O Lord and Master,
Deliver me and keep me free from a spirit of idleness, despondency, ambition, and idle talk.
Rather give me a spirit of chastity, humble-mindedness, patience, and love.
O Lord King, grant me to see my faults and not condemn my brothers and sisters: for blessed are you unto the ages of ages.
Amen.
You know one thing that growing older gives you, it is perspective. I don’t believe you can get that in any other way.
So many things that I thought were absolutely sure when I was younger, I no longer am so certain of. Age brings forth wisdom, if we are open to looking at things differently.
Growing older doesn’t automatically mean you become wise. You only grow wise when you see things from God’s perspective, and then act accordingly. Much of growing older is unlearning.
For me, faith has been difficult. I’ve gone through my doubts, my disbeliefs and my struggles. The truth is, it’s harder to believe than not to. But I’d rather have a faith troubled by doubt, than a doubt. troubled by faith.
They say that a faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted. My faith has been tested, and it has failed. But I have gotten up and I have returned. Like the prodigal son, I return to the Father’s loving arms. Great is our God!
The Bible is a unique book. Its words are human, but its message is Divine. It is, in a sense, an incarnation.
Just as Jesus’ body was nothing special (Isa. 53:2). So too, the words of the Bible are nothing special. They are human words. And many stumble at this. They read it literally, not spiritually.
But as Jesus was both God and man, so too the Bible is both human and Divine. The message is not contained in the words, it’s conveyed by the words. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Do not read and interpret the Bible as you would any other book. Its message is spiritual. As Paul said, “we speak… in words… taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spirituals” (1 Cor. 2:13).
And because the Bible is a spiritual book, “But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14 NASB).
Political historian Robert Paxton defines fascism as:
“a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cultures of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elitist, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
The cleansing must begin with a small group that the majority dislikes. In the United States that is the trans community. An easy target to begin the cleansing with. Also included are the immigrants, the stranger in our midst.
Most Americans are ignorant of the organizations who are behind this hostile government takeover. They know nothing of the Heritage Foundation, Christian Nationalism, or Project 2025. They are completely ignorant of the history of the rise of Adolf Hitler and Mussolini. They don’t know what fascism or oligarchy are
The fact of the matter, they don’t understand how the United States government is supposed to work, how propaganda works, and how they have been manipulated by big money. They have bought into conspiracy theories, trust media outlets, and believe they’re lying politicians, both Democrats and Republicans.
Democrats are just as guilty as Republicans. They both work for big money. Bernie Sanders is one of the only people telling the truth. The Democrats work for the corporatists and the Republicans for the oligarchs. With Donald Trump, the oligarchs won.
The plan is simple, the United States government is being dismantled so that the rich are no longer taxed or regulated. Elon Musk is not the solution, he is the problem. Him and his other billionaire friends. They are no longer behind the curtain pulling the strings, they have stepped out of the shadows to take control. They are the owners of this country that George Carlin told you about.
Everything will be privatized and sold to the highest bigger. Democracy in the United States is dying. The Democrats helped weaken it, but the Republicans are driving the stake right into the heart.
I am not optimistic. But we must do what we can to fight against the move to a fascist government. We need to protect the right of the LGBTQ+ community and the immigrant community. Other minorities will follow.
My main concern is the misappropriation of the name of Christ and Christianity to sanction racism, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and hatred. This is wrong. This is slandering the Gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ. I denounce it in the strongest terms possible. It is reprehensible!
But the fact is, as Chris Hedges explains, our Christian values “are being dismantled often with stealth, by a radical Christian movement, known as dominionism, which seeks to cloak itself in the mantle of the Christian faith and American patriotism.” This group is Christian Nationalism and have taken over the Evangelical leadership.
Why should you pray three times a day? Because David, Daniel, and Peter prayed three times a day. They set a model for us to follow.
David said, “Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice” (Psalm 55:17 NKJV). Here it specifically says David prayer three times a day
The Prophet Daniel also got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously (Daniel 6:10). This was a habit of the devout.
In Acts 2:15, it says that Peter prayed with the church at “nine o’clock in the morning.” In Acts 3:1, “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon.” And in Acts 10:9, Peter went up to the housetop to pray at “about noon.”
This practice was passed down to the early Church. The Didache, the earliest document after the New Testament about Church practice. It says to pray the Lord’s Prayer “three times a day” (Didache 8:2-3).
Here we see a set prayer was repeated three times a day. Hence, the foundation for the liturgy of the hours, also known as the Divine Office.
