Author: newkingjim

About ten days ago, I was traveling from Florida to Virginia with a stopover in North Carolina. It was a difficult travel day. Flights were delayed and canceled. I spent long hours in the Charlotte airport trying to amuse myself. I won’t bore you with descriptions of the types of things I find amusing to do in an airport. At one point, I glanced out the windows and was shocked at what I saw. Never had I seen anything like this first hand. I grabbed my camera (aka my phone) with thoughts of potential fame and fortune.

Mysterious circles in the sky! Aliens over Charlotte? Flying motorcycles doing spinouts in the clouds? Whatever this was, it was paranormal fame in the making! Surely I would take my picture on a tour of television shows. Josh Gates and Expedition Unknown, here I come! But no. It’s not what it looks like. These mysterious circles are not in the sky at all. Nor are they mysterious. They are simply the reflection of the circular airport ceiling lights off the windows. I posted the picture on my Facebook page and everyone who saw it was initially puzzled by the strange photo. When I gave them the explanation they were amazed that they had been fooled. Well, maybe not amazed. But the lesson is pretty obvious: it’s easy to be fooled by photos today, even when those photos have not been altered or photoshopped in any way.

from the pen of Jeff Joyner

I remember as a kid, my older brother got a brand new English Racer bicycle for Christmas. I was shocked at how nice it was, but instead of being happy for him, I became very jealous. What made it more difficult, was that he wouldn’t let me ride it, since he thought it was too big for me to handle. From that moment on, I was determined to prove him wrong, and began attempting to control and manipulate him into letting me ride his bike.

As the days went by, it was clear, he was not going to let me anywhere near his bike. This went on for some time, although I remained persistent. One day, much to my delight, he finally gave in, and said I could ride his bike just once, down the hill of our street. I felt my persistence had paid off. Basking in this personal victory, I confidently walked his bike up the hill, climbed on, and began my journey down. It didn’t take me long to realize, that I was going faster than I had ever gone before, on any bicycle. As I began to apply the pedal brakes to slow down, something unexpected happened. Instead of stopping the bike, the pedals kept spinning backwards. What I did not know, was that the brakes were on the handlebars, not the foot pedals. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, I was going so fast, that I began to lose control, and eventually crashed into the side of a neighbor’s house. I learned that day, that patterns of control and manipulation, could never assure me of success. In fact, it led me straight into a brick wall. And it would be a long time, before I would be able to regain the trust of my brother again. Jesus said in Matthew 16:25: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” A clear reminder that, If we are but willing to relinquish control of our lives to the Lord, we can be fully assured, that He will be faithful to direct our steps, light our way, and lead us safely home.

“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.” Psalms‬ ‭37:3‬

Some time ago, maybe years ago, I wrote a post about the mysterious Voynich manuscript. This manuscript is a 15th century document containing bizarre drawings and an indecipherable language. Anyone who knows me at all understands why I would be interested in such a weird document. In case you missed that post, I will include a few pictures of the manuscript for you to puzzle over.

There have been several ‘translations’ of the manuscript in the last five years. One scholarly gentleman claimed it was written in a sort of abbreviated Latin and that it was a guide to women’s health. I’m not sure the pictures agree with that interpretation. Another expert found it to be Hebrew, but a secret coded Hebrew. His decoder ring was found to be in error. More recently, an electrical engineer claimed to recognize the language as an ancient style of poetic Turkish. He then translated portions of the book as proof of his hypothesis. His hypothesis was not very well accepted as he was accused of making assumptions and then using his assumptions to prove his assumptions. I guess unproven assumptions are frowned upon as evidence. Something I wish the internet at large would learn.

