Bruce Jenner…and How Far for the Pursuit of Happiness?

There are times when a person tries to stay away from an issue but just can't simply because it's so pervasive. The Bruce Jenner thing is one such issue. There's no way to escape it, not really. And…now, I'm becoming more and more convinced that it's not something for Christians to try to escape. But before going into any more detail, here are the ground rules:

If you read on...

1) Understand that I am a Christian. I'm not God (duh), but I believe in Him. I trust Jesus as my Savior and TRY to live as the Scriptures and my Holy-Spirit-driven conscience leads me.

2) I do not speak for God. What I mean is, I dig deep in the Scriptures and pray for wisdom. I'm an educated person, and I try to discern rightly. But I'm not perfect. I may not get all these thoughts out there quite right. So don't take my word on it. If you don't like what I have to say,  go check out God's word for yourselves.

3) Do not pull the "What about NOT JUDGING, Mr. Christian? How 'bout that?" thing. Look, if you don't understand what the Bible says about judgment, discernment, right, and wrong…you probably shouldn't be talking about it. God never tells Christians not to judge right from wrong, never tells us to openly praise evil, and never tells us that loving someone is patting him on the back while he tries to drive off a cliff.

4) There is objective truth. If you say there is no objective truth, you've left the path of reason because the argument defeats itself. The statement "there is no objective truth" is in itself an attempt to state an objective truth. Is it true, except for this one time?

5) Disagreement is not hate. Disagree? Does that mean you "hate" me? Come on now, if we're mature, we can discuss a difference of opinions with support and evidence…not name-calling.

Agree to these terms? Then, read on. If not, escape is just a click away.

The "Bruce Jenner Thing" bothers the heck out of me. It troubles me at a foundational level because it is symptomatic of an America I now no longer know. And it bothers me because there are children watching.

Former star Olympic Decathlete Bruce Jenner has gone on TV to announce that he is becoming a woman, or rather that he believes he is a woman and is taking strides to make his physical self match his identity concept. Then, dressed as a woman and photoshopped (as so many female models on magazines are), Bruce appears on the cover of Vanity Fair and we're told to call him Caitlyn.

Having seen Mr. Jenner as he was, a-once-in-a-generation MALE athlete, a man who reveled in masculinity, married, and fathered children, I'm disturbed to see him now. He was born male. He is male. No amount of self-persuasion, no amount of plastic surgery, no amount of make up, and no amount of image manipulation can "rebirth" him as a true female.

In the beginning, God made people male and female and intended for them to be joined together. That the Bible makes these clear points, is indisputable. It was God's idea, and I trust He knew (and knows) what He's doing. But mankind sinned, pouring eternal poison into the ecosystem. Human beings and all of creation suffered for it. And we still suffer for it. Bruce Jenner may be completely sincere about his thoughts and feelings. He may sincerely believe he is a woman trapped in a man's body. But feelings and sincerity are not the basis upon which truth is founded.

I want to say this again: Feelings and sincerity are NOT the basis upon which truth is founded.

You can be sincere and be sincerely wrong. And feelings are flighty things. Such little catalysts can cause wild fluctuations in feelings. The time of day/night, the weather, nutrition, sleep, exercise, etc. etc. ad infinitum. Mr. Jenner may feel passionately that he really is a woman, but that doesn't make it true any more than if I sincerely believed I am 16 years old again would make me a day less than 46. I suspect that Mr. Jenner is suffering from a form mental illness compounded by the reduction in testosterone that is typical in males after 40 years of age. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to live with the issues he has identified. I'm certain his feelings are very real to him and powerful but, strong as they are, these feelings and convictions do not create truth.

Celebrating Mr. Jenner's actions as brave and heroic is a horrifying precedent. It shows that much of America has forgotten what real heroism is. Should the man who sincerely believes and feels that he is worthless be deemed worthless? Should we applaud his suicide as a heroic act? Should the addict simply accept that he is an addict and keep using? Should the young woman who believes she is fat be allowed to starve herself near to death and we do nothing but applaud?

And what if Mr. Jenner or, for that matter, someone else -was- "born that way," ie: with a genetic abnormality or a predisposition or an excess of one hormone, a lack of the other—what does that change? It should amp our compassion for the person's experience—no doubt. But it does not mean that we throw our brains out the window and declare anything we're born with as wonderful.

This is especially true for the Christian. We KNOW we have sinful urges, and maybe we were born with them. I might be born with a predisposition to a rotten temper. I might be genetically more likely to eat too much and get fat than someone else. I might suffer from depression or feel inescapable paranoia that everyone is out to get me. But that doesn't excuse our poor reasoning or decisions; it doesn't excuse our sin. And it doesn't make us the least bit heroic.

The Declaration of Independence grants Americans the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But…in that pursuit of happiness, there must be a modicum of objectivity and more than a little common sense. Or it all falls apart. What if it makes me happy to pee in your front yard? And what if it then makes you happy to hit me in the jaw? Is that still covered under the pursuit of happiness right? May it never be so. And yet, that is precisely the kool-aid that so many Americans are drinking right now. If it feels "right" to you, then it IS right. Whatever makes you happy…must be a good thing. And who dares to disagree?

