Hey race fans… before we let 2025 come tearing in lets take a moment to look back, adjust our mirrors, and focus our attention “intently” on what may lay in our future.
And before we get confused on what Christmas means… it means… a celebration of the birth, and of the birthday of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ… and we get to celebrate as such because the grave could not contain Him!
As we look “intently” at our year in review… and strain to look ahead with “intention” as to what may lay ahead… it would be good to look at the word “intently”… with great intent.
Why? You may be asking.
Because God has placed it on my heart that the seven current books that I have written need to be looked at with “intent” and “as intently” as The Fish of Professor Louis Agassiz and The Fish found in Matthew 17:27… and the principles and treasure each holds and reveals.
So… how the heck did we get here now?
That’s what the review is for… take a deep breath… here goes…
2024 in review… started out like any other year, I started my New Year goals in December of 23′; January rolls around, doing good, tested out of my old weightlifting routine and set up for a new routine in February; February came and I caught three viruses all at the same time, I collapsed, had three ER visits, had a near death experience that I’m still processing, and tried going back to work and almost passed out from exerting myself; was off work the whole month to recover; In May my wife wanted vegetable gardens, she got vegetable gardens, and it was off to the races… poured some cement, scheduled large house projects all summer and fall (house painted, tuck pointed, new garage door, new central air, new furnace, updated house electrical… and decorating… lots of decorating); in August I was able to do my first out of state speaking gig, which has sparked quite the discussion between me and my pastor; in September hunting season rolls around and due to the house projects I couldn’t really get out… went bird hunting twice and my old dog caught Lymes Disease… again! did get out deer hunting a few times No Bueno, got some shootin’ though, and on top of all that very little weekly writing but lots of research notes, and on top of that… because I used all of my PTO back in February, it’s been work work work work work! And on top of all that we watch the grandkids three days a week (don’t worry my wife lets me sleep a little bit).
And… so… do to my current life schedule, my writing schedule has been relegated to my research notes and getting my book, God’s Word Mechanically Speaking to Men, into pre-production and recording, so that it will be my second audio book offering.
I’ve been scheduling 15 to 20 minute blocks to keep chipping away at it “one Successful Step at a time.”
I’m always kinda amazed at how much you can move forward in just a couple of weeks if you just “hound dog” it out everyday or even every couple of days if you just stay on the trail.
And… so… that catches us up to today. I have off of work; the dog and granddaughter are back from the vet and doctor… respectively, everybody has the pre-Christmas cold and flu… and Lymes, and I’m down here pegging away. (Needing another cup of coffee by the way… hold on)
(ok that’s better)
Have you ever truly, “intently” looked at, studied, been enamored by, a subject, a word, a deer, a flower… to the point where you are literally lost in thought and time, and someone has to shake you awake?
It started with a phone call out of the blue.
My friend called and asked if I would bring a message to his churches men group.
“Ok, see ya then!”
Seemed innocent enough.
Until the holy Spirit did a couple of the things with the money I received from speaking and selling a couple of books at the engagement.
The call was out of the blue, I wasn’t actively engaged in becoming a paid speaker, not on His timeline anyway, maybe in the future, but there it was, and when at the engagement I gave one book away for free, but the Lord placed on the heart of a gentleman to pay twice as much as I was asking for one book… which “covered” me giving away the other one because I thought they needed it more than I needed to sell one book.
That then led me to review Matthew 17:27, which in turn had me review the story of Professor Agassiz and how he trained his students to intently study a certain species of fish without the aid of any tools or magnifying glass… the only tools allowed were a pencil and piece of paper, used for making notes or drawing the fish… in detail.
And the other thing to come out of that talk in Illinois was I’m starting to believe God is calling me to “preach” in some capacity.
So… as the Bible tells us to do, I looked intently into His Word. And the example of Professor Agassiz, this word came through… “obedience”.
Now… I thought I knew what that word meant; it’s definition; and it’s usage… thinking it hasn’t really changed in it’s history of being used.
The picture in my mind of “obedience” is one of a child shrinking back from an adult hitting them. Using physical force to garner “obedience”.
To bring about “DO IT! BECAUSE I TOLD YOU TO DO IT!”
That’s obedience… in my mind.
But when I researched the word it revealed a picture of… not one of shrinking back… but one of “leaning into hear” BECAUSE the hearer WANTS TO HEAR what the speaker has to say, WITH AN INTENDED INTENT of following through with what the speaker has said to do or proposed.
Which has nothing to do with punishment, as I saw it.
That’s when The Holy Spirit placed on my heart to look at my books… to see if I could see what He was trying to teach me.
And after some weeks of “intently” being “obedient” “leaning in to hear” what God was trying to tell and show me… there it was… in one of my first books… plain as day.
In my book “When We Were Lions” I wrote a “Thank You” to my little league baseball coach, who would end up being my wrestling and football coach a few years later.
In my coach I saw a new picture in my mind of what “obedience” truly means… when coach talked to me I was all ears! I would run through a wall for him! I was always “eager” to hear what he had to say… I would just be waiting for him to call my name and number!
That’s obedience!
Then another picture came to mind, my mom, she even showed up in my near death experience, I was always leaning an ear to talk to her; to see what she would have me do when I visited; I loved that… I miss that.
So… then I asked… “Well Lord, I could hear them. I waited for them to call my name. I can’t hear you. And now I feel like you want me to be a preacher! Do I start a church? Do I go out and be an evangelist? Do I focus my writing to be “more spiritual”?
Then I looked again, like professor Agassiz trained his students to do, and a list emerged of who it is that I really listen to.
And God is not first on that list.
The bible says, “where your heart is… your treasure is…”
So I looked at my heart, where was it?
- With my mom;
- with my youth baseball coach;
- and 3, trepidatiously with Jesus Christ
- and 4, to be honest, is a tangled ball of Christmas tree lights just a mess
And the more I intently look at that list… the truer it rings in my heart.
But… my mom has been gone a long time now; and I only see Coach at the hardware store; but The Holy Spirit is with me everyday… and I mean… every… day!
Why am I not “obedient” to Him as I would be my deceased mom, or my two towns over youth baseball coach?? Why don’t I lean into what He has to say?
If you look at Matthew 17:27 Jesus pretty much spells it out for Peter on what to do to garner the cash to pay the temple tax in question…
27 “But so that we may not cause offense,
go to the lake
and throw out your line.
Take the first fish you catch;
open its mouth
and you will find a four-drachma coin.
Take it
and give it to them
for my tax and yours.”
So… that’s what I can see right now, what the other 6 books hold for me, I don’t know… I do know spiritually there is a lot more going on here, but until the good Lord gives me that specific of a list to go by… I’ll just keep writing… and waiting for that phone to ring.
The Emerging Man… wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas.
theemergingman.com 