.  Well, I showed up to work and the same dispatcher who called me slow asked me when the last time he made me a rover.  I didn’t remember either.  So I got to do fire watch all night.  Basically, you sit in a building all night and call in every hour making sure there’s no trouble.  I can do that.  It gave my body a chance to rest, and I was thankful to God for that rest.  I texted my mom and my friend Abbey and told them I was grateful to God for a chance to rest and not walk so much.  God provided.  

 

Psalm 71:3 asks this of God.

 

“Be my rock of refuge to which I can always go; give the command to save me, for you are my Rock and my Fortress.”  

 

Philippians 4:19

 

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 8:28

 

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and have been called according to His purpose.”  

 

Psalm 23:1-3

 

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”  

 

See God provided me some recovery time to give him the glory.  

 

God is faithful by Sheila Walsh 

Tell me again by Geoff Moore and the Distance 

Psalm 23 by Kathy Troccoli 

Brute Beast

 

Brute beast 

 

In the comics and the 80’s Tv show Robert David Bruce Banner was always attempting to separate himself from the Incredible Hulk.  At times he was actually able to purge himself from his raging alter ego.  In He-Man Revelations there is a moment where Prince Adam separates himself from He-Man and just becomes this savage beast.  If we let our emotions get the best of us, we become no different.  We function on instinct and stupidity.  It’s those times especially when we are emotionally messed up that we need to seek God and reconnect.  If you’re confused by this comparison, I’m making I’m about to show you in scripture why I connected with it in the way I did.  My brain goes to comics and cartoons but these verses will make sense in a moment why I mentioned the Hulk and Savage He-Man and it’s because there are so many facets to us as humans.  

 

Psalm 73:21-28

 

“When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.  Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.  You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.  Whom have I in Heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.  But as for me, it is good to be near God.  I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”  

 

The Psalmist Asaph described us when consumed by emotions to be like a brute beast.  It’s like the Hulk separated from Banner.  Recently my dog got an ear infection and I’ve been having my mom as well as a friend of mine try to help me with giving Arisia ear drops.  Dogs don’t like it at all and they become like a brute beast.  I basically have to pin her down to be able to have someone else give her the ear drops.  Sometimes when we’re emotionally messed up God has to go to the extreme to get us to pay attention to Him.  I love how this whole passage ends though because once we stop fighting and pay attention God is right there trying to teach us. 

 

Who am I by Point of Grace 

At your feet by Casting Crowns