My daily thoughts on scripture are below.

Dalton - continued from:  That morning, after he had fed the inmates and cleaned the office, he took me out to breakfast... 

We sat for two hours as he told me what to watch for, how to handle the drunks and not to bother the railroaders that would walk to the depot from the motels at about 3:00 am in the morning – that by the way was a big thing to him, almost like committing a felony. 

He hated drunk drivers.  But he told me how he also hated the judge deciding the businessman could get a reduced or dismissed charge while the little guy always got the full brunt of the charge.  He said after he had seen that happening once too often, he came up with his own bail process.  “I might as well be the good guy,” he said.  “Why let the judge be the good guy.”

I had previously noted that there were two kinds of Reckless Driving charges and bails; one with and one without alcohol “involved.”  At the time Reckless Driving with alcohol involved, was not as serious offense as Driving under the influence of alcohol.  That morning I learned why, Sarge came up with the idea that if he had a drunk driver that he wanted to give a break he charged him with the “Reckless driving, alcohol involved” up the bail from $150 to $175 and took him to jail.      Breathalyzers were just coming out, so the lesser charge allowed him to haul him to jail without the BA, he got a lesser penalty and most were happy with that.  That wouldn’t begin to work in today’s world, but it worked then – and as I said earlier Sarge ran his shift and no one bothered him, as in this case not even the judge.  It soon became an established process, although the truth be known, few officers used the alcohol involved charge; they charged them with Driving under the influence of alcohol.  But, Sarge was proud of his contribution to the local criminal justice system.

I learned later that Sarge had never taken a new officer to breakfast or spent as much time with him as he had with me that morning.  I worked with him until he retired a few months later, and I enjoyed the short time we had together.  During that time we had a couple more new officers come on the shift and he did the same thing with them.

Sarge was a very private person and didn’t expose much of his personal life.  He was an older man probably well into his 60’s when I met him.  Physically he was small in stature, standing about 5’ 8” and about 150 pounds, but he was tough and no one challenged him on the street.  He was a veteran of World War II fighting in the Pacific Theater.  He had been captured by the Japanese and had survived the March to Bataan and the prison camps. 

As noted earlier, Sarge pretty much ran his shift separate from the rest of the department.  He got results and kept the city out of trouble, so he was pretty much left alone.  He wanted us in the alleys and back areas of the city, checking businesses looking for signs of entry and suspicious characters.  We handled calls and did other police work, but he really preferred we did not do traffic on his shift.  At the time I came on Sarge, PFC Jack, Norm and Dorthea were the standards on the shift.   Other officers would be rotated on and off about every three months.  Some of those officers were ardent traffic cops and went ahead and worked traffic.  They knew Sarge wouldn’t be happy, but also knew they would only be there a few weeks and weren’t too worried about their evaluations being too negatively affected.  Sarge wouldn’t give them a glowing report, but he wouldn’t hurt them either.  Because of his age and lack of activity some officers would wonder if Sarge should even still be on the department, especially since there were times he would be the only other officer available for backup.  They rarely said it in front of me, I wasn’t concerned, and NEVER in front of Dorthea or Jack both were fiercely loyal to Sarge and helped to keep the rumblings down. 

To be continued, Art :-)

Psalm 30:4  Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

Ever feel like you are not feeling up to praising God, just too tired, or too ill, or too injured; lying in bed and cannot do the things you normally do?

You have so many pressures on you, the kids, work, boss, coworkers, home, everything seems to be coming down at once and you can barely pull yourself together to even look ahead, let alone take time to give thanks to God.

You feel you just want out, there is nothing to be thankful for?

I think, at times it happens to all of us, we get burden with just trying to live this life and make it through another day.

It doesn’t matter what may be going on elsewhere in the world.  We know, mentally, that others are being killed for their faith but, our world we are in consumes us with its own frustrations.

We fill we are bound with ropes that we cannot break free of and we are spinning in the wind – we have no control over our lives, something or someone else is always dictating what we are to do; and now, God also has demands on us?  We are ready to explode.

