Lyle's Blog

Dear Michael I was to the doctor today with Linda. We stopped by Café Rio for lunch. It was a day like any other day until my sister sent a message to our phone. You had taken your life. Right now it’s not a day like the others. Today you gave it all up. I hadn’t seen you in a couple years as we live far a part. Since your divorce we were all asked not to talk to you. I snuck a couple emails to you anyway. You were always a brash, upfront, lover of life; at least that’s what I thought. I don’t know what it was that came between you two. I remember you and I talking last time I saw you, how lucky we were to have the wives we do. What did they see in us? We didn’t know. But they saw something. We were the lucky ones.

You sinned for whatever reason. It broke a heart. You were given a second chance. You squandered that. Then you were shut out. You probably found that you missed the one person that loved you and you couldn’t get them back. You’d asked me to not send messages concerning politics or religion. I didn’t. I skated around the edges but I abided by your request. That’s one of my problems, doing what is asked. You needed Christ even if you didn’t know it. I should have been relentless in my pursuit of your soul. Your suicide has made me reassess my commitment to the souls of men. I’d say I’m sorry but to who? God I suppose. I am so sorry Father for not putting more value on the souls of men. If you were here Michael I’d tell you what you needed to hear. I love you, God loves you, and you must seek Him while He can be found.

Seems the NFL is piling on with the rest of the hate America crowd. Kneel or not to kneel, that is the question. Sports “heroes” have never been the crème of humanities crop. For the most part they are arrogant, overpaid ignorant bad examples for our kids. The good thing about all this is craziness is that we’ll end up knowing who our enemies are. President Trump is drawing a line in the sand with everybody. It’s an us or them world. We have one side that’s offended by debt, taxes, laziness, and corruption. The opposing side is offended by everything American to include banana peelings and cotton balls. Where does it all end? Not in a good way unless there are more storms and earthquakes to keep people busy and minding there own business. The NFL along with the world have the same problem. They kneel and bow before things that have no value. This world has always been and always will be a violent unforgiving place. It amazes me how each generation thinks they are the ones to bring about this better world. I’ve voted for “good” guys all my life and have found it to be a useless cause. The reason nothing changes is that we elect and allow unbelievers to rule our land. How can anyone not humbled to the Cross of Christ bring about a better world? Unredeemed people can’t elect good men. Unless one let’s Christ have full control in their life, political power itself will corrupt the morals and the judgment. I despise what’s happening to our world but no more than the first Christians hated their world. I thank God it’s all most time to go home.

A monument is a structure created to commemorate an event but more often the life of an individual. The monuments being torn down in the South were erected at the beginning of the 20th century. People in the South didn’t want their loved ones to be forgotten so they put up monuments. The Southerners were destroyed by a ruthless Abraham Lincoln; a quote from his 2nd inaugural address: “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” So old Abe was punishing all people from the south. They were mostly farmers; many came home missing limbs which meant extreme poverty. In 1865 the national debt was 65 million dollars. Four years of civil war brought the national debt to $2.7 billion. The annual interest on that debt was more than twice our entire national budget in 1860. Civil War debt was almost twice what the federal government spent before 1860 and the United States had a progressive income tax, an estate tax, and excise taxes as well.
The Union government had issued more than $430 million in paper money (greenbacks) and demanded it be legal tender for all debts. The death of 620,000 men wasn’t enough retribution for the zealots. Nope Abe had to destroy the sovereignty of the state, give us unconstitutional taxes, and by executive order imprisoned people who hadn’t harmed anyone just like today. The man we paint as a hero instigated the killing of so many in the name of God. Furthermore he’s enslaved our culture in the tyranny of the state. I wonder, will they tear down the Vietnam memorial and all the other memorials we’ve erected to the memory of our dead? When Khrushchev said he would bury us we didn’t believe him. We didn’t notice Marxism creeping into our schools and teaching our kids that freedom is dangerous. Now our children believe that America and every remnant of it’s founding must be destroyed and a new government created under the wisdom of Godless fools. We are being driven to civil war; if that’s what they want, that’s what they’ll get.

I lived most of my life in Spokane Washington. It was somewhat of a shock to hear of the school shooting at Freeman High School. The school is located on Highway 27 south of the Spokane Valley. If you look up school shootings on the web you find a long history of these kinds of events. Kids would kill their teacher or another student because of fighting over a girl. Nowadays the reasons are different than one would think. Back twenty years ago I listened to a local sheriff talk about the reasons kids bring guns to school. The overwhelming reason is that they are afraid. Nobody is protecting them from the assaults of bullies. Much talk and “programs” to deal with the bully problem happen but your children are still at risk attending school. One problem is the state has passed laws requiring all students to be educated. You can’t get rid of these little tyrants if you wanted to. The school system gets paid per child so the incentive is to provide whatever is necessary to keep the little demons in class. My wife and I had personal experience with the bully problem. We even went to the superintendent of the district. We found out from this Phd leftist that we weren’t allowed to tell anyone’s child that it was wrong to steal or hurt anyone. Those were our values. They gave this Darwinian product of our education system coupons for free pizza to encourage him to not bully other children. In the end they gave this wonderful boy his own classroom as the school thought they couldn’t return him to the violent atmosphere of the classroom. So if you send your child to one of these cesspools, good luck. It’s tragic that a child is killed at school. It’s more tragic that the government school system has removed God, morality, and discipline from our children’s lives.

The book of Daniel tells us many things about the future and Daniel told King Nebuchadnezzar the future of his kingdom and the kingdoms that would follow him. It’s curious to me that the world started out with a dictator of the world and will end that same way with the rule of the anti-Christ. Fourteen thousand plus wars later and it all ends the same way, with a leader in the place of God. The hand-writing on the wall continues to this day globally and on a personal level. We can understand what’s taking place now from what Daniel wrote over five hundred years before Christ. We all can see it if we look. Personally we see the gray hair and the other indications the clock is running out for us. We think we have tomorrow but the writing is on the wall. We can’t miss it. Belshazzar should have known what was about to take place before the hand writing on the wall. But he was the ultimate party animal. To varying degrees there seems to be a lot of “partying” going on with everyone but I see the older generation especially involved. We’re surrounded by music of “our” generation. Nothing has changed but our dilapidated bodies. The writing on the wall says hurry, do what you were sent here to do. Get ready and take as many as you can with you. All those we’ve given up on maybe need someone interceding for them in prayer. Maybe, just maybe.