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Driving Blind

Accessible Success Posted on February 19, 2024 by LarryFebruary 19, 2024

Does every blind person have a driving story? Probably not, but it seems many of us do. I actually did drive up and down a back road a couple of times once, but that’s a boring story. I’ve started using the term, “blind”, because it’s just easier, but I do have some useable vision. I travel with a cane. It does help, but I can and sometimes do go without when it is more of a hindrance, such as when I need my hands for something else. At those times I do have it on my belt. It took me many years to learn that it was better for me to have it for the benefit of those around me. It lets them know that I might not see them. I might not know that they’re talking to me. I won’t see a wave from across the room. I might run into them. I might be forgiven a traffic violation or two…or not. Thus begins my story.

On a quiet neighborhood street, I can, or at least I once could, safely ride a bicycle. I used to have one and I used it to and from campus while in school and for errands. A moped, however, is a different matter. You couldn’t convince me of that in my younger days. I couldn’t wait to get some kind of motorized conveyance, and as soon as I could scrape together enough money, I had it. I still marvel that my dad helped me do it, but I’m sure he knew it would be better to help me do it right since I was going to do it anyway. A couple of initial wrecks didn’t slow me down, and soon I had it with me on campus. I’ll probably never know how many times I put myself or others in danger. I can only conclude that God was protecting me. Eventually the school forced me to stop using it on campus and I sold it.

I was at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Near the campus was a wooded hill with a trail that went to the top. I used to go up there and sit. Sometimes I would just sit there. Other times I would study for class. On one beautiful Fall morning I decided to take my study materials and go up there, so I loaded up the basket on the back of my moped and headed out.

As I turned off the two-lane highway south of the campus, I heard the siren. As far as I can remember and surprisingly so now that I think about it, that was only one of two times I was pulled over. I think this was the first, but I knew it was for me. I’ve read that a blind person cannot walk a straight line. I’m not at all sure that’s true, but one thing is true for me. I cannot ride a straight line. There’s always a little correction one way or the other as I notice the drift. So, I was suspected of drunk driving.

I don’t remember the questions the officer asked me. I hadn’t broken any laws. One could operate a 50cc vehicle without a license and at least while he was watching I didn’t actually break any traffic rules. I just didn’t quite drive in a straight line. What’s wrong with that? As we wrapped up our little conversation, he asked me, “What’s that in your basket?”

“That is a braille writer,” I calmly replied.

He said, “I knew that’s what it was, but I wanted to hear you say it.”

He let me go with an admonition to be careful, and I went on to my destination. No, the foolishness of my actions still hadn’t hit home. It would take a few more months and some outside pressure to stop me. I wish that was the only poor decision I made at that time of my life. It is something to learn from.

We like to say that we have no limitations, but everybody has limitations. Recognizing them is part of growing up. There are some things we can’t do, and lots of others we shouldn’t. The challenge for us is to turn our focus to those things we can and should do. Sometimes we need to push those limits but be safe out there; and watch out for people like me. 😊

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Your Disability is No Excuse

Accessible Success Posted on February 15, 2024 by LarryFebruary 15, 2024

If you grew up in Sunday School, you probably know the story of Moses at the burning bush. You can look it up in Exodus, chapters 3 and 4. Many have inferred from the way it reads that Moses had, or at least felt that he had, some level of speech impediment. It has also been suggested that he simply refers to the fact that he had not used the Egyptian language in forty years.

The message is the same in either case. No kind of impediment can stand in the way of Yahweh. When God has overcome each of his prior objections, he comes to this one. Was it the root of his fear all along? We are not told. What we are told is that God finally becomes angry with Moses.

And Moses said to Yahweh, “Please, Lord, I am not a man of words, neither recently nor in the past nor since your speaking to your servant, because I am heavy of mouth and of tongue.” And Yahweh said to him, “Who gave a mouth to humankind, or who makes mute or deaf or sighted or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh? So then go, and I myself will be with your mouth, and I will teach you what you must speak.” And he said, “Please, Lord, do send anyone else whom you wish to send.” And Yahweh was angry with Moses and said, “Is there not Aaron your brother the Levite? I know that he certainly can speak, and also there he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will rejoice in his heart. And you will speak to him, and you will put words in his mouth, and I myself will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you must do. And he will speak for you to the people, and then he will be to you as a mouth, and you will be to him as a god.

