My History

I grew up in a born-again family, and asked God to save me when I was a little kid. I was baptized when I was a teenager. I've always listened to the Bible, prayed, praised the Lord, and told people the good news.

When I was a kid, I sinned, like- I told lies, stole little things, and bullied other kids. When I was a pre-teen and teenager I got involved in horrible sins I won't talk about now. As I kept reading the Bible, especially books like Isaiah and Jeremiah, God convicted my heart that He punishes even His own people for sin. The wages of sin is death, and the soul that sins, it will die.

I tried to hide my sins, and wanted to stop them, but just kept ending up doing the same things again. Some things happened that scared me really bad, including one of my friends dying from cancer. 1 John 1:9 warned me that I needed to admit what I had done, that it was sin, and that it was my fault.

In my late teen years, the Lord's Word like in Psalm 32, completely broke my heart, and I repented.

I still struggle against temptation some today, but the Lord has shown Himself real and living to me by many infallible proofs. He has answered prayers miraculously, kept us safe, and done great things for us.

I am thankful and glad for His mercy and forgiveness.

Watch The Room by Josh Harris.

Most Miserable

1 Corinthians 15:19

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

Is your heart satisfied with pleasure, content with gladness, and full of joy?

If not, why? Is your preaching in vain? Is your faith vain? Do you sometimes feel like you're a false witness, and doubt? Are you yet in your sins? Have those which have fallen asleep in Christ perished?

The reason is "in this life only we have hope in Christ". You're hoping for this life, and you're completely miserable. You look for something you don't have, or a change in the situation you have now. You don't have to be this way any more.

What is there besides this life? Jesus. Keep the gospel in your memory. Earnestly contend for the faith. In all things, He must have the preeminence.

Blackie

We always wanted a dog. Unfortunatly we used to rent a house where the landlord said no dogs.

Our relatives had a little puppy named "Blackie," and we made good friends with him, and were sorry to see him sold. One of my brothers particularly missed Blackie and prayed for a little black dog.

More recently another one of my brothers decided he wanted a dog, and when he prayed he prayed for a dog. "What a stupid thing to pray." I thought. "Ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your lusts." I wouldn't say Amen.

Papa said "The only way we're going to get a dog is if somebody brings one up to the door and says, Here's a free dog!"

I thought about how I hadn't been saying amen to my brother's prayers, and thought, "hmm... why not? So I prayed, If it's Your will, let us have a dog."

People were playing in the backyard, and the neighbor was over with his little black dog. He said, "We don't want this dog and want to get rid of it. Do you want it?" Somebody told him, you'll have to go up and ask. So he came up to the door with the little black dog, and said "Here's a dog we don't want, you can have him for free, do you want him?"

So that's how we got our dog.

Lord, Pl-

I was standing of the doorway of the garage, with the garage door open. I had seen a bunch of weeds earlier and wanted to cut them down with the weed cutter.

I had just read Jeremiah 33:3, which I really, really love. I was trying to make a song out of it, and singing the words over and over again in my head.

Call, upon me
And I will answer thee
And I will show you things
Great and mighty things
That thou knowest not-
That thou knowest not.

I looked in the corner where the weed whacker belonged. It wasn't there. I called to my brother, and asked him if he had moved it or knew where it was. He didn't. I thought, "I can't find it by just standing here and looking- I have to move things around." So I started moving things around, and still couldn't find it.

I suddenly realized what I was singing as I couldn't find the weed whacker. "I know! I'll pray and the Lord can help me find the weed whacker!" I thought. I believed it. I was going to pray something like "Lord, please help me find the weed whacker."

"Lord, Pl-"

As I was starting to pray before I could actually ask, I looked at what was in front of my eyes, and saw what faintly resembled, right there on the floor of the garage in between a bunch of stuff, a part of the weed whacker. "No, that can't be it- it's too long and bent." I reached down and pulled out- the weed whacker. Praise the Lord! Like papa says, "If you can find something in our garage, that is a miracle!"

It doesn't always work that way- like I prayed with a neighbor who lost her keys and we still couldn't find them. But if the Lord isn't showing you great and mighty things, it's because you aren't calling on Him.

Another time I knocked down something my brother had tacked up on the wall. Which meant there was a tack on the floor, which wasn't too good either. I looked a lot and prayed a lot, and finally ended looking, but never doubted the Lord. Just as I was leaving, I found the tack like I had prayed.

