Offended? Tough. Truth is truth whether we want to believe it or not. Intentionally killing an unborn child is murder. We don’t call murder something less because we don’t want to violate the murderer’s conscience, so let’s not do it here either.

Here’s how it works. God created man. God took material from man and created woman. God created them for each other. God told them to be fruitful and multiply. NO WHERE did God say to kill the unborn. NO WHERE did God say the unborn were not people.

In fact, God told Jeremiah,

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

There are several places in Psalms as well that indicate a person is created by God and is a person BEFORE birth.

Sex before marriage, abortion, and woman’s right to choose are concepts created out of the desire for convenience, not ultimate reality.

Step One: We don’t want to have to marry to have sex. We don’t want to have to be faithful. So we decide it’s okay and natural to express our sexuality in whatever form “comes naturally” to us.

Step Two: Oops! We had sex and now we’re pregnant. But we don’t want to have a baby. We just wanted the sex. Let’s make abortion legal so we can kill the baby and go on with our lives. We won’t have to suffer the consequences of our actions by being responsible parents. We’ll just kill the baby.

Step Three: Wait a minute! You can’t go around killing babies! That’s a problem, because we REALLY want to have sex when we feel like it! I know! Let’s call the unborn a fetus. Let’s say it’s not really a person yet because of one random set of scientific requirements or another. Let’s give ourselves an out, so we can kill the baby and not even feel guilty! Yes! That’s perfect! No guilt! Sex on demand! No commitment! No ties! No strings! Just sex!

Step Four: Wait a minute! How do we convince everyone that it’s not really a baby? Let’s use the scientific community to declare that a fetus is just a lump of matter. Let’s call it fetal tissue. So, it’s essentially a tumor (with a heartbeat and fingernails). That works for us!

Step Five: How will we compete with the people who think it’s murder? How will we win in the realm of beliefs? I got it! Let’s focus on the woman, so men will have to back down! Let’s insist that a woman has the right to choose what to do with her own body, since the man is never pregnant, he gets no say! So teenage girls can have abortions and cheating wives can have abortions and anyone who wants to can have an abortion! After all, it’s not really fair that women have to carry the pregnancy while the man gets off scot free. In the end, we are liberating women by giving them the same rights to be free of pregnancy that a man has! Why should he get to have sex all the time and ditch the pregnant girls? This way, the girl can ditch too! Now we’re all equal!

Step Six: This is perfect! Now, if a man wants to call abortion murder, we’ll tell the world how cruel he is for calling a sweet, innocent woman a murderer. She shouldn’t have to endure being assaulted so! We can comfort and protect women from being accused of murder by reminding men that a woman has the right to choose what she does with her body.

Step Seven: What about the babies rights? Don’t all Americans have the right to LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? How does getting killed fit those rights? Oh wait! We don’t have to worry about that because we’re calling babies fetal tissue. That means they don’t have rights. So we don’t have to worry about violating the most sacred of writings in American history.

One question: if abortion is just the removal of tissue, why do women cry or experience depression afterwards? Why do they feel guilt that they refuse to face? Who feels guilty for doing what is right and lawful?

One answer: We can make whatever laws we like and spread whatever ideas we wish. our consciences know the truth, and we are seared from violating them. Women don’t want to feel guilty, but they cannot avoid it. They want the law to be truth. But it has not set them free.

There are many truths. I do not know them all. But I know some. And I am going to share them with you when I have the caffeine or the heart to write them down.

I would write a book. But you see, I don’t think anyone would finish reading that book. They would be too angry, offended, confused, or uncomfortable to read to the very end. Maybe it’s not because I offer the truth. Maybe it’s because my version of the truth comes with my bitterness and pet peeves attached. Maybe we all have enough problems without taking on the burdens of someone else’s.

Regardless, I think I’ll share with you. Whether it’s about faithfulness, parenting, sex, love, loyalty, honesty, professionalism, cowardice, longing, or impatience. Whatever the subject. Just as soon as I have the heart.

The downside to all this? Who’s going to read it and care? None of my friends or family, because they don’t know it exists (except my wife). So a few random strangers will see this, mostly people Googling “Sarah Palin” something or other.

