From the Home Place

A blog sharing insights, stories, and reflections on life from a Christian perspective.

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  • “It sure is dark out there!”

    March 27, 2026

    Here’s a sweet weather forecast for you: At 4:58 a.m. it is 28 degrees headed for 48 as today’s high with wind gusts of 38 mph. Miss Deb and I will be on the road for today, so we would appreciate your prayers. Thanks!

    I have to admit; it is a tad bit spooky to be living in America today. With all of the evil, division and distrust surrounding us on most days, life in America isn’t as easy as it once was. And then on top of all those issues, it seems that we could be going into a very serious season of war.

    Because yesterday was Thursday, I was blessed to have our weekly zoom meeting with an amazing group of young me. Last night, our topic was “spiritual warfare.” It is a war that everyone is involved in. It doesn’t matter if you are a mercenary or a passivist at heart, you are daily under attack spiritually. If you are breathing, you are at war spiritually!

    Most folks are not really aware of the war that takes place within, and for their lives every day. Yet if a person spends much time watching this thing we call life, you will soon recognize the constant conflict between good and evil. Even as a believer in Christ, Satan and his crew will do everything they can to entice you to commit sin.

    Chew on this one for a moment, God the Father is the great Creator. Everything He has ever created is “good” according to the Bible. Satan is the great imitator. Everything that God has given us as good, Satan will attempt to imitate for evil. Have you ever wondered how things can be so good for a while and then turn 180 degrees south so quickly – the realm of light and dark?

    God has breathed His life into your lungs, just like He did for Adam on his day of creation (Gen. 2:7). God has given you life so that you can have the opportunity to accept His free gift of love in the person of Jesus Christ. As a follower of Jesus, you can know: liberating truth, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, self-control, humility, honesty, and undefiled love, Satan, the father of death, will do everything he can do to make your life miserable; filled with lies, pain, deceit, greed, hatred, pride, selfishness, unrest and self-gratifying love.

    The Bible describes God as light, and Satan as darkness. You know, like the light of day and the dark of night. Isn’t it amazing how so many folks are drawn to the “dark side?” Darkness is the realm of cultic practices, ghosts, death, and all sorts of evil. Perhaps America’s infatuation with the dark side is because so few have ever lived on the light side?

    As one who has lived on both sides of this coin, life is totally amazing walking on the light side! To walk out of the darkness, away from practicing many of the evils mentioned above, and to walk into the light is very much like walking out of pitch darkness into a well-lit room, everything changes.

    However, just because a person chooses to walk in the light of Christ, it does not mean that there is never an influence of darkness. Ephesians 6:10 makes it very clear that as long as we live on this ‘ol ball of dirt, evil will attempt to draw us to the dark side. Read the rest of Ephesians 6 to learn how to “stand firm” against the schemes of the Devil. May I encourage you though, don’t just read about it, put the process described in Ephesians 6:10-20 into practice in your life – daily!

    Please, don’t go John Wayne on me and think that you have the ability or power to deal with Satan and his crew on you own – YOU DO NOT! Only through a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ can you possess the real “power” to stand against Satan and his “forces of evil.”

    Once again, I will remind you of the old Native American adage: “Inside of every person there are two dogs, a white dog and a black dog, which one is the strongest? The one you feed the most.” It is up to you my friend, you can either walk in the light of Christ, or remain in the darkness of Satan, the choice is yours. But please note, the one you choose to walk with today is the one you will spend eternity with!

    Choosing to walk in the light, Neal

  • Catch Phrases!

    March 26, 2026

    I reckon some folks may have slept with a window open last night, with a low of only 44. For sure, yesterday was a day to let some spring air into your house. Today should be right at 40 degrees cooler than yesterday but will come with a wind speed to match the temperature.

    Yesterday found Miss Deb and I working on a spring project in the yard, after I carried water to the rhubarb, raspberries and young trees. The yard project involved building a new flower bed and repairing an old one. We cooked right along, until we ran out of sand to put under the retaining blocks. Without the sand, it is almost impossible to keep said wall somewhat level.

    O.K. that sounds like a subject I can work with, let’s talk about sand. When I was a kid, the phrase, “He’s got sand in his craw,” meant that a man was just tough, or more often it meant that he was on the growly side. Usually such a feller was someone you wanted to give some space any time you had to work with him.

