Blog Post #1    Posted: Sun May 31, 2012        Subject: Frustrations

Dear Reader, Friend, and previous Forum Members: Welcome to kf1.org
Trying to write plainly and frankly I hope and pray I am understood well.

Sometimes I think and feel I am the most frustrated man on earth.  Maybe, but probably not. Just feels like it sometimes. I thank Jesus, through faith, that I know there is always someone with worse circumstances than I.  There are also many people who have much more favorable circumstances than I.  That is not the point.  We all must live our own lives before God. Jesus is coming. Period.

Yet often I feel like everything I ever tried to do went horribly wrong somehow. It seems everything I attempt is fraught with difficulties and unreasonable circumstances which cannot be overcome. Why does it seem like everything I attempt is doomed a partial failure from the very start?  Why does it seem I am always the one in trouble?  Again, through faith in Jesus I know that is not true.  In many respects I am blessed.  And that's a fact.
I thank God and praise Him for all the blessings He does give me.

But when it seems everything is going wrong, then I remember this is the only world God has allowed sin to exist. Earth and Heaven have seen the war.  Earth is now the only place of physical and spiritual difficulties. Earth is now our home. Earth is where we are experiencing problems of mind, body, and spirit.
Earth is the planet God has cast Satan and so confining the sickness to only one part of God's Universe. Earth is the place God is settling the issue of sin. God will end this sin. All creation, including Earth, will have lasting peace. The peace of God will prevail.

Still, I am the one who is sooooo frustrated by it all. All the time it seems. I often feel frustrated in everything. Sometimes I think I have made every mistake, had every setback, felt every disappointment a man can.  I thank Jesus I know that is not right. There are lots of people dumber than I.  I am at least smart enough to know I am a child of God and try to do right. I know I am a child of God, and eventually, everything will be all right!
God has promised. I believe Him.
Jesus is coming. Soon.

Still let me give you some examples of what I mean by being frustrated.  Big examples.  Small examples.  Hopefully you'll get my point and you'll understand what I'm doing now.

Let's take something which on the surface seems nice and sweet and innocent,
like a new puppy.                     
                                            To re-animate puppy .gif click refresh, and watch out.

Everybody likes a new puppy.  Well let me tell you, Satan can get ahold of a sweet new puppy, and use it to stir the pot of discontent into a powerful malignant poison.  From the most innocent and benign sources the devil can concoct great troubles.

God has given names to spiritual beings, and principals, and actions, and feelings.  Many of these names are not only descriptive, but truly the name of a being.  There is a being named Satan and he is always trying to muck it up, mess it up, and generally (specifically) do everything negative having an evil intent.

There is a being named Jesus, and He's always pulling for us.  Jesus is all light and truth and love.  In this world, at its end, that controversy between Jesus and Satan will be settled forever.  Right now, in this world, that controversy between good and evil causes many frustrations. Is that an understatement or what?
In this world there is good, and there is evil.  True?

Right now, even a sweet little puppy causes Satan great anger, so much so, he would destroy the world over it, if not for the grace of God which allows the puppy to live.  Satan will try to use anything he can to destroy a work of God. Satan and his minions are constantly trying to demean, degrade, and destroy. I would like to discount the devil, Satan, by calling him just the little devil, or maybe even blaming "Murphy's law" on him. Satan does not have any real lasting power but truly is just a puff of smoke, a vapor to be driven away.  So sometimes I'll even deny the devil exists, yet I know he does because he is always trying to mess things up.

Often it seems the devil is quite successful in messing stuff up too.
Oh Satan has power, power greater than I do myself.  That is what is so frustrating.  No matter what one tries to do in this world, the little devil is going to cause problems and difficulties leading to several frustrations. My salvation is in Jesus. Without Jesus I wouldn't stand a chance against Satan. With Jesus as my friend, the little devil doesn't really bother too much. The Bible says Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.

I didn't really want animals, at least not a billion of them, at least as many as I have.  And I thought I had set my foot down, that we weren't to get any more animals (pets).  I thought it was understood, not to mention my outright saying "No more animals." Next thing you know there's a new puppy in the house.  I thought I was head of household.  I thought I had some say so in making decisions.  Guess I was wrong.  Nobody makes any real decisions anymore. Everyone just says "I want, I want." No one is ever allowed to say, "NO."  One just has to learn to live with what happens. No use crying over something you can do nothing about. There are no real authorities anymore.  Everyone is just supposed to do whatever they want to do, right?  The puppy is a small thing and I'm living with it. The general lack of real authority in this age is a little more troubling.

But Satan has already tried to use this puppy to drive a schism between myself and my wife. I prefer not to elaborate. Something simple like a new puppy has already caused an argument with our neighbors. That situation was silly and who knows if it is over with yet. And right now I'm home, babysitting the dog, who's running around like a wild animal, playing with a dead squirrel's head that one of the cats killed earlier, when I really should be working and getting up some money for our bills.

No matter.  Jesus has taught me we should just go with the flow on minor things. I should not let my frustrations build to boiling over because of nothing, much.  Besides that she's a cute little puppy. 

