Stevemidkiff's Blog

When others avoid you or push you away

it let’s you know you’re non-essential to them.

We can die of starvation knowing all about bread,

but not chewing it and swallowing it.

A person can remain spiritually dead

while knowing all the historic facts of Jesus

but refusing to receive Jesus Christ in their life

We may taste the Heavenly gift

But our life choices demonstrate that we’ve spit Him out

There’s been no true ingestion.

Our Lord offers us an exclusive individual intimate communion with Himself.

He’s always open, always available, always there moment by moment.

He individualizes & personalizes each interactive occasion & juncture.

It is with His adequacies for us & in us that we face each challenge through this communion

He is the lover of our souls and our all in all.

He says to us every moment:

Look at me.

I’m standing constantly at the door of your heart.

I’m knocking continuously.

If you hear me calling and open the door of your heart,

I’ll come right in & sit down to supper with you inside you.

Whatever you thought has conquered you

I’ve already conquered it,

My gift to you is endless victories in Me.

There is no way to know who we really are

until we’ve been tested.

The more tests we have the better we see inside

God’s gauges are used to test our quality

His measurements of our inner properties are precise

I’m humored by someone taking my temp before I enter,

I never ran a temp when I had covid-19

I never ran a temp when I got double pneumonia

I was coughing and sneezing before corona & pneumonia

I’m still coughing and sneezing long after it was cured

God’s standards on testing our faith are beyond comparison.

When God tests our faith He may bluntly have us face

the blank side of the wall without any clue on what’s

waiting for us on the other side.

His ways of putting our faith into the test is not

within the limited boundaries of our comprehension.

In our measurements and limited understanding,

God’s sovereign ways may seem to be unreasonable

God’s tests perhaps at times feel unjustifiable.

He’s the God of the universe,

He’s the Creator of heaven and earth,

He’s the King of kings and Lord of Lords.

His ways are not our ways.

Who are we to question His ways?

I question these tests question for entering building

I question that a piece of cloth is securing my health

Or securing anyone else’s health

If God wants us to catch a disease we’re going to get it

If God delivers from getting a disease we’ll never get it

I’m not saying we should be or act caviler about it

Fear is the opposite of faith.

We can cringe over things and exercise absurd caution

We all face different levels of intensity

We all come into God’s lab of faith testing

Yours maybe different from mine

Ours might be different from that of others.

If 99 percent of the population don’t get a certain

Virus or bacterial infection it doesn’t mean those

99 % won’t get something or other that God allows

Inoculations don’t secure us from God allowing Satan

to conjure up in His mad scientists lab another rubicon

There are worse plagues that could wipe us out yet to come

Each test of faith is a chance to show our trust,

Each test is an opportunity to obey and love God.

When God tests our faith, it‘s an opportunity

for us to deepen our intimacy with Jesus

Cain’s test was a threshold where sin crouched at his door

The result of his test showed what was inside of him

He was terminal with a disease filled murderous inside

He got the test results and he ignored them

He bludgeoned his brother to a bloody dead pulp

There is a lot of testing being administer today

How are we testing out?

What are we seeing inside ourselves?

God is a master at precise questions and tests

Are we learning what’s inside of us through it?

The same sun that melts the ice hardens the clay

Are we getting sweeter through our tests or are we fomenting in sour gall?

Are we deepening in are wailing and gnashing of teeth?

Or are we softening in our heart and bursting with joy as we

feel Jesus is closer and closer and at home in every room in our heart?

Sometimes I look over my losses and gains and get all knotted up in trying to calculate my next step.

Jill and I have had multiple losses in our present home. I wrestle over whether we should call this a house of losses or a place of gains.

We lost limbs and a variety of organs. Each loss actually was a gain if you consider that the options of retaining those body parts was our removal from the planet. So we choose to send the parts on to Heaven for safe keeping. We’ll just have to catch up to them later while we hang out her with less of this and that but hopefully growing in more of Jesus.

Other areas of losses in life have been unusual. We find that our residence is not optimal for wheelchair mobility. Our yard isn’t great for wheels either since it’s on a slope. So I have tried my hand at laying concrete and slabs hear and there for better wheelchair traction.

