“Against The Wind”

 

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“Against the Wind”

A number of years ago while working on a high-rise condominium at Gulf Shores, Alabama, I was taking a break for lunch when I noticed a car pull up loaded with people. As I watched I saw them take out their blow up mattress and head for the water. Now this was winter time in Alabama and people around here don’t swim this time of the year, so they had to be from up north where it is a lot colder. This weather must have felt pretty nice to them, so in they went. Well, in winter here we have off shore winds, meaning the wind comes from the north and the Gulf of Mexico is south, so whatever hits the water is pushed south. The first land to the south is Cuba. When they first realized they couldn’t get back they were about 100 yards out. Panic began to set in as they paddled harder and harder toward shore, to no avail. They began to holler, and then it escalated to screams for help. They understood that the wind was against them and it was blowing harder than they were able to paddle against. Cuba is a communist nation and that was not an option. So they couldn’t get back to shore and couldn’t go with the wind either, they needed outside help. This time of the year there aren’t many people on the beach, but there were two or three. Some swam out and tried to help the paddlers paddle and others swam out and couldn’t make it and barely made it back to shore alive. The paddlers were holding their own until they exhausted their energy and began to lose ground and began to drift toward Cuba. Someone had called the Coast guard and they showed up as the floaters were almost out of sight.


As tough construction workers we thought, how stupid, if the wind is blowing from the north and the Gulf is to the south, don’t get in the water. We had no idea that we also were heading to Cuba, and the wind was stronger than we were, in our own lives. As Forest Gump would say, “Stupid is as stupid does”.


In these swimmers’ situation the wind was their enemy. The word enemy is interpreted as who, or whatever is against you. Jesus said, “If you are not for me you are against me”. There was a great wind of opposition blowing against Him when He walked this earth and there still is today, opposition to His name, what He teaches and what He does. There is a great wind of opposition against those of us who are for Him, and are against what He instructs us to do, as we do it. The wind is against God and all that is good. The origin of the wind is satanic and is against God’s kingdom and His church, His people.


The shore line symbolizes everything that is good and Godly. Cuba, symbolizes a godless dictatorship and everything that is bad. I am getting up in age and have observed the godless wind of liberalism that has raised its ugly head and blows many people to Cuba. Our feet can be on American shore and our head in Cuba. What we have come to believe can reveal if this is the case. Do we believe things that are against God’s teachings? Our Father created the earth and created men and women to live in it and tend it, according to His instructions, as man and wife. We were created after His kind. Have we now come to believe that a man can marry a man? Cuba. Do we now believe that a man can have a sex change and become a woman and marry a man? Cuba. How many things has the strong roaring wind forced us to accept? Do we know it is wrong inside but accept it on the outside just to get along? The old Indians called a man like this, “One who speaks with forked tongue”. God calls him a double minded man shaky in all his ways. How many things have we come to accept that is against His ways?


Our nation has been engulfed in a wind that has grown stronger and stronger over the years. The Democratic Party has grown more liberal and godless as the years have gone by. They have elected godless men to office and appointed them to the courts. They own the Attorney General, and many law enforcement people and none of them are ever prosecuted for their lawless acts. By the way, did you know that elected people such as the President and congress don’t have to go through a background check? Only citizens such as you and I have to. They are also issued security clearances without checking their past associations and actions. I wonder who made that rule. When a nation has little recourse to lawlessness and dictatorial rule we are almost to Cuba. We have paddled hard to get back to shore and are about exhausted. We need help from the outside, and we need a coastguard ship to show up. I know many of you have been calling the coastguard, so to say, for a long time. The ship is coming, can’t you see it?