    Way-back-when I was a young feller, I knew a few such men. They weren’t mean, but they were sure enough tough to be around. They were the kind of person no one liked to work with, but someone usually had to. Way too often, it seemed that I would “draw the short straw” and get to spend a day attempting to please someone who could find fault in everyone and everything.

    Now if you think on it some, sand in your throat would make most any person a little grumpy. It would make it difficult to swallow most things and would probably constantly be a nasty irritation. Well, these men seemed to be that kind of person. No matter what was going on, they could quickly figure out the negative side of it. Not only that, but they seldom were satisfied to just voice their disagreement, but it seemed like they were never satisfied until they had argued everyone else into submission to their way of thinking. Such arguments often led to “fist-a-cuffs”, leaving their opponent not feelin’ real shiny for a day or two.

    Yep, I sure enough was fortunate enough to live around some men who had sand in their craw. I say fortunate, ’cause being around such a man for a day of work made me appreciate most other men. After spending a day working for one of these “sandy” fellers, working for anyone else seemed to take on a whole new completion.

    I remember different occasions when one of those grumpy ‘ol fellers would get to growling around like an old grizzly bear looking for a fight. More often than not, such a grumpy person would be told to change his attitude or change his location when there were some other men around. But as a kid around one of those “grizzled old coyotes” I knew better than to “shoot off my mouth”, so I would just get my work done and get headed home as quickly as possible.

    I sure wish I could say that all of the sandy fellers had passed on, but in today’s culture, it seems as if they have just reproduced. Today, we don’t use the phrase about sand in their craw, today we say that “he has a chip on his shoulder.” The terminology may have changed, but both terms still mean that such a person is difficult to work with.

    As such, may I suggest that when you and I are working with such other folks, regardless of the setting, let’s make sure to keep the sand washed out of our craw with God’s grace. It’s a simple fact, difficult people still exist, but we should all be careful not to be one of them. Perhaps this is a good time to mention “The Thumper Principal.”

    If you have ever watched the movie “Bambie,” then you will remember when Thumper the rabbit comes home and starts buggin” his little sister. Momma rabbit responds with, “Thumper what have I told you?” To which our prize Jack Rabbit responds, “If you can’t say sumpin’ nice, don’t say nuffiin’ at all.”

    Wow, if we would all just practice that very simple philosophy. I know there have been plenty of times when Miss Deb wishes I would have put The Thumper Principle into practice. In Proverbs we find a similar statement, “A kind word turns away wrath.” We can usually let someone get away with a sharp word, but when we respond with a similar sharpness, someone will usually end up with sand in their craw!

    You see, that “kind word” spoken of in the book of Proverbs in the Bible, appears to me to be like when a person takes a piece of rough wood and carves it into something nice. A “kind word” is when someone has enough wisdom to carve the rough edge off of words and turn them into something nice.

    As I look back over my years, a “kind word” sure would have saved a whole lot of “scabs on my noggin!” I remember my momma often telling me that “quietness takes the kick out of a donkey’s butt.” Well, that’s probably another phrase for another day. For today, let’s all practice calming the rough waters with a “kind word.” Instead of exchanging “tit for tat,” let’s just be quiet. All right, that’s enough, may we each just try to say nice things to difficult people. Enough said!

    Speaking kindly to others with you, Neal

  • Put it to work!

    March 25, 2026

    Wow! Our weather is broken. Last night’s low in Lusk, Wyoming was above 40 degrees. Today’s high is predicted to reach 86 degrees, with 50 mph wind gusts! In all of my years, never have I seen such hot and dry weather, for such a long period. And finding some moisture in this area is like looking for a gold nugget in our living room. From what I can find, 72 is the present record high for this date with an average temp of 32 degrees. 2026 looks to be a year of many new records???

    Yesterday we visited about our spiritual temperature. Wouldn’t it be amazing if all of us would set new record highs for our spiritual temperature this year? Lest we allow the ‘ol pride bug to creep into our lives, perhaps we should talk about how to determine our personal spiritual temperature.

