Barnyard Family Chronicles with
Bernie Badley
I woke up two hours too early this morning, (5am), because somehow the blankets fell off me during the night. It occured to me that God was dealing with me and trying to teach me about being slouthful. Once up, I went to the bathroom and turned the hot water on by mistake.
I pulled my hand away quickly, hit my elbow on the wall and caught my funny bone. I fell to my knees to thank God for clearly showing me my errors me regarding slothfulness. As I was doing that I realized I had knocked over the book basket beside the toilet. The bible had fallen off and opened to the front page stating that the bible version I had was the authorized version. I took that as a confirmation that God was certainly guiding me and still cared about using me.
Once dressed I went downstairs, thanking God that he allowed me to make it downstairs in one piece. Just when I was feeling confident in His mercy, I spilled some coffee. Sadly I realized how arrogant I was in thinking that I even had a right to any mercy or sugarless coffee at all. As I was thinking this my dog came up to me wagging her tale with excitement to see me. While patting her I realized how fleshly I had become receiving pleasure from having a dog and letting her become an idol in my heart. I thought perhaps God was leading me, like Abraham, to sacrafice her later in the day. It seemed like God's will but I wanted to wait for further condemnation to set in to be sure it was what God required. I mean, I was willing in my heart to put her down if God needed her up in heaven to assist him in judging all the unsaved dogs or in roaming the earth discerning people through ghostly barking.
At this point in my morning I was feeling a little down so I spoke in tongues and wept to warm my spirit up to hearing from God. I then felt I needed some extra chastisment so I would not get lifted up and I asked my wife to help correct me in my sinfullness. She obliged my request, said it was a real blessing to support me and gave me a real hard slap sharply across my face. It was a real help and woke me up in the spirit.
After recovering from the slap I still felt I did not quite have the victory over loving my dog, you know, things of the world and all that. I then prayed, took a hammer and struck my pinky finger a couple of times, not too hard, just enough to raise a little inflamation to remind myself I was just a big hunk of burning sin. I began to feel stronger in the spirit until I looked outside and saw the true weakness of my attempt to walk with God this morning manifested in the fact it was raining. I had thought about going out ..........