Luke 2:52 Annual Check-Up
Luke 2:52 Annual Check-Up
Written: January 6, 2010
Dear Friends,
About forty years ago, I began a habit that I recommend to everyone. I was a new Christian in the youth group at Bethel Baptist Church in Pekin, Illinois. It was an on-fire, soul winning, independent, temperamental, fundamental, right wing, chicken-eatin’ Baptist Church. (Whew!) After being raised Lutheran, Mennonite, and Methodist, it was a great place for me, as a sixteen-year-old, to grow in my new relationship with Christ. I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior February 9, 1969.
One of the many great lessons taught by the teen Sunday school teacher, Virgil Hartsock, was on Luke 2:52. It changed my life forever! Brother Hartsock explained that Jesus, as a boy about to enter His teen years, grew in four different areas of life. He drew a series of concentric circles like tree rings on the board and drew a large plus sign to separate the rings into equal quarters like a pie graph. He read the verse and explained that Jesus “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” He said, “You just can’t get a better example to follow than Jesus himself. Just as He grew in all four areas of life, you should too. Set some goals in each area and develop a system of checking to see how you are doing in each area.”
He labeled the areas Mental (wisdom), Physical (stature), Spiritual (favor with God), and Social (favor with man). He said a healthy tree grows evenly in each section each year. Some people get way out of balance in one area. Some are so dedicated to learning and growing mentally that they neglect their body or spirit or friends. “Keep a balance,” he said.
So, every year between Christmas and my January 15 birthday, I do a self-check in each area. At fifty-seven (next week), here is my annual report.
1. Mental Area – Pretty good. In the past year, I have read over one hundred books in a wide range of subjects plus 65% of the encyclopedia set in the library. I’ve read and studied much on the Civil War, WWII, American Indians, Shackelford’s failed expedition to the South Pole, the transcontinental railroad, early explorers of the seas, Pilgrims and early American settlers and numerous books about the creation/evolutionism conflict. I love history! I still maintain a good sense of humor and love Far Side and Darwin Awards! I have tutored several men in Trigonometry, Geometry and Algebra. I still have a hard time with spelling. Vice President Dan Quail couldn’t spell “potatoe” so I guess I’m in good company. My curiosity and desire to learn has not dimmed in any way that I can detect. I’ve also read extensively in the field of Biology and Earth Science. Walt Brown’s new 8th edition of “In The Beginning” is awesome! www.drdino.com.
2. Physical Area – Not bad for fifty-seven. I can still do five chin-ups (used to do thirty in high school☹), run 1/4 mile without stopping, do yoga, do quite a few sit-ups and push-ups and jump rope 130 times in one minute. I eat pretty well, sleep like a rock, and don’t recall the last time I was sick. My back hurts every day from several serious car accidents over thirty years ago. They finally gave me an x-ray here and discovered that I had broken my back at T-6 years ago! I knew that car hit me hard while I was stopped! See Jo! It’s not just a trick when I say I need you to rub my back!☺
I was active in softball all summer and can still hit it over the fence—barely! I dislocated my wrist and elbow sliding into second base on August 9, 2009. The BOP will give me medical help after about six months; so I re-set it myself. By the way, I was safe at second, drove in two runs, and tied the game; so, that ought to be worth something! The BOP promises me an MRI sometime in the future. If they ever get to it, I predict it will show torn ligaments around the hamate, lunate, pisiform and ulna head. It is 90% healed and should feel better when it quits hurting. I weigh 198 pounds and probably should lose ten pounds.
3. Spiritual – I still love to read and study God’s Word! My easy job here gives me lots of time to do just that. I love researching various Bible characters for my weekly “Dear God Knee-Mail” letters posted on www.cseblogs.com. I have well over 150 more Knee-Mails started on a wide range of subjects. I get ideas LOTS faster than I can complete them. If God wants me to finish everything before I die, I will live to be 700! I have Bible study in my room every night with several of the men. God has let me lead several men to Him. I see about ten of them in the church services and help them grow in the Lord. I taught an eight-week class on creation, and if I’m still here in March (hopefully not!), I will teach in the weekly Bible study a nine-week series on comparative religions.
I’ve taken about a dozen courses toward a Doctorate in Biblical Ministries this year, and have read extensively on the end times issues. While still very hopeful for a pre-trib rapture any day, I have become less and less convinced that this is the clear teaching of God’s Word. It would be wise to prepare for the worst, and be excited if it doesn’t happen (Proverbs 22:3)!
I love Psalms 4:4 and feel like I’m closer to the Lord than I’ve ever been. He walks with me and talks with me… I see now a small part of why Richard Wurmbrandt, coming out of fourteen years in horrible communist prisons in Romania said he never felt closer to God than when he was in prison and it was a let-down spiritually when he was released. Scores of the books I’ve read on various Bible related topics have changed me forever! The Bible study time for the Knee-Mails has been one of the best ways to study God’s Word that I’ve seen in my forty years in God’s family. I love it! There is an endless supply of material in that book!
4. Social (Favor with Man) – God has blessed me with friends all over the world! I get more letters every week than any other man in the prison camp. I used nearly two hundred stamps in one week last month! Many of the letters of support I get cause me to cry! I see s-o-o-o-o-o many men in prison that get no mail, no visits, and have nobody sending them money for commissary. It almost makes me feel ashamed. God has been so good to me! It would be an awful thing to feel that no man cared for my soul (Psalm 142:4). I have close relations with all my family. My children and grandchildren still love me, write me, and visit me. Lots of men here don’t have that. I get to call my wife of thirty-six and a half years almost every day! This warden will not let her visit, so please pray about that. I haven’t seen her in over two years!☹
I make new friends with nearly all the incoming inmates. I have a little ministry of giving the new guys a tour and helping take away some of the fear and emotional trauma that comes with going to prison. I also make my world-famous (well…prison camp-famous) book markers for each of the new men and their children. If you don’t have one, please send me a list of names of your family members, and I will be honored to make them one. They double as a great little gospel tract and reminder to always look at life God’s way—l-o-o-o-o-n-g term!
Truly God has blessed me in the social area. I suggest you read Proverbs 18:24 in the KJV, and then see how the new versions have messed that one up! If you can tell a lot about a man by his enemies, I’m in great shape! Even though I’ve been locked up three years and two months, there are still lots of anti-Hovind Web Sites by atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and idiots. I love pushing their buttons (in Christian love), to attempt to get them to see how utterly stupid their evolution religion is! Anyone who believes that their great-great-great-great-…grandpa was a rock needs help! Even though they hate me, I’m here for them and am always willing to be their friend.
So, that’s how I’m doing for this year’s check-up. We are still fighting our case, and will continue until we win. The ministry continues under the able leadership of my son Eric and the fantastic CSE team. The government remains poised to seize and sell the ministry property. Eric and his Board of Directors continue to await the price tags set by the government on the properties in order to prayerfully consider what can be purchased, since the government changed their original proposal to settle all property titles as clear from $380,000 to “the government’s appraised value for each property.” In spite of this battle, the work of spreading the gospel via the creation message continues, as Eric does creation seminars, and the CSE team produces new material.
All things considered, God is good!!! He has allowed me to make it another year with good growth in all four areas. I pray that this next year will be even better. Do your Luke 2:52 Annual Check-Up, and see how your growth rings look!
Serve God! He’s coming soon!
Kent