    James challenges each of us, “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” NASB translates the Greek word “paralogizomenol” as “delude.” As you pronounce the Greek word, you will recognize that it indicates that to “delude,” or to “deceive” appears to come from a word that sounds like a person who is struggling to be logical, and that would be accurate.

    The Greeks were very proud of their very high intelligence. They considered themselves and their gods to be far wiser than any other group of people on the face of the earth. So, now we can understand what James was really attempting to help us understand when he used this Greek word in James 1:22. To listen to biblical teaching without applying it is like a person who has a paralyzed thought process, the ears work, but the rest of the body does not.

    I have always said that if I were to apply every sermon and lesson, I have listened to, no one would recognize me. To stay with our thought process, my spiritual life would be at a way higher temperature than it really is today. I have often thought that instead of singing another song before we go home after Sunday’s sermon, perhaps we should break into small groups and discuss how we will apply what we just heard. Maybe we should talk about how to put hands and feet to the message.

    Perhaps we should follow the example the Apostle Paul used in his writings of biblical texts. Read any of Paul’s books within the Bible and you will soon discover that the first half of his writings deal with doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. The second half of said writings deal with application, application, application.

    For example, look at the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians. In Chapters 1-3, Paul wants each of us to understand our amazing standing as believers in Christ Jesus. Paul labors to help each believer to know in Whom they believe in for salvation, and why they believe what they believe! Now open to Chapter 4 where Paul’s first words in verse 1 are application, “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” “To walk” deals with our day-to-day life; simply put, what we believe is played out in how we live.

    So, I would suggest, to determine our spiritual temperature we should not be so concerned with how much we know, but that we should be determined with how much of what I have heard is transferred into how I live. If my spiritual knowledge isn’t transforming the way I live, I’m just attending church.

    Stop here and read the rest of Ephesians 4, the application of chapters 1-3. Because of the great high calling God has placed upon believer’s life, we should “walk” with “humility, gentleness, patience,” and “tolerance.” You see my friends, the words “patience” and “tolerance” are how we are to apply our biblical knowledge with an attitude of “humility, gentleness,” and “patience.”

    O.K. back up the turnip truck – By using the word “tolerance” Paul is not following today’s mindset of that word. Remember the first three chapters deal with proper doctrine, now Paul challenges us to be “tolerant” with folks who need help learning how to correctly apply what they have just heard. First, we have to make sure that such a person has heard correctly, and now we are to humbly and gently, invite others to “come follow me as I follow Christ.” Application, application, application!

    Now, each of us is ready to read Ephesians 5 & 6, not so we know more about Jesus, but so that we will show more of Jesus to the world around us! For it is only as we correctly apply biblical truth that our spiritual temperature sets record highs.

    Applying as we learn with you, Neal

  • Warming up!

    March 24, 2026

    Greetings my friend. Hopefully you were able to rest well last night and are ready for another busy day. Weather wise it looks like a nice day with a predicted high of 75 degrees. As of right now the outside temperature is 29 degrees, as such the sun has some serious work to do. I know that this daily weather report has humored some of you, yet it too has purpose.

    Please allow me to ask each of us a question: “If your spiritual life was measured by degrees, like on a thermometer, let’s say that ranges from 0-100 degrees, what would your spiritual temperature be right now?” Using today’s physical temperature as a guide, let’s pretend that right now you are at 29 degrees spiritually, hoping to reach to 75 degrees sometime in the future.

    Work with me now. If 32 degrees is the point where a person is either freezing or thawing; we will call 32 degrees where an unbeliever (below 32=freezing) determines to follow Jesus Christ now (thawing). As such, if you are anywhere below 32 degrees spiritually, you need to warm to 32 degrees through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. As Jesus stated of Himself, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

    If you placed yourself anywhere below 32 degrees spiritually, you may feel “frozen” spiritually. But by God’s amazing grace (Ephesians 2:8-9) you can immediately set your spiritual thermometer at 32 degrees by admitting that you are a sinner who needs a Savior. The moment you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you jump to thawing at 32 degrees!

    Now our goal is not to leave you at 32. Your Heavenly Father is calling you to reach a spiritual temperature of 100 degrees – totally committed to walking with Him through each day for the rest of your life. Hit pause: Not every day will be a 100-degree day even for the most committed follower of Jesus, yet that should always be your heart’s desire. (However, 100 degrees will forever be yours the moment you enter into heaven!)

