The Lone Wolf

I've posted quite a bit, on this blog, about my story and about the importance of Brotherhood. What I want to write about today is a little different. At first it may seem to be the opposite of brotherhood, but its not. This is another facet of brotherhood. This is about being complete in your own being. This is about being a 'Lone Wolf '.

I have spoken a lot about how important and desirable it is to be a part of a brotherhood. But a brotherhood is not like a colony of bees who are completely dependant on each other. If we cannot live and act on our own, if we can't stand on our own feet, we are not ready to be part of a brotherhood. Brothers are not several parts of a whole, they are complete individuals on their own. Only when they can stand independently, are they ready to be a part of a brotherhood.

Let's look at wolves. Some people will tell you that a lone wolf is not natural because wolves are a pack animal. These people are, what I like to call, wrong. They are partially right because wolves do hunt in packs. They are also partially right because wolves do interact on a very social level. But wolves do not form herds.

Many animals form herds for protection and for social reasons. Herds have one leader and the rest are followers. Leaders of herds are constantly being challenged for the leadership. If a challenger wins the leadership, the rest of the herd will abandon the first leader and will follow the new leader.

If you look around you, I'm sure you can see the same thing happening in human society. Indeed, we can see the same thing in our churches. The pastor will preach about something and most of the congregation will simply accept whatever is said as fact. One leader and most of the rest follow. I say most because some of the people in the congregation will be looking up different scriptures to make sure that what is being preached is in line with the rest of scripture. These few people do not blindly follow what someone else says. These few people are independent thinkers. They weigh what is said against their own beliefs and decide, in their own mind, whether to accept the teaching or not. These people are not easily swayed with emotion and will not be carried away with the latest fads of belief. Because they don't follow the herd, they are often shunned by the leader of the herd and by the herd itself. They are branded "not a team player" and sometimes called a "lone wolf".

Wolves are independent thinkers. Several wolves hunting in a pack operate like a co-operative. They will work together to accomplish a goal but they are still independent of each other. Wolves are quite often seen alone or out teaching their cubs how to hunt. We have wolves living about 4 miles west of our yard. It is rare to see more than one at a time.

Independent thinkers, like wolves, are what make up a Brotherhood. People who can and do think for themselves can band together for their mutual benefit, but they are still unique individuals. This is the big difference from a herd.

I wanted to get involved with a motorcycle club. I looked around for quite a while, trying to find a club or group to join. I didn't want to join a 1%er club and I didn't want to join a club that spent their time in the bar. I like to ride and if I was going to join a motorcycle club, I wanted to spend most of the time riding. I met some great guys who rode with the CMA (Christian Motorcycle Association) and I liked what they were doing and the fact that they liked to ride, but when I looked into it, I found out that they have 45 pages of rules to agree to. It seemed that they were trying to come up with a rule to apply to every possible situation. I thank God for them but it didn't seem like the right fit for me. I kept looking and I finally found the "Lone Wolves". The Lone Wolves are all independent free spirits like myself who just want to get together and ride. There are no dues, you don't have to ride a certain make or style of bike, and everyone is welcome. I knew instantly that this was the place for me.

I believe that God led me to the Lone Wolves, partly because I'm such a misfit that it's the only place I would fit, and partly because I get to rub shoulders with every type of biker out there. I can wear my patch proudly in any company. I can wear it to a Hells Angels meet or wear it to church. I am accepted as a brother biker no matter where I go. The patch says to the world that I don't fit in any conventional pigeon holes and bikers understand that.

I am an independent thinker and a loner but I am also part of a brotherhood.

I am proud to be a  "Lone Wolf "

Choices

This is another song by Bruce Springsteen called  'Jesus Was An Only Son'.
He stops the song in a couple of places to contemplate the choices that Jesus made at the end of His earthly life. Give it a listen.

                    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPrFlbitSro

Jesus didn't have to die on that cross. He didn't even have to be there. Jesus was just as much a man as you or I are. Most people center in on Jesus being God but right now I want you to think about His humanity. He didn't have to live the life He did, He chose to. If there are 1000 ways to die (like the TV show), He didn't have to die in the worst way there was to die in those days. He didn't have to die at all. He chose to.

Springsteen mentions that the weather would have been nice at that time of year and wonders if Jesus could have chosen to open a bar, get married, have some kids. And why not? He could have done anything that He wanted. Instead He chose to follow His Father's plan and let himself be tortured and killed. Choices.

