God is real! This book is a testament to that fact. Uncle Bill’s book doesn’t have all the answers to life that God’s Book does, but make no mistake, God wrote this one too. He not only wrote it; He orchestrated my life so that I would have every experience and piece of knowledge I needed for it to say exactly what He wanted. He also made sure I didn’t finish it until now.
I’ll never forget the day the journey to writing this book started. I was just a young punk kid when God put the desire in my heart to write. I was laying in my bed day-dreaming as usual, when I felt like I just knew what I was supposed to do with my life. I felt like I figured out the reason I was here. I felt like I found my purpose. I felt like I was going to make a difference in this world.
In my mind, at that time, I had no doubt it would happen and happen quickly. I bet EVERYTHING on it.
What God didn’t tell me that day was how it would all go down. He didn’t tell me I’d have to wait this long for it to happen. He didn’t tell me what I would end up writing about. He didn’t give me a “heads up” about all the challenges and trials I would have to go through first. He didn’t tell me about all the sleepless nights, the stress from failure, the countless jobs, or the worries about money. He didn’t tell me I’d have to wait until you all were born.
I can tell you that this is how God usually works. He doesn’t reveal the whole plan right away because He wants you to rely on Him for updates and guidance on your progress….something I didn’t do much of. I didn’t know any of this at the time, but there is no doubt it is true looking back now. Every little piece of my life had to align perfectly for this book to be written. Where I was born, the parents I had, the schools I went to, the people I’ve met, the jobs I lost, the trials I went through, and the joys I experienced were all directed by God.
It’s mind-blowing when I sit back and really think about some of the details. First, I had to be born. That took making sure your grandma and grandpa actually met and got married. (not to mention their parents and their parents and so on over all the centuries…) In fact, you can see God’s divine intervention in the fact that my mom, your mom, and your aunt all said “yes” to men not in their league. 😂
Then, God made sure you guys were all born and that you actually liked hanging out with your Uncle Bill. He gave me plenty of free time to spend with you too. It’s not an over-exaggeration to say God gave me more time with my nieces and nephews than 99% of the uncles on earth. I also find it fascinating that God waited until I was engulfed in the Bible and changing my own life before He allowed me to have a bigger influence in yours.
God lit a fire in me to learn more about Him. He led me to do a Bible study for Zach, and now this book for you.
Nothing was by chance; nothing was a mistake. It all had to happen. You’ll see, just keep reading.
I was 20 when I wrote the letter predicting my future would be full of wealth from sold writing and fame. I was going to be rich in 10 years, and I wouldn’t need the parents anymore. Well, that aged well!
Flash forward 7 years after I sent the letter. I was driving my mom’s mini-van, while working part-time at the Arizona Republic newspaper. Not in a writing job as you might think, but taking classified ads over the phone. I had moved in and out of the parent’s house several times, and if it wasn’t for your Aunt Steph, I would probably still live there. Life sucked! I felt depressed, I felt hopeless, I felt like a failure.
In the decade following that letter, a lot went wrong. I spent several hours in the pokey, and narrowly escaped serving a lot more. I had a car repossessed because I needed the money for beer, and I got kicked out of a couple apartments for partying too much. I had 15 jobs, and I spent very little time working at any of them. I had to sell some of my favorite things to pay off debt, rent, or for buying alcohol. The 69 mustang and the jeep were the hardest to let go. I lived paycheck to paycheck, and always above my means.
As far as the being famous prediction went, the closest I got was being in a few local insurance commercials. I always played the part of the loser without any money, a part I was perfect for. They only picked me because I worked there, and they wanted free talent. I must have been a decent actor, because people used to recognize me and shout my name. Too bad it was just at the mall, and the only people that saw my commercials were the people who were home all day instead of working. There was the one girl who wanted to dance with me because she thought it was cool I was on tv. I might have married her, had your aunt not come into the picture and snatched me away when she saw us dancing. You aunt was the jealous type. lol
The stress was rough. Not only did I have all these financial worries, but major doubt was creeping in. I had a few jobs that helped take away the hole I had not filled yet, but they were always just temporary. I had a mid-life crisis breakdown at 27. I was only 3 years away from the cutoff I told my parents about in the letter. I was nowhere close to having anything written.
Look at the poem I wrote. (Life Lessons) I can’t tell you how much anxiety, fear, stress and tears were behind it. But, if you notice, there is also hope! I wrote this after praying. Although I didn’t have much of a relationship with God during this time period, I always went to Him when I felt everything was unbearable. I went to Him when I was desperate. He always calmed me down and brought me hope.
I was failing, and I had very little time to get it done. The partying helped me forget that I was a loser too. I talked so much crap over the years; on purpose. I figured if I talked a ton of smack about being successful, surely that would help my pride kick in, and I would “get er done”. Again, I was wrong. 15 years after I had vowed to become a writer, I felt further away than ever.
God kept the spark there though, and occasionally, especially during very high stress times in my life, He allowed me to write some of the best stuff I ever put down on paper. I never let anyone see how disappointed I was in my life. I kept up the charade. I drove fancy cars, I dressed like a 50-year-old poser rich guy, and I still bragged about the writing, but only when I was drinking.
I was really scared. I didn’t know what life would be like living with the disappointment I set myself up for. I didn’t know if I could handle that type of pain, so I couldn’t let the dream die, or I’d risk dying inside.
So, here we have an example of 2 things: 1. I wanted to write with every ounce of my being for more than 40 years, but never got anything completed. 2. I wanted to be a good Christian, but I wasn’t anywhere close to good. I was very thankful for all the times God helped me out of a mess, but it didn’t lead to me to obey Him more. After God saved me that one time in the desert, I told Him that I’d never drink again. The next day I was right back to the hair of the dog that bit me.
It was one of the most frustrating periods in my life, and it lasted a long time. Everything I wanted to do, I didn’t. Everything I didn’t want to see happen, did. UGH!
Then, God sent me a life preserver; your aunt. God sent her in to help clean up all the messes, and make me smile at her dresses. Lol The friends and family God provided for me during my party days, were being replaced with my own family. I got married when I was 30, and we had Zach at 32. I needed motivation and my hopes lifted up, and that is just what marrying the love of my life did! I was down in the dumps about my writing, but now I had a wife and a son to think about. I would do it for them! The timing must have been all wrong before.
Nope! Wrong again. God was just planting seeds at this time. He knew what would happen over the next decade, I didn’t.
How can you believe something will happen with your whole heart, but never see it come to fruition? How can you know how you should act, but still don’t? Why did I have to go through all this stress and anxiety?
I have the answers now, but I’ll tell you later. Keep reading.
God picked me to get this book to you. He did so, to make sure you had no doubt about who to give credit to for getting it done. Since I am not smart enough, dedicated enough, focused enough, or hard working enough, you have to give the credit to God. I have no college edumication, and I barely got through high school. God had a ton of Godlier, more respected, and higher educated people out there to pick from than me. Heck, even in my own household, I should have been picked last.
God chose me, because it was the perfect way to show you that He was at work. There is no way Uncle Bill could have done it on my own, I tried for 40 years. God knew the day he put the writing bug in my heart, that I would rebel and do all the stupid things I did in the years following. Yet, He still wanted me to do it? Why? Asking questions like this will help you grow closer to God. He wants us to ask why. The same goes for the Bible. A good student of anything, will always ask why. I’ll keep reminding you of this as we go along.
The biggest question we didn’t answer from chapter 1 was: If God created this world and everything in it to be perfect, and God saw that it was good, why does it look and feel like anything but perfect now?
It starts with Genesis chapter 3, but you can tell God knew it was coming in chapters 1 & 2. As a reminder, when God created it all in those 6×24-hour days, everything was perfect. There was no pain, no fear, no anxiety, no lies and most importantly, no death. It was heaven on earth, because God was there.
In the Bible, heaven is defined as anywhere God is. Right now, God is in His throne room which is outside the known universe. That is heaven at this point in time. If you have family members who believed Jesus was God, and that He came to save us, then they are in the throne room with God right now, in heaven. In the future, Jesus will be with us here on this earth. At that point, we will call this place heaven. In the distant future, there is a new heavens and earth created, and then that will be heaven, because the fullness of God will live there with us. Much more to come on the future locations of heaven later in the book.
How do we know that God knew beforehand that the events in Chapter 3 of Genesis were coming? I’ll give you one clue: He created this world with certain features that will not be around when the new heavens and earth are created. He created certain things for this universe, solely because He knew sin was coming. Jump to Revelation Chapter 21 if you want to see what is missing in the new place we live in down the road, when there is no sin.
So, what happened that took what God created, and turned it into what we have today? In short, sin. I would imagine every one of you has heard the story of Adam & Eve in some capacity. I will also assume there is a lot from the story you have never thought of, or heard about.
Let’s start with Adam, and how He came into existence. The Bible tells us in Chapter 2 verse 7, that God formed man from the dust of the ground. This is a very important detail. It explains why our bodies decompose and go back to dust after we die, and why both our DNA and the dirt are built from share the same chore chemicals. Remember this, we will get back to it shortly.
The other detail that verse 7 gave us was that God “breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life”. The meaning for the word “breath” in Hebrew is “spirit”. It is telling us that God formed man as a shell first, then He gave Adam his “spirit”. The spirit is what gave Adam life. Adam needed both his spirit, and the physical body container, to live here on earth.
The Bible teaches that everyone has two separate parts to us. One is our physical body, often called “flesh” in the Bible. The other is our “spirit” or “soul”. Our spirit is invisible, and without it, our body would die. We know all the ways the body can die; we see it all around us. But how does a spirit die? Hold on to that one, keep reading.
When God created Adam; his physical body, and the spirit God placed inside him were perfect. Since they were perfect, (without sin) they would live forever, and they could be in the presence of God forever. God won’t hang out around sin, He can’t. Because God is a perfect and righteous judge, He would have to judge sin at the moment He was in the presence of it. The Bible tells us that the penalty for sin is death, so God is doing us a favor by separating Himself from us and our sin right now. ( see Romans 6:23)
We also find out from reading the Bible, that mankind was created specifically to live on this earth. We have physical bodies that are made to thrive in this environment. If we were all in spirit form only, then we wouldn’t need a physical earth to live on. Remember, there are two parts to every human being: the body and the spirit/soul. We know the physical body can’t live without the spirit, because we saw what Adam’s body was like before God put the spirit in him.
So, what happened to change everything? Sin. It came into the picture from a source that is evil, Satan. God had one instruction for Adam and Eve to follow: “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. He told Adam that if he eats from this tree, he will surely die. Both Adam and Eve could eat freely from any tree in the garden, just not that one.
Satan, who we start learning about in Genesis chapter 3, approaches Eve in the garden in the form of snake. Satan is a spiritual being, meaning he doesn’t have a physical body like we do. In fact, all angels and fallen angels (demons) are spirit only beings. God the Father is also all spirit. Jesus, when He came to earth as a man, was the only time God was in a physical body like ours. Much more to come on that one.
Since Satan is a spiritual being and not physical, he will at times indwell a physical body to help his cause. He did this with the snake. The snake was just an innocent bystander; it was Satan inside the snake that caused the trouble. We know later in the Bible that Satan also went into Judas and led him to betray Christ.