We are clucking with glee that a man is doing what we would otherwise call self-mutilation to perpetuate a belief! The same dynamic applies to other issues as well. Look, look! Look at how sincere those three women love each other...we should call that normal marriage now. And worse still, we are applauding for all to see. And believe me…people are watching. Children are watching.

This is the most gut-wrenching aspect of the whole issue: impressionable children are watching. They are being taught explicit and implicit messages. They are being sold to the lie that feelings = truth. If you don't understand how dangerous a message that is, you must not remember what it's like to be an adolescent. Hormones and social pressures are already amping the confusion and turmoil in kids' lives. They don't need these kinds of ideas to further complicate their volatile identity issues. It breaks my heart to see kids wrestle with even more than they ought to due to their physiology.

So what do we do about it? For the Christian, the answer is manifold: 1) Know God's word so that you can accurately discern right from wrong.  2) Do not mistake popularity or sincerity for truth.  3) Love the way Jesus loved. That last one alone is heavy enough for a thousand books, much less a single blog post.

When Jesus was in town, He hung out with sinners. He touched sinners. He had compassion for sinners…but NOWHERE did Jesus ever tell sinners that they should continue in their sin. He didn't dine with the tax collector and say, "Y'know, Zacchaeus, it's fine that you're cheating all those people out of their money." He didn't sit beside the adulterous woman and say, "Yes, I know you've had five men…no problem. Continue on in this way." When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what to do to be saved, Jesus never answered, "Keep all your riches for yourself and make sure you value that money above God."

Jesus loved them and pointed them to truth. May we all do the same.

Inferior Rewards.

Should Christians be motivated to act, do, and serve…by rewards?

Before you answer, disclaimer time! 1) Non Christians do not earn salvation as a reward for good works…ever. 2) Christians do not earn God’s love through good works…ever. If you believe otherwise, that’s your right, but don’t try to read that into this article. 

So should Christians be motivated to act, do, and serve based on the promise of rewards?

In a word: yes. In fact, as I’ll address later, most of us are already doing tons and tons of stuff to get rewarded. The problem is, we can find ourselves going way above the call of duty to earn INFERIOR rewards.

First to establish the point that it’s not just okay for Christians to be motivated by reward, but that reward is actually integral to faith. What does the Bible say about rewards? A ton. Consider:

Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Matthew 6:6 “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Matthew 6:2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.”

Galatians 6:9 “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Colossians 3:23-24 “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

Psalm 37:4 (the verse that provoked this post): "Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

This is just a sampling of the great many verses in the Bible that discuss reward openly or infer reward quite clearly. Hebrews 11 is especially revealing because here we see that reward is a key tenet of faith. Anyone who comes to him (God) must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews is also the book that contains the “hall of faith” verses…showing example after example after example of saints who ventured forward, set out, worked hard, fought hard, traveled far—because God told them to, but also because God promised a reward. We learn from these pillars of faith that most of them didn’t receive their reward right away. Many didn’t receive the reward in their lifetime.

And so it is with our rewards today. We receive some rewards right away. Other rewards, we won’t see for years. Some we won’t notice until we look back and realize: wow, did God bless me silly right there! And some rewards well, we won’t see them this side of Heaven.

Keep in mind that a reward is often very different than an earned wage. There’s no quid-pro-quo. We don’t play games with God. We don’t coyly say to God, “I did all these things, now where’s my reward?” God is sovereign and, among other things, that means that He knows more than we do. He knows what reward we can handle and when we can handle it. He knows when rewards will bless us most. He also knows when His children are too busy with worldly rewards to have even the slightest wish for a reward from our Heavenly Father.

And that brings us to a stark and convicting reality: many of us (especially American Christians) are absolutely addicted to worldly rewards. C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised to us in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

“We are far too easily pleased.”

Does that sound familiar? It’s American marketing 101. The world sells us 10,000 flavors of mud pies, and we gobble them and beg for more. Look at the Matthew 6 passage above. The Pharisees fell for the mud pies, didn’t they? We’re told that their motivation was to receive praise from men…and they got that reward. But that reward was inferior. Far better would it be to head for the prayer closet and pray alone where only God can hear you and reward you. God’s reward is ALWAYS better.

Let me say that again: GOD’S REWARD IS ALWAYS BETTER.

Learn this early in life and just watch how often certain “troubles” just fly right over your head. So much of what we worry about are “worldly rewards.” We’re like spoiled little kids crying “gimmie, gimmie,” and then whining when it’s a little less than we thought it would be.

How do we distinguish God’s superior rewards from the world’s inferior rewards? Well, I haven’t got it all figured out. But it seems to me that there are some pretty logical measures.

First, we need to remember that God created human beings with certain needs: we need food and water, shelter, companionship, love, meaning, hope, freedom, rest, and (apologies to C.S. Lewis) sex. These are all God-given GOOD things. When God throws these things at us, they are MARVELOUS rewards.

God has already told us in His word how we should look toward each and every one of these rewards. When we go God’s way, we are reaping God’s rewards for us. Take meaning for example. God tells us that we have meaning because we are made in His image, we are His saints, His chosen people, His beloved, and even His friends. When we realize this, it is a priceless reward. But when we go determining our identity by the feedback of our peers, we’re on dangerous and dubious ground. .

Whenever we seek after a legitimate need but pursue it in an illegitimate way, we have gone off the reservation. If we try to find meaning or peace in food or drink, we fail. It just won’t fulfill. When we try sex outside of marriage or any other sexual gratification outside of marriage, we fail. We will get, at best, a temporary, hollow copy of what God intended.

