Everyone has a story and I have mine.Most people still have a long way to run and I wish them well but my time is running out, as the the finish line of my race is now clearly in sight. Its been a long journey but a good one. If the Lord decided to snuff me out tonight I can say that I have had 64 good years. I was 40 years of age when I repented and became converted. As a person I wasn't really a thinker and I didn't actually start thinking until I reached the age of 30. It all began on one particular day when I absent mindedly pulled some leaves off a tree and for quite some time I couldn't figuer out why I did it. Eventually I got answers but I now realise that I did it as an expression of my power which made me feel important or worthwhile,in a very minor way, for that little achievement of having the power to pull off the leaves. This for me, I realised, was actually a tiny achievement even if it was only in a very miniscule way. I realise that this is how we all are although other people might describe it in a different way . I realised that deep down we all want to be viewed as worthwhile or significant or of value so we can appreciate feelings of acceptance which we are all craving, whether we realise it or not. It is when we really become aware of this truth we have the opportunity to eradicate thinking that we have bought into because it satisfys our sence of importance at the expense of the truth itself. A simple example could be a refusal by a tribal member to actually believe that the world is round because for that person to do so, they would also have to feel very unimportant because the rest of the tribe, which are subscribing to the view that the world is actually flat , would view him as being weird.He believes that the world is flat because he wants it to be flat because it equates to being not weird and therefore acceptable. Thinking is stimulating. I encouage others to think rather than being told what to think. At school I was an expert at coming last in my class and therefore there was a propensity for me to fill up the vacuum in my thinking which began for me in 1977 at age 30.There was a time in my life around the age of 26 or around 1973 when I became as nutty as a fruit cake. I had experimented with drugs and lost the plot. it was a difficult period which at one stage of my life I was so deranged that I was sleeping in a cardboard box behind some shops somewhere in South Australia. I was shoeless and starving, freezing and friendless .This rememberance is somewhat embarressing but hey it happened although I wish it hadn't. I supppose because of it I am very aware of those who are down on their luck. In 1987 I became a follower of Jesus Christ who I say is God who became a man. The God that many don't believe in could be the same God that I don't believe in. I believe in a Great God not some little God. My God is Great because He is Great. I believe in the one true living God.I try to always avoid rudeness but often when I am telling it, as it is, I can seem pompous and dictatorial. Although I probably have the convictions of a dictator I am not pompous.Thou shalt find some sweetness inside my marshmellow words which can be tasted if the heavy seasoning of bias is removed from in between thy reasoning teeth. However to those of you whom I have offended I do tender my sincerest apologies. I am for people. I want them to do well and go well. I keep the Sabbath on the 7th day which is Saturday and I look forward to it all week as it is a delight for me. I tell you this truly. I am still married to the one and only wife God has given me and that was 36 years ago. I have always admired the epitaph of Andrew Carnegie who said " Here lies a man who mananged to surround himself with others who were smarter than himself". I would like to have the following epitaph on my tombstone. " If I could come back from the grave I would preach Christ".
Thats it, thats me.
The servant of all thats me thats Paul.