Satan came in and deceived Eve. In so many words, he told her that God doesn’t want her to eat the fruit, because she will become like God. He told her not to believe God when He said they will surely die if they eat it. These were the first lies ever told on earth, and look where they came from. The Bible tells us Satan is the father of lies, a truth we can see from Genesis 3. So, Eve ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Adam followed right along.
What happened next is how everything changed. Sin was now in God’s creation. To put it simply, sin is anything that is an offense to God. Who gets to determine what offends God? Only God does. Sin is like a virus, and once the host is infected, the whole thing dies. It spreads and spreads, causing chaos and death. It becomes part of our nature; it becomes who we are in God’s eyes.
Flashback to Chapter 2 of Genesis, when God had man name all the animals, birds, and all living creatures. When you name something, it means you have authority over it. It means you have dominion. I named Zach, so I have dominion over him until he becomes an adult or moves out of the house. lol God gave Adam (man) authority and dominion over everything on this earth. He was in charge of it all, until he gave it up.
When Adam listened to the council of Satan instead of God, what Adam did was relinquish his authority and dominion here on earth over to Satan. He gave it to him, not knowingly at the time, but that was the result. Had Adam & Eve never sinned; they would have lived forever and would still be running the place.
Now back to the first thing we read about after Adam and eve ate from the tree. They hid from God. They were naked and afraid. This is the first clue that something happened to them spiritually, as they never hid from God before. They used to walk and talk with Him, now they are hiding. That in a nutshell is what sin can do. It not only separates us physically from God, but spiritually as well. Both parts of us are affected by sin.
God knew what Adam and Eve did before they confessed it to Him. God knew they were going to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil before He even created the tree, or the two who ate from the tree. In other words, God knows everything Adam did, will do, or is thinking of doing. He knows the same about all of us. There is no hiding anything from God. He knew about it before you even thought about it.
Now that sin was here, God had to judge it. He is perfect, and can’t let them all off the hook, when the penalty He promised was death. God never goes back on His word. That wasn’t good news to Adam and Eve at the moment, but in the long run, it is awesome knowing God won’t change His mind on His promises. You’ll see why that is so important later. God also made noise when He entered the garden so that Adam and Eve would hear him and hide. He did this as a show of mercy, because had they been face to face with God in their current sinful state, God would have had to judge them instantly. Instead, we hear about how God judges their sin below.
God first cursed the snake. Snakes didn’t always crawl on their bellies, did you know that? He also made woman and the snake natural enemies. Ever wonder why snakes are always associated with evil, con-artists, and liars? Well now you know. This curse is also why very few people actually like snakes in general. Before the curse, the snake was walking either on all fours, or standing up, and Eve wasn’t afraid of it.
God next moved to punish Eve by telling her the pain from childbirth would be multiplied and that her husband would rule over her. Spiritually speaking, man was to be the head and protect women from anything like this happening again. It was Eve who was deceived by the snake, so God instituted this charge for Adam to be the lookout and guard against the lies of the enemy. This didn’t make eve Adam’s slave, because the Bible tells us “all” are created equal in God’s eyes. Any attempt to take this verse. or any others in the Bible. as permission for men to rule over women like task-masters is absurd. This is strictly talking the spiritual, Bible teaching, defender against false truths, and protector of the home type rule.
Lastly, to punish Adam, God cursed the earth. Anytime in the Bible we hear about God cursing something, it always means eternal destruction. As in, it will be destroyed at some point, and it will never come back. When he curses a person, it means that person will be given eternal judgment and never has a chance to find or be with God forever. It’s pretty rare when it does happen in the Bible, so we should pay attention to the “why” of it all.
Notice that God did not curse Adam. He cursed the earth. This means the earth is destined to be destroyed. 2nd Peter 3:10 is one of the verses that confirms the earth’s end. God could have cursed Adam, but He didn’t. God cursed the ground where Adam came from. Since the earth is destined to die out, and Adam and Eve and everyone born after them comes from the earth, we are all destined to die out. If you know the rest of the book, Adam and Eve didn’t physically die right when they ate from the tree, but something did. Adam lived until he was 930-year-old.
What died the second they ate the forbidden fruit, was their spirit. Not in the gone from existence type of dying, but as in now corrupt, full of sin, dead to God. Their spirits that once were perfect, and would live forever with God, are now doomed to an existence without Him. The Bible tells us that as a consequence of Adam’s fall, all humans born after Adam would inherit that same corrupt spirit, dead in nature, and separated from God. We also know from studying God’s Word, that a person’s spirit will never cease to exist. So, even though Adam and Eve’s physical bodies now had to suffer death under the same curse as the earth, their spirits will go on to live forever.
Uh, Houston, we have a problem. Adam and Eve, and anyone born after them, are now on a course to live in darkness, away from the light for all eternity. This is all of us. This is not metaphoric, this is real. Since we know that your spirit lives forever, the sin nature lives forever with you too. Remember when I told you God can’t be around sin without judging someone for it? Well, that means if your spirit is dead and corrupt and sinful, you can’t be around God, ever.
There is the problem, now how do we get around it? How can we change our spiritual nature, or our soul? At minimum we need a perfect spirit to be in heaven with God. Since we know our earthly body dies, we know it won’t go into heaven with us. It seems like a catch 22, as there is no way “humanly” possible for us to exchange out our spirit with a brand new in the box, perfect one.
We have learned that every single one of us is made up of a physical body and a spirit. We have learned like Adam, our physical bodies will die at some point. We have also learned that part of us, our spirit, is going to live forever. That’s pretty eye-opening stuff! All of this within the first 3 chapters of the book. Just wait until you hear the rest.
Remember when I told you that God created our bodies to live and thrive on earth? Well, guess what? We will all have physical bodies, beginning when Jesus comes back. We then keep the same perfect body through all the rest of eternity. Anyone who died before you that is in heaven right now, is in spirit form only. They don’t have a physical body; it is in the ground. They get their new physical body at the same time all Christians do, right before Jesus starts His rule as king on earth.
Wow, lots to digest, and probably a lot to wonder about. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it all right now, it takes time to take in all the incredible things we learn about in God’s book. If anything, this should ignite your curiosity and get you to study more about it.
To recap: Most Bible scholars call the events of Chapter 3 in Genesis “the fall”. This is when man fell from being perfect, and lost an opportunity to be with God.
BEFORE FALL: Adam & Eve had perfect physical bodies and perfect spirits.
AFTER FALL: Adam & Eve had sinful bodies that would now die, and dead natured/sinful spirits, dead to God.
TO GET TO HEAVEN: You need a perfect body and perfect spirit, or a perfect spirit and no body.
WHEN JESUS COMES BACK TO EARTH: You will need both a perfect body and perfect spirit to enter into the Kingdom. (Lots more to come on this one)
God won’t let this problem we have go unsolved. In fact, you don’t even get out of Chapter 3 of Genesis before we read that the solution is coming.
It was almost 14 years ago that Uncle Bill lost his mind. I was at my “stressimus maximus”. I was miserable at work, and I knew that my day was coming soon. In fact, over the previous year, I had to lay off half of my team. Many of them were my friends, because we worked together for 7 years. This was the longest I’ve ever kept a job. I got lazy, and comfortable. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I got paid a sick amount of money for the work that I did, and I bet I could have stayed there another 7 years had that darn president not been elected.
It was December of 2011 and our AZ family went up north for our annual family vacation. I really like hanging out with you guys on these vacations. It’s awesome when we are all just chillin out and making fun of your parents together. We didn’t get to spend much time together on this vacation though. You guys were still pretty young, so you probably won’t remember uncle Bill’s breakdown. That darn guy who ran the nation worked his way into our conversation the first night there, and it got me all worked up!
I don’t even remember what your grandpa, your moms, or I said, but things got a little heated. Anyway, I stormed out of the room, flipping of my sister on the way out. (I’m sure you know which sister it was.) Lol I can’t explain it; I wasn’t myself, but I was. I don’t remember a time I was angrier and more upset. I couldn’t understand how they could vote for that guy knowing it was going to cost me my job. Family first, right? Whatever. The next morning, I got your aunt and Zach up super early and we drove home. Well, your aunt drove us home. Uncle Bill would’ve had to stay there until all the snow melted, if he had to drive down those crazy curvy mountain roads.
It took me about 3 months to get past that one. I swore I would never go on a family vacation again, but then they started to get more fun as you guys got older and we could hang. Also, a lot changed in the 3 months after my meltdown.
Flash forward just a few months after “fight night with the family”. I was driving my sad self to work. Even though my job was a long way away, I took the back roads there. I hate sitting on the freeway in traffic, I need to be moving. I also wanted to make sure I was mentally prepared for work, and sometimes that took me a while. Anyway, after I turned a 1-hour trip into a 2-hour cruise, I finally made it to the office. Something seemed different that day, and I still can’t explain why I felt that way.
Less than two months prior, I laid off half of my team. The people that actually made work half-way enjoyable for me, were now out enjoying their new free time, while I was still stuck at work. We got a new boss who was there to figure out what to do with our department. Most of our senior leadership team thought my area would go away with the recent bill passed in DC. They panicked, and they started cutting everything and everyone they could. Eventually, their theory proved wrong, and the department is now staffed back up. But I digress….
Anyway, I walked in to my office and pulled up my emails. There was a calendar invite for that afternoon with my boss and the human resources director, down in his office. This was it, layoff day! It was finally here! Now I have to wait all day??? It’s a little HR trick, to use Friday afternoons as the day to let people go. There is less disruption, the business is closed on the weekend, and you give the employees who still work there a few days to digest the news. I had been on the other side of this many times, but never the person waiting to be let go. It was weird.
Since I had to anxiously wait around all day, I slyly packed up everything I wanted to keep, and took several trips out to my car throughout the day. I was sneaky, so no one thought anything was up. I wasn’t supposed to know it was coming, but your Uncle Bill ain’t no fool. I went to lunch a few times that day, then I just sat around deleting emails and clearing out my desk.
Well, 4:00 finally came, and the news I was waiting a year for came with it. I was getting laid off! They offered me a severance package, which you never get when you quit a job. I was going to get paid for a few months while I look for another opportunity. This is crazy! I drove out of that place faster than the cookie dough disappeared after my sister found it! I went over to the K-mart down the road and called your aunt Steph from the nasty old payphone. (I had to give up my company cellphone)
Your aunt Steph knew this day was coming. She has had lots of days like this since she met me, and I would bet she expected it to happen a lot sooner than it did. On the way over to the payphone I was practicing how I would tell her. I started working on my voice inflections: ”Hey babe, (sounding down & out) I just got laid off”. I tried it a few more times before I got out of the car and put the quarter in the phone. I had to call her a couple times because she didn’t recognize the payphone number, so I had to keep that sticky, gross, nasty phone on my ear longer than I wanted to. Plus there were about 20 homeless guys in line behind me waiting impatiently.