Other opinions have focused on herbal remedies, therapeutic bathing, and astrological readings. Ultimately, in spite of many attempts to decipher this manuscript, no satisfactory answers have been found. The lesson I’m focused on here is twofold. First, we should always seek to understand the world and the ideas of the world. Second, we should accept that we often will not be able to understand the world and the ideas of the world. It is better to say “I don’t know yet” than to invent bizarre unprovable explanations for things.

from the pen of Jeff Joyner

Most people have scars. My first one, I developed from an accident when I was four years old. One day, my mom and I were sitting on the patio in lawn chairs, when it began to rain. My parents would always fold up the chairs every time a storm came through, so I asked my mom if I could fold up mine, and put it away. Though she was a bit hesitant, she finally said I could. As I began to pick up the chair, my hand slipped, and one of my fingers got caught in one of the hinges, which ultimately required several stitches. To this day, I can still see the scar on my finger, which always reminds me of that painful experience from my childhood.

As time went by, my visible scars began to accumulate, whether it was from a bicycle accident, or a severely broken wrist. And each scar would tell a different story, of a specific pain or adversity, that I had endured from the past. I had also become aware, that there were additional scars, that were not visible. These were not from physical calamities, but from emotional ones. And often, I found that these wounds were generally much deeper, and would require a greater amount of time to heal.

Several years ago, I was in the midst of a crisis in my life, and began to ask God for direction. I had reached a point, where I had become extremely anxious about the future, and desperately needed to experience God’s peace. For a while, it seemed, the more I prayed, the more anxious I became. Finally, I whispered to the Lord, “I just have so many scars.” After sitting in silence for a while, I sensed my Savior responding, “I too have scars.” I knew right away what He was referring to. His hands. His feet. His side. As tears began rolling down my cheeks, I acknowledged once again, that it was His wounds that sealed my pardon. And that the scars I carry, are minuscule, compared to what he has done for me. I was ultimately able to experience God’s peace that day. For HE was pierced for my transgressions. HE was crushed for my iniquity. And by HIS wounds, I am healed.

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah‬ ‭53:5‬ ‭ See less

NOTE: Author, song writer, and Pastor Jeff Joyner has graciously allowed me to share some of his insightful writings here on my website. This is the first one. In the future, I will indicate which of us is writing each individual post, but I thing the difference in writing styles is apparent!

My brothers and I used to love watching the old TV show “Seahunt.” Each episode chronicled the adventures of expert scuba diver Mike Nelson, who was called upon, to engage in a series of dangerous underwater tasks. The show, starring Lloyd Bridges, originally ran for four seasons, and then went into syndication in reruns. What most captivated us, were the underwater scenes, which either centered around some sort of dangerous rescue, or an underwater conflict with another diver. Of course, all this drama happened with the characters in full scuba gear, solely dependent on their scuba tanks for survival.

After several years of original episodes and reruns, “Seahunt” slowly slipped into obscurity, and finally went off the air. But it’s influence on me would remain. For I became determined to go scuba diving at least once during the course of my lifetime. One day, a friend of mine asked if I wanted to go with him to the Gulf of Mexico, to fish for Red Snapper. As I began thinking about it, he also added, “And we can take my scuba gear and tanks. I have extra ones you can use.” That’s all he had to say, and we were on our way to Florida.

After settling in, we headed down to the water, and put on our tanks. My friend, who was scuba certified, advised me not to go too deep. For a while, I tried to get used to relying on a scuba tank to breath. As I began to get more comfortable, I became quickly rattled, when I glanced toward the surface, and realized I had gone down too far. Although I had plenty of air in the tank, my first instinct was to panic. But I knew if I did, I might not make it back to the surface. I asked God to keep my heart calm, as I slowly ascended back up. Once I finally made it to shore, I sat in the sand for a while, and thanked God for giving me peace. It was then that I sensed Him saying, “I’m going to teach you how to depend on ME completely.” I knew exactly what he was saying. That even in the darkest recesses of the deep, He will be there. And in the midst of whatever circumstance I may face in the future, His life giving breath, will NEVER be in short supply.

“Nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” Acts‬ ‭17:25‬

written by Jim DeMarco

When you can’t experience the real thing, someone will provide a way to experience it secondhand. The picture I’ve included is from a hotel in San Diego. It’s a place we visited for a few days to get the experience of Hawaii without actually going to Hawaii (and paying the money it would take to go to Hawaii). It was enjoyable, but it was not Hawaii. There are so many places today that offer simulated experiences of places and cultures. Theme parks come to mind. Take a jungle cruise. Soar around the world. Get attacked by raptors or mummies or super villains. We can escape reality and experience a different reality. The danger in this lies in enjoying the escape from reality more than reality itself. The more you become dissatisfied with your own reality, the more you look for ways to escape from it. It can become an addictive downward spiral. I think we have many in our culture today who spend more time trying to escape reality than in actually trying to live in reality. My take on it is this: after you’ve enjoyed your escape from reality, come back motivated and energized to transform reality. The more we make reality a good place to dwell, the less we will feel the desire to escape from it.

A common experience of human beings is standing at the beach, or overlooking the Grand Canyon, and being completely overwhelmed by the vastness laid out before them. This experience has been labelled transcendent emotion by those who have studied it and attempted to classify it. Psychologists have come up with a variety of explanations as to why nature evokes intense emotional response in humans. I can’t pretend to understand these explanations. I do understand the experience though. I have stood in many place and been overcome by emotion. I have felt a sense of God’s presence, of spiritual reality, at these times. Much is written in spiritual literature about the wilderness experience. The Bible presents two particularly powerful wilderness experiences: the Hebrews in the desert after escaping Egypt and the forty days Jesus spent in the desert. Around the third century, Anthony the Great retired to the desert and began a whole movement of asceticism. Most monks and devoted religious people live in somewhat isolated locales. Most personal retreats are held in places where nature is predominant. The lesson, I suppose, is that we all ought to experience a little transcendent emotion now and then. I feel a trip to the beach coming on…

On a trip to Yosemite many years ago, I was enjoying the scenery when I noticed everyone around me looking up and pointing. Of course, I looked up to try and see what they were pointing at. All I saw was a massive rock wall towering above me (I shouldn’t say ‘all I saw’ because it was a pretty impressive sight). Everyone was insisting that there were three people climbing up that sheer cliff and they were pointing out three black specks on the rock face.

From my point of view, there was no one climbing that rock because you would have to be crazy to try and climb that rock. Someone close by me was saying that they would love to climb that rock. If offered the opportunity to climb that rock I would quickly decline. After several minutes, some of the watchers decided that no one was actually climbing the rock while others insisted that those black specks were indeed three climbers. I don’t recall if it was ever determined whether those black specks were climbers or shadows or dark rocks. I do clearly remember thinking that we were all standing around looking at the same thing and we couldn’t agree on what we were seeing. We were too far away to see clearly. If we had been able to get closer, or had a pair of high powered binoculars, we would have been able to determine the truth of the matter. We needed a better perspective of the situation. In today’s post truth culture, we would be wise to stop arguing about three specks on a rock wall and strive to get a better perspective.

I wrote previously about the importance of knowing our purpose and working strenuously towards accomplishing that purpose. I have often found myself distracted from doing the things I know I’m supposed to be doing. I also find myself a bit disheartened at the lack of progress towards my goals. I recall an Alaskan cruise some 20 years ago which put my lack of progress into perspective.

The glacier is famous for being incredibly slow moving, yet relentless. At a quick glance, we can’t really see it moving. But if you watch long enough, you will see pieces break off. Slow progress is still progress. That’s a good lesson to remember. Of course, human beings only have a limited amount of time on planet Earth, so we need to move a little faster than a glacier. Still, slow progress will eventually get us to our end goals as long as we don’t give up on them.

Back in my younger days, I was able to do more walking, hiking, and climbing. I came across these rock steps on a hike up Vernal Falls in Yosemite.

These steps immediately brought to mind the Tolkien books with Frodo and Sam ascending the steps into Mordor. What struck me was that Sam and Frodo knew they were heading into the most dangerous place in the world. Not only that, they worked incredibly hard to reach the most dangerous place in the world. They did so because they had a purpose that was all important to them. I walked these steps thinking about Sam and Frodo and asking myself how willing I was to work hard at accomplishing my purposes in life. How often do I let myself be distracted by simplicity, ease, and comfort? Too often, I think. Remembering these steps helps me remember the importance of fulfilling my purpose in life. It also reminds me that I’m getting older because I could never climb very far up those steps today.