    So, for today, if you said you are starting anywhere between 32 and 100, you need to warm things up significantly. Just like today will need a good deal of sunshine to warm the air from its present 29 degrees to reach 75 degrees, spiritually you need a significant amount of Son-shine as well. And as warming the atmosphere will take the better part of this day, your spiritual life will take some time to crawl up the spiritual thermometer as well.

    No, you probably won’t climb several degrees just today, though that could be possible. Yet in reality you will need to invest some time in Bible reading, prayer and application; a process called discipleship. For each of us we are in the process of increasing our spiritual temperature. To do so, we must be in a constant process of growing “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It seems to me that to allow Jesus to be Lord of my life, I have to give all that I know about me to all that I know about Jesus, for the rest of my earthly journey. That knowledge should be constantly changing. You know, like the temperature on a thermometer.

    The great thing about our spiritual thermometer is that once we reach a certain temperature, it does not go back below 32 degrees. If we have unconfessed sin in our life the temperature can drop a few degrees, yet confession of said sin and turning away from it actually increases our spiritual temperature. As such, if your spiritual thermometer reads 58 degrees when you went to sleep, it should be there at 58 degrees to greet you in the morning.

    In reality your spiritual thermometer tends to increase slowly but constantly increasing as long as you keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus. You see, the temperature of this world is affected by swings of daylight and darkness. Yet 1 John makes it clear that if we are “walking in darkness,” at any time we have unconfessed sin in our lives, but Jesus invites us to walk in His light, thus never allowing our spiritual temperature to drop below where we started.

    Reality is, each day that we walk in the light of Jesus, our spiritual thermometer warms up, getting ever closer to that perfect 100 degree day in heaven!

    Warming up spiritually with you, Neal

  • Digging deeper!

    March 23, 2026

    Well, the ‘ol weather app shows that we are starting our morning at 35 degrees, headed for 64. There will be an east breeze at 10-20 mph. The best report of said app is that we will be blessed with 12 hours and 17 minutes of daylight today. It looks like a good day for an outside job that will allow a feller to soak up some sunshine.

    Speaking of an outside job, yesterday afternoon I was blessed to help two friends do some repair work on a widow lady’s yard fence. We had to dig holes; our ground is so dry that it is like trying to dig through cement. We had to use pry bars to chisel our way down deep enough to set posts. It was difficult work, yet very rewarding work. It was such a joy to get to work with those two other men. One of them is older, the other younger than me, yet all three of us were able to work side-by-side digging holes, pouring cement and talking about life. What a blessing to get to be a blessing!

    Both of these dear men have been a great blessing in my life, so for me, it was awesome to get to return some of the blessing. There is just something special about being around people who love Jesus and enjoy working hard to bless someone else. Perhaps, that is a portion of what the Apostle Paul meant when he stated, “Work out your salvation?” I know he was speaking literally of working out the result of our salvation, but to some degree that is exactly what we were doing yesterday.

    Three men who could have each enjoyed a good nap, were working shoulder to shoulder to be a blessing to someone else. I am of the opinion that if we are going to claim to be a Christian, that such a decree requires us to be willing to give up some of our personal comfort for the good of others.

    Remember the old missional statement, “People do not care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” What a grand statement. In our culture we tend to value knowledge over caring. For some reason, we are good at telling others how to fix their life, but not always good at just caring about the person. You see, the beautiful part of us three men fixing the fence of a widow lady, was that while we were laboring on the fence, each man’s wife was visiting with the sweet lady who owns the fence.

    As such, the greater blessing wasn’t the fence repairs, it was our wives making time in their schedules to show someone else that we were all there because we care. They spoke encouragement into a lonely life. The shared wisdom and the greater gift of laughter. Each present wife, shared a portion of life with a widow, almost as if each dear wife was looking into her own future.

    There is nothing like a good dose of future reality to help us appreciate present relationships! You see my dear friends, we are each just passing through this thing called life, and the older one gets, the more precious each day is. Oh my, the difference it would make if each of us would figure that reality out at a younger age.