This is precisely why I enjoy journaling. It’s going to be private and I know that. Blogging anonymously is really only worth it if it makes a positive impact on someone else’s life. And the chances of that are, well, slim.

It’s fear of man, plain and simple. And it’s unacceptable. I cannot change who I am to please you, no matter who you are. You can disagree with me. You can resent me. You can mildly disagree with my opinions. Whatever the case, I must be me.

This is a major life challenge. Everyone has a unique set of obstacles and character flaws to grow through. One of mine happens to be fear of rejection. I’ve been through plenty of it in the past. These days I have so little in common with most people that I don’t get to know anyone well enough to be rejected. But here, where it wasn’t supposed to happen, I’ve gone and become self conscious.

Hundreds of successful bloggers out there never acknowledge a single weakness that isn’t socially acceptable. Well, good for them. I can’t follow that path. I have to be free to tell you unpleasant things about myself that could very well cause you to lose respect for me. Because respect is not true respect until it knows the warts and the flaws. A person without problems is not respectable. He or she is fake.

A respectable person is like a courageous person. You don’t have courage unless you have fear. A person who isn’t afraid is not courageous. Courage is the quality of overcoming fear. It’s the person who overcomes a major obstacle. Being respectable follows the same principle.

This post is more for my sake than for yours. I must tell myself that I am not here to win any popularity contests. I must tell myself that it’s just fine if you think I’m an idiot. I must remind myself that i cannot be truly appreciated or deprecated until I am truly known.

And in the end, I gotta be real.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

2/3 of the Bible involves revelatory giftings, callings, or events. God speaks to men, angels appear to men, burning bushes that speak, dreams of destiny, dreams of world events, God speaking to men, visions, prophecies, more dreams, more prophecies, talking donkies, more of God speaking to men, armies of angels, more angels, more dreams, more visions, more prophecies, knowing the impossible, etc. It goes on and on.

Amazing, how some Christians can read a Bible full of revelatory gifted people and God speaking to men and people experiencing divine revelation, and yet they have chosen to believe that all manners of divine revelation ceased when the last apostle died.

I am writing to the wrong audience. I realize that. If you are reading this, there’s an 80% chance it’s because we’re friends on Twitter. And if so, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. I get that. Good thing this is my blog and I don’t have to play by any rules.

If, however, you’d like to read more about revelatory giftings and callings, I recommend the following books:

Jack Deere, Surprised By the Voice of God
Gary Wiens, Come to Papa
R Loren Sandford, Understanding Prophetic People
Jim Goll, The Seer

These are three books written by men who strongly adhere to the Bible as the foundation and standard by which all revelatory messages/insights should be measured against. Read those books in that order, as that will probably help you to understand the flow of information.

The very word “atheist” sounds very active and hateful to me. It’s like if someone despised the very idea of me and created a word to label them as a unique type of person whose belief system had no room to even acknowledge I exist. That’s hate. Or at least, that feels like hate.

When a person casually admits that they’re an atheist, I feel like somewhere in their heart, they are shaking their fist angrily at God. Maybe He didn’t answer when they cried out to him as a child. Maybe a parent or sibling died tragically. Maybe they were abused and no help ever came. Maybe they have always felt empty and expect that if God were real, He wouldn’t have left them alone.

I don’t know. I’m only theorizing here. But it seems like an active word. Not passive. Believer, even, doesn’t sound so violently active to me as Atheist. Perhaps it is merely the construct of my socio-economic-religious upbringing. But I know that even when I vocally denied God was real, it was because I was angry and upset with Him. He had not come through for me.

Your thoughts and experiences are welcome. I’d love to know if I am the only person who feels this way.

While I’m not so liberal and very much Christian, I’ve disliked Sarah Palin as a Vice President as well.

Beyond politics, I mention my faith and beliefs somewhat often, which I know must irritate those Twitter friends who are looking to discuss just about anything EXCEPT religion or spirituality. My apologies to all. I won’t change, mind you, but I will apologize.

The purpose of this site is to be real, regardless of how popular or unpopular it makes me. You get me, in all my warts and glory.

I hope some of you will stick around, and if you’re not my Twitter friend yet, I hope you will be. Add me to your friends at http://www.twitter.com/onerealman.