My heart was racing. I had plenty of these conversations with your Aunt Steph before, but this one felt different. This one felt a little less my fault than usual. Still, it is hard to tell your wife you lost your job. Trust me, it doesn’t matter how many times you do it, that call home never gets easier. “Hey babe, I just got laid off”, I told her as I struggled to keep the joy in my voice contained. “They gave me a severance package, so I’ve got some time”. Your aunt Steph didn’t like the sound of “I’ve got time”, so she was quick to tell me I better start looking for a job now, because it can take a while. I mumbled “I’ll see you at home”, she told me she loved me, and I disinfected my face hand and ear, and got ready for the long drive home. I remember thinking: “she said she loves me, so she must not be that mad at me”. What a nutjob your uncle Bill is.
I got back in the car and started screaming with joy at the top of my lungs! Woooooooohoooooo! A few of the homeless guys thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care. It was OVAH!!!!!!!!! I felt all that stress just melt right off of me. I still can’t believe they keep paying you after they let you go. What a world! I stopped by my cousin’s house to celebrate and give him the good news. I called your grandma to break it to her as well. If there is anyone who has lived through more of my jobs than Steph it’s my mom. She worries about her boy. I am a momma’s boy; I’ll never be ashamed to admit it. My mom rocks. You know guys know it. Well, she wasn’t too happy about the job going away, but what’s a mother to do? Life got a little less hectic for my her when your aunt Steph came in the picture. It’s like now Steph could take over, and my mom could worry more about you guys. lol
I stayed at this job until God made me leave. I had never done that before. I didn’t handle the year I was waiting for layoff day very well, but I made it. I just kept thinking maybe now is the time to finish the book! This has to be why I got laid off. It’s frickin time!!!!!! Or maybe not….that was 13 years ago….
I spent the next few months before the severance money ran out, trying my hardest to get something written. It had to be the time now. Getting laid off work was the event that would catapult me in to being a successful author, right? Uh….Nope.
I tried starting my own business, and I shacked up in my sister’s office space. That lasted a couple months at best, because that darn president didn’t give me the free money I was hoping for. Still, it was way fire to spend some time with my sister! I even got to see Riley and Kali a lot because they weren’t in school yet, and the office became their daycare center some days. The conference room was their playroom/prison cell. Lol
Even with 4 months of total free time, I couldn’t get a thing done. Instead I went golfing, hung out with cousin Kenny, and spent money like I still had a job. I admit, the whole “getting paid for not working” thing was really not good for me. Your poor Aunt Steph, she saw the same pattern over and over during our time together. Make money, spend money, quit job, run out of money, find new job, make money, and on and on… It was a pattern that I’m sure she still has concerns might happen again in the future. After 4 months of pretty much stress-free fun, I started to get worried. It was obvious I wasn’t going to sell my book before the mortgage payment was due on our house next month.
I hope you learn a lot quicker than Uncle Bill, so you won’t have to go through so much of your life feeling the kind of stress I went through. Make no mistake, I brought all the stress on myself, and I had zero options left. I needed someone to save me from feeling so horrible.
I am literally bawling right now after typing out how stressed I used to be. I remember that sick stressful feeling so well, that it’s bringing me to tears because I haven’t felt that way in a long time. Wow. That is how God works kids! It’s like a total relief I can’t even begin to explain. It’s like I can finally breathe now…
Anywho, back to the story. The party was over, and I gave up. I brought in the big guns to help me. I had to do something drastic.
I need to get up and take a break. I can’t stop crying thinking about this stuff. Holy cow, things have changed a lot since those high stress times. I keep having these flashbacks in my head about what I was thinking back then. There were a lot of happy times sprinkled in there, but how could you ever really be happy, when your lifelong dreams are being shattered? It was a tough pill to swallow at the time, and that is why I am getting so emotional about it right now.
So where were we? Oh yeah, I started reading the Bible. I started praying those “please Lord, help me!” prayers with tears and sometimes fist pounding into the pillow or steering wheel of my car. I needed help getting rid of this pain and disappointment! So I went to the only option I had left: God.
It stinks that sometimes God has to bring people down so low, that they have to look up to Him for help. I am sure glad He brought me low, because it changed me forever.
Today was the first time in a long time that I looked at my life right now and said “it doesn’t get any better than this!” I try to imagine what it would be like had God decided to keep me at that job another 7 years. I can feel the stress just thinking about it. No joke, my heart rate went up and I started getting that feeling in the pit of my stomach again. At the time, I was so pissed off at the darn president, my family, the company I worked for, and anyone else I could blame. Now, I can’t imagine it all going down any other way. I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to, but with God’s twist on it.
This is how I usually notice God’s work in my life. It’s almost always when I take the time to reflect back on key events like losing my job and family fight night. Usually, when you are going through these big life changes, you’re not seeing things clearly. It is really hard to step back in the moment and ask God what He is doing, and what His purpose for it is. It takes a lot of practice, but Uncle Bill is much better at it now.
The moral of the story is that Uncle Bill couldn’t see that God had a plan that was different than his own. I never could have pictured that I would end up where I am right now. When God got the guy in the White House elected, I highly doubt He did it just so I would lose my job. There are a lot of easier ways to get me to leave a place. But He used the bill that was passed to get what He wanted done: me out of the job, and secure financially for the time being.
I should have never been stressed about a job enough to act the way I did on family fight night. I never should have let myself get so down when things didn’t turn around right after I was let go. I should have had more patience. Nothing ever moves fast enough for me, but God isn’t confined by time like we are. God is eternal, and outside of time. His timing in the events of my life was always perfect, because the things I went through and those moments in time, shaped me into who I am today. Little did I know He had quite a bit more teaching to go… Stay tuned. Next chapter I get schooled.
I just got back from taking the dogs out for our morning walk around the property. I like to pretend I’m a farmer, and I talk to all the animals next door as we head out back. It’s great, because I get the joy of hanging out on the farm, without all the farm work.
When we first moved in here, we got to see my new buddy Rico the calf being born. The chickens have always liked me, but big momma the cow, and Sadie the horse, would have nothing to do with me at first. I’m persistent, and every morning they get a “hi” from me no matter how far away they are. Nowadays, Rico and Sadie will go for walks with us sometimes. Me and the dogs on one side of the fence, and the big animals on the other side. It’s pretty funny to watch. The neighbors leave here for the summer to escape the heat, and although their daughter stops by once a day, I feel like it’s my job to keep the animals safe. I have chased off hawks, coyotes, and owls. Uncle Bill even stopped a huge hawk right when he was in flight swooping down on a little bunny out back. If I was a superhero, I would be called “Farm Man”. Did I hear a duck quack over there? I better go check it out!! Off we go… No lie, that is how I act. Ask your aunt. lol
When I am out there and I see all the animals, the green grass, and the vast horizon, I think a lot about what heaven will be like. This kind of daydreaming is one of the coping mechanisms I use to block out how awful this world can be sometimes. That daily walk, in my version of nature, is exactly what I need to start my day and put a smile on my face.
When I started learning about what heaven will actually be like, I was very surprised. I had this idea that our spirit went to heaven, and we spent eternity there as a ghost like being. I pictured everything I liked about this world being there in heaven, but with none of the worries. This was what I understood from all my time growing up in church and private school. I had no idea the Bible had so much more information on heaven in its pages. I had what’s called “Hallmark Heaven” knowledge. This is where most of your understanding about what heaven is like, comes from greeting cards you’ve seen over the years. It’s funny, but it is true. I had a very basic understanding of what heaven is really like.
One of the features of heaven that first caught my attention was the fact that animals are no longer afraid of humans, and they will all be tame. This is how it was in the beginning, before Adam brought sin into the world, and before the flood of Noah’s day. In heaven, all the animals will live in harmony with each other and us.
The Bible says that an infant can be playing out back and put his whole arm down a cobra’s hole and not be harmed. The cow and the bear will graze, and their young will play and hang out together. The wolf will be chillin with the lamb, and the leopard will take naps next to the young goat, not even thinking about eating him. A calf, young lion, and a chubby lamb, will all eat straw like an ox, while a little boy leads them. Animals won’t hurt or destroy anyone or anything ever. We will be able to train any animal, and they will actually follow your orders. I’m going to have a bear as one of my many best friends. I’ll have lots of dogs, and every farm animal there is. I know a few of you are animal nuts like uncle Bill, so this should be great news to you! There are not only animals in heaven, but they are all friendly and will like hanging out with you. My dad is going to ask for the dog free zone. lol
Another awesome thing about heaven is that there is no real work like we think of it today. There won’t be any worn out, dead tired and grumpy, just got home from the office days. You won’t have to get a job to pay for anything, and there won’t be any bills waiting for you in the mail. Plants get all the water and sun they need to grow to their fullest; food is always available, and gardening will be fun, not tiring. I can have my own farm and not have to be out working 14 hours a day in the heat to maintain it like my father-in-law did. I don’t know what will happen with all the animal poop, maybe it just quickly dissolves into the ground. (the stuff I think about…) We will build our own houses and nothing will ever wear out. Ever! Imagine that.
If life doesn’t feel like hard work, what will it feel like? ENJOYABLE! Even your uncle Bill, who has your Aunt Steph do any sort of minor house project now, will somehow be able to build a place to live in that won’t fall apart 10 minutes later.
Just think about how much better your life would be right now if you didn’t have to work at anything. What would it be like if everything came easy? Imagine coming home every day not having to worry about the car breaking down or your favorite shirt wearing out. You won’t be stuck in school studying all day, because you will know everything there is to know already. God will also be there, and you will be more alive than you ever will be here. One second in heaven would be worth giving up your whole life in this world for.
This is just a glimpse into what’s in store for those who believe in the promises God made in the Bible. Think about the times you were the happiest you have ever been. All those days added up, will pale in comparison to one day in heaven. I’ve only told you a couple things about heaven so far. The Bible has a lot more info we will get into as we go.
The very first time I read through the Bible I picked up a bunch of stuff that I never knew was in there. I also noticed that there was a lot that I thought was in there, but wasn’t. I was hooked. I read the Bible 5 times in 6 months. I tried several different versions, then started looking for a more in-depth Bible study. The stress was melting away, and I was learning something new every day. Do you know how long it had been since I learned something new, let alone something new every day, for almost a decade?
I remember one key moment when I was getting my mind blown from the stuff I was reading in the Bible. I prayed so hard that God would give me the time and passion to keep studying it. The time I spent learning what was in the Bible felt like the most important thing I have ever done. That is not normal, and I would doubt, but you never know, that God’s plan for all of you will turn out just like mine. My point is, it is not a normal human reaction, it is a God reaction. What person out there who has the “unique set of skills” that I have, would just let it all go and pray for God to give him more time for Bible study?
It’s not hard to imagine, that the words in the Bible I gravitated to first, talked about why I was going through this mess, and what my future will look like. There are things I stressed out about that the Bible said not to worry about for a second. The biggest thing most of us worry about at some point or another is dying. I didn’t realize I had that much fear of death lurking in my head, until I learned the Truth and no longer have that fear. I was always afraid of the actual way I would die, and because I didn’t really know what happens after that, I had doubts, anxiety and fear about it. I had greeting card knowledge of heaven, and that just isn’t good enough to help us live a life without needless worry and fear. Look how much easier it is for me to daydream about heaven now that I know what it will be like. The more I studied, the more the stress melted away.