I still have to pull the wheelchair out of situations where it gets stuck. We put lots of flowers around our boundaries so Jill can access their care from her chair.

There are some challenges that need adjustments. We have a large garden tub which is useless as neither Jill or I can get in it safely due to our body dysfunctions. If we did get in the tub getting out of it would take an a miraculous act of God. I know, I got in it one time. It was a bad decision.

Then the shower is incredibly small. Don’t get me wrong. It’s better then hosing down with a hose in the yard. The doors aren’t wide enough for a wheelchair and banging through them or getting stuck in the passage is unfortunate. I’m not trying to whine.

I’m just getting awoke to how losing body parts has its challenges.

So we pray for a radical remodel. It seems more fitting to do that then to just yearn and pine to catch up with our lost body parts. That’s a bit of a radical move. Now we have considered selling this house and getting a different house. But after taking a saw to various doors we have to remodel some to make this appealing to a buyer.

It’s always amazed me over the years that when you pray over things that sometimes things appear to get worse and tragic setbacks boggle your mind.

You may pray for better relationships and you end up with an astounding assortment of rejections and what appears unreconcilable repudiations, devastating expulsions and exclusions and the end of access with those who were dear to you.

I’ve had mysterious setbacks in the remodel proposition. Two leaks in plumbing that I never noticed and the end result is horrendous. Under our bathroom sink I never heard two pin leaks in a plastic gray connector pipe. How long it had leaked I don’t know. But I could hear this noise. It was kind of like gray noise from a fan on low speed. Silly me I didn’t research it until Jills wheelchair started falling through the bathroom floor. It’s hard enough for her to wash her hands and brush her teeth from a wheelchair without the floor giving way.

So I bought a new pipe connection and fortunately there was a shut off at the base of that connector pipe. I put a thin piece of wood over the ruts in the eroded flooring. I am neither a capable plumber or carpenter. I’m more of a patch kit guy who likes to spend the majority of his time reading and writing out my moans and laments. Writing helps me center my frustrations.

Anyway, we need to remove this garden tub and leprechaun shower and install a large shower. So my Root Goldberg fix bailouts our my best effort. And, I keep asking the Lord persistently about these unscheduled erosive setbacks when I’m praying for a rehab recovery remodel.

I tell Him, as kindly as I can, that He could sure be a lot more constructive and less destructive in our environment. As if this fallen world is his fault. But He is our Savior. So I pray. Then, low and behold, I notice that our only exit out of the house that Jill can use is feeling spongy. Now spongy is less then optimal for a wheelchair.

I had been wondering, puzzled. Why’s this door harder and harder to open and close.
It was as if the threshold under the door was actually growing. Actually it was.

Being as, as a handy man, I’m better at chasing problems then actually solving Them, I removed a portion of the threshold at the base of the door. That worked better for a few weeks. Then the door started sticking worse again.

I know I pray at times over what seem like ridiculous things. But there far from ridiculous to me. And the Lord does say in “all things” by prayer. Maybe it’s because I’m in my own soup of physical decline and maybe because I can’t figure out the best options quickly.

Anyways I looked at the top of the shutoff on the brass fitting on the washing machine that’s next to that door. I could see a very slow leak. I went to the Hardware store and they told me I could tighten this nut at the base of this facet and fix that oozing water.

I moved the washer, which is not easy in those tight quarters and presto a little wrenching and the leak was fixed.

But while close to the wall I could hear this gray noise again. Yikes.
I began to carefully chip away at the wall. The same kind of 36 inch gray connector hose was leaking with great destructive force inside that wall. I tried to move it a little to examine it and it exploded. I ran to the shut off at the back of the property and by now I was exhausted, soaked and in pain from being in these compromised positions.

I had already tried to crawl under the 3 foot crawl space and realized a the halfway point that a rescue team would have to drag me out by the ankles if I kept on that slithering path.

So my body was at this point very beat up. The iron cover that’s over the shut off was very heavy.

I had to run to find a crow bar to pry it up. Then the turn off valve was impacted with dirt. I had to run a get a small spade. Finally I got it closed off. All this time the water is like a tsunami in our entrance.