Exodus 4:10-16 Lexham English Bible

This is pure speculation, but I wonder if Yahweh would have established the Levitical priesthood through Moses rather than Aaron if it had not been for Moses’ reluctance to do what He asked. What we can definitely learn from this is that when God calls us, we should answer without hesitation. Whatever the challenge you are facing, He is able to overcome it. If He has given you a mission, don’t delay in carrying it out.

You might say that He has never spoken to you in a burning bush or in any discernible way for that matter. I do believe that we should be in the kind of relationship with God that involves some level of discernible communication. I believe that we cannot be very effective without it. Having said that, we already have His written word. Start there, and as you meditate on His word, you will find His Holy Spirit guiding you. Act on what you find there. Don’t let your shortcomings, real or perceived, get in the way. God says to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NASB)

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Love Letter to a Stranger

Accessible Success Posted on February 14, 2024 by LarryFebruary 14, 2024

I have met you and I have heard your story, but I do not know you well. I do know that you are not alone. I felt your pain, and there was so much I wanted to say but could not find the words. So, I wrote them down, and I pray that you and all of those who suffer with you will see and understand.

What can I say? Are there any words that would make a difference? How can I, living as I say that all should live and yet rarely joyful, claim that I know the path to peace, fulfillment, and happiness? I know that if I hold back because of my own imperfection, I will never be able to share what little wisdom God has allowed me. So, with open acknowledgement that I have not yet managed to fully apply the truth I know, I try to pass it along.

Should I dare to speak to someone whose life and experience are so different than mine? I have certainly known the pain of loss, but each loss is different. I know what betrayal feels like, but not on the scale that some have seen it. In truth my life has been good. That I cannot see well is sometimes a source of frustration, but I wouldn’t trade the life I’ve been given to gain the ability to see. What is that against the love of a good family and most of all the love of God? If I can point to tragedy in my life, it has been that of my own making, and even there, God has spared me. I was brought up in the Truth, and that kept me from much that destroys life.

Maybe it is only this that I can offer. I have hope in God. There is no hope in religious ritual. It may provide the solace of the familiar, but there is no life in it. True worshipers may exist within its context, but in itself it does not promote true worship. Church, as most of us define it, is no church at all. The church is comprised of true followers of Jesus, not of congregants in a particular building, group, or denomination. It is among such true believers that one may hope to find a small sample of the love that God intended for us to share. These people are much rarer than the shrinking numbers of church attendees would indicate. Once discovered, they too will fail us at times, because they like us are flawed. The only one in whom we may have unshakable trust is Yahweh, the God of the Bible.

But He designed us to operate in community. We were not meant to function in isolation. Alone, we cannot receive His love through His people, nor can we give it. The latter is crucial. When we give Jesus our lives and are thus reborn, we have within us His nature and are compelled to act as He would. We cannot be healthy unless we are doing what He does. As I live my life, I become more and more convinced that the only path to consistent and lasting joy is in service to others, which is service to God. WE love Him by loving each other.

Those are pretty words, but they seem to crumble to dust upon the slightest brush with reality. The best of us fail and most of us are not the best of us. We tend to be selfish, ungrateful, spiteful, and without real love. To love and give of oneself only to have more demanded without so much as a word of gratitude seems to pull that joy I spoke of well out of reach. This is why we need others around us. We need a community of godly people who will stand with us. It is more blessed to give than to receive, but if one never receives, he runs out of anything to give. I for one would rather that everything I need come straight from God. He’s the one who will never fail. But God means for His people to be conduits for His love. By denying others the opportunity to give to me, I deny them the opportunity to be blessed by the giving and act out God’s nature in their own lives. This is tough when trust has been often betrayed, but there is healing in it.