Here are a few other things I worried about when I was in the age range you guys are in now: “Should I take that job? Should I quit my job? Should I leave the parent’s house? Am I going to die young? How am I going to die? Is God going to pay me back for all the dumb things I did? And the biggest one for me was; What am I going to do with my life?
The answers to all these questions came when I started to understand what sovereignty means. When the Bible says God is sovereign, it means He is powerful and trustworthy enough to override all He created. Nothing can stop any act or any event or design or purpose that God wants to make happen. That is sovereignty, and the Bible shows us How God has always had His hands in the creation. I’ve told you about the many times God has used His sovereignty in my life. Sovereignty is not Jesus “take” the wheel, it is Jesus “took” the wheel. Sometimes we will know when He took the wheel, other times we will think we are still driving, even though He is.
The Bible tells us that God determined where we would live before our parents were even born. God also determined what your calling/career/financial situation in life will be before you even had your first job. Love taking care of people? Guess what, God put that in you for a reason. The Bible isn’t saying God controls us like robots, but we are where we are because He made it so. We made our own decisions, but sometimes God made them for us, and the whole time we thought we did. Sometimes like in my life, you can see God’s sovereignty in the things that I am doing that a “normal” person would not. It’s not normal, and I am not normal. That right there is a big red flag and should draw attention to the fact that God is doing something in my life.
God also tells us that He set the day when each of us will die. This isn’t God just seeing the future, this is God marking the specific day, time, and event, that will bring about the end of your physical body. The Bible teaches us that death is inevitable for most of us, (more on the exceptions later) and since God already has it all planned out, there is no need to worry about it. Think on that for a second. If you can’t know when or how you will die, but you know God knows, and you trust Him, then why would you worry? He is a good father, and everything He does is for our long-term, eternal benefit. If you die early, then you get in to heaven sooner. If you know what heaven will be like because you studied, then it will be easier to prioritize that next life over this one. If you live longer, then you have more time to tell others how they can join you in heaven, and can help them understand what heaven will be like.
This is not some crazy talk. God tells us that we can’t add a day to our life, and that it’s pointless to make any effort to live longer in this world than God has already planned. Don’t get me wrong, God can and will use natural or human remedies as the catalyst to get you to live to the age He chose, but you can’t go past that day. You guys are all pretty young, so I doubt you are sitting around thinking about it like us old people do. Just know that God always has a purpose in everything He does. He is always proactive and never reactive. If he wants me to live to 101, then there is nothing I can do about it. I just want to finish this book and some Bible studies before it’s my time, but I’m ready whenever He calls me home.
We have no control over the day of our birth, and we have no control over the day of our death. Both were pre-determined by God a long time ago.
Learning about all of this has helped me a ton. If I listen to what God is telling me, then I can avoid stressing out about a lot of things. I worried a lot about dying young. Now I worry about living too long. It is a totally different state of mind, and one you can only get from studying and knowing the Bible. Had I never really understood that we all die, and God already set the date, I would still be stressing about it. Now it is irrelevant. If we all have to go someday, what difference does it make how or when it happens? We should all take care of our bodies; they are God’s design and creation. But, should we worry and stress that if we don’t do enough, we are going to die earlier than we wanted to? No way!
I love exercising. I should say, I love walking. I was considered overweight/obese most of my life. I know how much better I feel now that my eating and exercise habits changed. The more you exercise, the better you will feel. You will have more energy to do what God calls you to do. God can’t use a slouch who never gets off the couch. That’s how I was. I was useless to God because I didn’t take care of myself. So, in no way am I advocating for you guys to avoid trying to stay physically and mentally fit. I am saying don’t let it rule your life, and definitely don’t give credit to your diet and fitness regimen if you live to age 80. Credit the God who planned it out before the words diet and fitness ever existed.
I have to tell you this story. Big boy Bill had an eating problem, and he could never stay consistent with any exercise program. This was another reason why I was down in the dumps about my life back then. I hated how my body looked, and I had zero energy most of the time. Every time I tried to lose weight I gained it right back. Another fail, after fail in my life. Thankfully God gave me this face to look at as a distraction. Lol
I remember this one year, I got extra cocky about my weight goals. I wrote a letter to my family letting them know that I was going to lose a ton of weight by Christmas. We didn’t have emails or text back then in case you’re wondering why I always wrote letters. lol Christmas came, and chubby Uncle Bill had actually gained 5 lbs. I opened up a present, and it was the letter I wrote to the fam, put nicely in a frame. I’m sure I handled that well… Again, now I can look back and see all the times like this that God was working to bring my pride in check. I never forgot that day, so in a way it worked.
Flash forward to today. I might still have a dad bod, but I am not overweight according to US government health guidelines for my height and weight. Lol I love walking, and before I started going nuts writing this book, I was walking at least 15,000 steps or around 7 miles a day. I have been doing that for about 5 years now. Wait, what? Uncle Bill spent his whole life trying to get in shape and lose weight, but never could until God got involved? Now he has done it, and maintained it for several years? Is this another example of how God works in our lives? You better believe it.
When I first started really studying the Bible, I would always fall asleep reading it. I wasn’t getting as much study time in as I wanted to. I decided I would try walking around the house, listening to the Bible on my phone app with my ear buds in. If I stand up, I can’t fall asleep. I also found out that as long as I was listening to the Bible, or a Bible study, I could keep walking, and I could be consistent with it. I have to be careful, because I started to get obsessed with getting my steps in, instead of the real reason I started walking in the first place. I know I am only an injury or bad illness away from gaining all that weight back if I’m not careful. I found the secret formula, and I am in the best shape of my adult life. It is also no coincidence that God led me to a doctor on YouTube, who told me about what sugar does to our body, and changed the game for me. I even challenged Miles to the 100-yard dash, but he got scurred and cancelled it.
Balance in life is the key. Balancing all the junk you put in your body and brain with the good food and nourishment you can only get from time in the Bible should be our goal.
I told you earlier that many people think we can stop the earth from wearing out and ending, by driving electric cars and getting rid of cow farts. The same applies to your physical bodies. Many think if they never eat meat, go keto, fast, run marathons, and sleep in hyperbaric chambers, they will live longer. None of those things are wrong by the way. The wrong comes from a life focused more on that stuff, then on learning about and growing with God.
Everyone is looking for the key to longer life, but they fail to realize in the long run, none of it really matters. If God set the year you would die at 39, there is nothing you can do to prolong it. If God wants you to live as long as Methuselah did to 969 years old, you will, and nothing will accidentally take your life before then. God did it this way so that we don’t sit around and worry about our longevity. He wants us to focus on the fact that we will shed these sinful corrupting earthly bodies for new ones that never wear out or die. God didn’t want me to be so anxious and down about my weight my whole life. The stress only added to the problem. Just dumb…
While most of you were in school, uncle Bill was in the school of “hard knocks”. I avoided studying like the plague, and if I wasn’t interested in the subject, good luck getting through to me. I always thought I’d go back to school and get my college degree someday, and I didn’t know God has His own curriculum. Not having a college degree cost me a bunch of jobs, and I resented those positions that I was the perfect fit for, but couldn’t get because I didn’t have that degree. Now I can see why God kept me out of the university education system. Mainly, it kept me away from jobs I would have probably stayed at longer and made more money at. At the time that seemed unfair to me, but now I know why God kept me away from climbing the corporate ladder too high. I was just a middle manager in a sales department and I was a stress case every day. I can’t imagine the pressures of running a huge company.
I would much rather be here right now doing this, over running a multi-million-dollar company in corporate America. It’s not even a tough decision, and it wouldn’t matter how much they paid me. The only way I would switch places would be if God decided He wanted me to make that climb for some reason. From watching how He has worked in my life over the years, I am going to guess that is extremely unlikely.
To give you an idea of what God did to educate me, I put together a math question and some simple math equations.
If Uncle Bill studied or read the Bible for 20 hours a week, starting in March of 2012, how many total hours would that equal? What does that equate to in minutes, hours, and 24-hour days? How does that compare to the other schools?
Let’s show our work:
Uncle Bill’s Bible School
Length of program = 13.6 years and counting.
20 hours a week x 710 weeks (13.6 years) = 14,200 hours
14,200 hours X 60 (minutes) = 852,000 minutes
852,000 / 1,440 (minutes in a 24-hour day) = 591 days
Kindergarten-12th grade high school
Average hours per week = 30 hours
Length of program = 13 years.
30 hours a week x 678 weeks (13 years) = 20,340 hours
20,340 hours X 60 (minutes) = 1,220,400 minutes
1,220,400 / 1,440 (minutes in a 24-hour day) = 847 days
Bachelor’s & Master’s degree from university
Average hours per week = 20 hours
Length of program = 6 years.
20 hours a week x 313 weeks (6 years) = 6,260 hours
6,260 hours X 60 (minutes) = 375,600 minutes
375,600 / 1,440 (minutes in a 24-hour day) = 260 days
I think it took longer for me to do the math above, then it took me to write the rest of the chapter. Thankfully God didn’t have math as a pre-requisite for His Bible class.
Uncle Bill spent 13 years studying the Bible. I used 20 hours a week as average, but it was likely closer to 30 a week. If I was going to an accredited school, I would be working on my second doctorate in Bible studies with all the time God gave me. I’m not bragging, I’m just showing you how God made the impossible, possible. I’ve never been a good student, but now I am? I studied most of the day, every day for a long time, and I didn’t get bored and stop after 13 years? I couldn’t keep a job longer than a couple years because I got bored. I was never consistent at anything, and now I can say I have been consistent for 13 years? If you don’t see God written all over this, then you need a different school.
Those 3 years I spent on community college and university campuses never amounted to any real learning for me. Yes, I know you have to go to class to experience learning, but I was too busy learning on the mean streets of Mill avenue. You can’t learn that in them there colleges my nieces and nephews. Lol
I think it was so awesome of God to give me the answers to the questions that I needed answered the most first. Hopefully what I learned can help you guys as well, but nothing beats jumping in and reading it for yourself. The biggest question I had during Bible school was what is God doing this for? What is He training me for? It’s pretty obvious He is preparing me for something, but what? Today I know some of the answers, and they are all over this book.
Sometimes I think the Bible should come with a warning label. Since it doesn’t, I will give you one: “WARNING, CONTENTS INSIDE WILL CAUSE SIDE-EFFECTS”. I think the reason I avoided reading the Bible until it was made a requirement to attend God’s school, was that I was afraid to know what was in there. I was afraid there was going to be a bunch of rules that I didn’t know about. You know what they say: “what you don’t know can’t be held against you”. It was probably some of the dumbest logic I have ever used in my life. What am I some mob boss who doesn’t want to know the details of a hit he sent his guys out on, so he can deny it later? What a whack-job I am. lol
When God enrolled me in Bible 101, the first 6 months was nothing but reading the Bible. I told you some of the things I learned during that time in my last chapter. God gave me some peace and relief from stress and worry. He taught me that I shouldn’t be anxious over things I can’t control, and He helped me understand more about heaven. One of the side-effects I got from reading the Bible, was an overwhelming desire to share what I was learning. The stuff in those pages was so incredible, that I had to share it. Naturally, I started with the people I was most comfortable with, my family.