And yet, today I read a prophecy from Kim Clement that seems to imply that Sarah Palin may be President within the next four years. In that prophecy he said:

And God said, “This resurrection that is coming to My people will bring about a multiplication of great outpourings in every state in this Nation. For I will place in the White House, one that will call just by one word of prayer, and I shall come running. And it shall be said, ‘can a woman bring to this Nation the Spirit of God from a political house of power?’ Watch Me,” says the Lord, “watch Me, says the Lord!”

Is Sarah Palin the woman whom the people will ask this question of? Is she God’s chosen leader for this time? George W. Bush is greatly reviled within our nation today. And yet God chose him to lead this country for eight years. And before you question that God chose him, remember that there is no authority on this earth except has been given by God.

Kim Clement continued to prophesy about the coming four years after this election, and said:

The Lord says, “The White House shall become the prayer house. The White House shall be called the prayer house. And then they will mock and say, ‘it is the White House,’ and then they will mock and say, ‘it is the wild house because the Quakers have come.’ And they will say, ‘there is even shaking there and trembling.’”

God said, “This is going to be as a result, and even though many men have hated this President - of his own battle with a Babylonian prince with a Babylonian spirit - that has endeavored to take this Nation and bring it to its knees. Because of President Bush,” God said, “who prayed every day, I am going to produce in the White House, Spirit-filled human beings that will pray with the Spirit and power. And they will not be ashamed of it.”

I think it is fair to say that if a Spirit-filled person were leading the country and experiencing the manifestations of the power of the Spirit, there would be plenty mockery, scoffing, and insults hurled at our nation’s leaders.

There are legitimate reasons to be dissatisfied with the actions of the President. And there are legitimate reasons to feel concerned about Sarah Palin in the White House. But if she truly is God’s anointed, she is the only person for this position at this time.

Remember, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. He chooses the base things to confound the wise.

By all appearances, Sarah Palin is the least qualified candidate in more than a decade. But God uses the humble and willing. If John McCain is elected President, I will honor both he and Sarah Palin as the leaders of our country, set in place by God himself. And then I will commit myself to pray for them fervently, that they would seek God’s will and obey it to the letter.

I’m cool with working to pay for ministry, if that’s how you want this to go. But working just to work is no way to live. There’s no purpose. No motivation. No joy. No fulfillment. Just the sense of priceless time sucked away into the abyss that is the past.

I don’t know what to ask for, exactly. I make good money for a company that treats me well. That in and of itself is so great that it’s hard to want more. But I do, Father. I want MORE. I want fulfillment. I want to pursue that which is joined to my heart so deeply I cannot be separated from it. I want to pursue the nature you have given me. The calling. The gifts.

I don’t know what will fulfill me. Maybe I’m complaining for nothing. Maybe I just need to experience you in the secret place. But I know I feel empty. I know I feel loss. I know that I am unfulfilled.

Change me. Do what you want with me. But cause me to live a life worth living. A life of adventure. A life of purpose.

My head is pounding. Just took some ibuprofen. Hope it dies down. In the meantime, I have nothing of value to say, and I feel stupid for not writing this in my journal instead.

We have some parenting books, which I haven’t read yet. I know, I know. Everyone has books on parenting, and most people still suck at being parents. That’s not because they didn’t read the books. It MAY be because they read the WRONG books.

Looking ahead, I fear that I am unprepared, and that I won’t become prepared until opportunities to parent and discipline have already been missed. If you are a casual parent who doesn’t worry about these things, you won’t understand me and I recommend you either reconsider your approach or stop reading this blog. I won’t argue fundamentals with you about how much attention children need. They need A LOT, and there is no public school or television substitute that comes close to adequately replacing a loving, training parent.

These are REAL human beings here, people. Have a heart. I look back at my childhood and all the ways I felt misunderstood, isolated, and alone, and I am motivated to push through the discomfort of parental ignorance and educate myself on being a parent.

I know that ultimately, my daughter needs to know she is loved, prized, and delighted in. That I believe I can do. But her character development requires training, discipline, and instruction - which I can either do well or not so well with.

What I’m really saying is that I hope I have what it takes when it’s time to act. I want to be an exemplary parent so that I train up an exemplary child. Anything less would be wasted potential.