I’m not sure how long that eroding has been taking place but the floor gave way as I reentered the door. I got a new connection hose and repaired that leak. I went back and turned the water on and the bottom connector was still leaking.

By now my body is thrashed. I tried to tighten the fitting but it blew off.

Snoqualmie falls part two began. Back to the main shut off in frenzy.

What must it had been like for Abraham Lincoln to take over a country in divisive turmoils. Lincoln knew years of failures. But through it all all he put the nation back on the right track. But it was through enormous losses. Then he ended with someone blowing his brains out.

Lincoln suffered terribly from depression. He contemplated suicide numerous times.
He told his Mother the only thing that kept him going was the blessed hope.

Charles Spurgeon suffered from a variety of ailments and extreme depression. He attracted large crowds to his preaching and writing. At the age of 19 he had crowds of 1200 attending his messages. Spurgeon was a champion of prayer. His writings a
Sermons on prayer are inspiring.

There was a enormously large auditorium secured and he was seeing enormous Attendance.

On one Sunday night the hall was filled, with 10,000 people eager to hear him. They were even crowding outside.

A few hymns into the service, some fool started yelling fire.
There was no fire.
But emerging from the congregation the screams: ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!
The galleries are giving way! The place is falling! The place is falling!’
Suddenly the crowd was in a mad and in a violent panic. As one witness described:

The cries and shrieks were truly terrific, to which was added the already pent-up excitement of those who were unable to make their exit. They pressed on, treading furiously over the dead and dying, tearing frantically at each other. Hundreds had their clothes torn from their backs in their endeavors to escape; masses of men and women were driven down and trodden under in the chaotic stampede.

There had been no fire, and Spurgeon’s attempt to keep the peace couldn’t hold back the frenzy. It was a tragic tumult that saw seven killed and 28 seriously injured and taken to hospital. Wracked with guilt, Spurgeon was thrown into a deep depression.

As he wrote: ‘I refused to be comforted; tears were my meat by day, and dreams my terror by night. I felt as I had never felt before. “My thoughts were all a case of knives,” cutting my heart in pieces, until a kind of stupor of grief ministered a mournful medicine to me… “Broke in pieces all asunder,” my thoughts which had been to me a cup of delights, were like pieces of broken glass, the piercing and cutting miseries of my pilgrimage.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon who had rapidly catapulted by his special gift into preaching. He was called the ‘Prince of Preachers’, and gained a reputation for his prophetic energy, poetic voice and sometimes provocative irreverence –

But his vast following was now his greatest failure and overwhelming depression.

Why do we see failures? Why do things fall apart sometimes at catastrophic crescendo?

I went out this morning with good intentions of squirting water on the thirsty life growing In our front yard. I’ve been thinking all night about how to patch this new sink hole at our Exit. It is not coming to me as readily as I’d like. I’m puzzled why press board is used As the flooring foundation. The support beams are not even there correctly in this entry Exit area.

I’ve got to emergency fix it to be able to get Jill in and out of the house.

So here I am, mister space cadet. I quickly opening the door, to come back in and I forget there’s a gaping drop off hole that I plunge into. It was not pretty and my painful bellowing was scary even to me. It took me a while to get up. I’m not good when I gouge myself up in a fall.

I write this now to center my emotional state. Sorry for the comedic melodrama.

So if anyone has ideas on fixing our consummate sink hole entry. I’m all ears.

Failure I’m told is the backdoor to success.

I really miss Fiona. She was a sweetheart.

She was very facial. She loved to be in my face.

She purred like an Angel.

Wait a minute I can’t find any purring Angels in the Bible.

Maybe we should call it alto humming.

I didn’t realize how allergic I was to kitters until I got Fiona.
Our other cat Mazie is more partial to Jill.

Fiona would sleep next to my head giving random nose bumps and lip to lip stare downs.

Her affectionate nature was epic. She followed me everywhere. She stared out the window at me.

She ran to the door when I came in meowing loudly.

I’ve cried over the decision of which of our two cats to Rehome. I prayed and prayed and It was a one year process to find a good home for her.

She now lives in a home on Lake Washington. A real upgrade of luxury and good fortune.