I remember, asking God to give me boldness and courage to tell you guys about God. I got Haley & Nikk’s email addresses, as well as the emails for my sister-in-law, my parents, the in-laws, my sisters, Steph and Zach. My plan was to start sharing Bible verses through that family email chain. I was pretty nervous the first time I sent one out. I started with just a Bible verse, then as I got bolder, I added some of my commentary on it. It’s hard to believe I was nervous about sending out an email, when I would end up doing live Bible study on Facebook a few months later.
I started the thereishopemyson.com website right at the end of my first semester in Bible 101, and would use it to post the same sort of things I was emailing the family. I started giving more detail and comments on the verses as I went along. The only school major that God offers is in Biblical Studies, so I didn’t have to worry about making that decision. There is only one book, and you can get it for free. If you know the One who runs the place, tuition is not a concern, and you will get help with room and board. Wow, doesn’t all this sound too good to be true? For me it was!
Everyone is looking for wisdom and learning that will help them find success, happiness, contentment, and peace in their lives, right? Nope, not everyone. Some will always think they can get the same thing from worldly sources.
My first goal was to help Zach understand and know who God is. We started going to one of the big churches here, and we were pretty consistent with it. Every time I went to church it seemed like the message was tailored to me. It was almost too hard to believe, but I lived through it, so I know it was real. I still have all the notes I wrote on the church bulletins during that time.
It was getting pretty obvious with everything that was happening to me, that God was training me up for something. It never felt like training though. It felt like reading the greatest piece of literature, history and wisdom ever written, and then finding out more and more every time I read it. I wanted more…I needed more. Does that sound normal? Do you know anyone who is obsessed with studying the Bible? Do you know anyone who also had the time to study it as much as they wanted to? I didn’t think so. This is how you know it is a sign. You already know a lot of my story, and you know I wasn’t picked to do this because of my qualifications. There is a saying out there that “God doesn’t call the prepared, He prepares the called”. My life is an obvious picture of that being true.
I started Bible study for Zach. I figured that I’d record it so he could listen to it the way you youngins like to. I quickly moved to doing them live on Facebook. I never pressured Zach to listen to the studies, and I never tried to sell him on anything the Bible talks about. I went through the Old-Testament verse-by-verse, and it took me 2 years and around 60 videos. The result was that Zach asked to be baptized, and I got to be the one to baptize him in my mom’s backyard pool! I can’t tell you what a relief and a joy that day was. Now I don’t have to worry about Zach’s eternity, and I know I get to spend forever with him. Who cares what job he has or what he accomplishes here, because that day will go down as the proudest of him I will ever be. You can tell someone you believe in God, but until you show it by getting baptized, no one really knows. I remember thinking maybe this is the reason God had me study the Bible; just to teach Zach.
I know of at least one of you guys, who was going to be baptized, but thankfully backed out. You have questions, and weren’t sure what you believe yet. Zach had no question. That doesn’t mean he knew all the answers, he just had no doubt God is real and that he should be baptized. It’s one of those: “if you know you know kind” of deals. It shouldn’t take convincing, and you just know you need to do it. I had very little understanding when I was dunked in a tank at Immanuel Baptist Church, but I knew I wanted to do it. I’ll tell you more about baptism when we get to the reason why we do it.
When I found out Zach was saved, (he told me he believed, and then got baptized to show everyone he believed) I moved on to thinking more about you guys. I now had a few years of Bible study under my belt, and I was ready to start some videos on the New Testament. I had a lot of momentum, and two years doing live Bible study is a long time. But for some reason, I never started anything new after that. I tried and tried, but soon realized that there was still a lot for me to learn. God can slow us down or even stop us from doing something whenever He wants to. I tried so hard to get new videos or Bible studies done, but I felt like I was stuck in the mud. I was bummed every day I sat there getting nothing done.
There is this Percy Jackson movie where they end up in the “Lotus Hotel & Casino”. This place is a trap, and the way it traps you is by making you lose track of time. You are eating something that alters your state of mind. They have all the fun & games and food you would ever need, and by the time you realize you’ve been there a long time, it’s too late to save the world. Geeze, that almost sounds like Vegas. Heck, it also sounds like my life in a lot of ways. Distracted, and time flew by with nothing accomplished but a bunch of fun and games… I look up one day, and I’m 40.
Anyway, I bring that movie scene up because that is how I felt up until 3 weeks ago when I started writing this book. I kept trying, but nothing. I kept stressing, still nothing. All it took was getting on the Facebook and hitting go live. All it took was me getting on the computer and typing out what I’ve learned. It’s not like it was physically or mentally hard. I knew the stuff, or so I thought. Why nothing? Again, a wise child of God will always ask why, even if you don’t get the answer right away, or the answer you were expecting.
The same thing was still happening on the job front. Although I was more optimistic and grateful about the jobs God gave me, I never had one that lasted. Many of the jobs during Bible school were part-time and temporary jobs. If someone was paying attention, they would notice that all the same things were still happening in my life, even after I started reading the Bible and changing my life. I was broke, and I went through more jobs in those 13 years than any similar timespan in my life. I was always “trying” to write, do Bible studies, get a job, or just do something. Nope…nothing done. There is a misconception out there that once you start reading the Bible, or once you are saved, everything in life is smooth. The Bible teaches the exact opposite.
So what was the difference between pre-Bible and post-Bible time for me? I had nowhere near the stress or fear after I started reading the Bible. There wasn’t even close to the same amount of anxiety. This time, I just let God drive. It isn’t easy giving up control, but God gave me no other option. I wanted in…all in, and you can’t do that and still try to drive.
To the world this is crazy behavior. But remember, I had already spent half my life doing the same thing, but I relied on me instead of God. Look how that worked out. This go-round, I put my trust in God, and He delivered time after time after time. There is nothing like the experience of seeing God come through in ways you never could have predicted. Nothing beats having to rely on God for everything.
The majority of you guys were still pretty young, so Bible study wasn’t the option God gave me to reach you. God wanted this book to serve that purpose. The first thing God gave me to help my research for the book, was lots of time to spend with you. I can’t even begin to count all of your visits, your soccer, your basketball, volleyball, plays, graduations, school music events, spring fall and summer breaks, babysitting, and of course every holiday and family vacation. I keep telling you this, not to brag, but so you see God was at work. What kind of uncle wants to spend that much time with a bunch of punk kids? Apparently, I do.
If God was going to have me write this book for you guys, I had to have some personal investment in you. I needed to know you all very well, and that can only come with time and interaction. I had to be visible and active in your lives for you to get the most out of what I am writing to you. I had to be available to be a baby sitter on short notice. I had to be around when spring break came and your parent’s had to work. I had to be able to take time off or be unemployed to attend all the vacations we went on together. I always had to have July 4th off so I could see my nieces. All of the time God gave me to spend with you guys is not normal. It’s not normal to have an uncle who has been “in-between jobs” most of your lives.
Before I ever thought about writing this book for you, I was spending a lot of time with you guys. Once I realized God has a plan to use me to help you understand Him and the Bible, I took things to another level. I started “Operation Undercover Uncle.” You didn’t realize it, but I was like the family spy over the last 10 years or so. I watched you keenly as you grew up into the fine young men and women you are today. I listened to see how you responded when issues the Bible talks about were discussed. I wrote down the questions I heard you guys struggle to answer about God. I paid attention to see if you went to church and what kind of church it was. I was laser focused on getting to know you and what you knew about God.
I made sure I attended every event of yours I could go to. Haley was the oldest when Jesus took my wheel and made a U-turn. I didn’t get to spend as much time with her or Nikk as the rest of you, because they were both older and didn’t need babysitting when I started my undercover work. One of the reasons I include so many pictures of you guys in the book, is so that you don’t forget that I’m not just some chump off the street, I am your uncle Bill, and we spent a lot of great time together. The pictures prove I was there for all those events, in case you forget when you get older. All of it is a testament to God at work in all of our lives.
My undercover work didn’t go so well at times. I almost blew my cover on many occasions, and worse yet, I almost blew my opportunity to get some of you to listen to me about God. I told you the Bible should have a warning label on it… Zeal is a word you hear in the Bible a lot. It’s the Bible word for passionate or enthusiastic. Uncle Bill had zeal for the Lord, for example. Well, uncle Bill had lots of zeal for the Bible and making sure everyone knew what was in it. I just failed miserably on most of the opportunities I had to actually teach others about it. You don’t need a Bible study for teachable moments, they happen all the time around us. It’s the in person, out of the blue, spur of the moment, teachable times I struck out at the most.
Poor Haley. Since she was the oldest, she got to experience Uncle Bill’s “I’m gonna let everyone know they are wrong” side effect. She had friends over to the in-laws and I acted holier than though when they came back talking about the rocks and crystals in Sedona. The buildup started earlier when my mother-in-law was showing me some of the rocks they got up there. I kept hearing things like this one is for healing, this one for protection, and there was one for spiritual something or another. I literally was just studying about the Israelites and their fake gods they started to worship, and how God kicked them out of the land over it. Many worshipped trees, and other parts of nature too.
I couldn’t hold back anymore and just went off about how ridiculous all this spiritual rock and crystal stuff was. I should have just sat there and soaked it in so I could write about it later, but nope. I went nuts, and then ended up leaving before I lost it any more. I didn’t understand how they could think a rock could help them. I got home, and later got a text from Haley. She was mad at me for acting like a punk in front of her friends. (my words, not hers) I typed out a reply right away saying “ thank you for letting me know, love you”. That is what I should have sent, but nooooo… I cleared it out and started ranting about worshipping rocks and how crazy that is. Nobody was worshipping rocks, uncle Bill overreacted. We went back and forth for a few more texts, before I let it go. Dumb. I felt bad every day for almost a year. I wanted to reach out every day, but I didn’t want to blow it.
How could I let my favorite niece (whoops lol) be mad at me for that long? All I know is that I wanted to reach out, but I never did. Maybe there was a reason for that? Finally, not long before our annual trip to Hawley lake on the 4th of July, Haley texted me telling me that she loves me and doesn’t want to fight or for it to be weird up camping. I was in San Diego on vacation with most of you when I got that text. I doubt you noticed, but I had a lot more pep in my step after that. What a relief that was!
Now, I ask you again, does any of this sound like normal behavior to you? First, why did every ounce of my body ache listening to the descriptions of what the rocks and crystals supposedly do? Was it because it was so fresh in my mind from my studying of the Bible? Why couldn’t I stop myself from clearing out my original text reply and instead babbling on about how I was right? Would most uncles worry about it day after day, or would the worries of their own lives take priority? I learned a lot from this experience, and that is exactly what God wanted from it.
The next people on my holier than thou tour were my sisters and parents. I had been on a few vacations with the AZ nieces and nephews, and I learned from my undercover work that you didn’t know a whole lot about the Bible. I decided I would go to your church for Christmas one year. That didn’t go well. I didn’t flip out and leave the church in the middle of the service, but I wanted to. They had some missionary “healer” lady who spoke about her escapades in some other country. It was Christmas, and I was listening to someone tell me these wild stories about healing miracles? I believe God heals people all the time, but being healed of what ails us in this physical body that is dying, is not near as important as healing our soul that will live forever.