    When we are young, we seem to have a sense of immortality. We feel that we have the time to accomplish all of life’s possibilities. But then one day, we begin to realize our mortality, and that we have a limited time to just live. Yet the great thing of such a realization is that what time we have left is best invested by investing into the lives of others, the true wealth of life.

    Look back at all of the funerals you have attended. When a person is remembered for only the vast amount of wealth they accumulated, it is truly a sad memorial. But when people share of how the deceased had been a personal friend who blessed the lives of others as an overflow of loving Jesus, that is a life well lived and greatly celebrated!

    So, when your life closes, will those who gather at the memorial remember a person of great monetary wealth, or will they remember a great friend who impacted their lives with kindness? For as Jesus stated, we can either have money or friends, of which God is one, but it is really tough to love both. If I might rewrite Joshua’s statement, “As for me and my house, we will love on other people because we have first loved Jesus.”

    Digging into the lives of others with you, Neal

  • Denver vs. Lusk

    Good morning. Today’s weather will be cool, cloudy and windy. At 4 a.m. the temperature is at 37, headed for 56 for a high. In another words, today’s weather will be more normal than the last two days have been.

    Miss Deb and I were in Denver on Friday and Saturday. Oh my, I don’t understand why folks would ever choose to live in that place. On our way down on Friday, we sat in stop-and-go traffic for an extra 45 minutes. Yesterday it took us an hour to go two miles! The traffic is horrendous, the drivers tend to be rude and the smog was awful. Perhaps it is easier to say it this way, everything that Denver is, Lusk is not. I’ll take a small town over the big city most any day.

    We traveled to Denver to attend then annual conference of the Converge Rocky Mountain District. That is the group of folks we are affiliated with as our ministry partners. Miss Deb and I have served alongside these folks for more than 30 years now. What a great team! Our key-note speaker for the two-day conference was a man who shared great insight in helping us better understand some of the dynamics of being a small church.

    In America today, the average church has less than 60 folks in regular attendance, compared to t he larger church with its thousands of attendees. For years, our culture has been so focused upon numbers, with bigger always being better, that we have caused many of God’s great little churches to feel like there is something wrong with them because that church doesn’t seem to grow much numerically.

    Our speaker, Karl Vater, helped each of us understand that whether large or small, a church can still be successful or unsuccessful. Numerically, most of our churches in Wyoming would be considered small. Yet, as Miss Deb and I have visited several of these “small” churches, we have been blessed to see those small churches impacting their community in big ways.

    Regardless of size, the local church is supposed to help people come to Jesus, to “grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and to provide an environment where people can enjoy fellowship with believers as they positively impact the lives of those who don’t know Jesus as Savior yet. Both big and small churches are to be busy about God’s work here on earth.

    My favorite statement made by Mr.Vater, was that “there is not one problem within the local church of any size that biblical discipleship will not fix.” And therein lies the issue for any church that is struggling to survive – a lack of biblical discipleship.

    We were challenged to quit looking at numbers as a measure of “success,” and to determine the success of the local church by asking the question, “Are we making mature disciples of Jesus Christ?” If so, our local church is successful in God’s eyes, yet if we are just attending church, with little impact upon the community around us, we are less than God wants us to be.

    In my opinion, for too many years the local church has believed that information equals transformation. It does not! Think of the hundreds, or possibly thousands of hours you have spent listening to sermons and Sunday School lessons. The hours upon hours in “Bible studies,” which are usually a study of some book rather than the Bible. Have all of those hours of information transformed your life? Are you way more like Jesus today than you were five to ten years ago? Are you a mature disciple of Jesus Christ, consistently advancing His kingdom within your community? If so, praise God, you are attending a very successful church, large or small.

    But if the above statement is not true for you and those who attend the church you attend, perhaps you need to reevaluate your disciple making process. Regardless of your church size numerically, is it being successful? Is your local church developing life-changing disciples? I don’t know, but perhaps Jesus had the best “church growth strategy” ever developed when He said, “go and make disciples.”

    Remember our conversation a few weeks ago when we talked about the fact that information usually causes us to become prideful, as stated in Proverbs. Hopefully you recall this equation, “Information without Application = Inflation.” Our ego soon becomes inflated if all we do is gather information about any topic, including gaining biblical information. We must correctly Apply said Information before it will equal Transformation! As I have stated before, “Wisdom is the proper application of information.”