We can’t paddle our way back to shore we are too weak. We need help. God has sent help in the form of a man. Names mean something to God, so He named him Trump. What does a trumpet do? It sounds an alarm. It speaks God’s instructions. It tears down things. It is stronger than the wind. Do we remember reading, Jesus woke up while in a fishing boat and there was a great storm blowing? The disciples were afraid and Jesus rebuked the storm saying, “Be still”. Can we allow His man to do the same? God is for Donald Trump, can we be against him? Will we find ourselves against God and His plan? This should be obvious to God’s people. One person is blowing us to Cuba and the other is taking us back to shore. Do we have the strength to change this situation? We certainly do. We can get up and go vote for God’s man. The choice is given to us. He won’t force us to go, but we are a part of this also, just as Donald Trump is. Can we do our part as Donald Trump is tirelessly doing his? Is he by himself or are we with him? God’s plan is to take back the land that He gave us. Do we want to be loved by God or hated by liberals the rest of our lives? This should be obvious to the church, or does it take a Prophet to say it.? if so, so be it. “The wind has blown us down, but we still have the strength to sign our name to a ballot. The roar of the wind has beaten and scared us, but we will prevail. We will not give in to the failure. We are God’s handy- work and we are for Him. We will stand together as His church and body in the earth. He has given this land to us and we will not stand by and let somebody else take it from us. If God is for us, who can stand against us? Are we waiting for an angel to come from heaven to strike our enemy or are we going to get up and do our part? We have been taught passivity forever from the church buildings while liberalism continued to grow and look where it got us. We are men, made in God’s image. He is not passive. Was the Cross passive or was it a war against evil. Did Jesus come to the earth to undo what the devil had done to His people or not? We are salt and light to the earth. Will the people in our land see that? Why do we fight for what is right and good? Because He did and still does. Are we for Him and with Him? The wind won’t stop just because we want it to. It will stop when we tell it to.”

David McClary

“Give us Barabbas”

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“Give us Barabbas”

 

There is a great war raging in America today. On one side are the followers of Jesus and his way and then there are the followers of man’s way. Man has no way but his own. Lost in a world of not knowing where he came from or where he is going. Empty of purpose, so he makes up his idea of purpose in life. He makes up his idea of how man should live and the rules and boundaries he should live by. These people get elected to office and began to implement them. When men can’t bear up under these, stronger rules are made and if that doesn’t work, then strong enforcement is implemented. The character of much of these men can be extreme. Some steal, rob, murder, deceive, pervert, slander and lie to keep their positions in office. Anyone that comes along that doesn’t do such things is a threat to their way. Their defense is to rage a war of lies against the people of God’s way, those who follow Jesus. Continue reading ““Give us Barabbas””

“Then You Will Know That I Am The Lord”

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“Then You Will Know That I Am The Lord”

There are many “Then” moments in our lives. The “Then” moment comes after the incident and at the point in time that we realize that God was, and is Lord over the incident. Everything I see and touch, I have to come to the “Then” moment and know that the Lord has designed and fashioned it, whether it is a tree, rock, river, dog, cat, and nation, whatever it is. It could be a troubled time in our life. It could be rebellion, personal or governmental time. There are many things that we didn’t know that God was Lord over. I didn’t know that He had planned for me to meet my wife. He was Lord over it before I even met her. “Then” I knew that He was Lord over our marriage. What a “Then” moment, of course when we first meet God that is the ultimate “Then” moment. Since then, there have been many “Then” moments. When God makes us to know the truth of a matter, those are “Then” moments. Continue reading ““Then You Will Know That I Am The Lord””

“Fences”

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“Fences”

My wife and I used to live in south Alabama. We owned ten acres of land. We had chickens and some sheep. Chickens have natural enemies and so do sheep. Chickens seem to enjoy staying close to the house when we let them out to feed. Although they have to watch out for hawks. Their house is protected at night with fences around it to keep out raccoons and opossums that love southern fried chicken. The sheep have free reign to graze. Sheep have natural enemies also, such as dogs and coyotes. Our property had legal boundaries, of course the sheep don’t care where they start or stop. So we put fences around it. Now some of the sheep were perfectly fine with that, but a few were not. I spent a lot of time cultivating the fields, to provide fresh grass for them. To my surprise, that was not good enough for some. Continue reading ““Fences””

“A Boat or An Ark”

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     “A Boat or an Ark”

When I was young, my brothers and I loved boats. We liked riding in them, looking at them and fishing from them. Of course we couldn’t afford one, so we built some. We made one out of an old suitcase, put it in the 4’ fish pond and it sunk. Than we made one out of 1×4 pine flooring, put it in Gunnerson creek and it sunk. We helped our Daddy some, building a houseboat, and it sunk. Continue reading ““A Boat or An Ark””

