This Ripple is written by Samuel J. Blandina, the very first guy to join The Ripple Effect men’s group in back in 2012.

In mid January of 2019 I was privileged to drive solo through the southwest–southwest Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California—driving almost 10,000 miles in a month’s time, seeing and experiencing the vast, empty, mega awe inspiring geography of this amazing country.

In seeing this, thoughts of smallness, meaninglessness, “We are just dust in the wind” filled me. The scope of the land can make one feel small in comparison. At one point on Dog Canyon Trail in Big Bend National Park, stopping, there was no sound, no wind, no body. The land rose up in front of me, the sun shone down, it was warm. Time, everything stood still. It vividly felt as if time itself STOPPED. Breathing in and out, feeling the breath of God. I wept.

I saw and did so much in that time, but I would find myself saying, “Dude, you’re not being adventurous enough! You should have climbed that mountain instead of driving by it.” I was “shoulding” on myself. “I am not as brave as I think I am.” I was anxious! I had to pause to pray. In that quiet I hear: “When you stopped and prayed and wept you felt Me. Acknowledge Me in all things. No words need to pass your lips, let your heart and being know Me now and in all circumstances. This is prayer.” I wept.

Today’s society can drive one mad with electronic overstimulation, narcissism, consumerism, greed, envy, white noise, propaganda, the daily rat race. We see heroes in the great athletes, the mountain climber, extreme sports participants, etc. We think they are so brave! What great discipline! We are truly brave if we are willing to pursue God in all our being, every moment.

Easy?

Not.

Oh to abandon, to give up the right to ourselves and bring that suffering to the One who suffered all and suffers with us, Jesus. This creates joy. Maybe not so much in us, but we overjoy Jesus when we abandon. “You will be raised up.”

Our life is prayer. And we pray in the name of Yahweh, Yeshua, and Emmanuel, that people, no matter their circumstances—economic, geographical, spiritual—that all would know Jesus as Savior, Master, Redeemer, liberating King, the Way, the Light, the Truth, AMEN.

Let us pray.

1 Timothy 4:7c-8

Go into training in godliness! Physical exercise, you see, has a limited usefulness, but godliness is useful in every way. It carries the promise of life both now and in the future.

To be physically fit, you need to do some sort of exercise-type activity with your body. You also need to eat foods that are nutrient-dense, whole, and good for your body to use as fuel for functioning optimally.

To be spiritually fit, the same principles apply. You must train or exercise, and you will need to ingest that which is wholesome and good for the spirit.

Feeding upon political rants on social media is like the nastiest of hormone and antibiotic injected, GMO infested fast food.

Ingesting Scripture and nature and prayer and silence and encouraging talk with positive people is like the most natural and healthy of foods straight from an organic farm. These are examples of high quality fuel for your spirit to burn for energy. The highest grade fuel is of course God’s grace—a simple reliance on this jet fuel is your best option for spiritual energy—humble dependance and trust in God, God’s grace, God’s goodness and solid character. To trust that the One who is ultimately good is ultimately in control.

Sitting around, neglecting to take on the action of spiritual disciplines in order to grow will, much like neglecting physical activity, eventually cause you to become spiritually flabby, unable to handle even minor bumps in the road.

I am reminded of a Sunday School song we sang as kids:

“Read your Bible, pray every day and you’ll grow, grow, grow…Neglect your Bible, forget to pray and you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink.”

A simple song, yet conveys a profound principle.

Are you growing or shrinking?

Helpful Hint: If you do not have a set time and place for exercise, be it physical or spiritual, it is extremely unlikely that you will reap the benefits of any consistency whatsoever.

We often talk about processing our experiences. Or processing our pain.

Do we know what we mean by this?

To process something is to develop it, we might say. Like in the olden days of going to get your film developed. For you young’ns out there, you’d have to take the canister of film out of the camera and then to a “fotomat” to drop off for developing.

Now we don’t want to just take a bunch of pictures and never develop the film, for then we would not be able to see and admire the photographs of the images we set out to capture. They’ll just sit in the dark, in that little canister. (Like snapping thousands of digital pix today with your phone, never to be taken in or actually observed)

Along these lines, we don’t want to simply take on experience after experience, information on top of information, not really processing any of it. We can become spiritually bloated, unable to digest the ridiculous amount of stimuli we’ve ingested.

But when you’ve processed your day, or “developed” it, you can then truly see it, learn from it, admire it, or make realistic plans to change course where needed and act differently next time.

Our experiences, what we take in, are like snapping pictures—either digitally to be viewed later, or more descriptively, captured to negatives for later processing.

At the end of each day or experience, it’s very helpful to go over the events and process/develop them by simply soaking in them for a while. Think of those red rooms like you’ve seen in movies where you must soak the paper in that solution for the image to appear. You soak in your experiences, and they start to develop into a form which can actually be observed.

