Knowing The One True God Alleviates Fear

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4) New King James Version

There is so much fear in the world now because so many people do not know the One True God. Fear drives people into murder and the biggest form of murder of all, war. Fear is causing people to close themselves off and not attempt to trust anyone. Fear is leading others down the road into intense depression. So many people live in fear on a personal, national, and international level.

I look daily at a blog written by a young Turkish guy who writes for a major newspaper in Istanbul, Turkey. I have traveled to Turkey 5 times, and have developed strong friendships with a number of people there. My boyfriend is Turkish and searching for God even without my help. He is a nominal Muslim, so perhaps the Holy Spirit in me has spurred him on to try and find the truth.

In Turkey I see a nation of people who are in a terrible spiritual struggle between secularists and Islamists. God and Satan are in a struggle for Turkish souls. There are a few Christians there to give off a little light, but in Turkey there is a form of opaque darkness. Turkey is where so much of the early church had its' home. Most American Christians do not know that New Testament books like Ephesians was written to the church in Ephesus which is in modern day Turkey.

Getting back to this young Turkish journalist who writes a political and cultural blog. I used to write on there, but he developed a very hostile, untruthful, and arrogant tone in his writing. When he eventually allowed a Turkish guy who lives here in the states, and who seems to be extremely bitter, paranoid, and hostile to begin writing there, I quit making comments. Over time this guy's blog has become an arena where he repeatedly expresses his four fears:

1.The European Union continues to drag its' feet on accepting Turkey as a full member.
2. Racism is rising worldwide, particularly against Turks in Germany.
3.The lie of the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian diapora's campaign against Turkey
4.The headscarf issue is the biggest issue in Turkey today.

For all his liberal and humane talk he never mentions the women, children, and old people who beg on the streets of Istanbul. He thrives on conspiracy theories against Turkey. I am African-American, and the word "racism" shows up on his blog more regularly than it does in my conversations in several months.

This poor guy shows obsessive tendencies, and it is really sad because he once wrote about art, literature, and Turkish history. Now all I see is helpless rage and pessimism. He is convinced that Germany is heading in the direction of another Kristallnacht and that the Neo-Nazis will take office in Germany and that there will be another Holocaust, but this time against Turkish Muslims. Are things really that bad in Germany? Anything can happen with people. But...

Then this guy starts about his fear that the present government in Turkey is moving the country down a path that will make it into another Iran ruled by imams. One of my best friends lives in Istanbul, and she voted for the Islamist party that is in power. She does not wear a headscarf, is educated, and does not feel that Turkey will become another Iran.

Over the past year since I began to follow his blog a blogger from the Netherlands who lives in Istanbul with his Turkish wife has tried to get him to see reason and to stop embellishing the truth. He has reached out to him, and even asked that they meet. This poor journalist seems to be so fearful and paranoid that he has yet to meet the older Dutch blogger.

Fear seems to have caused this blogger to not accept reality. A few weeks ago he made a post in which he claimed that only older Turks were addicted to smoking. This is totally untrue. There is huge concern because so many teenagers are addicted to nicotine there. When I worked in Istanbul, I would go upstairs to the canteen at our school where so many students, both male and female, would be smoking that the atmosphere in the area looked a smoky blue.

I had planned to write about something else here, but when I saw this blogger's entry for today, it did not touch me until a little later: Christina Who Saves The World. At first I laughed to myself because the title seemed so naive and childish, but then I thought "Christina" and then "Christ." Christ came in to the world to save it. He was promised by God from the very beginning after Adam and Eve fell. This little girl that this blogger is putting so much hope in CANNOT change the world or attitudes in her country permamently, only Christ CAN save this world. When I saw this title, I began to wonder if this was that blogger's silent outcry unknown even to him to the real God, not the Allah that he follows. I hope God is working on him.

This blogger and I used to exchange friendly e-mails about our common interests, but he always appeared to me as a young man who was very fearful. Even through a veneer of intellect, I saw a very weak side; a person who was stiff, lonely, and who was only comfortable with his education not really with people. I saw a person who believed he was tolerant of other opinions until someone disagreed with him. He seemed to have built a cocoon around himself, as one person commented the other day on his blog. It is really sad. I ask here that you pray for Emre (the name of this blogger) and his country and that the light of Jesus Christ can rescue so many people there who are searching and empty. Neither politics, the EU, the eradication of headscarves, their dead president who is also the secularist's God Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, or Allah can save Turkey.

