Candace, I just woke up, so I cannot, in order...one through six, answer your questions. But you have opened up a great avenue for me to share about the subject of "enjoyment of life" as it pertains to me. .......I DON'T enjoy life. That is precisely why I made a thread the other day about the manifest presence of God. Because I'm freaking lonesome (if there's a tone of frustration in my post....it's not toward you Candace, not at all).
Let me interject this, although it is unrelated, directly. I have had several experiences. How many times in my life have I had fellwo Christians, (in person) tell me: "Kevin? Don't you think that God has called you to preach?" When a visiting evangelist came to the church that I used to feel very loyal and passionate about (in the early to mid 90's), he touched me on the forehead and I found myself on the floor. And you have never met a more cynical or skeptical person than me about outward manifestations of the Holy Spirit. But he "Prophesied over me" (the visiting evangelist) that I would be a preacher, prophet, and I don't recall every word. Time has a way of taking away the intensity of these "possibly" Divine enhanced pronouncements, but I recall after that night, I signed up and began taking a correspondence course called Bereans (Assembly of God correspondence college). I took that evangelist's words to the very heart. But soon after, a lady visited the church , who was in the middle of a divorce, and I was playing the piano that night and she noticed (her words) that I had no wedding ring on....so she zoomed in. (yes, I really 'had it' in those days.....HA!) We were marryed in a month. My correspondence college went out the window. My jail ministry went out the window. In two years I was starting to use drugs to change the way I feel. (got some pain pills from a dentist) and that simply started another long debacle with drugs and all the attending miseries...including jail time, prison time, misery upon untold misery. (I am accurate in my telling of this, yet summarizing drastically) AFTER our marriage day, I finally fell deeply in love with this .......lady? and when I got divorce papers from her lawyer (while I was at Teen Challenge in Memphis....a year long Christian Rehab (Assembly of God.....of course) , I was devastated, to understate my situation. She had promised that if I "got help" that we would make it work. But the rehab just got me out of the way where she could work on finding Number Three. She found him, WHILE we were technically still married. (I kept tabs on her from the rehab through the church secretary (they know EVERYTHING!...lol) Okay.....end of 'interjection'!
Back to "enjoyment of life". Being a single man, after knowing what was like, allbeit briefly, to have a family (she couldn't have children, but already had one from the previous marriage) it sometimes make matters difficult and very frustrating. Then, I read in Genesis where God Himself says "It is not good for man to be alone." and I say "Yes, God, I agree.". But alas, my personality is such that I find that I can stomach being alone easier, or better, than going through all the trouble of a courtship and subsequent marriage,
So I cry out to God, that I am, much of the time, very unhappy!!! "Righteousness, peace, and JOY in the Holy Ghost....THAT'S the kingdom of God" says the inspired writer (am I starting to sound like Tozer.....I have read him enough....lol) and I wonder why God is with-holding from me anything that would make life bearable down here. I am nowhere near wanting to go take a dive off the bridge. Oh I am much to chicken to do that. Plus, I wouldn't be sure about my fate in the Judgement. I mean....what gives me the right to destroy God's temple? Whether a bit at a time.....or instantly.
I have all the big boy toys (bows, guns, metal detectors, etc) and after I go through a season of obsessing over them and trying fervently to milk every last ounce of joy from them, I find, in th end, that they are merely so much wood, and metal, and unable to provide me with a bit of happiness. I have tried it all. No joy. I have thrown myself upon God (that is where I am at now). I have read and re-read Tozer's article entitled: The Saint Must Walk Alone. I could identify with it word for word. But still, there is this emptiness in me that I cannot seem to fill. Then, I read people saying (Tozer included) when you "Get It" ( be baptized in the Holy Spirit).....you'll know it. Well.....I don;t know it. I am beginning to suspect that I am genetically hard wired to be grouchy and unhappy like my Daddy was. My brothers and sisters (blood) seem to engage life in the same manner as I have. Looking for something to take away the overall unhappiness. In closing, I want to say, that I have never been closer to God than I am now. It seems that we are on a day by day communicating basis. But then I start doubting myself and wonder if my screwed up head has merely created me an imaginary friend to get me through. Many many times, I have asserted...to God and to a few others, that as long as my mother is alive, and needs me, that I wish to remain here. But after her affliction has taken her life, THEN.....I am quite ready. I have nothing here that I feel is worth staying for. Now tell me.....I am one mixed up cat, aren't I??? (I'm crazy as a bat.....that's what I think) In retrospect, I think that we'd all been better off if I simply answered your questions, one through six, and kept much of my feelings to myself. But that is what is foremost in my......mind......this morning. Maybe I am going through one of them 'crisis' that the old, departed, saints say that we all have to go through to "get it". If so.....I should be expecting a BIG dose.