We can then properly give thanks for them, ask forgiveness where needed, allow joyful experiences to transform us more into unconditional love machines; or perhaps sit with pain in a way in which we are not merely hurt by it, but learn from it, transcend it, and become better because of it. And this because we have walked through it to the other side.

But without developing, we cannot see or process accurately. As has been said, if we do not transform our pain, we will surely transmit it.

Without the stillness of focused attention, it is very unlikely you will grow and mature as a human being. You won’t develop because you don’t process your experiences…you don’t develop the film of your life so that you can actually observe it and see what is really going on.

Like that descriptive visual of red room developing, it is quite efficacious to soak our experiences of the day in the solution of our open, listening mind for review and reflection. My wife tells me that for the first stage of that kind of film developing, the room must be completely dark. If that door opens during this critical time, development cannot happen. I see this as being free of outside voices in order to authentically process. Only you can process your life, and it can’t be effectively done with distractions, with the door wide open to so many opinions and “shoulds”. *

Perhaps the red light could represent the Holy Spirit, illuminating just what she would have us see. Being still, away from the noise of the world, reflecting on life with the Holy Spirit, is one of the healthiest ways we can spend our time, in my opinion. For this is how we process experience, grow as a person, and develop the film of our life in order to observe it accurately, and move forward, toward God.

*There is of course a need for wise council in our lives, but I do not see that as the same as processing as I’m using it here.

Yesterday, as I was washing dishes, I came across something caked on a bowl pretty good. Which required me to scrub harder. Then grab a more abrasive tool for the cleaning job in order to make the bowl beautiful again, clean, fit for use, to be “worthy” of what it was designed for.

Immediately the Spirit showed me the obvious metaphor.

In this Lenten season of purification and simplifying of our life, we think of how God desires to cleanse us of that which hinders from full flourishing and effectiveness in the Kingdom.

This cleansing can be fairly painless if we are open, willing to change, and hold everything with an open hand trusting God to know better than we do what is best for us.

But, the tighter our Kung-Fu grip on things, on ways of thought that are not helpful, the harder Yahweh has to scrub. And if we really don’t want to let go, God may use more abrasive (and therefore more painful) tools to get us clean, fit for Kingdom use, worthy of our design.

Let’s say your “caked on food” is daily self-loathing. This requires an obvious focus on…yourself, which necessarily diminishes your awareness of others and their needs around you. Hence, you are not fully available for the Master’s glorious use in the beautiful Kingdom of God. You are unfit (much like how eating donuts everyday makes you unfit for daily exercise). So that self-loathing will need to be removed. Somehow.

Note that when we talk of being worthy, we’re speaking of condition—being of worthy condition for something—not value and worth as a person. You are of immense value and worth, or else Jesus wouldn’t have died for you, and God wouldn’t bother scrubbing you.

My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s rebuke, or grow weary when he takes issue with you; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child he welcomes.

~Proverbs 3:11-12/ Hebrews 12:5b-6

The love of God is all. This new day is what He brings, a day full of blessing, provision, of Himself. This is my all in all. How wonderful are the gifts of YHWH. How beautiful is His creation, bestowed upon us who do not always notice, who do not always appreciate, not only His gifts, but more importantly, Himself.

May we thank Thee, Oh God of bountiful greatness. May we thank Thee for Thyself.

Unless a grain of wheat falls in the ground and dies, it will not bear fruit.

There is no real growth without some form of pain it seems. We are called to growth, so it would follow that we are called to suffering. But not pointless suffering. Suffering for the sake of being conformed to Christ, our destiny.

In many ways, our suffering can be cut from years down to months, or even days, depending upon our level and immediacy of surrender.

Not all is within our control of course.

Yet we do possess at least a modicum of control, and it is there where we must, sooner or later, give our consent.

Hammering and chiseling itself is unpleasant. But when done with intention, for a specific purpose and outcome, it results in (what was there all along) unfathomable beauty.

~Written at The Oaks Academy Saturday School Parent Choir Seminar March 5th, 2016.

Revelation 22:1 & 17

Then he showed me the river of the water of life. It was sparkling like crystal, and flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb…

The spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let anyone who hears say, “Come!”Let the thirsty come; let anyone who wants the water of life take it freely.

How awesome it must’ve been to actually see the river of the water of life flowing from God and the lamb, showing the eternal fellowship of God and Christ.

It was sparkling like crystal, showing that it is pure and purifying for all who drink of it, so that you may enter into the Presence of the Holy One. Anyone may drink of it, but you must come to Jesus to do so. Jesus doesn’t waterboard you with the water of life. It’s up to you to accept His beautiful invitation to come and have a drink of true life which flows only from God.

We drink of so many things, flowing from varying sources, that just do not satiate.