I also hurt for those who choose to reject God’s best for them. What can I say that would help you understand? The love you seek cannot be found in a relationship devoid of commitment. The pain you hope to soothe will only grow worse as your soul becomes further divided among partners who themselves have no notion of love beyond what pleases them or seems to fill their own emptiness. What will you do if you should find true love and discover that you have too little left to share? God does not wish to take love away from you. He wishes to give it to you. He is not out to take all joy from your life, but to show you the way to more joy than you imagine possible. Loving Father that He is, he guides us away from the things that will hurt us and toward that which is best for us. He is also just, and though He would not have it so, He must eventually judge those who will not listen to the truth. This above all I would spare you, for there is no greater sorrow than to be separated forever from the lover who would never have left you. Come to Him. He does not seek religious rituals. He cares little which label you wear. I think He would prefer that you wear no label at all. He wants your heart. If you give yourself to Him, He will guide you to the love you are looking for. He is known as Jesus, the god of the universe made flesh to die so that you can live. He is Yahweh, the eternal Father who loved you enough to sacrifice His own son to have you. There is no greater love.

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Who Do You Think You Are?

Accessible Success Posted on February 12, 2024 by LarryFebruary 12, 2024

I still marvel at how, despite all that I would think disqualifies me, God has brought me into the calling He gave me.  I want to share the joy of that with you and illustrate from the Bible that when God has placed a calling on your life, You are not big enough to mess it up.  To say that does presuppose one thing, that your heart is right before God.  Even so, if He wants it, He will have it.

I am amazed, encouraged, and humbled when I read about the people God used to accomplish His great purposes in our world.  The book of Genesis alone is quite a story.  Abraham treated his wife shamefully.  Isaac repeated his father’s mistake.  Jacob was a liar and a cheat.  Joseph had the makings of a spoiled brat.  At best he was imprudent in sharing his grandiose dreams with the family already jealous of him.  Things don’t get any better for him as he goes into slavery and then to prison on a trumped-up charge.  Yet because he remained diligent in all that he did, he became Israel’s first great deliverer as second in command of Egypt, at the time the world’s greatest nation.

Moses may have had some kind of speech impediment and had an anger management problem that got him exiled after committing murder.  He offered so many excuses when God showed himself at the burning bush to call him to deliver Israel from slavery that he made god angry (Ex 4:14.)  Yet he did deliver Israel and gave them God’s laws.  In Judges 6 we find Gideon, hiding in a hole and yet called a valiant warrior by God’s angel (Judges 6:12.)  He would go on to deliver his nation with an army of three hundred men.

Then there’s David.  We find his story in the books of Samuel.  Anointed king while a lowly shepherd, the youngest in his family, seemingly deemed unworthy of consideration even by his own father.  After proving himself worthy of the honor he was instead exiled as the jealous king Saul tried to kill him.  He was called a man after God’s own heart, yet he committed adultery and tried to cover it up with murder.  God’s promise remained, and Jesus is called the son of David.  The difference between the sin of Saul and the sin of David is their responses when confronted.  Saul made excuses.  David repented.  There are more examples, but let’s move on to the New Testament.

One might have expected Jesus to pick the best of the best to be the followers who would spread His message throughout the world.  Maybe He did, but we probably wouldn’t see it that way.  A third of his chosen team were fishermen.  One was a tax collector, another a rebel, another apparently a pessimistic skeptic, and another a traitor.  None of them really understood what he was here to do until after his resurrection.  They seemed to be constantly squabbling over who was going to be the greatest in Jesus’ new kingdom (Luke 9:46, 22:24.)

Some of His disciples got special mention for their human failings.  Peter is called a rock by Jesus yet denies Him 3 times in His greatest hour of need.  We like to pick on Peter, but I think we treat him a bit too harshly.  He may have sunk, but he also got out of the boat and walked on the water.  He may have denied Jesus, but he was also the only one to fight for Him and was one of only two who follow Him to the trial.  Jesus made it clear after his Resurrection that Peter still had a job to do.

john, the one who wrote the most about love, didn’t start out very loving.  He was mean spirited (Luke 9:52-56) and power hungry (Mark 10:35-39.)  He must have thought his close relationship with Jesus would give him unique privileges.  Yet Jesus had a special love for him (John 13:23, 20:2, 21:7,20.)  John eventually got it because he wrote more about love than anyone else whose writing we consider to be God’s word.