Emre is not the only fearful Turk. I have met others in person who were fearful but unlike him were more humble and not quite as tormented.

Remember how often in The Bible that God would tell His people to "Fear not"? I wish Emre knew this.

"Fear not, neither be discouraged." (Deuteronomy 1:21) New King James Version

I Haven't Abandoned This Blog

I would say, it has been a combination of laziness and unease on my part why I have not been writing here regularly. A Christian blog may be one of the most difficult to have because from the beginning for some such a blog is controversial. Doing one was a little contentious even for me because I did not know how well I could pull such a blog off. I did not want a Christian blog that was business as usual the way such blogs can be. I wanted to do something unique and with broad Christian and religious subject matter, but I also wanted what I wrote to be inspiring and accurate. Doctrine is a dirty word for some, but correct Christian doctrine is essential. I know I can have a Christian blog and do it well. There is actually a lot to be written about and shared in my walk as a Christian, and there is also much in the news concerning Christians. There are myriad lessons to be learned and people to be enlightened.

I have another blog which is secular in nature. It has a theme, but I write about a broad range of subjects there, and my secular blog is easier to write without me having the nagging thought, "I hope I don't make mistakes here." In the weeks to come, I hope I can get my enthusiasm up and wrote more about what God is putting on my heart especially about the church in America which is losing more and more members and which has in some cases strayed into apostasy with teachings such as the Gospel of Prosperity which is not the Gospel according to Jesus. I hope to get this blog up and rolling again consistently:)

Unchurched Americans

On Tuesday I discovered The Christian Post newspaper online. I was totally unfamiliar with it until then. Then yesterday I ran across the article "How Do Unchurched Americans View Christianity?. The article immediately got me thinking about my dad who is unchurched and Biblically illiterate. He spends hours and hours watching TV preachers who preach prosperity in many cases. Dad is anti-social, and believes that you don't have to go to church or read the Bible to be a Christian. He can relate to a Christianity that is pseudo-psychology, but he cannot deal with a faith which speaks about loving God, the importance of the Cross, loving people, sacrifice, and suffering. So I do not know about my dad... Mom and I have prayed and prayed, but he has chosen to stagnant in his walk towards Christianity. Ignorance, like many things, is a choice.

The article mentioned I above begins:

In a portrait of the "unchurched" in America, a new study found that most are willing to hear what people have to say about Christianity but a majority also sees the church as a place full of hypocrites.

"A full 72 percent of the people interviewed said they think the church ‘is full of hypocrites,’" said LifeWay Research director Ed Stetzer. "At the... Read the rest here.

Not only is there the crisis of the unchurched in America, but there is the Biblically illiterate. They are not only those who do not set foot in the church, but many who enter the church doors regularly, including some of the ministers, who are also not fully versed in The Bible. This is a crisis that all knowing Christians need to be aware of and try to remedy.

Steve's Story

In my Thursday post, I wrote about Steven Eberhart, who went to grade school and rode the same bus with me when I was a girl. He stabbed an off duty female police officer who did security at a local grocery store. A few years ago, Steve started attending my church briefly. He did not go very long, but while he did he told me that he suffered from depression. On reading his story, I am wondering if he suffered from more than just depression. Did he have a more serious form of mental illness such as schizophrenia which may have caused him to become violent?

I firmly believe that mental illness is not only a psychological disease but also a spiritual ailment. Mental illness is so common in today's world because most people, even some who think they are close to God lack the tools to face life's challenges. Why do some people cruise through life's storms and others crumble? In time I will explain through my writings here why.

For myself, accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, understanding and applying His teachings, reading my Bible and prayer has helped me in a way it is difficult to put into words. I suffered from depression throughout my teen years and was eventually crippled by it beginning in my late 20s throughout much of my 30s. When I realized just how alone and desperate I was for something bigger, permanent, and more meaningful than anything the world has to offer in the long run, I learned what it meant to be born again into a life guided and devoted to God. I was literally cured.