Definitely better views in the mystic of having lake front property.

Her new owner is graduating from the UW in premed this year.
She will enter medical school next year in her quest to become a Doctor.

I believe all this is a better environment for Fiona.
But I still miss her and she’ll always be in my heart.

But my allergic reactions are now improved.

Seek the Lord and His strength;
Seek His face continually.

1 Chronicles 16:11

Most success comes after numerous failures

Angry Birds, the best-selling Apple App was software maker Rovio’s
52nd attempt at successful software in 8 almost-bankrupt years.

James Dyson failed in 5,126 prototypes before perfecting his
revolutionary Dyson vacuum cleaner.

WD40 lubricant got its name because the first 39 experiments failed. WD-40 literally stands for “Water Displacement–40th Attempt.

The basic difference between successful people and the rest of us
is that they’ve learned to fail well.

They humbly embrace their mistakes,
They use their failures as opportunities to learn
They persevere until each shot got them nearer the bullseye.

Apple founder Steve Jobs ascribes his success to reevaluating
his life after three setbacks: dropping out of college, being fired
from the company he founded, and being diagnosed with cancer.

Steve Jobs never let failure define him. As a result, he really did change the world.

Steve Jobs said
if there’s a failure you’ve had to leave behind –
or better yet, is there a failure you’re in right now
you need to salvage some things from,
then you let it go, and refocus on the future

Michael Jordan said:
I have failed over and over and over again, and that is why I succeed.

The American chess master Bruce Pandolfini, who trains many young
chess players, said:
At the beginning, you lose – a lot. The kids who are going to succeed
are the ones who learn to stand it. A lot of young players find losing so devastating they never adapt, never learn to metabolize that failure
and to not take it personally.
But good players lose and then put the game behind them emotionally.

Philip Schultz wrote a book of poems about his writing failures.
Entitled, Failure, it won a Pulitzer prize!

David Murray noted:

We have to learn to fail well

We need to have realistic expectations of ourselves and our work.

We shouldn’t soar too high on success, then we’ll not sink too
deeply on a setback.

We shouldn’t resent or envy the “success” of others,

We shouldn’t get caught up in trying to imitate others.

We should diligently and patiently labor in our pursuits

We should gradually develop our talents and skills

We should put God first.
We should live for God’s glory
We should live for the good of others.

We should confess our failures
We should seek our Lord’s forgiveness
We should pray for His re-directing guidance.

We should emerge from our failures humbler

We should let our failures make us
weaker in ourselves but stronger in God

We should ask for God’s wisdom

We should allow the joy of the Lord to be our strength

In all that’s crumbling around us and even in us
We should deepen our dependence on Jesus

Only God can transform our ugly failures into something
profitable and even beautiful.

After serval reads through the Bible,

I’m convinced that failure is the best thing that can happen to us.

If we think we can make it

through the complicated mazes

of life on our own,

we’ll never cry out for God’s help

Face it!

We can’t get there from here

without Jesus help.

Grace is free sovereign favor to the ill-deserving.

B.B. Warfield

“Grace is love that cares & stoops & rescues.”

John Stott

“Grace is God reaching downward to us
who are in rebellion against Him.”

Jerry Bridges

“Grace is radical love toward all who don’t deserve it.”

Paul Zahl

Grace is most needed grace is best understood
in the midst of sin, suffering, and brokenness.

We live in a world of earning, deserving & merit,
But that results in judgment.
That is why everyone wants & needs grace.
Judgment kills. Only grace makes alive.

A shorthand for what grace is – “mercy, not merit.”

Grace is the opposite of karma,

karma is all about getting what we deserve.

Grace is getting what we don’t deserve,
and not getting what we do deserve.

Jesus teaches that what we deserve is death
with no hope of resurrection.

And desperately we need grace in our hopelessness.

Grace is about God:
Grace is Christ’s un-coerced initiative
Grace is Jesus pervasive, extravagant demonstrations
of care and favor.

Michael Horton writes:

In grace, God gives nothing less than Himself.

Grace is the substance that mediates between
God and sinners, through Jesus in delivering action.

We’re all alive every day based on the grace of God.