"Give me one person tonight!"

I was pacing back and forth in the parking lot in front of the office I used to work, waiting for papa to come pick me up.

It says if any man is afflicted, let him pray, and I was definitely afflicted :-) I thought of how we had been planning to go to the Retirement Home with our friends and sing and share the gospel that night. We had been practicing our songs for a while.

"Lord," I prayed, "Give me one person tonight!" It was an incredible moment as I poured out such a determined plea. So many times before we had gone to preach the gospel praying that "at least one could be saved"- and saw none. "Father, please give me one person tonight!"

I never ever saw anybody come to the Lord Jesus before from me preaching the gospel.

As we were singing and some people said some things, I was looking around the room praying for each person as I saw them- "Lord, please save that person, right now, if he isn't saved!"

Before we just ran out I wanted to talk to people- I talked to a few different people. I went over to one man in a chair and started talking to him. I guess he doesn't have any relatives. I told him the gospel, and the way to be saved. I said "Would you like to do that now?" He said "Yes." I said something like "You can pray something simple, like, God, In Jesus' name, save me."

He repeated the words. I talked with him a little more. I couldn't believe what I had just seen. It was just the most incredible thing ever. I was so glad!

It wasn't until later that I remembered pacing back and forth, praying, "Give me one person tonight!"

His Boughs are Broken

Ezekiel 31:3

Behold, the Assyrian [was] a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.

yawn I sure am tired, so I don't know why I writing this now, but I haven't written for a while...

My hands hurt while I'm typing this- my hands and arms (and the back of my neck) are all scratched up (I don't think my sunburn is hurting very much right now.) After today's work I think I'm permanently thirsty :-)

I trimmed the five mulberry trees along our front hedge today. I thought it was so cool when I came in and read about the tree "with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs." Talk about thick branches, in my head I can still hear the saw going back and forth. Those things were really high, and I even found a nest in them. v6 "All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs..."

I sure liked the shadows I could hide from the sun in before I cut them down.

Ezekiel 31:12

And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.

After I ran to throw a particularly large bunch of branches in the ditch, I slipped and fell. The corner of our old back retaining wall is still standing, and stumbling over the branches into the ditch, I saw the wall and the big solid capstones. Oh, great, this is going to hurt, I thought. Somehow I missed the wall and jumped right out fine.

After that I was moving my head back and forth as I sawed, and ran my eye into a twig sticking out. "I wonder if I'll be blind now?" I thought before I realized that it was just one eye. But my eye seems fine now. Praise the Lord!

A couple of guys across the street and a little way down came to mow the neighbor's lawn. As I worked I was singing stuff like "Call upon the name of the Lord, and you shall be saved." I saw one of the guys doing something at the truck, and suddenly felt like I should go over and preach the gospel to him. OK, I decided that's what I was going to do.

Walking across the street and down the sidewalk, I felt like an idiot. I shouldn't have, because I remember "whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed". Feeling this way upstairs earlier, I looked down and saw the book "A complete IDIOT's guide to MOSAIC" (A computer thing.) The book was complete with a picture of a complete idiot right on the front. I'm a complete idiot, I told myself.

What do I have, to tell him? Just what I know- about forgiveness of sins. The other guy was sitting at the truck when I came up and said good afternoon. The first guy was starting to mow the lawn. I said something like "My name is Isaac. Nice to meet you! Could I tell you about how the Lord Jesus forgives sins?"

The man's appearance was a bit distracting and I was thinking "This guy's not going to listen at all. He's really a sinner, the Lord must know he needs me to talk to him." You know piercings and rings hanging everywhere and everything. I shouldn't have thought that, judging him by the outward appearance and being a respecter of persons- after all, I had just read "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

He actually seemed very nice and wanted to hear, and I said something like "It's just by calling on him! The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."

As I got to the gospel verse. The other guy got near that part of the yard with the lawn mower and it became a little hard to hear (a coincidence?) He nodded, and I think he heard and understood, So I said good afternoon, and came back. When they drove away, I waved, and he called out "take it easy Isaac!" and I replied "You too, see you later!"

I wonder if I'll ever see him again...

Oh, by the way, preaching the gospel is not for the fainthearted- I've been assailed on with an incredible bombardment of many types of attacks from the enemy lately; pray for me. Oh, and open your mouths fellowsoldiers- "Woe be unto me if I preach not the gospel."