God has an infinite supply of rewards for His kids. This should motivate us to do things God’s way.

Avengers, Age of Ultron an Utterly Biased Review

My wife and I went to see Avengers: Age of Ultron last night. It was hyped. I was hyped. The movie did not disappoint. In fact, I will go so far as to say that Age of Ultron has landed my top ten favorite movies of all time. I know, that sounds like hyperbole, and it's likely a very biased statement.

In fact, this review will be entirely biased because I'm a storyteller. And throughout the event (I don't feel like calling it a movie does it justice), I found myself *marveling at the skill through which this story—these multiple stories—were told.

[SPOILER ALERT] To the best of my abilities, I will avoid specific spoilers and plot points. But I cannot avoid talking about the themes and artistic elements. So, if you don't want any of it ahead of time, just check back and read after you've seen the movie.

Review Begins:

Joss Whedon is a freakin' genius. There, I said it. Call me a fanboy. I am. I was literally in awe of how he could wield such a massive ensemble cast and yet manage to tell each of their stories in one movie. Part of it is Marvel's brilliant universe, having TONS AND TONS of excellent source material and then releasing the stand-alone Iron Man, Capt. America, Thor pics, etc. But still, Whedon took 2 hours and 21 minutes and ran us through a tragic, inspiring, painful, and wonderful gauntlet of each character's lives, hopes, fears…

Here, I need to mention the pacing of the film. There was action. Duh. And I mean brilliant action. In some scenes, I was literally torn, not sure where to look because there were so many interesting things going on in ever square foot of the movie screen. Seriously, try looking away from center screen in just a few of the scenes, and you'll see the attention to detail that I'm talking about. I want to see this movie about five more times.

For me, however, the greatest draw to this movie was its diverse and yet cohesive thematic elements. Again, I won't tell you specifically what happened nor who was involved. But I absolutely have to talk about this. Age of Ultron connected with me on multiple levels. Whedon and his brilliant cast found a way to take ultra-beings and make them ultra human. One of the biggest themes was the fear of the monster inside of each of us, the fear that we might do irreparable harm, the fear that we won't measure up, the fear that we will fail, and the fear that we will let others down. You get to see, hear, and feel each of the cast battle with these. There was betrayal, there was grace, and there was redemption. There were more Biblical themes than you could shake a tract at. What the enemy meant for evil, God used for good. Seriously? Call me blown away.

I'm still reeling from how multi-dimensional all the characters became. There was a study in each scene, a study in each exchange of dialogue, and a feast for the eyes. So, yes, I'm biased. I'm a storyteller, and I get excited when I witness good storytelling. And I have to stand up and applaud when a mainstream movie delivers a hammer-shot of take-home-value.



*Pun very much intended.

Massive Monday Kindle Book Sale!

Starting Monday, April 27th, all of my Kindle Books* and Short Stories* will be on a MASSIVE SALE. Every book regularly priced $2.99 or more will become .99.

Every book regularly priced below $2.99 will be absolutely FREE. And the sale price will continue off and on between Monday and Wednesday (4/27--4/29).

Which book which days? You'll have to get clicking to find out.

Here's the link you need:

http://amzn.to/1HLg54d

GHOST on Sale! Less than $1 for a 400+ page Thriller? Crazy! But that's not all: Strylun & Xerk, The Skeleton Project, Dragon in My Closet, Storms Captured, Forget-Me-Not, and more—all on sale!


*Refers only to my selfpublished titles. The publisher controls the Kindle prices for my other books. Sorry about that.

The Unstoppable Flood

Strike from your mind any of the negative images connected to the word flood. You might have first imagined the devastating tsunamis in Japan or the torrential flooding in the South after Hurricane Katrina. Imagine the force and sheer power of those events, but not the negative consequences. The flood I'm going to discuss is as far from that as the East is from the West.

There is a flood. A raging, surging flood. Picture a pristine white mountain where the snow and ice are melting…sending a pure, powerful torrent down the mountainside. And, oh yeah, this flood is moving right through your back yard. Through everyone's back yard, really.

And you've heard some things about this flood. People are finding life there. It's something like the Fountain of Youth, only better, they say. There's safety in the flood. There's nourishment in the flood. There's cleansing in the flood. There's even forgiveness in the flood.

And, from the sounds of things, this flood is unstoppable. It flows on and on and on. No dam will hold it, no blockage will divert it, no effort of human imagination can cut off its flow. And people are *willingly* jumping into this flood. They say you can too.

But you're not so sure.

There are many reasons why people may choose not to jump into this flood. Maybe you're refusing to believe the flood exists. Maybe you're a little afraid of anything that powerful. It might even be that you don't believe that the benefits offered are something you want…or even need. Those reasons, for the most part, go beyond the scope of this post. I want to address one reason in particular, an obstacle that keeps a lot of people from jumping into the flood. It's something that has plagued me for a long, long time. It's no simple hurdle: part intellectual, part psychological, many parts emotional, and perhaps, even a part that is physiological.

There are some who linger on the edge of the flood who won't jump in because they believe their debt is too great to EVER be washed away. We all have our sins, but not all of us believe the same things about those sins. For some of us, we see them as malignant black stains that won't ever be erased. No matter what spiritual chemo we try, there's always a trace left behind that soon grows to full potency and eats away at us once more.