Steve attended the same church where I accepted Jesus Christ. On Thursday I phoned my pastor and we talked awhile about his situation and mental illness. My pastor says that I am her biggest success story. She also has a daughter who is very mentally disturbed and has also had several confrontations with the law. Over the years Pastor Patricia has seen many people go through her church who were ravaged by mental illness and intense spiritual emptiness. Most never applied the precepts that she taught in the pulpit. I did because first I accepted that I had a problem and second I wanted to become what God intended me to be. I learned that I could never be fully cured or rescued from depression by my own efforts, medication, and by going to see counselors. I have had some every good counselors in my day, some who said some good and wise things. One of my counselors confessed to me that she was a Christian. But it was only when I became a Christian too, studied and prayed, did something click inside me. I still battle with self doubt, and I even feel loneliness sometimes, but in the end I always remember that Jesus died for me and everyone else and that God will never abandon me. People come and go out of our lives, but He is eternal and will always be there. We can hold on to Him. In fact, He wants us to hold on to Him.

Yesterday Steve's story was in the newspaper. It can be read here. My mother and I were saying yesterday "If only Steve had kept coming to our church and had alllowed Pastor Patricia to pray for him..."

What has happened to Steve could happen to any of us. There is a war for our minds and souls going on. I will be talking about this too eventually.

After years of debilitating depression, I have been cured by surrender to Jesus Christ. I feel like Job who lost everything that mattered to him, but God, and was granted again even more than he lost because he never lost his faith and love for God. My life is beginning again. Sadly for Steve, it looks like it has ended not in the bodily sense, but spiritually he is dead because of his illness and the possibility that he will not be a free man for a long time. Still for him, because Jesus said,

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7, New International Version)


Please pray for the officer who at the last I heard is still alive and pray also for Steve.

God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5, New International Version)

He Was Harmless, But...

Last night when my brother came home from work, I overheard him telling our father about a police officer being brutally stabbed here in town. I thought little about it because violence is so much a way of life in this society, therefore since I felt very drained and tired I went to bed really not touched strongly or interested in what I briefly heard.

When I awoke this morning, my mother and father were talking at the breakfast table about the need for a large mental health facility here. For years one of the only two hospitals in this city had the notorious "6th floor" where mental health patients were admitted. The 6th floor was eliminated.

Prior to the 6th floor's demise, my town also had a rather upscale facility called Charter Winds Hospital. Charter Winds went bankrupt because of mismanagement of the hospital's funds costing a lot of jobs and leaving locals who needed somewhere to retreat for psychological problems with the option of being sent either 40 miles north to a facility in the town of Gainesville or 65 miles west to a hospital similar to Charter Winds in Atlanta.

My parents own a business which is on one of this city's main thoroughfares. They talk a lot about the people who walk up and down the street, many who seem very strange or out of their heads. Last year the large glass display windows on the front of their business was broken out twice late at night. Whoever did it was not seeking money since there was no sign that the building was entered. We just supposed that the person responsible was probably one of the many poor souls who stumble up and down the street everyday past the shop.

My dad who is so incredibly naive about what is going on in the world and society today had found himself being preyed on by a guy who often came by the shop asking to clean up trash out in front of the building. The guy started out cleaning; then he switched over to begging my dad to just give him some money even if there was no trash outside to be gathered. My mom was wise enough to see a pattern starting, so he told dad to not give the guy anything else, and to warn him that if he kept coming by, that they would call the police. I am concerned by my father's naivete especially now after what has happened so close to home. It is important as Christians that we help the poor as Jesus clearly demonstrated in His life, but the possible dangers of the situation which my dad has allowed to progress has come clearer to me after what has happened.

I did not expect the conversation my brother had with my father last night about a police officer being stabbed to come so close to home, but it has. This morning while my parent's were talking, I got up from the breakfast table to get this morning's newspaper out in our den. I am never really interested in the local news, but when I looked at the headlines "Officer Stabbed" and looked down the page, I was shocked and astonished when I saw the perpetrator's photo! Last night the female officer who was working off duty security at a local grocery store in town was stabbed by someone who had gone to middle and high school with me. He had been kind and very friendly. "Little Steve" as I used to call him used to sit beside me sometimes on the school bus. Steve was a grade below me, and on me he had the biggest crush. I am African American, and unlike most of the black guys I went to school with, Steve was not intimidated by my level of smarts nor by where I lived which is a quiet middle class enclave of blacks. Just a few years ago, Steve showed up at my church. Life had not been kind to him. Like most black men he was unmarried and had a kid out of wedlock, but he did not say anything about the usual run in with the law which is all too common. He lived in one of the city's government housing areas downtown which was built during the 1930s and which has been renovated in the last 10 years. After all those years, Steve was still attracted to me and asked if we could go out sometime. I did not give him an answer, but I did give him a ride home since he did not have a car. My pastor took a liking to Steve too because of his still outgoing spirit. Both I and Pastor Patricia sympathized with Steve since he had been battling depression for many years. Today, I am stunned like I am sure Pastor Patricia will be when she reads this. The assistant pastor at church at the time, Tommy York, has been the chaplain at the jail where Steve now is. I am sure he is astonished too.