We can’t talk about unlikely candidates for God’s work without mentioning Paul.  He started out an enemy of the church until Jesus intercepted him.  There’s evidence in his letters that he wasn’t a particularly gifted orator or much to look at.  Yet no one did more to spread the message.  A joke has been floating around the church as long as I can remember listing Paul’s resume as if he were applying for a pastoral position.  The point is that none of us would be very likely to hire him.  It’s just one more illustration of how God’s standards differ from ours.

My hope in laying all of this out for you is that you will be encouraged to pursue the calling God has placed on your life.  Do not be deceived into thinking that your current circumstances or your past prevents you from doing what He has given you to do.  Maybe you do not know your calling.  Be assured that you have one if He is your Lord.  Even if not, He will have His way with you if He has chosen you.  Just ask Paul, Moses, or Jonah.

I am constantly amazed at His mercy and grace.  I am just as flawed as any of these.  I have hope only because He is my God.  He gave himself for me, and I give myself to Him.  Trust Him.  Do the best you can, but do not fear failure.  He is bigger than your failure.  Even that will be turned to His glory.  Only keep your heart devoted to Him.

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Childlike Faith

Accessible Success Posted on February 11, 2024 by LarryFebruary 11, 2024

Many of us are familiar with Jesus’ statement that we must enter His kingdom like a child if we are to enter it at all. We describe it as having a childlike faith, but is that what He said? Certainly, we should trust in our Heavenly Father in the same way that a young child trusts in his earthly father, but in the passages we reference, Jesus said nothing of faith. In each instance, the theme is humility. The disciples weren’t getting it. They were arguing among themselves as to which of them would be the greatest in the kingdom. Presumably, based on the question they asked Him even after His resurrection (Acts 1:6,) they were imagining an earthly kingdom in which favors would be handed out to the closest associates of the new leader. Jesus is letting them know that’s not how His kingdom works. One cannot enter it on his own merit in pursuit of his own glory. One must enter it in humility, looking to God just as a little child looks to his parents.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:1-4 NASB 1995

This is one way we get misled. The idea of a childlike faith is not without merit, but here many of us have assumed a scriptural support for a concept that is actually something entirely different. We have missed the main point and thereby promoted a teaching that I believe is actually harmful to our faith. We promote faith without reason. We are encouraged to turn off our minds and just believe. Yes, it is possible to accept and believe without understanding. The true faith of a child is no less true because he cannot fully understand what he believes, but we advise him never to grow up!

Children are trusting, but they are also naive. We cringe at the thought of a child approached by a stranger who says, “Your daddy said to come with me.” We teach them as soon as we can not to go with strangers. We are not preparing new believers in the same way. Often, we inadvertently encourage them instead to pursue the stranger. Any time we listen to someone else tell us what God said and do not confirm for ourselves that He did indeed say it, we risk following a stranger into danger. Just as it has become common for parents to give children a code word so that if they do need to go with someone new, they will have a token of the parent’s authority, we have God’s word in the Bible. Everything we hear should be checked against the Bible before we accept it as truth. And remember, even Satan quotes scripture. One isolated reference does not constitute proof. The Bible is a big book. It can be made to say just about anything if one picks just the right fragment.

Trust in God as a child may trust a father but accept no impostor. Have a child’s humility but have a mature faith. (See 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, Hebrews 5:12)

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What’s In The Box?

Accessible Success Posted on February 10, 2024 by LarryFebruary 10, 2024

Do you remember this from being a kid? Maybe you’ve watched your own children do it. An expensive gift comes in a great big box. Someone put a lot of thought into that gift and thought it would really be enjoyed, but instead, the empty box is the thrill of the day. The item of value is ignored, and they play with the box.