    Summary, it doesn’t matter if you attend a “Denver” sized church, or if you attend a “Lusk” sized church, what matters is your answer to the question – “Is my church helping me to become a better disciple of Jesus Christ?” If your answer is “Yes!” then even a small church numerically is having a BIG impact for the Kingdom!

    Making disciples with you, Neal

  • Saddle up!

    March 20, 2026

    You might be tempted to put on your summer shorts and soak up some rays today with the high temperature reaching near 80 and above that mark tomorrow. However, with a warmer than normal March, April looks 20-30 degrees cooler. Please be praying for plenty of April showers.

    Today is the birthday of our eldest daughter. I remember when she weighed in at less that 7 pounds. It wasn’t too long before she would be sitting atop of an old sorrel mare we had. When my little helper was short of three feet, she learned to ride on Kitty, the mare that stood a tad over sixteen hands tall and weighed right at 1,300 pounds. Those two were quite a pair for several years. Mandi and Kitty were by far the best help I ever had when we lived on the ranch! So today, I begin with a “Happy Birthday Bud!”

    I have to admit it was plumb fun to ride into a branding with those two traveling beside me. Everyone marveled at how tiny that little girl looked on top of that great big horse. Several times folks asked why I didn’t “get that little girl a smaller horse?” The way I looked at it was that I knew that old mare would do her best to take care of that little girl, so in my mind she was safer than on the back of some half-wit pony. I also figured that this girl was going to be riding for a lot of years, so she had just as well learn how to ride on a good, dependable horse, not some temporary pony.

    You see my friends, that is much the way it is when learning to walk with Jesus. Some folks want to take it easy, to be safe. Well for my two cents, when a person starts walking with Jesus looking for a safe life, that person will most likely spend the rest of their life wanting Jesus to keep them safe.

    In my mind, the biggest problem we have in the American church is that most folks want their Christian experience to be comfortable and safe. Read your Bible – the heroes of old didn’t have safe faith. Even through the early years of America, those folks lived by a dangerous faith.

    Today, I will meet with a group of people who talk a lot about the necessity of planting churches. Yet 99% of them have never planted a church, and very few of those pastors have ever raised up a church planter. As pastors, we tend to want to keep folks safe inside of our church. Yet, somewhere at some time in the past, someone risked everything they had and everything they were to start that church. You see my friends, great churches are built upon risk, not upon safety.

    I hope your church proves me wrong, but allow me to ask, “When was the last time your church risked greatly to advance the kingdom of God?” Most churches tend to have programs that are manageable. We allow some other congregation to try the “new” study that we are now hoping to duplicate within our congregation. We buy the books, we establish the groups and we conduct proven studies so that we can play it safe as we hope for vast numbers of people to join our church.

    When was the last time that you heard of a local church risking greatly to advance the kingdom of God? By risking greatly, I think of investing most of the church’s bank account to reach folks who don’t know Jesus yet. To send out a mass of people who are not perfectly prepared but are willing to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit for protection, provision and production. Or when was the last time your pastor stood in the pulpit and said something like, “As a church we believe so heavily in the cause of planting churches that we are giving most of our money and the very best of our people to go plant new congregations all around our state.”

    Well, lest I get too carried away, perhaps it’s best to just realize that most Christians are still riding their pony to church every Sunday. It appears that there are few who are willing to learn how to ride a big horse with a big faith that isn’t always safe! Oh, but praise God for the few that are willing to show the courage that the great theologian John Wayne spoke of when he said, “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway!” Remember God called Joshua to be “strong and courageous,” not safe.

    Saddling up with you, Neal

  • Worth getting up early for!

    March 19, 2026

    Today’s weather is starting at 35 degrees, reaching 77 for a high with 40 mph winds. Very little chance of rain. “Lord, we sure do need some measurable rains, soon!”

    At 3 a.m. this morning, the Holy Spirit poked me in the ribs to get up and pray. He laid the names of several people on my mind whom I was to pray for. He then directed me to praying for pastors serving conflicted churches. Then He moved me to pray for the war in Iran; understanding that He has a purpose with all of this.