We receive forgiveness according to the riches of God’s grace,

Grace drives our salvation our separation & sanctification.

Paul tells us,

the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation for all people,
training us to renounce ungodliness
teaching us to reject earthly passions,
transforming us to live self-controlled, lives in Christ

Titus 2:11

Spiritual growth is a process
It doesn’t happen overnight;

we “grow in the grace & knowledge of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ”

2 Peter 2:18

Grace transfigures our desires, motivations, and behavior.

Grace is the basis for:

Our identity: “By the grace of God I am what I am.”

1 Corinthians 1:10

Our standing before God:

this grace in which we stand.

Romans 5:2

Our behavior:
We behaved in the life … by the grace of God.

2 Corinthians 2:12

Our living:

those who receive the abundance of grace
and the free gift of righteousness reign in life
through the one man Jesus Christ,”
Romans 5:17 by the “grace of life.”

1 Peter 1:7

Our holiness:

God; called us to a holy calling …
because of His own purpose and grace.

2 Timothy 2:9

Our strength for living:

Be strengthened by the grace that is in Jesus Christ

2 Timothy 2:12

it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace

Hebrews 13:9

Our way of speaking:

Let your speech always be gracious.

Colossians 4:6

Our serving:

serve one another, by God’s varied grace.

1 Peter 1:10

Our sufficiency:

Gods grace is sufficient for us.

2 Corinthians 2:9

God is able to make all grace abound to us,
so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times,
We may abound in every good work.

2 Corinthians 2:8

In our response to difficulty and suffering:
We get “grace to help in time of need,”

Hebrews 4:16

and when “we have suffered a little while,
the God of all grace…
will himself
restore,
confirm,
strengthen,
and establish us.
by His grace

1 Peter 1:10

We are recipients of grace
we are privileged to serve as agents of grace.
We receive grace

Acts 11:23

We are encouraged to continue in grace

Acts 13:43

We are called to testify to the grace of God

Acts 20:24

Jesus says, “As the Father has sent Me,
even so I am sending you” by grace

John 20:21

God, and his grace, is everlasting.

We Set our hope fully on the grace that is
brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:13

Grace [reigns] through righteousness leading
to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 5:21

The voice of God’s Spirit through God’s Word
is all about God’s grace through Jesus Christ.

This is “the good news of the grace of God”

Acts 20:24

and “the word of his grace”

Acts 14:3

We are experiencing pockets of anarchy

Anarchy is a society without government or law.

Anarchy is political & social disorder due to the
absence of or removal of civic municipal control

Anarchy is a lack of obedience to any authority
whether police, punitive or political

Anarchy is insubordination, defiance and revolt

Anarchy is confusion and disorder

There is Intellectual Anarchy the rejection of wisdom

There is moral anarchy the rejection of morality

There is spiritual Anarchy the rejection of God

There is physical anarchy the destruction of others

But the consequences of Anarchy bring

THE LAW OF REAPING Prov 1:31

Therefore will they eat of the fruit of their
own way and be filled with their own devices

Please Father cause those who are twisting justice
and destroying peace to have their violent revolts
to collapse in on them

THE LAW OF RETRIBUTION v.32

For the turning away of the simple will slay them
and the prosperity of fools will destroy them

We know Father that you’ve allowed Satan and his
hordes of demons to infect and control those who
reject You now

They done it for thousands and thousands of years.

We understand this is the mystery of iniquity

This is the enigma of corruption

This is the dilemma of anarchy

We read You have allowed these vessel of lawlessness,
disorder, chaos, riot and pandemonium to fill up at
During various seasons in the history of this world.

And then you’ve raised up authoritative rulers and
special leaders to bring some degree of peace and
prosperity along with justice and equity

We know through the voice of Your prophecies that
when this scene, as we now know it, will be finally let
loose and be given over to extreme turmoil,
upheaval and devastating annihilation

We look to You to blend with Your will,

To trust in Your purposes and loving timing.

You are good and we trust in You

If we are looking into the prism of the end of all

We rest in Your loving hands for Your deliverance

THE LAW OF RELAXATION v. 33

But those who listen to God will live
safely & will be quiet from fear of evil.

Keep us listening always