As we grow up, the box wanes in appeal as a plaything, but we don’t lose our fascination with packaging quite so easily. We still tend to judge the quality of the item inside by how the package looks on the outside. We shun damaged cans and boxes of perfectly good food at the supermarket. Manufacturers from food to high-end electronics spend a lot of resources making sure the outside catches the eye. They know that if the outside doesn’t look good, we’ll never sample what’s on the inside.

This may not always be bad when applied to things, but it’s terrible when applied to people. We do apply it to people. “Good-looking” people get treated better, are hired more easily, and are more likely to be believed. All of this is based merely on the packaging. We worship the body and devastate the soul. We’re so obsessed with the packaging that even those among us who would be considered beautiful often don’t believe it. It’s a fickle standard in any case, varying across time and culture.

If “normal” people battle this, what about those of us who are not? Like most teenagers, I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be “normal.” My dad used to ask me something like this, “Why would you want to be normal? Who told you that normal was good?” If we examine what’s going on in our world today, we find that normal really isn’t so good. It’s not a standard any of us should be striving for.

Whether or not you’re facing any kind of disability or disfigurement, chances are there’s something about your package that you don’t like. Maybe it came that way, or maybe it was damaged in shipping. The reasons are as varied as the packages, but one thing remains true for all. The real value is inside the package. Remember that not only as you consider yourself, but especially as you consider others. Is a diamond worth less because you received it in a crumpled paper sack instead of a fancy box? We might wonder about the giver’s choice of packaging, but it would not change the value of the gift.

So, if you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, are you looking past the packaging? What is inside? If you are looking at someone else, on what are you basing your assessment of them? Why do you accept the words of that news anchor or politician on the screen? Is it because they have established credibility, or does it have more to do with how they present themselves? In your day-to-day interactions with other people, do you look beyond first impressions? It’s true that there is only so much time available to us. Sometimes we have to make judgments based on the information at hand, but I urge you to make the time as much as possible when dealing with people. Don’t be fooled by the package. You could spare yourself bitter disappointment or discover something of great value.

We need to learn to see ourselves and others as God sees us. This is both wonderful and frightening. It is wonderful because we can know that God loves us. He has done everything He can to bring us to Himself. We are of such value to Him that He gave Himself for us. We should always keep this in mind as we interact with each other.

It is frightening because of the corruption that is at the core of all of us. It has been there since Adam let it in. Without God’s redemptive power through the blood of Jesus, we are all without hope. We all have good qualities that come from being created by God. That is why I wrote this. I want to encourage you to find those qualities within yourself and others. But none of us is truly good. Within every package is the deadly contamination of sin.

That is why it is such good news that the one who put us together in the first place provided a way for us to get cleaned up. If we give over our package and its contents to Him, He will perfect it, making it all that He intended it to be. A word of warning though. He starts on the inside first. To get to the inside, he has to open the package, and that’s painful at times. We may not get the pretty rapping until He takes us to be with Him.

I wish that we would all take more time to look beyond the surface. If we spent more time with the gift instead of the box, we would all live in a better place. Let’s start today!

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A Life Longing for Love

Accessible Success Posted on February 8, 2024 by LarryFebruary 8, 2024

If I could have only one thing out of life, it would be to know pure love. There are many reasons why I say that. I don’t know if all of them are good, but I will share one of them here. I’m not sure I know myself well enough to say which is truly the strongest motivation for me, but I know what it should be. To know love is to know God.

I know a statement like that will bother some Christians. They rightly decry movements in the modern church that emphasize God’s love to the exclusion of His wrath and judgment and our need for repentance. These things are not at odds. In fact, they require each other to exist. God is holy and just because He is love, not in spite of it. John 4:8 says that God is love. Does that mean He can be nothing else? We are all many things at the same time.

When we use a noun to describe a person, we usually affix a singular article to it. We would say that john is a man. We would not say that Jon is man. The latter implies that Jon is the standard by which We can judge whether anyone is a man or not. If we want another way to describe John in more general terms as belonging to the class of men, we will say that he is male, using an adjective rather than a noun.