As human beings we are all capable of incredible evil and incredible good. In the last week the country has been faced with yet again with mass shootings in a mall and in a church. So many people are alone and hurting in this society. I think about them, even though I don't know them. Post modern civilization is so devoid of any real concrete connection to God. We have been taught that as humans we should be able to change our lives on our own and go alone through our own mental strength. We really don't want to get too close to God because depending on Him demands surrender of many of our selfish desires; it means letting go of our independence.

I feel so sorry Steve and the female police officer he stabbed. Like Steve I experienced depression for many years and was incapacitated to such a degree that my doctors said I would never be able to handle the stress of a real job. This year I was re-evaluated as no longer ill with bipolar depression. Even when I was disabled I had worked off and on not wanting to accept that my years of education was going to be for naught. When I became a born again Christian in January 2000, I wanted to be cured from my spiritual emptiness as I had come to realize my depression was. I learned to depend on Jesus Christ and remembered His selfless sacrifice. I listened to my pastor's advise and learned Christian precepts that literally saved my life and re-opened possibilities for me. I was blessed to escape my dark night of the soul. Poor Steve and millions of others worldwide have not, but it is to be hoped they will escape.

The news article about the stabbing can be read here. The online version of the article does not include the photo of Steve.

My Christian Journey

I used to think of people who called themselves "born again Christians" as being pretentious impostors. Being a Christian in my opinion was only being moral and believing in God. I did not understand that a person could actually have a life changing relationship with God even though he seemed to be so invisible and faraway until I actually was born again in January 2001.

For almost an entire decade I had suffered from varying degrees of depression. I was first misdiagnosed as have schizoaffective disorder a mild form of schizophrenia. Unlike some schizophrenics I was very high functioning, never heard any voices or hallucinated. I was very much aware of reality. I knew my doctor had to be wrong. Later I was diagnosed as being bipolar. To me, that seemed more like my dilemma I experienced emotional highs and lows frequently. But still I did not have the knowledge to realize that most of what I was having were spiritual problems. I had tried to fight life's battles on my own.

My parents, especially my dad, raised me in a sheltered way. He himself could not deal very well or logically with life's conflicts. He grew up in a highly dysfunctional family. Dad never really accepted his mother's death until he was well into his 50s. She died when he was 18 in 1961. He could not comprehend his mother and father in-law who lived and not just talked the Christian life. His parents had been very different from this. My maternal grandparents were not rich people by any means, but they were always opening up their home to others less fortunate. Some children who had neglectful parents would have gone hungry if not for my grandparent's generosity. People knew that if they came by their house they would automatically experience my grandparent's hospitality. My dad was influenced by psychology and human thought. He believed a person, if he or she were good, should just sail through life. Everything should be easy, not confrontation or conflict. If a bad incident happened to him, he would either flew into a rage or become depressed, often trying to heal himself through overeating. I witnessed my father's behavior and my grandparent's. I was influenced by both for good and ill.

By 2000 I knew I must find a solution to my life. I had not worked in years because the doctors told me I would never be able to stand the stress of a job. However, I was an ambitious person with a masters degree. From a little girl I had had big dreams. To just sit and let my life atrophy was an intolerable thought to me. I felt I was nothing without work. Off and on for years I had experienced thoughts of suicide. In the nick of time, I learned about a small store front church from one of the pastors at my aunt's church, I went there and found my answer. One evening not long after I started visiting this church, I was asked by the pastor had I been born again. I asked her what was that. I had heard the term, but what it entailed was never clear to me. She told me the meaning, and that night, I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior. If I had not, I would probably not be here typing this.

From that evening forward, my battle with depression lessen. I went back to work taking jobs both here in the US and in Turkey. In April of this year I was evaluated so a decision could be made as to whether I was eligible to continue to receive Worker's Compensation. The doctor who did the evalution told me that I was cured and that he saw no reason why I should not able to rebuild my life and my career. The years of medication and counseling had not done it. The only thing that had cured me was my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my saviour.

Read this article: The Born Again Experience and it will explain more of what being born again means.