It is important that we recognize this happens, that there are times that we may feel this way – and it may go on for days.  We are not alone, but that often doesn’t seem to matter, because we feel so alone.

The world has its release for us, entertainment at the flip of a switch whether it be the internet or television, escape is just a moment away.  We can go to our hobbies, or games, take trips, there are so many ways we can get away from it all – but even these things can become a burden and we no longer get enjoyment from them.

We know verses that tell us to praise God, but His benefits seem so far away and we are not receiving any of them.  We feel we cannot praise Him; we just don’t have it in us.

There were two verses that struck me this morning.  First the one above, where we are told to praise Him, just because He is who He is: holy. 

When we are down in the dumps, when we feel like everything is coming down on us we are genuinely upset.  The problem, though, is we often get into that ‘why me?’ phase and instead of being able to see our way up, we become depressed and either lash out at others, or go into our shells.  It becomes ‘all about me.’

When we praise God for who He is, forgetting about asking for anything, forgetting about even asking for guidance, just praising HIM for being our God, we start to allow our spirit to refocus on God and He will reach out to us through our praise.

Praise is not given to God to flatter Him.  It is given to Him because He deserves it.  When we praise Him we become more aware of His place in our lives.  Praising Him is an important function for our spiritual well-being, not to ‘get Him to do something’ but to embrace Him and His Grace.

God is not like us where praise can make us puffed up and ‘feel good about ourselves.’  Praise to Him is a demonstration of our recognition of His rightful place.  It pleases Him because we desire to grow closer to Him, and that is what HE wants.

The second verse is similar, but I had never really noted what it said before this morning, it was a real eye opener:

1 Thessalonians 5:18  In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

I am always amazed at those that have gone through great trying circumstances and are able to keep positive in their testimony and their lives.  They are imprisoned and they sing praises; they are struck with incredible illnesses or injuries and they exude the presence of God; they lose close family and friends to senseless violence and are able to forgive the offender.

Many of these people are not perfect, by the way.  I read recently of a Christian visiting a church in another country, bringing bibles to them.  He was appalled at the minister’s personality and attitude to those that were not his countrymen; it was an offense to this man.  – Yet, this minister had endured many tortures and imprisonment and came out strong for Christ.  Through his testimony and ministry over 50,000 people have come to Christ. 

I read another article where a person whose very life bespoke service to God and absolute commitment to Him, yet, she too had to be brought up short at times by a friend because her attitude was not what it should be.

But they have learned to take this verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:18  In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you;  literally.

Read it again, it doesn’t say FOR everything, it says IN.  It doesn’t say to be thankful for the all the pressure, all the failures, etc. it says IN those things give thanks to God.

I know Paul said in   2 Corinthians 12:9-11 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

¹⁰ Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

And we often focus on those verses – but that was Paul.  It is a good example, not because he enjoyed the persecutions as some sadist, but because he knew he was being effective for Christ; satan was working overtime to stop him.  He had learned that he was not strong enough, on his own, to preach the Gospel and endure the reproaches, but God could do it through him.

There are other verses, also that tell us to rejoice when we are taken over by those that would silence us for Christ’s sake.

But this morning I realized that while I may not have the same faith, yet, that Paul and others exhibited, I can still give praises to God IN my circumstances – I do not need to give praise because of them.

1 Thessalonians 5:18  In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you;

The verses such as those written by Paul are important for us to ascribe to, but in striving for that ability and faith, we can rest in the fact, that what God wants of us is our thanks to Him for Christ; and praise for who He is. 

It is very difficult to say to God, ‘thank you for all these burdens’ – although as we grow closer to Him I believe we will be able to say that, because we have a better understanding of His trust in us to allow us to go through these circumstances – but for those of us without that great faith, yet, we can feel better about our life in Christ when we realize that we don’t have to thank Him for the persecutions, but we do need to thank Him for being Him as we go through them.

Later, Art :-)

From the ColumbiaRiverGorgeous
May Our Good Lord Bless and Keep YOU....’til we meet again