The Bible tells us that God is love. To say that he is a love would not make much sense. We don’t use the word that way, though we might, since there are four words translated as love from the Greek. He is associated with the root word “agapé”, which is by far the most used. To say that He is loving is true, but He means to communicate something more powerful here. God defines love. He is the standard by which love is proven. John writes: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8 NASB 1995) This is why I say that to know love is to know God.

This may still be hard to swallow unless we have some understanding of what love really is. I don’t think it’s an accident that the word has fallen into vulgar usage. We apply the same word to everything from the height of ecstasy to a preference for popcorn. I too am guilty, though no longer without regret, of using the word lightly. When God uses the word, it’s definitely not shallow. Just look at what He did for love.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

John 3:16

For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:7-8

When Jesus talks about the kind of love we should have for each other (John 13:34-35) and even about the kind of love we should have for our enemies (Matt 5:43-48,) the writers use the same Greek word that is used in the passages above. It is a love willing to sacrifice itself even for those who pay it back with hate. I have to ask myself, is this really the kind of love I want to know? It is freely given, but it is not free. You can have it for nothing, but it will cost you everything. My flesh cringes, but my heart says “YES!”

Ever since reading 1 John out of my Braille New Testament at seventeen, I have longed to understand and know this kind of love. For all of that, I can’t say that I do. As I look at the notes from the times I have taught on the subject, I see a very academic presentation, full of facts and lacking feeling. The truth is still the truth and God may use it to bring life, but where is the life in me? I feel like a hypocrite explaining to you something that I do not understand myself. Yet I believe in it. Love puts everything else in context. That is why Satan has worked so hard to corrupt and destroy it. I will continue to pursue it, and I will keep calling for you to join me. The One who loves us best will be found, and He will show us what it means.

No study of love is complete without reference to a couple of other key passages from the Bible. One that we may not usually associate with the topic is this.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

Speaking of grammar, look at the structure of this sentence. Often, we see somewhat cumbersome structure in the Bible due to the fact that we are translating from another language with different syntax rules, so consider that the word “fruit” is singular, then reread the sentence with a period after the word “love.” Love is the fruit of the Spirit. The words that follow describe love. I’ll leave you to read 1 Corinthians 13 for yourself. Join me on the journey.

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If You Can’t Say Anything Good

Accessible Success Posted on February 7, 2024 by LarryFebruary 7, 2024

I bet you can finish the phrase in the title. Your mother probably gave you this advice early on. Mine did. “If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all.” My favorite rock band even wrote a song about it. The application, at least in the song, was gossip. Obviously, there are times when we have to speak of things that are not good. I’m doing that now. But the advice is good to live by and can be extended to all kinds of subjects.

Everyone’s a critic. I’m not exempting myself. My social media feeds would make a liar of me if I tried. We delight in finding fault. Some people especially seem to have a radar for it. They’re ready to move in and start shooting the moment something shows up on their scope.

But we all have the tendency. We’re ever ready to point out someone else’s fault. We question every decision and every motivation. We’re sure that if we were in their place we would do better. It may be something we see on the news. It may be something that was done at work (guilty.) It may even be at church. Too often it is.

Sometimes we may even be right. Sometimes we should even point it out. The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Why?” We may not even be conscious of our motivation unless we consider it. Is it our own insecurity? Is it pride or arrogance? If we’re going to point out something wrong, our purpose should be redemptive.

What if we changed our thinking? What if we started looking for what is good instead of evil, right instead of wrong? I think the content of our daily speech would change considerably. I think we would find ourselves happier people. Some of us would have a whole lot less to say, and the rest of us would enjoy the silence. Mom was right!

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Philippians 4:8 NASB

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Economy of Words

Accessible Success Posted on February 6, 2024 by LarryFebruary 6, 2024

I wrote the majority of this back in November of 2017, but now having seen my own book published and struggling for attention, it really hits home.

I was scrutinizing the text of 2 Corinthians in an effort to understand a verse in context. I was thinking about the density of thought and concept contained in Paul’s letters. Every line weaves together ideas and principles to build the points he makes. I considered the difference between studying 2 Corinthians and reading an average online article or even the latest book from a respected author. There is no comparison. Few people write at that level of complexity, and few will make the effort to understand them if they do. That is why I tried to make my writing “accessible.”