And let anyone who hears say, “Come!”

Once we have heard the invitation, and responded positively by drinking it in, we invite others to do so as well, because we want this goodness for all, especially for those with whom we are close and love dearly; for we have tasted and seen that the Lord is indeed truly good.

A friend once said that Jesus works with our desire.

Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life.

Let anyone who wants the water of life take it freely.

Those are some of the most beautiful and comforting words in all of Scripture if you ask me.

The water of life flowing directly from God is graciously and sacrificially provided for all of us simply for the taking. The only reason we do not partake seems to be ourselves getting in the way, for there is nothing that can keep us away from it. Nothing.

Come to Jesus. And drink freely.

In Christ alone the longing of the soul can be satisfied.

O Christ, in thee my soul hath found,

And found in thee alone,

The peace, the joy, I sought so long,

The bliss til now unknown.

Now none but Christ can satisfy,

None other Name for me!

There’s love, and life, and lasting joy,

Lord Jesus found in thee.

Amen.

Revelation 21 :1,5

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…

The one who sat on the throne said, “Look, I am making all things new.”

Some day God is going to renew the cosmos, and we will no longer have the obstacles of evil and barriers to God’s presence to worry about.

Until then, we need to enjoy the smaller scale renewals which prepare us for life on new earth. Scripture tells us that even though our physical bodies wear down, our spirits are being renewed day by day.

We do get a foretaste of life on new earth, as long as we allow our spirits to be renewed, and our lives and minds to be purged of all that is unfit for our future home. Yes, this can hurt, but may we keep hopeful with the picture in Revelation of where it is all heading. We have a short time here on old earth where sin has much sway, though God’s kingdom grows. But we will have an incomparably longer time on new earth where sin is no more and God Himself will dwell with us. As one person humorously noted, “We’re dead a lot longer than we’re alive.” Of course we know that “dead” for us means newly alive.

We’re approaching a new calendar year, so may we live out some of our pre-cosmic renewal by living out that daily renewal of our spirit to bring us closer to new earth shape.

One way I’ve been thinking of this for 2019 is this:

3 “Tions” to Shun

1. Distractions
2. Expectations
3. Limitations

Here’s a short unfolding of these three:

Shedding distractions from God’s presence by decluttering our mind and life, perhaps by having time away from screens and practicing Sabbath.

Stop trying to live to others’ expectations, which is one of the top 5 regrets of dying people, as you may remember.

Do not feel the need to live according to others’ limitations, because their life is not your life. Sometimes we’re made to feel guilty for having what others do not, be it the ability to walk or read, or electricity, or a family intact… We need to live well the life God has given us and instead of apologizing for it, use it to bring attention to Jesus, and help others as we are able.

Revelation 20:11-15

13 Then I saw the dead, both great and small, standing in front of the throne. Books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged on the basis of what was written in the books, in accordance with what they had done.

15 And if anyone was not found written in the book of life, they were thrown into the lake of fire.

I have 9 detailed commentaries on the book of Revelation. I read them all concerning this section of five verses.

Let me just say that I am humbled…blown away…both comforted and a bit nervous…unsure of what to even write after two days of reflection.

So I will just share one thing that stood out to me.

It’s interesting to me that John does not seem concerned to resolve the tension he witnessed between works and grace. It’s we, centuries later, who feel the need to make everything neat and tidy, comprehensible for our mental and emotional well-being, even though it is God who gives us mental, emotional, and spiritual peace, not our air-tight theology and prediction of exactly what the future will look like.

It looks as if we all will stand before God and be judged on our works done while here on earth. Everyone is at this final judgment scene, except for the martyrs. No one escapes it. And everything we do matters—one of the reasons we named this ministry The Ripple Effect. It seems we will be judged on all our deeds as written in these books of account. We are responsible for our deeds, and in a sense, we write our own judgment due to our free will and choices. It does seem that our bad deeds committed here are only counted against us if we have failed to repent of them and seek forgiveness.

At the same time, God alone is responsible for our salvation. It is God’s book of life. It is God who provides salvation through Christ via our faith. Our genuine faith and trust in Christ will inevitably manifest itself in works and a way of life that is godly.

Sorry if this is a jumbled mess, but by way of application I will simply say that what I take from this is that I cannot rest on being saved when I was five years old, and then do whatever the hell I want to do all the time, thinking there will be no eternal consequences.

I realize that I will be judged according to how I’ve lived this life—whatever that judgment means, and simultaneously, I will be judged worthy by whether my name is in this book of life, according to  Christ’s work.

So I am judged, in the end, by my own works, and ultimately by Christ’s work.

Confused?

All I know is that I place my faith and hope in Christ alone, in His redemptive work on the cross, and that everything I do in this life does matter eternally.

Maybe that’s all I needed to say….