I went home and started watching videos of past sermons on your church’s website. No lie, I spent several days watching videos of sermons non-stop. I took a half of a notebook full of notes as I watched. I paused it to make sure I heard something right, and I paused it when I needed a break after what I just heard. So, after 3 days listening to more sermons from your pastor than any of you have, I decided texting the whole family about my frustrations would be a good idea. Again, I had to let everyone know that I thought their church was horrible at preaching from the Bible. I had to tell them I didn’t think you guys were going to learn anything there.
I rarely heard the pastor mention how someone is saved in all the videos I watched, and the little Bible preached was all from the same 4-5 books of the Bible. Almost all the sermons were filled with stories of the preacher’s time in some other country helping out those in need with shoes. There was always another book that was promoted besides the Bible. Either some Christian author, humanitarian, or the preacher’s own book. It was all milk, there was no meat, no bread to anything I heard. Anyway, that went about as well as you would have expected. My sister was pretty upset about it. I put her and all the family on the defense, why wouldn’t she come out swinging? I remember thinking I thought the whole world was against me. First the incident with Haley and the mother-in-law, now this?!! What in the heck is going on? Why do I care that much? Why did I have to watch hours and hours of sermons just to prove a point? Why did I have to send that text? Yet another experience I learned a lot from.
The next blow-up came at my dad’s expense, and it ended up being about your church again. Dad was trying to be the peacemaker so he asked me out for a walk. We didn’t talk much about the church until we got back by the cars. I told him the main mission of the church is to teach the congregation and to help unbelievers know how to be saved. Everything a church does should be centered around training and shepherding your congregation. We didn’t see eye to eye on this one, and out of frustration, I threw my water bottle on the ground and took off. He didn’t want to listen, he just said I was wrong.
I went home and skimmed through the whole Bible looking for the verses that supported my view of the church. I worked on it non-stop from the time I left the park until a few days later when I sent it to him. The word doc I sent him was 13 pages long! It is filled with Bible verses talking about the role of the Church. Who does that? A crazy uncle who is trying, and failing, to look out for you guys. Did we go through the doc verse by verse to see what was right? Not yet. (LMK if anyone wants to read the word doc & I’ll send it)
There are many more stories I may get into later, but I feel bad enough for now. I could have, and should have, handled all these situations better. One of the reasons I wanted to tell you about this is because I want you to see how unusual all of this is. The way I handled things was pretty crazy. I wish I could explain the side-effects I had. I wasn’t thinking I was better than anyone, I was frustrated that no one would believe me about what is in the Bible. It’s like I was speaking a foreign language.
I got like this when I was trying to look out for you and what you were being taught. I had control over what Zach learned first, but I have no control over what you guys did. I didn’t care if it was coming from your church, your teachers, or your parents, I wanted to make sure you got the truth from the source…the Bible. It’s not about who is right or who is wrong, it is about taking the time to do your homework and figure it out for yourselves. God is not a God of confusion; He wants us to understand Him and His plan. It’s not rocket-science, yet so many treat it like it is. You guys mean everything to me. Making sure you have the chance to know the truth is all I care about. I’m selfish, I want to spend eternity with every one of you! I am trying to leave as little doubt as I can that I did my part to share the truth and keep you away from false teaching.
Another side effect I got from ingesting the Bible every day was guilt. The more you learn about what God has done for us, the more you want to please Him. The Bible tells us the best way to please Him is to obey Him. You just read about how I did anything but obey God most of my adult life and look where that got me. I started to feel guilty about a lot. I started writing posts on Facebook telling Zach I’m sorry for letting this world get into such a mess. I told him that it was me and my generation’s fault we are in the state we are in as a country right now. I wrote apology posts to my grandma, my parents, my wife, and all the people I treated badly in my life. I’ve included a few for you below.
There are side-effects for almost anything you do. Some are good side-effects, some not so much. Although your Uncle Bill didn’t handle the learning lessons God sent his way very well, I am much better prepared to handle it going forward. God also made sure I got to learn these lessons with my family who can’t disown me. lol
The “I’m Sorry Phase Posts”
Hi Grandma Landis.
I never told you how much I love you. I don’t think I even said the words very often. I was too busy thinking about you nagging me. I didn’t realize until later that you had every reason and every right to give me grief.
Maybe you will think what I used to do to you is funny now. Hopefully you can see the changes I am trying to make in my life. I know someday I will get my payback; it might be from my own grandchildren when I get older.
I’m sorry for taking out the tobacco from your cigarettes and replacing them with random household spices and mustard to hold it all in. I still think you never knew, you never said anything about it.
I feel bad about cranking up the music on the intercom system when you had just fallen asleep. I won’t soon forget you coming out of your room screaming “you damn kids, turn that radio down!” I think I blamed it on Ken or Christian, I can’t remember now.
I feel horrible about loosening the bolts on your extendo-toilet seat. I am thankful you never fell off of it.
How about the time my parents were out of town and you were charged with watching all us rascals. You kept asking me what was going on as girls kept coming in to use the restroom. “I just have a couple friends over” I told you. “We are just swimming out back”. Well, your suspicions were correct, I was having a party. There were about 20 people out back, but I only let the girls come in to pee. Yes mom, I am finally admitting that it was my bag of empty beer bottles out in the middle of the alley behind our house. And yes, those were my beer bottle caps you randomly found around the house over the months that followed. We would flick them with our fingers to see who could make them fly the farthest; we just couldn’t find all of them.
Grandma, I still can’t believe we would call you from Aunt Joyce’s house (before caller id) saying in our best Colonel Clink voice: “this is the Gestapo; you are to report to headquarters immediately or will be shot. Do you understand me Lillian?” Yes, that was me, even though I didn’t admit it when you asked me: “Billy did you crank call me? Someone said something about shooting someone”.
One of the worst I remember was when Ken just moved out here to AZ to stay with us until Aunt Joyce moved here. We devised a plan to really get you going. We sat on the couch while you sat in that chair of yours. It started when I put on my shoes and you asked me where I was going. I told you I was going to hang out with my friend. You wanted to know if I was taking Ken with me. I said “no, I don’t like him. I don’t want him to go”. You were so mad that you started that thing where you say all your grand-kids names before you finally got to the right one: “Wendy, Kristi, Tommy….Billy.” You couldn’t believe I just said that with Ken sitting there acting all lonely and depressed. “He’s no fun grandma” I said. Inside Ken and I were busting up laughing; you just about had a heart attack. Sorry grandma!
When I look back and think about all the rotten things I did to you, it’s partly because we spent a lot of time together. I understand now how lucky I was to have you around. Ken and I both cherished the times we came to visit you in the nursing home those last years of your life. We had some great conversations and I remember feeling like I could just be myself around you. It made my day.
The day you died I showed up at the nursing home before you took your last breath and went to heaven. I remember everyone was there huddled around you. You hadn’t said much all day and you weren’t in the best spirits. When I walked in the room, you perked up, smiled and said “hi Billy”. After all I did to make your life a challenge you didn’t hold it against me.
As Ken and I drove behind the hearse in your funeral procession, I couldn’t help but feel you were there with us. It was an incredibly beautiful overcast day and Ken and I cruised with the top down in my old Toyota. We still talk about that drive all the time, it was almost magical.
I love you and miss you. I promise things will be different with me next time I see you.
Your grandson,
Billy
Tillie and Abe.
I want to thank you for having such a big impact in my life. Not many people would have accepted all us crazy friends of Gabby and Tommy. You guys opened your house up to us at all hours of the day and night. You fed us, gave us a place to crash, and offered lots of great advice when we needed it. You treated me like one of your own kids.
I learned a lot about what grace looks like from you. Yes, you got mad at “pinche Bruno” many times, but you never held it against me for very long. Usually by the next morning you were saying “mijo, come get some breakfast”, again taking care of me. I was also amazed at how hard you and Abe worked. Especially impressive after we woke you up at 3am the night before.
I’m sorry it has been so many years since I’ve seen you and Abe. I should have come over to introduce you to my son, he is 11 now. I think part of me wanted to wait until I was successful or finally finished my book. I wanted you guys to be proud of me, and I didn’t feel very good about myself so I shut everyone out.
You and Abe mean more to me than you will ever know. I have many great memories of the time I spent with you. Todos ustedes son mi familia!
Thanks for putting up with my sarcasm and smart-ass mouth. Thanks for always being such great examples for me to follow. Your marriage was always what I wanted mine to be like when that day came. You showed me a lot about how important family is. I’ll never forget it.
I know it has been a long time, but I promise to try and make up for it. I told Gabby it would be great if we could all get together sometime over the holidays.
If you guys ever need ANYTHING, I will be there for you like you were always there for me.
I love you guys,
Guillermo
Mom, I am sorry for all the stupid things I did. I am sorry for not realizing sooner how big of a role model you were. I’m sorry for lying to get my way.
I’ll never forget coming home late one night to see all my clothes you told me to pick up off the floor in my room now laying on the bushes and ground outside my window. I won’t forget coming home from a night out partying with my friends and finding my bed in the garage because I didn’t make it before I left like you told me to.
I’m sorry for being so stubborn and actually sleeping on the bed in that hot garage that summer night just to prove I didn’t really care about it, or that it didn’t really bug me. I wouldn’t let you win. I’m sorry for always scheming my way into you giving me money or using some “spin” to get out of doing chores.
I should have realized this sooner, but you are the most generous, loving, and gracious person I know. I am so happy I am finally starting to take after you. So many things I learned from you and dad I am trying to pass on to Zach.
I deserved every punishment you and dad gave me, and probably much more. I thank you for dragging me to church every Sunday and Wednesday night. I appreciate the example you both set for me.
I would not be who I am today without your love and praise.
I love you!
Your son.
I just turned 18 a few days earlier when I decided to go get my first lottery ticket. Maybe this was the way I was going to get rich. I felt it! God was going to take care of me! I sat at home watching tv with my dad that night and anxiously waited to see my winning numbers get drawn. I can’t say dad was really watching, as usual he was half asleep. Then came the moment I was waiting for my whole life. The drawing was almost here, I was soon to have it all! Suddenly my dad woke up and said “son, you need to take out the trash, they are coming to pick it up tomorrow”. Knowing me, this was probably the 10th time he had to remind me.
I pulled out the lottery ticket from my back pocket and held it up to show him. In the cockiest way I knew how I said “see this dad, I’m going to win. In the morning, I am going to pay you to take out the trash”.
How many of you would have got away with that one?
Sorry Dad! Thanks for your patience with me. I hope you are starting to see that the lessons you taught me didn’t just fall on deaf ears, but actually did sink in.
I love you,
Your son.
Son, first, you need to know what we are up against. You need to know what got us into this mess. I am to blame for much of what you are seeing wrong. If it isn’t’ apparent to you yet, there sure is a lot of “bad news” these days. It is no wonder I lost sight of what is important during times like these. Prayer and faith are the only things that can get us through. It took way too long for me to realize that.
I’m sorry I had to sit in my car for 15 minutes once I got home from work to cool off and let go of my anger and frustration. I’m sorry you had to witness me arguing with my family over things I had no control of. I’m sorry you had to hear me call our political leaders names and talk down about the great people of this country. Maybe you can reverse the curve.