There are a couple of things to note here. First, the Bible is God’s written communication meant to facilitate the salvation and sanctification of humanity for millennia. One should expect that kind of work to be packed with a little more meat than anything else one might choose to read. Second, it is a collection of writings translated from old languages that are no longer spoken in the form that they were written in if spoken at all. We should expect to struggle a little to follow the thought process. The level of clarity that we do have is itself a testament to God’s hand at work throughout the ages.

Now here’s the other contributing factor that I think explains the difference. You see it in the overall quality of literature through time. I’m hardly a qualified critic. Just ask my English teachers. But I will make these observations. It takes time for a book to mature into a classic. It has to be read a lot, be unusually well written, and touch us in some deep place that most cannot reach. How hard will it be then, in a world overrun with words, to find those few that are worthy of extraordinary notice?

In basic economics, the more there is of something, the less value it has. The easier something is to produce, the more of it we will have. Words today are cheaper than ever in history. It might take me as much as an hour to edit this blog post depending on how careful I am about what goes into it. Yet with one click it becomes potentially available for the entire world to read. Anyone with a computer and a few extra dollars can self-publish their own book. The world is flooded with words. That is why I made an effort to find a publishing company to improve my chances of getting noticed.

Compare that to the effort required in centuries past. When the works that eventually became the Bible were produced, every stroke was done by hand with crude writing instruments. Every copy had to be painstakingly written out the same way. Whether it be a letter to a friend or an epic story, care was required to make every word count.

It is no wonder to me that even in the pages of writing from the past century we can find a level of depth and nuance rarely seen in anything you pick up today. We had the printing press, then eventually the typewriter, but it still required considerable investment of time and effort to get one’s words into print and in front of an audience. Now, words are cheap. It takes little effort to produce them and even less to publish them for all to see. We’re all a-twitter and saying little more than the birds from which we get the term.

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Bring On the Hammer

Accessible Success Posted on February 5, 2024 by LarryFebruary 5, 2024

Sometimes I need to stop and talk to the Lord about the difficulties Linda and I face and what He is doing. The summary usually comes down to this, “I don’t really know, but I trust.” I look back at what He has already done for both of us, in part by working through our hardships. How can I not trust that He is still working now?

I once read a book, Standing in the Fire: Courageous Christians Living in Frightening Times by Tom Doyle. The title says it all. These precious and amazing brothers and sisters know what real suffering for Jesus looks like. I do not imagine that what we face can in any way be compared to that. If so, it is only that God can and does use any form of suffering to strengthen our faith. The origin of the suffering is no less evil for it, but good will overcome.

One day as I was thinking about these things, God showed me a hammer. You can’t build a house by hugging a tree. Consider the tools of construction. They are not tools of subtlety and softness. They are loud, forceful, and destructive. Wood and stone must be cut. Nails must be hammered. Metal must be forged. Ground must be broken up and removed. The bigger the project, the bigger and meaner the tools you need to finish it. But when it’s finished, you have a building ready to serve its intended purpose for many years to come.

In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul refers to the church as God’s building, and the individual as the temple of the Holy spirit, but the more common analogy found in the biblical text is to the fire of the forge, separating out impurities until we have pure gold.

There are questions left unanswered for us. The suffering most often referenced by scripture is persecution, not sickness. Is there not a time to fight? Should we assume that because God is in control that we should just accept anything that comes our way? I don’t think that’s the right answer, but I do know this: even if I fail, He is able to turn that around to His good purpose. I strive to understand. I try to do the right thing. I want to know and live the truth and show others how to do the same. A heart and life that is submitted to His will is the key. There is great peace in knowing that my failure cannot disrupt His plan. He accounted for that too. If I have misunderstood, He will show me in His time. My only prayer concerning this is that in the process of my learning He will not allow me to mislead anyone else.

There are many things of which I am not completely certain, but this I know. We must choose to trust Him regardless of our circumstance. When we see how He brings about good even when things are bad, our faith is strengthened. So, if it must be, bring on the hammer.

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