I think about some of the choices I've made in my life and I wonder why God would care about me at all. and yet He does. Choices.

When I make a bad decision it's understandable because I have to make it with no knowledge of what the outcome will be. Jesus KNEW what was going to happen and He still went. Choices.

Our lives are the result of the choices we make along the way. We can never go back and change the bad ones and it's good we can't because making bad choices and falling down and having to get back up is how we grow. It's how we learn. I've made so many bad choices in my life that I should be a lot smarter than I am now! I must be a really slow learner. lol. But I did make one good choice, to accept Jesus and His choice to die. . . .for me!

The last verse of the song says:


          Well Jesus kissed his mother's hands
          Whispered, "Mother, still your tears,
          For remember the soul of the universe
          Willed a world and it appeared


Choices. It's what Life is all about.

Brothers under the bridge.

When I lived in Abbottsford BC, I found myself alone and flat broke. My wife would not let me live there (see My Testimony) and I couldn't afford anything else and so I lived under a bridge for a while. I survived on bread from the food bank and blackberries that grew in the ditches. I was so ashamed of how low I had gotten and I couldn't understand why this was happening to me.

I still went to church though. I told a few friends at the church of my dilemma. They just shook their heads and said things like "Keep looking to God and He will look after you" and "That's too bad but God will provide" and then they would go and find their other, more socially acceptable friends and go out to a restaurant for dinner. After that they would avoid me like a leper. So I would go back to my bridge and pick some more blackberries for my lunch. I would cry out to God "What am I doing wrong?"


I know now that God was showing me the problem with the church. All the churches. Selfishness, pride, close-mindedness, uncaring attitudes, cliqueiness, boastfulness, bigotry, idolatry. All of this in a place where they say they are free from these things. They strut around saying "Praise God, I'm Saved!"

Jesus said:

Mat 25:42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
Mat 25:43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Mat 25:44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Mat 25:45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
Jesus was trying to get across to people what Brotherhood is all about. I met several other homeless people under that bridge that were more caring and more generous than the 'good christians' in the church. They understood what it was to be homeless. If you've never been homeless, let me tell you what it's like. It's cold at night. It's hot in the day. It's dirty. It's uncomfortable. You never know when someone will come along and steal what little you have. You worry about the cops coming along and kicking you out of your 'home'. You have no privacy and your self-esteem is in the gutter. But you meet other homeless people. They may be from vastly different circumstances but you share something. Brotherhood. Brotherhood of despair, yes. Brotherhood of hopelessness, yes. But Brotherhood none the less. I saw more caring and sharing from the heathen brothers under the bridge than I saw from the Christians in the nice comfortable church. Church people like to put on a show of praying for the lost but until they are willing to go and live under a bridge and realize that they are NO BETTER than the other people they meet there, they will never understand what Brotherhood is all about.


Rom 8:29For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Jesus was the firstborn among many Brethren. Brethren means Brotherhood. As the body of Christ we are to be a brotherhood. We should be helping carry each others burdens. We should share in the hard times as well as rejoice together in the good times. And I'm not talking about our own little circle of friends. I'm talking about reaching out to your brothers, ESPECIALLY the ones that AREN'T in our own little circle.


1Jn 3:10In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.

1Jn 3:11For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
Listen to the song below and see if you can identify with the loneliness and the grief and the brokenness it portrays about a Viet Nam vet who comes back and is trying to explain to his daughter why he can't live at home with his family.

When you can't listen to this without spilling some tears and you can understand why he lives under a bridge and your heart goes out to him, THEN you are ready to understand Brotherhood. And THEN you are ready to be some good to the body of Christ. THEN you will be my brother and we can go together to seek out our other lost brothers. . . under the bridge.