Lord, thanks for this awesome responsibility! Thank you for the lessons you are teaching me every day. Thank you for helping me understand that I have to prepare harder for those who “think” they know your Word than I have to for those who have never read it.
I’m sorry I got frustrated tonight. I’m sorry I started to feel sorry for myself about how difficult this road you have me traveling down is and will be. I can read story after story in the Bible to see that these feelings are typical of all who know the Truth and try to help others realize it. I know I am not alone and you are always with me.
I’m trying Lord. Please continue to be patient with me. Please continue to use me as you will. Thank you for knowing I could handle it with your help. Thank you for equipping me with the tools to do the job. Thank you for creating me for this purpose.
Please help me worry more about what pleases you than what pleases others.
I have lots of undercover/spy work in my background, so when God asked me to keep an eye on you young whipper-snappers, I already had the experience. My dad had a Dodge K car, and I used to pretend it was my undercover cop car because it fit the profile. (Zach will probably know what that car looked like.) I called it the “FBI-mobile”. I didn’t drive it much, for obvious reasons, but sometimes Ken and I would take it out and park in front of people’s houses I knew. Most of the people weren’t major criminals, but I could see them peak out of their windows, and sometimes come out to their car, like they were getting something out of it. When they looked, we would act like we were writing something down or calling for backup on the CB radio. This is what life was like before the internet. It was hilarious. I would sit there for an hour if I saw anyone checking me out from the house. I remember a couple people bringing it up that next weekend, but they never knew it was me.
So you can see I was a natural at the spy game. Another time I sat outside all night waiting for some young punks who tried to prank my house. They filled up my recycling bin with water and leaned it up against the front door. The plan was that I would open the door, and 30 gallons of water would flood inside the house and on me. (see pics) Luckily, we don’t use the front door, and I noticed it when I came back from the store. That night I waited for them, and I parked my car down the street so if the turkeys ever came back, they wouldn’t suspect me. I got tired so I set up a chair in my backyard by the gate and kept an eye out front. They are lucky they never came back. lol
The funniest time was when I lived in Tempe with all my buddies. There was a 7-11 right across the busy street. The payphones were always in use, and they usually had lines. Yes, the payphones again. This is was what you had to do if you were on the road, and lots of people bought alcohol there so it was always busy. Every day around the same time, we would see the same guys hanging around the phones being all suspicious. They were always looking around, as they made and received calls there. We decided to spy on them, so we wrote down the phone numbers of the payphones when they weren’t around. We walked over to 7-11 at least 3 times a day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so there were plenty of opportunities.
The next night the payphone crew was back, and we had a great view of the payphones. Some nights, just hanging out on our patio watching the 7-11parking lot, was entertainment for us. If you went upstairs in our condo, you would have an even better view, so I’d go upstairs and call the pay phone:
ring ring: (the recognizable sounds of a payphone ringing)
Cut to: sketchy looking guy in a green shirt
guy: ”Yo”
me: “Sup dawg?”
guy: “What you want?”
me: “what you got foo?”
guy: “What you need?”
me: “How much you got?”
guy: “how much you got”?
me: “ I got enough to afford better clothes punk”
guy: “What you talking bout? Who gave you my number?”
me: “Your momma gave me your number foo. She told me to tell you that green shirt is ugly dawg”.
Guy starts looking around, wondering what the heck is going on.
me: “This is Tempe PD; you are using this phone to conduct illegal narcotic transactions. We are on the way.”
He would start looking around, we would duck. It was pretty funny. We used to call the phones just to see if the rando walking by would answer it. One time we got girls who just bought a bunch of alcohol to answer the phone. We talked the ladies in to coming across the street to party. Good times.
I now have over a decade of spying on you guys under my belt, and I gathered a lot of intel during that span. You already know that God gave me plenty of time with you guys, and that time allowed me to get lots of insight I needed for this book.
What I observed were some of the most amazing, kind, honest, and caring young people in the world! I have to be the luckiest uncle there is! God wanted me to spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephews, and He couldn’t have given me a better bunch. Thank you for always wanting to hang out with me. (or at least faking it well) Thanks for always talking to me about all kinds of different of things. God definitely blessed me when you guys were born.
So what did the family spy discover?
For one, it made a big difference growing up in Baptist churches. If you compared my behavior at age 17, verses your behavior at that same age, you would see a remarkable difference. If I took a poll of 100 people, and I had them watch a brief flashback of all of our lives, 100 of them would say I was the kid who didn’t go to church. My behavior was horrible; yet all you guys are little angels in comparison? That goes to show you that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Just because little Billy walked in and out of church thousands of times, doesn’t mean he’s a better-behaved kid than those who didn’t.
You can be a Christian on the inside, but look nothing like one on the outside. You can be an unbeliever on the inside, but look nothing like one on the outside. This is what makes it so hard to identify who is a saved and who is not. There is no secret handshake Christians get to help identify each-other. Any one of you could tell me you believe, (and I would trust you) but there is really no way to prove it. Baptism is about as close as we can get to knowing. It’s rare that someone who doesn’t believe in God will go through with a baptism in front of other people. We have an example of that in our own family. Still, under pressure from parents, or from the church, unbelievers do get baptized. There are also many Christians who have never been baptized, so that won’t help anyone be 100% sure.
Here is what I do know… I didn’t have as many questions as you guys do about God. Part of that is your church or lack of church, part of that is your parents not teaching you, part of that is on you for not listening if anyone did tell you, and part of that is the world we live in today. I am sure there were tons of atheists out there when I grew up, but I never heard from any of them. You are bombarded with more false information about God in one week, than I was in my whole pre-internet life. Before I started reading and studying the Bible, I couldn’t have answered most of the questions you guys have about God now. Some of the questions you have, I never would have even thought to ask. That is how different the worlds we grew up in are. My faith wasn’t challenged every day like you guys had growing up.
All of this was by God’s design, so I am not bagging on you guys or your parents. Had you all gone to churches that preach the Bible consistently, maybe you wouldn’t need this book. If you didn’t need this book, then what would I have done? What else would be different? Would I have had the same amount of time with you? What if I had a career with a job that I worked at for 60 hours a week when you guys were younger? Everything happens for a reason. Of course, I would have preferred you guys knew more about God, because I know it would have helped you. But maybe that’s why I am here, it sure seems to be my purpose.
What I had growing up was an unshakeable belief that God created everything, including me. If evolution was taught in school, I don’t remember it. I knew creation history, so nothing ever got me to doubt where I came from. On the other hand, I don’t know how you guys couldn’t have doubts about your origins. In your lives, you’ve probably heard about evolution 10,000 x as much as you’ve heard about the creation account in Genesis. (and that is if you go to a church that believes in God’s creation story) You need more info to defend Bible history than I ever needed, yet you aren’t getting near as much as I had.
I listened as you talked about the preachers who drive Lambos, own jets, and live in multi-million-dollar compounds. I noticed when Haley talked about all the billboards in the south and how they shout God at you, tell you that hell awaits, and crazy things like that. I have heard some of you use the word spiritual in a sense I don’t understand, and I know is not the Biblical meaning. I saw some of you disappointed when a preacher you liked fell from grace. I saw some struggle to identify where the stars and planets came from. In fact, I wrote down all of this stuff when it happened. My decade of undercover work gave me some great insight into what this book should be about. Spy-work was fun, and it felt like just hanging out with you guys, paying attention to you, and chillin, gave me everything I needed to write the book.
One of the biggest areas of question from all of you was about creation. That’s why I spent a bunch of time on it in my book, and I plan to do a creation vs evolution Bible study in the near future. Another insight you needed more on is the sovereignty of God. I wanted to make sure you guys heard that term and understood what it means. I wanted to show you how you can tell God is in charge of His creation by what has happened, and is still happening in my life. I am hoping you will have your own understanding and experiences watching God work in your lives someday, if you haven’t already. I wrote about death, and why so much evil is in this world, because those topics came up a lot. Everything I cover in this book I got from you.
I know that the world you grew up in makes young people feel unimportant, and that your life means nothing. I know what you are being taught in school, and what you are not hearing enough about in church. I know they tell you this earth and universe is permanent, and we are the temporary ones, which is the total opposite of what God tells us. I know the majority of the world is wrong about who God is, and I want to help equip you for that challenge. Most of all, I just want to make sure you know the truth so you can make a decision for yourself. Without a doubt, God is real and the Bible is Truth. You can trust me, or go read it for yourselves. I am also hoping that by reading about what God has done in my life, you will have more insight into who God is and how He works. Everyone lives forever; it is where you live that matters. I want you to live in the same place I’ll be in. Heaven. (more on this to come)
Thankfully, I learned from the side-effects I had early on. I learned that you don’t always have to “tell” people about God. In fact, there is a saying: “preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words”. This time around I was determined to do more “showing” instead of “telling”. How did Uncle Bill handle that situation vs what my teacher told me? Why is my mom so stressed, when uncle Billy doesn’t have a job and he looks relaxed? Why is uncle Bill so much cooler than my parents? Why doesn’t uncle Bill get worked up over silly little things? When we are on vacation, I’m never glued to my phone, because I am talking with you guys. I want to show you how important you are to me.
Tell me that you haven’t noticed uncle Bill is different. Before you think anything, I mean in a “good way” different. lol You’ve seen the unnecessary stress on family vacations and holidays; I made sure I was carefree and go-lucky uncle Bill. I didn’t just show up every once in a blue moon to your events, I was consistent in attending most of your things, for most of your lives. I made fun of other adults, and took your side 90% of the time. Most of the time you saw me I didn’t have a job, but I made sure you knew I wasn’t stressed. Stress is something you can’t hide for long, so you would have noticed if I was faking it. Do you know any adults who are not afraid to die, and would be perfectly fine if it was today? Most of you know I live like that now.
There is absolutely no doubt that you can see the peace I have. Now that you have this book, you don’t have to guess as to why I have it. Peace comes from understanding. I tried extra hard when I was around you to show you how different I am now. I’ve tried to model what God expects me to be to all of you. I have failed many times and succeeded some as well. I’ve tried to show you how different I am because of my relationship with God. I know you are all very perceptive and can tell when adults are being hypocrites. I talk to you a lot and try my best to always listen attentively.
Below is the large poster size sheet I used to write down the topics I got from being a spy. Don’t worry, I am not going to cover all of that in this book, but it will make great Bible study topics down the road.
This chapter may be the most important thing I ever write. I want to make sure I cover enough to give you a good understanding, but there is so much in that great Bible that I can’t even begin to do it justice in my little book.
I have purposely been vague about a lot of things when it comes to who God is, and what His plan is. I did this because that is how everyone felt who lived before the Messiah came. This is also how most of Israel feels to this very day. God hadn’t revealed who the savior would be yet, so there was always a void or limit to what they could know. God’s plan was always moving forward; it just took longer than humans could have imagined. Every generation of God’s people starting with Adam was waiting for the promised Savior King. The later you were born in God’s timetable, the more of God’s plan you could have known. Still, it all couldn’t truly be revealed until the Savior came and everyone got to see Him and know who He is.