The flood may cleanse some folks, but nobody like me. No way. My sins go deep. Paul may call himself Chief of Sinners, but shoot, Paul doesn't hold a candle to my history. For this person, the guilt for many years of wrongdoing haunts like a vengeful spirit. No need to mention specific sins. You know what they are. It may well be that you've never told ANYONE about these things in your entire life. But they are hideous, gouging, deviant things.

For some of these folks, jumping into the flood is just way too simple a cure for what ails us. We wish it were more us-centered. Maybe we could spend our lives digging a trench for the flood. Maybe we could get out there with shovels and pickaxes and, by the sweat of our brow, just tear up the earth so that the water could flow. Maybe then, we might jump in. Because honestly, there's something in us that screams that we just CAN'T be declared not guilty. We have to pay. And the more dearly we have to pay, the better. In fact, to gain forgiveness by simply jumping in the water…well, honestly, it just doesn't seem right. I am Hitler. I am Jeffery Dalhmer. I am Elizabeth Bathory. I don't deserve an easy rescue. And…really, there just can't be anything powerful enough to save me.


Picture every one of your sins, mainly the worst of the worst. Now, what would be due punishment for those? I mean, if each and every one of them were exposed in a very public fashion, what would be the due penalty? Maybe, if the sins are really bad, maybe you should be captured and imprisoned. Would that do it? And surely, if these things were known about you, you'd be abandoned by family members, friends, those who "used to love you" until…they found out. So maybe that would be just punishment, as well. Still not enough? Let's add public humiliation to the sentencing. You'll be stripped of everything that gives you human value--even your clothing. You'll be slandered, insulted, and viciously criticized--all while those who knew you laugh or spit.

For some of you, that might just be enough to pay for your crimes. But for others, they go even deeper. All of the above, plus some. Your sins, your hideous evil thoughts and actions, would demand agonizing torture. Maybe something where your body is torn to shreds or stabbed through with blades. And honestly, you feel it wouldn't be right for your consequences to end in anything short of death. All of that---it's all what you deserve. And…maybe…maybe you're right. Maybe you do deserve the massive list of penalties listed here. I'm not going to argue with you. Maybe you are that awful. I know sometimes, I've felt that way about myself.

Take another look at that list of consequences. What if the flood we were talking about was unleashed when someone else took all of those horrible penalties--ALL OF THEM--but he himself had never done anything at all to deserve them. What if he endured even worse, but he did it on your behalf. Truth is, someone did. Jesus of Nazareth was captured and imprisoned. He was ridiculed, spat upon, and mocked. He was abandoned by his twelve closest friends. He was presented publicly as something worthy of scorn and stripped of his dignity--even his clothing. And the public who claimed to have his back chose to have a murderer set free, rather than free this innocent man. Jesus was then whipped and scourged to within an inch of his life. And finally, Jesus was murdered in cold blood, killed in a public execution fit for a criminal. Worse still, and perhaps maybe something we can't begin to understand, Jesus was abandoned by God the Father.

That…was Friday.

Whatever your past, whatever your history, whatever your addictions, or sins--whatever penalty you think would pay for it--Jesus bore it ALL. And He did it to pay for you, to buy out your contract, to release you forever from bondage. The sins were great. The penalty was great. But Jesus paid it--IN FULL. That's what Jesus meant when He said, "It is finished."

So what about the flood? Could it possibly be powerful enough to wash even you clean? Why not? The penalty, the due penalty, the worst you can imagine, was endured and paid.

But then…there was Sunday.

Jesus didn't stay dead. That's an incredible line, isn't it? See, the flood wasn't unleashed when Jesus died. The torrent was launched when Jesus rose from the dead. See, anyone who has the power to come back to life is someone who can help you out. We're talking about the power of God. The power that created the universe and all the life in it. We're talking about the power to create life from nothing and the power to bring dead things back to the living. This is the Unstoppable Flood. There is nothing you could humanly imagine that is so great a sin that Jesus couldn't beat it down. You might be a bigtime sinner, but sorry, you aren't that special. You cannot out-sin God's grace. If you step into that flood, you will be cleansed. The penalty you were due, will be washed away forever, marked PAID IN FULL. This flood will give you life. It will nourish you. It will grant you everlasting forgiveness. And one day, it will give you a chance to hold the nail-scarred hand of the one who took your penalties.

There's only one catch. You need to jump into the flood. You need to believe that Jesus is the Son of God who paid for your sins, who suffered and died for you, and rose again so that you could see that HE beat the snot out of sin & death once and for all. Jesus is the Unstoppable Flood.

Come on in. The water's good.

[Originally posted on Easter, 2011]

My First Ever Writing Guide!

Aspiring writers often ask me:

1) Where do you get your ideas?

2) How do you create those powerful moments in the story?

3) How do you structure or outline a whole novel?

4) And the big one: How do I HOOK my reader?

Well, I've just published a guide to fiction writing. It's not your typical writing book because I've published it for teachers to use in the classroom with student writers. I've broken down my typical novel into 16 Recipes. I call them "Recipes for Adventure," or R4A, for short.