I'm 54 years old now and I can tell you I've seen my share of frustrations.  I've been married, more than once.  I've been single, more than once.  I've raised children, and help raise other people's children, at least as much as allowed or requested.  Tell me that won't raise ones frustration level, raising children.  I've seen all the frustrations common to man. I have made many mistakes in dealing with it. Yet through sometimes dire and difficult circumstances I've seen Jesus somehow get people through, get me through.  I don't know how somebody/someone gets through this world without a strong faith in God.  This world is so full of frustrations, without a strong faith it would be too much.

I've had to deal with moderate poverty all my life.  Tell me if lack of money doesn't crimp one's style and add to one's frustration level. Go ahead and tell me money doesn't matter (sarcasm). Of course it does. Don't get me wrong, God and Jesus have done well providing for my needs.  I have missed very few meals in my life.  Yet it seems I've always been behind the curve, always a day late and a dollar short. We all know how frustrating finances can be. 

Yet Jesus helps me put it all in perspective. I praise God and Jesus for all my blessings.  No matter what the difficulty and frustration, through faith I keep plugging on knowing Jesus will come for me and every one of His children.  Though still future that covenant is signed sealed and delivered. Jesus is coming. But one never knows, the Lord may just put you in the grave before that time. Ya just never know. Jesus might just come for you a little sooner than you thought.

Let me move on to frustrations and accomplishments which are more telling concerning this website and what I'm doing now.
Let me go back to 2005.  I had this website, kf1.org, set up as HTML documents.  I had done some general surfing among Christian web sites emailing the webmasters looking for like minded friends.  In that surfing I became exposed to forums. 

It seemed to me there was a big potential in forums for discussion of the Bible, and many other things. That was before Facebook, Twitter and what social networks became.  I joined a few Christian forums. Then in this education on forums I learned they have some innate problems, difficulties, and frustrations of their own.  The arguments and differences of opinion that I found in other forum sites was very interesting.  The opportunity's for discussion were there, yet the discussions would always get sidetracked into some kind of hateful exchange.

I thought maybe if I started my own forum I could circumvent some of those problems.  Boy was I wrong.  It seems discussions of faith are doomed to deteriorate into arguments over differences in opinion.  It seems if you give people a medium for exchange of ideas and discussion someone will try to argue about it or twist it to their own self serving motives.  I wonder if that is Satan's doings, always making communications and other things difficult. 

Some people will always try to exploit a medium of exchange into a bully pulpit or an advertising opportunity. It is interesting to me how various forms of pride will show itself when a setting becomes public, like in a public internet forum. In my opinion those things happened in other forums, and in the forum TruthInJesus.net.  I was frustrated in the lack of discussion about the Bible, in spite of my learning a whole lot through the experience.
In the Facebook, Twitter, YouTube era all those concerns are still present but passe'.

The history of the forum TruthInJesus.net is plainly seen through archived forum posts.  During the forum years it was plain to me both Jesus and Satan were working mightily in the occurrences which happened in the forum. I can tell you it was not boring. I met/made some new friends. There were several frustrations. I think much good was done.  I just didn't have any real clues to what Jesus was doing in the forum and how He was forming my personal relationship to it.  Now I'm convinced that the lessons Jesus taught me during those forum years will be invaluable in the years to come.

Since then forum TruthInJesus.net has been closed and archived.  I would like to heartily thank every member for their spiritual support and positive participation.      

One of the things I had been moved to start doing was making Bible Reading videos.  So with a heavy dose of delays and frustrations I did a reading of the book of first John and uploaded it to YouTube. There were several other special occurances during the forum period. Afterwards it became necessary for the forum to be closed. In fact the Lord closed it, because for a while the forum software did not work right. The forum mysteriously locked, and would not load posts right. That did it. I closed the forum.  Then some months later the software started working right again. Go figure. Then the Lord helped me realize and start working on the next phase of kf1.org. 

Since then a few things have gotten in the way of my getting back to working on the website. There is always a frustration and problem or two in the path of any progress.  Jesus gave promises to the overcomer. An overcomer implies a struggle.  I still want to do the Bible Reading videos, and they weigh heavily on my heart. I want to do them so badly.  I hope and pray to start making new BR videos soon after reworking the website, or at least get a good start on reworking the website. Writing this explainatory post is one step toward reworking this site.  The time has come for me to reformat select archived forum posts into HTML documents and then delete the unneeded old posts. Streamline and clean up the domain as it were. 

I need to create a Ken's Personal Devotional Christian Blog page with this post being its first entry. My wife suggested "Ken's God Blog" as a name.  The KPDCB/KGB blog is there for when i(littlei) feel the need to say something. Then I need to rework the kf1.org index page to reflect those changes. Eventually, after the forum archives are copied over, I can then delete the forum PHP software.  After that I can get on with making those Bible Reading videos which I so strongly want to do. Maybe Jesus will show me a way to do all those upgrades efficiently and I can start making the Bible Reading Videos soon. If I get on with it, someone might be able to use the BR videos before Jesus does return.

Of all the things I can think of to do, a simple reading of the Bible, without extra comments, could be the most useful thing I could do for God.  I still hope to someday fulfill a larger mission, specifically by taking that evangelical evangelistic cross country mission trip I have spoken about.  Jesus is coming, soon, but not quite just yet.  Until then probably nothing can do any more good than a simple reading of the Word of God may be able to do.  Jesus is coming. Period.

"Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."
-- James5:7-8