The Devotional

Papa “J” says

What if God called us, stretched out a helping hand, gave counsel and redirection. Yet we refuse to hear. Shall He not laugh at our calamities and mock when terror strikes? Does this mean that God is cruel? Not at all... He warned, we failed to heed His warning. Proverbs 1:22-27

Finally in December of 1968 the crew members of the USS Pueblo (AGER 2) were released from being held in North Korea. For eleven months Americans waited for bits and pieces of news about what was going on. The assignments of our operation at CincPac were at the bottom of the barrel compared to other government agencies that were involved but we had daily information about the events as these unfolded. The USS Pueblo is still a commissioned ship in the United States Navy even after forty two years. The ship itself is still held hostages and is a North Korean Museum on the Taedong River. Over the forty years of captivity it is said that 250,000 North Korean people have visited the ship. That is only 6,250 people per year. This does not seem to me to be a very large tourist attraction. There are on going efforts to have North Korea return the ship. So far as you know all effort of time talent and resources are wasted. Memorial Day is a holiday to remember such events as the Pueblo (AGER 2), the Liberty (AGTR-5) and another ship the Searcher (YAGR 4). All of these ships were spy ships of one sort or another. I served on the Searcher in 1959 as a young seaman.

The Gospel of John

John 6:22-71 The words of the LORD Jesus are absolute truth, we know this, we believe this and we call this knowing and believing FAITH. We do have trouble with faith, do we not? Our failure to be what God calls us to be is a failure to really feed on Jesus. Serious stuff here, I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to understanding this. Even pastors of churches struggle with this chapter, so how shall I say anything at all, I won't but I do want God to speak through these words to all of us.

We feed our bodies temporal foods and temporal intense feelings we call emotions. These foods and feelings reveal our temporal physical condition. Overweight, underweight, poor health, good health, a good physiological profile or a poor one. Temporal conditions that if you look at Americans today you can plainly see we are in every way, physically and mentally out of shape. We have no one to blame except ourselves. Comical on not, we blame the government or God. The truth is that neither of the two are guilty of our sick generation.

Failure then is boiled down to this common thought. It is your fault and my fault for this temporal condition. But there is hope! John 6:22-71 explains to you and me the answer to man's condition by saying that there is a third innate ability within the human being that needs to be nourished too. This third inborn attribute is spirituality. The nourishment needed is the body and blood of Jesus Christ to revive the soul and awaken our sleeping (dead) spirit. We will talk more on this after Memorial Day! God Bless your weekend and your day.