If you follow this plan for a novel, I can't guarantee you a bestseller, but I can guarantee that you'll learn tips, tricks, hacks, and insider fiction strategies that you can't find anywhere else. These are the trial & error techniques that I've learned, working with fantastic pro editors over 16 novels. You want to AMP your writing, this will get you there.

The format is .pdf, so you can pretty much open it on anything. The file is available in only one place: TeachersPayTeachers.com. The link you'll need is this one:

http://bit.ly/1GZDOKr

Leonard Nimoy…and The Weight of Glory

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" 

Leonard Nimoy, 1931-2015

 

This is Leonard Nimoy's final tweet. (LLAP = Live long and prosper). This deeply thoughtful man died today. His thoughts here, so close to the end of his mortal life, strikes me as remarkably similar to what CS Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory. 

“In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory 

All the most beautiful, the most meaningful, the most sacred of all we can experience here on Earth, in the end, is transient and fleeting. It is a temporary and vastly incomplete glimpse of what Jesus has in store for us in Heaven.

So sad that Mr. Nimoy passed today. But I'm grateful to have known him from a distance.

An Absolute No Brainer!

Hi, most wonderful readers in the known universe!

So this post is a little off the beaten path but, honestly, I'd feel guilty if I didn't let you know about this. My wife and I are -ALWAYS- looking for ways to save money. With four teenage kids, out of pocket costs are just insane.

When we first heard about Solar Power, there were a ton of out of pocket costs. That was a few years back. So recently, when we heard about Solar City from a friend, we instantly put up a wall. You know that—thanks but I know you're selling me something—wall?

Turns out Solar City is ahead of the solar power pack with a ZERO out of pocket cost approach. Unreal. My wife and I grilled their sales rep (a very nice chap named Mark Morell) with every question, skepticism, string-attached, fine-print, worry, concern, etc. And each and every answer he gave told us the same thing: this is a Win-Win.

I think the solar panels actually improve the look of the house.

There are no costs up front. There are no costs that will zap you two years down the road. They own and maintain the solar panels. They guarantee and insure your roof. Seriously, they do everything.

And the bottom line? We will save @$2,000 dollars off our electric bill in the first year alone. The average monthly savings is $165.

Even in the coldest winter, there's still plenty of solar energy to be had.

Cleaner, God-given energy, zero up front costs, and guaranteed savings? Win. Win. If you have any interest in Solar City, please contact our rep:

Mark Morell, click here for the website: http://share.solarcity.com/mlbatson

Phone: (725) 333-6123

Email:  mmorell@solarcity.com
 

What is Pain?

A personal trainer I know has a sign on the gym wall that reads: "Pain…is just weakness leaving the body."

It's very motivational, a great line to defy the burn and squeeze out a few more reps, but it's more than just a perspective thing. It's actually true. Muscle is what makes you strong. To grow new muscle, you must literally damage the muscle you have. Either through volume, weight, explosive movements, or a dozen other training techniques, you must cause these micro tears in the muscle to trigger your body's rebuild-overcompensate response. Pain, really is weakness leaving the body.

That got me thinking about a direct parallel to living as a Christian in a broken world. But rather than Pain being WEAKNESS leaving the body, it seems like something else. Self.

For the Christian: Pain is Selfishness Leaving the Soul.

Jesus tells us if we lose our life, we will find it. He tells us to take up our cross and follow Him. He tells us to serve others, to die to self, to love all the time, even when it hurts, even if it leads to death. But, you know, it hurts a little to do any of these things.

The longer I've been a Christian, through trial and much error, I have watched many sins that used to haunt me, begin to slowly die away. But sometimes, it really hurts. Many of us might not admit it in public, but we have certain sins that we cling to. I'm not going to name them. We all know what they are. And some of these sins aren't really sinful in and of themselves, but because we put them before God in our lives, they have become snares…sinful snares.

About ten years back the game of golf had to die in my life. This might sound silly to some, but it's not. I was really getting into golf. It was beautiful scenery, fun competition, and even a bit of "man time." In essence, nothing wrong with it, but it became clear to me, that it had to go. Why? Well, each round of golf takes between 3-5 hours, more if you travel and grab a bite to eat with the guys. With a young family at home and the calling to be a novelist, I no longer had that time to spare. But, I fought it. I fought it for much longer than I'd care to admit. I made "my golf time" an idol and placed it ahead of my wife and kids, and worse still, ahead of God. And it hurts to let what we call "our stuff" go. When the guys call and invite, when the best ball tourney shows up…and I need to say no, it takes a chunk of flesh with it.

And golf, honestly, was the least of my worries. Over the years, sin after selfish sin, had to die. And each time, if felt like a mortal wound. But in the end, you know what if feels like? It feels like freedom.

It's not over. I haven't "made it" yet. There's more pain on my horizon, that is FO SHO. But the dynamic is very real: if you die to self, God gives you freedom and life. Like Paul, we can probably all admit: "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus."

What is that secret sin your clinging to? Or maybe "sins" plural? Time to let them go. Time for them to die. Supplant them with service, love, giving...whatever God asks of you. And don't do it alone. Invite God into the process. Ask Him to put these selfish "idols" to death. Make no mistake, it's going to hurt. The longer you've clung to each sin, the more it hurts to rip that scab free, but it's worth it. You'll find life.

Pain is Selfishness Leaving the Soul. Good riddance.