    God has a special use for wars, conflict within churches and families, and pain. Though we prefer to not be involved in any of the above, for centuries our Heavenly Father has used war, personal conflict and pain to make needed adjustments in the lives of His children.

    I would wager that each of us become more involved, and more intentional with our prayer lives during seasons of war, personal conflict and pain. If I am honest, I don’t care to be involved in any of these three conditions, however each one has a special way of drawing me closer to God. And drawing closer to God is always a good thing.

    You see, that is how God works: He allows certain circumstances to come into our lives so that our spirit will better connect with His Spirit. It seems to me that God is more concerned with the results of those circumstances than He is with the process of dealing with them. When life becomes increasingly difficult, we tend to pray more often and for longer periods, with a greater degree of importance. All of which bring great joy to our Heavenly Father.

    When a little child experiences pain, they run to a parent to help bring assurance and relief. We adults should respond the same way when pain comes into our lives, we should run to our Heavenly Father for assurance and relief. Much like feeling the strength in the arms of an earthly father when he comforts his child, Christians can experience an even greater strength when we run into the arms of our Heavenly Father.

    The previous analogy often breaks down in that we adults usually attempt to fix the unfixable. We will often work ourselves into a frenzy with worry, attempting to bring relief into our lives through our own efforts. Now think about it, if God has allowed painful circumstances to come into a person’s life, doesn’t it make the best sense to ask God to bring a positive resolution to those painful circumstances? A God-sized problem needs a God-sized resolution!

    When I was a short-legged feller, my dad told me of a neighbor’s response to the overwhelming amount of snow received during the ’49 blizzard. When dad ask the ‘ol feller if he wanted help moving the snow, the response was, “Nope, let the Feller move it that put it there.” I never thought of it until early this morning, but that mindset would help many of us deal with God-engineered difficulties in a much better way. If God has allowed it, let Him fix it.

    Yep, here we are back to a familiar statement, “Trust and obey, for there is no other way.” Yes, God does expect us to do what we can to fix minor problems on a daily basis, but for the rest of the difficulties we each face, could it be that He just wants us to run to Him in prayer, asking our Heavenly Father to hold us in His gentle arms. Remember, His ways are much better than our ways! So, if your world or your church or your life has a big problem, perhaps, “let the Feller move it that put it there and grow from it.”

    Praying and trusting with you, Neal

  • Look what He has done!

    March 18, 2026

    We will be starting this day with 36 degrees at daylight, reaching to 77 degrees by 4 p.m. and looking at 56 degrees at sunset. If we are having 80 degree days in March, what will July be like?

    Yesterday was the 44th anniversary of Miss Deb and I committing our lives to Jesus! We both gave our lives to Jesus on the same night miles apart from each other, both concerned that the other wouldn’t understand. Yet, by God’s amazing grace we were both serious about our commitments to live the rest of our days with and for Him. We will both quickly admit that we haven’t always done our part perfectly, sometimes even badly, but God’s faithfulness has always remained spot on.

    You see my friends, when a person is born-again (Jn. 3:3), the Holy Spirit begins the transformation process, a process that God the Father considers “done” at the time of conversion according to the Apostle Paul’s writings in Romans. When a person confesses Jesus as Savior, their name is written in “the Lamb’s Book of Life.” As such, that person’s salvation is complete, but they will spend the rest of their earthly existence learning to love God more and more. On the day of a person’s salvation, God’s love says “done,” our love says, “begun.”

    Like all babies, a baby Christian must learn to walk and talk: to walk with Jesus, and to talk like Jesus. The old lifestyle fades away, and a newness of life is adopted. Both of us would quickly tell you that the new life in Christ is by far much grander than the old life in the flesh. We still get to do everything we want to do; it’s just that now our want to, reflects the life of Christ.

    Yes, we are still learning what it means to walk with Jesus, but what an amazing journey it has been! To get to serve the King of kings has been a grand investment of our lives. Each time we get to share the love of Jesus with someone else, our joy abounds. Each time we get to teach another person the joys of following Jesus, our lives are fulfilled. Each time we open our Bible we find new golden nuggets that the Holy Spirit reveals to us. We now realize that each day is a gift from our Heavenly Father, instead another day of troublesome labor.