           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nANWooO8ok0

          Bruce Springsteen - Brothers Under The Bridge


          Saigon, it was all gone
          The same Coke machines
          As the streets I grew on
          Down in a mesquite canyon
          We come walking along the ridge
          Me and the brothers under the bridge

          Campsite's an hour's walk from the nearest road to town
          Up here there's too much brush and canyon
          For the CHP choppers to touch down
          Ain't lookin' for nothin', just wanna live
          Me and the brothers under the bridge
          Come the Santa Ana's, man, that dry brush'll light
          Billy Devon got burned up in his own campfire one winter night
          We buried his body in the white stone high up along the ridge
          Me and the brothers under the bridge

          Had enough of town and the street life
          Over nothing you end up on the wrong end of someone's knife
          Now I don't want no trouble
          And I ain't got none to give
          Me and the brothers under the bridge

          I come home in '72
          You were just a beautiul light
          In your mama's dark eyes of blue
          I stood down on the tarmac, I was just a kid
          Me and the brothers under the bridge

          Come Veterans' Day I sat in the stands in my dress blues
          I held your mother's hand
          When they passed with the red, white and blue
          One minute you're right there
          then something slips. . . .
    1Pe 2:17 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

Brotherhood

Brotherhood. What does this mean to you? Here's what Dictionary.com says:

          broth·er·hood

             /ˈbrʌðərˌhʊd/ Show Spelled[bruhth-er-hood] 

          noun

          1.     the condition or quality of being a brother or brothers.

          2.     the quality of being brotherly; fellowship.

          3.     a fraternal or trade organization.

          4.     all those engaged in a particular trade or profession or sharing a common
                  interest or quality.

          5.     the belief that all people should act with warmth and equality toward one
                  another, regardless of  differences in race, creed, nationality, etc.

 Why is it that 'Brotherhood' is accepted by trade unions and business organizations but the body of Christ centres its attentions on divisions and differences?

I was talking with some people that I am proud to call my 'brothers'. All of us had stories about the way we had been mistreated and ostracised by the various churches and Christian organizations we have been involved with. This should not be so! Where is the warmth and equality mentioned in definition 5 above? Churches and their organizations are the biggest obstacles we face in our walk as true believers in Christ. This shouldn't come as a surprise because Jesus himself had more trouble with the churches than the sinners. Indeed, it was the 'church' that eventually had Him put to death!

"God save us from the churches and religious people and Thank You for the BROTHERHOOD of true believers, and Thank You that I am counted among them, amen"

The Promise

Risen

I should have posted this yesterday but it doesn't really matter because it is as true today as it was yesterday! The major work of the first Easter was on the Friday, with the Saturday being a day of despair for the confused believers. The glory wasn't revealed until Sunday when Jesus rose from the dead and went forth to show the believers that their faith had not been in vain.

We often get discouraged in our Christian walk. When it seems that nothing is happening with our calling or ministry, it is likely that God is working on a part of the plan that we don't know about. God's plan is much bigger than we can understand. Like the early believers we need to hold the course and not lose faith. I spent 26 years being offended with God because I couldn't see the whole plan. (see 'My Testimony') We are very important to furthering God's work in this world but compared to God we are very very small. We need to learn to trust Him and keep working at the task He set before us. We need to put our pride aside and understand that we are only small players on His great stage, and I'm preaching to myself on this too.

Good Friday

Thank God It's Friday!

Today is Good Friday. Many people, including Christians, are bundling up their families to go to their parents or grandparents home. They are looking forward to a big Easter meal on Sunday. If they have small children they are probably thinking about searching for brightly coloured eggs hidden in the grass.

But let's stop for a moment and think about the meaning of 'Good Friday'. Why was it good? This was the day when Jesus was nailed to a cross and left to hang there until he was dead. This was the day when the Son of God was killed by the very people he was trying to save. Shouldn't we call it 'Black Friday'? Some people do call it that! Maybe 'Sad Friday' because it appeared that God's plan had failed. Maybe 'Hopeless Friday' because everyone who was believing in Jesus felt their hope was gone at that point.

But we call it 'Good Friday' because when Jesus died on that cross, he PAID YOUR DEBT. He was able to do that because he had never done anything wrong in his entire life. So when they killed him it was a case of WRONGFUL CONVICTION.

Good Friday is the reason that we have the opportunity to go to Heaven. Good Friday is the reason we can call God 'our Father'. Good Friday is the reason God will hear us when we call out to Him.

I'm sure Jesus didn't think it was a Good Friday. Who would want to be crucified? He was just as human as you or I when it came to feeling pain. But He knew that it was the only way to accomplish our salvation. And so he paid the price, your ransom price, by freely giving up his life so you could be free.

That's what makes it a 'GOOD FRIDAY'. It was the day that Satan lost control of this earth and God showed everyone that HE ALONE IS GOD, but what a tremendous price He paid.

Think about that as you go through the day, and have a GOOD FRIDAY!