A Holy Spirit Face Palm

Ever had one of these moments? I'm reading the account of Jacob and Esau from Genesis 25, and I'm thinking this about Esau: "You idiot! You sold out your birthright for a bowl of stew? What kind of moron does that?"

Then, there was this companion scripture from Hebrews 12:

"See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears."

That's when I got a Holy Spirit Facepalm. What kind of moron does that, Wayne? Uhm, go look in the mirror.

No, I didn't sell my birthright for a single bowl of stew, but I might just be in the process of throwing my birthright away for a few hundred bowls of nachos. In the past ten years, I've gained 100lbs. ONE HUNDRED POUNDS. Through selfcentered eating habits, I've somehow managed to grow a whole new person…a rather flabby feller that I carry around with me wherever I go. Well just slap my momma and call me Esau.

God has seen fit to allow me to be born, live, and have one amazing life, but at this rate, I'll be checking out LONG before God's plan for me (my birthright) is finished. I don't want that to happen. I cannot allow that to happen. I've got to change. I don't know exactly how, but tomorrow is too late to start. Now is the time.

How about you? Maybe, it's not food, but some other thing that has way too much of your time and attention. Maybe it's something else holding you back, keeping you from your birthright. Know this: you have a birthright. That is to say that God has a purpose for you. You may not know what that purpose is, but the beautiful thing is, you don't have to know. God's making a straight path for you. It may look like a meandering, haphazard path to you, but to God, it is the Laser-straight Path that you were born to live. The question is, are you squandering your birthright? Are you bathing in immediate pleasures and fake fulfillment while turning your back on what might be?

CS Lewis puts it this way: “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” 

Have you been living an Esau life? If so, get a Holy Spirit Face Palm and floor it toward the life you were born to lead.

Please Join the M.N.A.B.C. These Books Need You!

Greetings and Salutation, my dear Bat Book Readers! So, it's the new year and that can mean only one thing: NEW BOOKS! {Go ahead, do the happy dance. You know you want to} As an author, I always wonder: how often do readers who've loved one of my book series make the leap to one of my other book series?

I'll confess it, if I find an author I love, I'll read his/her whole catalog. Do you do that? I'm not sure everyone does, and maybe not on purpose. For whatever reason, some books end up ignored because people don't find out about them. That kind of makes me sad {picture lonely book on a curb somewhere, shivering alone in the cold}. I—KNOW! Such a sorrowful image. But, together, we can change this. Today, I begin the No More Abandoned Books Campaign. Join me, won't you? The N.M.A.B.C. needs readers like you to help spread the word. Think of it: millions of books out there, dreaming of the day that some nice readers will come along and take them home. We can make those dreams turn to reality. 

See below! Here is my complete catalog of books. Which ones have you read? Which ones haven't you read yet? Please help spread the word.

SERIES 1: The Door Within Trilogy:
I. The Door Within
II. Rise of the Wyrm Lord
III. The Final Storm
IV. The Blackwood (a DW sidequest, Kindle only)

SERIES 2: The Griffin Thorn Duo
I. Isle of Swords
II. Isle of Fire

SERIES 3: The Berinfell Prophecies
I. Curse of the Spider King
II. Venom & Song
III. The Tide of Unmaking

SERIES 4: The Dark Sea Annals (will be 7 books)
I. Sword in the Stars
II. The Errant King 

SERIES 5: Dreamtreaders (will be a trilogy)
I. Dreamtreaders
II. Search for the Shadow Key

SERIES 6: John Spector Thrillers
I. GHOST
II. Minister of Fire (will release Fall 2015)

SERIES 7: Imagination Station (Adventures in Odyssey Spinoff)
I. Battle for Cannibal Island
II. Hunt for the Devil's Dragon

SERIES 8: The Misadventures of Strylun & Xerk
I. Book 1: Origins of Mischief (Kindle Only)

SERIES 9: Novellas and Short Stories (Kindle only)
I. The Dragon in My Closet
II. Forget Me Not
III. The Skeleton Project, episodes 1-4
IV. The Law of the Land

NONFICTION: Kindle only
I. Captured Storms

Going a little NUTS with Dreamtreaders Book 3: War for the Waking World. Mannnnn ooooooh, maaaaaan. Get ready for a big ole helping of Off Da Hook!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Your Free Story Gift is Ready!

Okay, Readers! Merry Christmas And Happy New Year!

And now, here, at last, is your new Story Gift! The link below will give you the free PDF file.

Now, Enjoy 

The Misadventures of Strylun & Xerk

https://www.dropbox.com/s/osq1rsdrda06tld/STRYLUN%20%26%20XERK.pdf?dl=0

Hey, all! The Misadventures of Strylun and Xerk is now live on Kindle. However, Amazon wouldn't let me make it free on the first day it appears. So, what I've done is made the book free: Saturday, Jan 3rd thru Wednesday, Jan 7th. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ROOOK60

Merry Christmas, Beloved Readers!

Good news. Bad news.

Hello, Readers!

Well, there's good news and bad news. First, the good news:

GOOD: Your Merry Christmas Story is getting longer and longer. At the rate it's going, it might be a full 20,000 words!

Now, for the bad news:

BAD: I've been scratching my head trying to figure out how to finish in time for Christmas without impeding my family's enjoyment of Christmas. And...well, it just won't work. So, The Misadventures of Strylun and Xerk will just have to be a HAPPY NEW YEAR present.