    Yep, for 44 years Miss Deb and I have walked with Jesus. How about you? Are you walking with Jesus just because you love Him and you know that He loves you? I didn’t ask if you have been baptized or if you have completed any other human work, I’m just asking do you know Jesus as your Savior? If not, why not bow your knee to the Savior today? We can tell you for sure, walking with Jesus is the grandest journey any person will ever take!

    The amazing thing is that if a person learns to walk with Jesus on this ‘ol ball of dirt, one day that person will just continue their walk right on into eternity with Jesus! For on the day of our passing, we will proclaim the words of 1 Corinthians 1:55-57, “‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

    As the ‘ol hymn proclaims, “There is victory in Jesus.” Do you know that victory?

    Celebrating God’s amazing grace with you, Neal

  • Disappointment!

    March 17, 2026

    This crazy weather. Yesterday morning we were at 3 degrees. Today at 4 a.m. I’m looking at 34 degrees, headed for 67 with 50+ mph wind gusts! It looks like the weather for the rest of the week will not be a fireman’s friend.

    Well, here we are at another March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. My momma had a whole batch of Irish blood in her, while Miss Deb’s dad was a full-blood Irishmen. As such, neither of us have ever struggled with being hot tempered, Ha, Ha!

    When I was a kid, we had an ‘ol neighbor who was full-blood Irish. Every St. Patty Day, mom would fry steaks and George would show up with a case of beer. Dad, Mom and George would drink, eat and make me play Pinochle until the wee hours of the next morning. On one of those “special” occasions George left me this parcel of Irish wisdom when he said, “We Irish have always been blamed for being fighters. We don’t fight any more than anyone else, we just start more of them!”

    All I know is that my Irish momma packed a batch of fight around with her. It may have taken her a bit to get mad, but when she did, it was going to be a long week. You see, we usually started calving right about St. Patrick’s Day each year. So, after the big celebration my folks would have with George, came weeks without much sleep, lots of extra stress and few kind words. As such, I learned to keep extra quiet in the Spring

    Spring was always a time for calving and lambing and fixin’ fences. Yep, I usually spent most of April riding fences. At that time of the year, the ground was usually still too frozen to dig post holes, but it was a great time to saddle a horse and with a packsaddle on another horse, load up wire, staples, a hammer, fence stretchers and fencing pliers.

    Though most days still had a bit of a chill to them in April, that just made it more likely that a feller wouldn’t have to negotiate any buzz-tales. Those ‘ol buggers were still asleep in the ground. Besides that, for whatever reason, mom would get cabin fever about then and that would usually result in the Irish showin’ up as being just plain crabby. As such, that made fence fixin’ a pleasure rather than a chore.

    I would take a saddle horse and a pack horse, leave home not long after sunrise and chores. Usually, I was careful to check cattle along with fixing fence on most weekends in April, so I didn’t have to spend too much time around the house. Heck, I would grab a bit of grub before leavin’ the house in the morning, allowing me to stay busy until evening chore time.

    Yet, evening chore time could sure enough end up causing a feller to walk in on a two-legged rattler. If momma had been shut up all day in the house, she was fixin’ to come uncoiled about supper time. Thus, a major reason I had become extra quiet by the time I was in junior-high school? Besides, usually I had done used up all of my words talking to my horse, and it was just safer to not open my yap when the lady of the house was feeling a bit cagy!

    In 2 Corinthians 12:20, the Apostle Paul writes, “For I am afraid that when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and I may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances;”

    It would appear that Paul knew that sometimes we disappointment those around us, which leads to “angry tempers.” Though I loved Spring, perhaps it wasn’t my momma’s favorite time of the year. I mean with trying to thaw out lambs and calves in her living room, along with boots covered with manure, snow and mud tromping through her house, how could a lady get disappointed? Then add to the recipe, very little sleep and no meaningful conversation and you had cooked up a heap of “disappointment” around our outfit each spring.

    So, here we are looking at St. Patrick’s Day and Springtime once again. Perhaps, it may be wise to tread softly, especially if you live with an Irish person. Celebrate today and be quiet tomorrow.

    “Does anyone need some fence fixed?”

    Trying not to disappoint anyone with you, Neal

    And by the way, I didn’t marry my momma. My Irish girl is a joy to be around!