Heartache

I'm home today from church with pretty good chest pains. This, unfortuantely, is becoming a bit more recurrent with minor flare-ups about every 6-10 months. I can remember when they first started about 5 years ago while we were living in Columbia. I thought I was literally having a heart attack 'cause I had all the classic symptoms.

Chest pain, cold & tingling numbness up & down my left arm, cold & clammy sweating and slight trouble catching my breath.

I didn't know if I was about to check out or not but I got to the hospital pretty quick and they stuck an oxygen hose in me, much to my wife's surprise because she thought it may have been all in my head. Seeing me there on the examining table with a tube up my nose, I think she realized it was a bit more serious than what she thought. However, thankfully, after several workups and tests, it was declared that my chest pain was NOT due to anything heart related.

Relief, but then questions. If it wasn't my heart, what was causing this pain?

There was never a determination 5 years ago and with each recurrence/flare up, we get the same response.

"Well, it's not heart related but we can't figure out what it is. It's probably muscular pain and you'll just have to learn to live with it, take it easy and an occasional anti-inflammatory."

Easier said than done. Bottom line is...

Pain hurts.

So, am I to just chalk it up as something that can't be helped? Just deal with it? There's no way to determine what's causing this pain?

Jennifer & I were looking at the internet last night and we believe it could be related to diabetic neuropothy. Layman's terms...diabetic nerve damage. From what we've read, it can't really be "cured" but controlled through tighter glucose levels, diet and exercise routines.

I'm not trying to be all depressed & down about it. It's just that it's hard to consider having this chest pain indefinitely with no real sense of it completely going away. It's time for me to start buckling down and getting serious about this disease that for over 25 years has been relatively dormant. Yet now, after years of abuse and neglect, numerous Twinkies, cakes, cookies, steaks & potatoes and not exercising regularly, this disease is starting to come calling. So, because I want to be around for my wife & kids & family and whatever else God has in store for me, I'm gonna start taking this much more seriously.

I'm also praying that while God helps me to get serious about my physical life, I long to develop and grow in my spiritual life. As it says in Colossians, I'm praying today "to be filled wiht the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that I may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God." (Colossians 1:9-10)

There are far too many things going on in our day & age that mock the Word of God, spit in the face of Jesus Christ, desecrate His life's ministry and legacy, doubting His divinity and even His very existence.

It's time to get serious about this "disease". Time to realize that there is a battle going on, a battle "against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." From recent controversies like the DaVinci Code to gay marriage amendments to the war on terror to the secularizing & "sanitizing" of our schools from even saying the word "Christmas"...it's no coincidence how or why this is all happening.

Just last night, I had an encounter with one of these aspects at the gas station. While I won't go into specific or graphic details of what I saw BLATANTLY being demonstrated in front of me at 6:45 on a Saturday night in a public place, I can tell you it sickened me to literal nausea to see how we as a human race have eroded down to almost nothing but simplistic, selfish and repulsive behavior.

There is no God. Your God is not MY god. I don't want to hear about YOUR God. I'm just fine the way I am. There is no Hell. By saying there is, you are offending me and I won't tolerate your "close-mindedness".

Friend, this may be your opinion today but let me ask you this. Have you ever considered:

What if you are wrong? What if when you die, there IS an after-life and there IS a reckoning before a Supreme Being? What if there is a Hell and there is a judgement? What then?

You see, if I'm wrong and you're right, we all die and sleep for eternity.

If I'm right and you are wrong and there IS a God, while He loves you implicitly, will also judge you according to whether or not you lived your life in a manner worthy of Christ...well, I fear millions will see rather quickly if there is a Hell or not.

The good news today is that God doesn't want any to perish but that all might be saved!!! And don't let your humanistic reasonings tell you you're not important. God sent His Son to die for YOUR sins, my sins, the sins of the WORLD. Nothing you've done matters in His sight because He's already paid the ransom for your sin. You can be free if you only believe and trust in Him today. Whatever your past is, the Bible says that God will not only forgive you of your sins but will cast them "as far as the east is from the west". God will also forget these sins after you've repented and He's cast them out.

Whether you've stolen or cursed or cheated or lied...whatever it is, God's grace is so much bigger than any of us, He's got His wonderful mercy there, waiting for you, ready to forgive you, to cleanse you and to make you a new creature in Him.

So what do you say? If you haven't made Him Lord & Savior today, would you do so now? Eternal life can be your's. All you have to do is accept it. Put aside all "reasonings" you may have and seek the truth for yourself. Don't let a movie or a society determine your salvation.

Knock and it will be opened. Ask and it will be given. Seek and ye shall find.

Lies and deceptions will eventually fall away but truth...

Truth remains.

Forever.