Can you live with that? I hope so.

Writing You a Christmas Present!

I love Christmas. What's not to love? It's the time of year to celebrate the birth of our Savior, whose gift of eternal life will never be surpassed by any gift we could give or receive. And, during this festive season, even this old, stodgy world wakes up from its selfish stupor and remembers to love one another.

In keeping with the season of giving, I'm writing you a Christmas Present Story. This is a previously unpublished work somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000-15,000 words. It'll be some kind of fantasy adventure, but that's all I'm telling you. The story will be available Christmas morning for FREE! You'll find links for the story here, on Facebook, and on Amazon Kindle. You'll be able to get it in two formats: Kindle and PDF. Most eReaders have a way to convert a pdf to something it can use, and Kindle has an app for just about any computer, tablet, phone, etc. to allow you to read it on whatever is convenient to you.

So set a reminder on your device: check back here for a free story on Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to ALL!!

Mind Games and the Christian

"Who is this that darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?"

"Have you ever in your life commanded the morning…?"

Job 38: 2, 12

You ever talk nonsense to God? Or to yourself? Or both? Do you ever angst over your salvation because you feel like you haven't "done enough" or the quality that the quality of "your faith" is just not good enough? I have. I'd be embarrassed to tell you just how often I've wasted a ton of time and mental energy consumed with such thoughts. For the record, let me state emphatically that: such thoughts are absolute nonsense. And it's evil nonsense too because the enemy of our souls has observed mankind and us long enough to know how insecure we are, how quick we are to look at ourselves as the agent of saving faith. And this enemy wants us stagnant and miserable, so he'll do everything he can to keep us thinking those kind of thoughts.

That's why I love the absolute omniscient power of these verses from Job, all of Job 38, really. When we entertain thoughts like the above, wondering if we've done enough or had just the right kind of faith—we are darkening the counsel of God. These are "words without knowledge," laced with fear. And they are withering…and stupid. Sorry. But blunt truth is called for here.

Ephesians 2: 8-9 (and a host of other scriptures) tell us: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;  not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Do you see the operative words and phrases there? Grace saves you. Unmerited favor of God, a gift, free…no strings attached. And note that Grace and even Faith is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Think about that. Grace and faith are gifts from God. Remember: what do we have that God has not given us? If you walk up the stairs, it is only because God gave you strong legs and eyes to see…and made the electrical signals pass from brain to body, etc. etc. If you learn that Jesus died for your sins, who made all the circumstances work out for that to happen?  God did, of course. If you believed, who gave you the conviction and will to believe? God did.

I suspect that we play mind games so often because we simply cannot fathom just how free a gift salvation is and we desperately scratch and claw to have some ownership of it. May I again state emphatically that such thoughts are withering…and stupid. God is the agent of ALL. Job 38 and in the NT, Colossians 1 make it very clear that everything is God's making. We won't breathe a single breath today without God's power and will behind it. So then, how does the salvation dynamic work?

The key, I believe is not at all the quality of our faith, but rather the One upon whom our faith rests. It's not: hmmm, I believed in my head, but I'm not sure my heart was in it. The question is, who are you counting on to save you? If it's Jesus, BOOM. Signed, sealed, and one day…delivered. But, it's a gift, you say. Don't we have to muster the energy and will to receive the gift? Sure, but where does that energy come from? That's right: God. Stop worrying about what you've done, can do, wish you could do…it's God. It's Jesus Christ dying on the cross and rising again to beat death down forever on your behalf.

Consider this word picture: you are a wretched vagabond. A poor raggamuffin dressed in rags and smelling of rotten cabbage. Suddenly, a bright light shines down the dank alley that you've been calling home. A mighty king, garbed in splendor and light, approaches you. He has a kindly gleam in his eyes and a ferocity of love you've never before known. And, he has a gleaming gift box in his hands. He's holding the gift out…to you. You tentatively reach out your arms to accept the gift, but you're thinking: "Who am I to deserve such a gift?" or "He must have the wrong guy. I shouldn't have such a gift." or "Wait, no one just gives stuff away. There must be a catch." In fact, your arms are trembling. You're just about to pull your hands back when–suddenly and decisively–the might king places the gift in your hands. You mumble a pitiful, meek "thank you." The mighty king smiles, and it's like all the sunrises, spring breezes, and snow-covered mountains in that smile. The king has given you a gift. The exchange is complete.

It wasn't how firmly you gripped the gift box. It wasn't whether or not your arms and hands were steady, or even the thoughts in your mind as you reached out for the gift. It's all about the Giver of the gift. He who commands the morning also gives you NEW LIFE. Mind games are pointless and wretched. God trumps those thoughts every time. The Agent of your salvation is infinitely superior to anything you might contribute. He is God, and we…are not. Turn back those mind games by thanking God for saving you and for doing everything necessary to secure your salvation forever.

Get Off the Not-So-Merry-Go-Round

So often, we Christians get tied up in knots, chastising ourselves for not being missionaries or preachers or some kind of Super-Christian. We live on a vicious merry-go-round of self doubt, self blame, and a kind of fearful paralysis. It's when we are in that state that the unbelieving world looks at us and infers that being a Christian is dull, drab, and even depressing.