“Either-Or”

 

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“Either – Or”

 

While sitting on the couch, I glanced over at my two banjo’s sitting side by side on one of our recliners. I keep them in plain sight so that I will remember to practice. I can see them from anywhere in the room. One of them has flower inlays on the neck, While the other has the tree of life inlays all the way up the neck. They are both beautiful but different. The one with the flowers is tuned in a G tuning, while the other one is tuned in Double C tuning. The reason they are tuned differently is because playing Old Time Mountain style banjo you are limited to the amount of lead notes you can play. So, the banjo is tuned in the tuning where you can play those certain notes. For instance the old tune Cherokee Shuffle, is played in the G tuning. I had taught the folks in our music jam to play it this way. While I was gone, a man came along and taught them to play it in the key of D, The problem is that some of the lead notes are just not there. The tune now sounds nothing like The Cherokee Shuffle. The tune could be played on most all of the other instruments, but not the clawhammer banjo. Everyone was having a great time playing the tune, while I just sat there quietly. When playing in public, someone might ask me to play a certain tune, I choose the banjo that is tuned in the only tuning that can play the tune correctly. I kid people sometimes and say, let me change banjos because that song is not in this banjo. Continue reading ““Either-Or””

“Change”

 

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“Change”

My wife and I lived in a small mountain farmhouse. The windows in the den were high and we had to stand on tiptoes to see out. The rooms were small. The bedroom was eleven feet long by eleven feet wide, after putting a chest of drawers in, we had to turn sideways to get in the bed. At first that was fine, but after a while that got a little old. Something had to change. Things that need to change, seem to have a buildup period before any change can take place. Well, we decided to build a new house with more room. It seems we have to get tired of the way things are before the ground is fertile enough for change to take place. There is preparation before change is wanted. Sometimes I will work so hard that I will change clothes twice a day. How do I know that I need to change? When I am soaking wet with sweat and stink. At times we have to get very uncomfortable before we want change. When I was a little boy Mama would tell us boys to come in and clean up. We would say, but I’m not dirty. We were not uncomfortable, but she was. She was teaching us to recognize uncomfortable, on our end and others. Is it possible to make someone uncomfortable, by what I look like or am doing? Continue reading ““Change””

“Pages”

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“Pages”

A turning

Our world is full of books, with a lot of pages. Many of us love to read, page by page. Some read fast and some read slow.  Some read slow when they should read fast and some read fast when they should read slow. Some read fiction and some read true stories. Some read fiction that seems it could be true. Than some read truth that sounds like fiction. Fiction should be all fiction and truth should be all truth. Some read fiction and believe it as truth and some read truth and believe it is fiction. If I read fiction, it had better be pure fiction, so I don’t mix it up with truth. Continue reading ““Pages””

“Calling in the Slaves”

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“Calling in the Slaves”

 

After all these years I still have a vivid picture within myself, of 1963 slavery. I was driving through the middle of a prominent state. Most of that area is flat land as far as you could see. I looked to my right and could see a group of people, horses and wagons all in single file. They were young, middle aged, white haired old folks, women and children. They were bringing in the cotton after a hard day’s work. This may sound like a story back in the eighteen hundreds, but it wasn’t. We were visiting some relatives there. As we drove down through the old town area there were many black people sitting out front of the company store. They worked all day for the farm owner and shopped in the farm owner’s store in the evening. I know they were not called slaves in that day, but it sure had the characteristics of it. I wondered what it would be like to be a slave. I would soon find out. Continue reading ““Calling in the Slaves””

“Inside Out”

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“Inside Out”

Reaching our full potential

            I was standing by a concrete wall, thinking about getting older and that one day I would be leaving this earth. As I glanced toward the ground, I saw a small blueish white flower it was about five inches tall and all alone. As I looked at it I said, “I will miss that.” Then God spoke in my spirit and said, “That little flower will be ten times taller and ten times more beautiful in heaven”. As I thought about that, I could just see fields and fields of head high flowers exactly like that little flower. Continue reading ““Inside Out””