{Pulling a "Paul" here} Do you not know, brothers and sisters, that Jesus came to give us LIFE and that to the FULL? Does the above merry-go-round sound like real life to you? Hell no. And I use the word fittingly because that merry-go-round is straight out of Hell. The enemy of our souls wants us all down and depressed, looking like we were baptized in vinegar and just lost our last friend. When we are in this state, we don't do the good we could be doing. We don't love the way we could be loving. We aren't fruitful…and that makes us feel even more depressed. The merry-go-round goes round again. But, brothers and sisters, this is NOT what God wants for you.

It is for FREEDOM that Christ set you free. Sure, some are called to be pastors, preachers, missionaries, and teachers, but NOT ALL. If we were all supposed to do those callings and those callings only, who would harvest food, build homes, and…uhm write fantastic fantasy novels???? {sorry, couldn't resist that last}

Just go do what you do, but do it for the GLORY of God. Let Christ shine in you wherever you are and your life becomes the pastor, preacher, missionary, and teacher. Walk with your chin up and a smile on your face because Jesus died for you and rose for you and has been building a SWEET home for you in Heaven all these years since He left!

Sure we screw up sometimes. Sure we don't live up to God's expectations and a whole host of other imagined expectations of us. That's where God turns on the firehose of Grace, and says "I died for all that. Go, and live. Turn from sin and be fruitful."

In case you have some doubts still, recall that God's purpose for mankind really hasn't changed since the beginning. When God put Adam and Eve on earth, He told them to go be fruitful and multiply. He wanted to witness His creation LIVING LIFE. Then, after the great flood, God told Noah the same thing: be fruitful and multiply. Fast forward to New Testament doctrine, has that changed? No! Jesus came to give you life and that to the full. Does that sound like sad-sack, schlep-rock Christianity? By no means!

Can you show me the New Testament scriptures that command us to walk about in a constant state of fear, mourning, and regret? Where in the gospels are we told to hang our heads low, moaning about what we've done or aren't "allowed" to do? No, you can't because it's not there. Instead, Jesus calls us "friends, sons, ambassadors, saints, set apart, loved, and free." Go forth, be fruitful…live.

Perhaps, if we did, the world would come running to Jesus. Perhaps, if we did, Christians would be more united. I think half the time when Christians bicker it's because one side is so depressed about what they perceive as their own list of DO NOTs that they bark at the other side to make sure they are just as miserable. Get OFF that merry-go-round, people and LIVE. 

Like the loving father that He is, God wants to watch His kids play. He wants to see our hobbies, our jobs, our quirks, our dreams, our successes and failures, and all our many relationships. He wants to see us live while we're alive. Go today and live. And then, do the same thing tomorrow. Get off the merry-go-round of misery and let it rust into oblivion. Live to the glory of God.

Would you like to make Adventures with Me?

Music, Theater, Art, and Books—industries that entertain us and feed our souls. What would the quality of our lives be without them? But what you may not know is that the creators of most of the creative arts we enjoy cannot make a living at it. You read that correctly: aside from a very tiny group of privileged big names, creative artists cannot support their families based on what they get paid. The reason for the cliché "Starving Artist" is that artists are criminally underpaid for their work.

I've spoken to creative folks in other genres (music and art, esp) and they assure me that this is true in their fields. But since I know the writing / publishing world, I'll speak to that. Suppose you write a 100,000 word novel, no small feat. You've spent uncounted hours drafting, rereading, revising, revising, and more revising, editing, promoting, etc. Then, you land a publishing contract. Say you sell several hundred thousand copies of that book. You'd think the author would be set, right? Or…at least make a living? Not exactly. Not even close.

The industry standard royalty rate for published authors is 10-15%. That's it. That means, if your book sells for $9.99, the author receives at best: $1.49. That's best case. Then, the publisher holds back money against returns, deep discounts, and has a dozen other small clauses in the contract that reduces the author's take even more.

Certainly a lot of different people work very hard to publish a book, and they deserve to get paid, right? But for the creator of the book to get paid so little, well, it's exploitation, really. My wife and I went back through my royalty statements over the years to find out what I averaged per book. It turned out to be a smidge less than 70 cents per book.

I'm grateful for each and every sale. And I'm by no means starving. I have a full time teaching job and my wife works four days a week. This works for life, but it keeps all but a few of the stories I want to tell buried on a to-do list that runs to the horizon. My hope is to, one day, be a full time author. I've set a goal of 5-6 years, and I'm praying hard to make that happen. And, I'm opening up the dream to you, as well.

Maybe you've read and appreciated my stories. Maybe you'd like to see a lot more new books from me SOON. Here's how you can help: Become my Patron on Patreon.com. It’s different from Kickstarter because it’s not about one big project that requires funding, but rather an ongoing relationship with the author / creator to produce multiple works.

And, of course, being a Patron comes with privileges: sneak previews, bonus stories, custom artwork, an open-communication with the author, etc. Interested? I hope so, because I have so many stories I'd like to share with you…

Will you raise a sword with me? Click Below:
http://www.patreon.com/WayneThomasBatson

Please Celebrate With Us: The Newest Arrival to the Batson Family!

Well, folks, several days overdue. And well, to be honest, not the smoothest delivery, but today the Batsons welcome a new member to the family. Weighing in at just under 15 ounces, please welcome our bouncing baby…

book: Search for the Shadow Key. Isn't he just darling?

http://is.gd/BIFgC6