There were around 450 prophecies given to the people of Israel over 1,000 years of history, to help them identify their Savior when He arrived. The Jews, especially the priests, knew the Old-Testament like the back of their hand. They not only knew all the verses; they knew exactly what page each verse was on and what part of the page it sat. They studied night and day. There was no other people group given the Old-Testament, so Israel of all the nations should recognize their Messiah when He comes.
I’m pretty sure you all know the story. The Messiah came, and His name is Jesus. He came to save the nation of Israel from bondage to sin and the penalty for it. They rejected Jesus as the promised one from scriptures, and they eventually had him killed for saying He was the Son of God. But (and this is a big but!) in triumph over death, Jesus rose from the dead! It’s easy for us to know all this now, because we have history and the Bible on our side. (we were born after the whole Bible was written and all prophecy was given.) In this chapter, I am going to try and focus on some of the things I didn’t know until I started studying the Bible. Things that blew my mind about Jesus and what He did for us.
Do you remember in Genesis 3, when we heard about the seed of woman crushing the serpent’s head? We talked about it back then, but this was predicting the virgin birth. God placed the Messiah inside the womb of Mary, and she was told to name him Jesus. The Hebrew word for Jesus means “God saves”. Here is what is so important about that virgin birth. Because Jesus did not have an earthly father involved in the procreation process, he was not born with the same corrupt and dead spirit we inherited from our parents, and their parents, and so on, back to Adam. This is why the Bible calls Jesus the “second Adam”. God gave mankind a second chance. Jesus would be tested much more than the first Adam was. All Adam had to do was stay away from one tree, while Jesus’ temptations were much more intense. Jesus passed with flying colors, unlike Adam.
Jesus was the only man after Adam to be born with a spirit and body that is perfect and not corrupted by sin. Jesus would still need to go His whole life without sinning for any of it to count. He had to be perfect. We can see a picture of this in the Old-Testament and the temple sacrificial system God set up for Israel to use. The animals they sacrificed had to be free of blemish, imperfections, and deformities. They had to be perfect, or God would not accept them as a sin offering. These animal sacrifices were a picture of the true Lamb of God that would be sacrificed once and for all for our sin. (Jesus) The Passover lamb sacrifice was the ultimate picture of Jesus. This started right before Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt. Check out Exodus chapter 12 if you are interested.
We learn early on, that God requires blood to atone for sin. In the garden, we didn’t hear specifically about the sacrifice of an animal, but we did hear about God giving Adan and Eve animal skins for covering. This was a clue that God killed an animal as a sacrifice for Adam & Eve’s sin. (You can’t take an animal’s skin without killing it.) Once Jesus came and made his ultimate, once and for all sacrifice, there was no need to shed the blood of animals again. Take notice that Israel doesn’t have a temple anymore to sacrifice in. If they could build one on the site of the original temple and start sacrificing animals today, they would. They haven’t accepted that Jesus was the Messiah, so they don’t believe in His sacrifice, and they think they still need animals to cover their sin. Stay tuned, because Israel will build another temple right on the temple mount where the Muslim dome of the tock sits now. This all happens before Jesus comes back. I’ll fill you in a little later on how that all shakes out.
God also required that the sacrifice to save us had to be someone just like us. A human. Sacrificing animals doesn’t make up for man’s sin, it just covered it until they sin again. We would need a man to be our substitute, so sin is paid for once and for all. Each of us has our own sin. We have to pay our own penalty, so it’s not available to pay for anyone else. Who sets the rules for what counts as an acceptable sacrifice to save us from the death penalty of sin? God does of course. He required a “like” substitute, and this is why Jesus, who is and always was God, had to empty himself of His God powers. Jesus had to be born as a man, and He had to experience what we all go through in life here on earth. All of this so that Jesus could relate to us, having been in our shoes, and so His death would count as an acceptable sacrifice. Jesus coming down in all his Godly power and glory to save the earth was not the solution God wanted. No, Jesus became human just like us. Of course, this doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t still God. You can’t just give up your title and power that you’ve had for eternity, and not still be God. The point is, the advantages that being God had, did not help him during His time here as Jesus the man.
Next time He comes back we will see Jesus with all his Godly power and glory, and He won’t look anything like the Jesus that walked the earth. In fact the Bible tells us we will call him by a new name that nobody even knows right now. When Jesus comes back, this is what He will look like:
Revelation 1:13-17
‘and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, ‘
John, who wrote the book of Revelation, was one of Jesus’ closest disciples here on earth. Yet, John fell down in fear at the sight of Jesus in his heavenly form. This is much different than the human response should have been to someone John spent so many years close to. John didn’t run in for a hug like some might think, instead John was on the ground like a dead man. Would you expect God in all His power and glory to look like a humble Jewish servant? Nope, that was only for a short period of time in history, and for a specific purpose. The way Jesus looks in the verses above is the Jesus we will be around forever. We won’t have the fear like John did, because we won’t be hiding sin. When we see Jesus next, we will be perfect.
So, I mentioned there must be blood (death) to atone for our own sin, and that the sacrifice God accepts on our behalf, must be perfect, and a man just like us. Here is another thing that had to happen for God to accept Jesus as a substitute for you and me. Jesus had to die willingly. God the Father couldn’t force His Son to come to earth, give up His God powers, be rejected by His people, spat on, tortured and hung from a cross. Jesus had to volunteer knowing exactly what He was in for. Here is a good one for you: The Bible tells us that Jesus, created the universe and everything in it. That means that Jesus created it all, knowing He would eventually have to die on that cross. What? Any chance you or I would have done that? I would have found another way, or just not created the place or the people. He created it anyway. The greatest event in human history was the day the Savior of the world entered the world He created to save it. Tell me there is any kind of love greater than that. I’m waiting…
Before we move on, I want to be clear on something that is very important. You need to understand what the Bible means when it speaks about “life” and “death”. The word “life” is used around 450 times throughout the Bible. It is on the first page of the Bible and it is on the last page of the Bible. The word “death is used 372 times. The first mention is in the first book of the Bible chapter 21, and the final mention is in the last book of the Bible, chapter 21. Hmmmm, coincidence? There are lots of little things like this in the Bible where you have to look at it and know God wrote it. Everything in there, and the order it’s all in, is something only a supreme being (God) could dictate.
The Bible uses the word life to symbolize enteral life with God in heaven. If you have life, then you are saved. As a believer in Jesus, and what He did on the cross for me, I am assured I will live forever in heaven with God. That is what “having life” means in the Bible. The word death, is used to symbolize an eternal life without God. If you are dead right now, that means you are an unbeliever. As an unbeliever, you are still assured you will live forever, It just won’t be with God in heaven. You will need to be brought to life before you can enter heaven. Death never means nonexistent, it means separation. Before you think that living forever away from God doesn’t sound that bad, you need to know the truth. I’ll have that covered in another chapter. For now keep on reading on…
Jesus proved He was the promised Messiah. He fulfilled every prophecy in the Old-Testament about His 1st coming, he led a life without sin, and he performed miracles and signs only the Savior could do. The odds of one man fulfilling 350+ prophecies written over 1,000 years of time is impossible, but Jesus did. More than that, Jesus proved He was God when He rose from the dead. Buddha is in the ground, Mohammed is buried somewhere, and every shaman or faith guru always dies. Jesus is the only one to still live. You will see Him someday…Everyone will.
So why didn’t Israel accept their Messiah? It wasn’t what God wanted at that time. God’s plan was to let His son die on the cross so we could be saved. He used the Jewish priests and leaders of Israel to help accomplish it. God took His plan from centered on Israel alone, to now being spread to all the nations of the world. If Israel had accepted Jesus as their king, the 1,000-year Messianic kingdom would have started. Although that would have been great for the people of Israel, it would not have been good for any of us. We would have missed out on heaven. We would have missed out on being born. We would have missed out on living forever. More to come on that…
Israel has always been God’s people. They were the only nation God recognized as His, and they are the only nation God gave the law to. There were some foreigners who ended up part of the Jewish community and believed in God, but they were more of an exception. God’s plan did, and always will, have the nation of Israel as central to it all. The Messiah was born a Jew in Israel, and when the Messiah comes back, He will rule from Jerusalem. Jesus left the earth when Israel rejected Him, and He comes back when Israel accepts Him. Israel will be the most important country in the world, and everyone from all the nations of the world will go there to see the King. Can you tell who the enemy (Satan) is working through in the world now to try and stop Jesus from coming back? Satan thinks if there is no Israel, then the Messiah has no one to come back for. Maybe now you have a little more insight into why most of Israel’s Muslim neighbors hate them. When the Kingdom comes, the enemies will be done with, and Israel will live at peace in cities without walls. Just a little hint for now.
Let’s examine what Jesus went through, because God tells us that we will experience the same things if we believe. First off, we know that Jesus’ time here on earth was anything but the life of a king. He was a humble servant, who came to save His people from the penalty of sin. He didn’t have a home to sleep in, was rejected throughout, tortured and killed. God tells us to expect similar treatment, because the world hates Jesus. (see John 15 below) It doesn’t mean we will be killed for Jesus, although that is certainly a possibility nowadays, but we will suffer persecution and ridicule just like Jesus did. That is if we practice our faith and don’t hide away at home. When I first started sharing the truth, I was met with opposition on many fronts. Some of the persecution was from people I least expected. Persecution isn’t always physical, and if you share the truth, or just act different than the world expects, you will get pushback.
John 15:18-20:
‘ “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ‘
Next, Jesus died like we all do. Did He die? Will we all have to die? We talked about this before; since Jesus had no sin, He was perfect and wouldn’t die. What we find out is that Jesus had to “give up” His spirit in order for His physical body to die. He would have hung on that cross forever if it wasn’t in God’s plan for Him to die on it. No one forced Jesus to that cross, and no one took Jesus’ life. It was all part of the plan, orchestrated from before time began. We know our physical bodies will die because they are full of sin. We won’t have to give up our spirit, because our body will die first and our spirit gets released after that. There is one big exception: Some of us may never suffer a physical death at all. Wait what? More to come.
When Jesus gave up His spirit and the physical body died, Jesus went down to a place called Sheol. His spirit/soul descended to this place that held the spirits of every human who died since Adam. I told you earlier that your spirit lives forever, but it is where you live that matters. Your spirit is the real you, and the part of you that will live long after this container it is housed in dies. The souls/spirits in Sheol are being held there because they all have that corrupted spirit from Adam, and they could not be in heaven with God because of it. Adam and Eve were down there, Moses, Abraham, David, and every other believer from the Old-Testament. There are also the souls of every unbeliever that ever died, starting with Cain, the first murderer.
The Bible tells us that Sheol has two sides to it. One side is called “paradise” or “Abraham’s bosom”, because you were warmly wrapped in the arms of Abraham like a big hug. This side was a place of comfort and rest for the believers who were waiting for the Messiah to come. They put their faith in God’s promises, and since the Messiah had not come yet to make His sacrifice, they stayed down there. The other side of Sheol is not pleasant. In fact it is hell. There is no rest, it is hot, you are always thirsty, you are laying in the earth full of maggots and worms, and worst of all you are separated from God and the light. In Sheol, there is a huge divide or chasm that separates the two sides of hell and paradise. No soul can cross over from one side to another, and no soul can leave there to come up to earth. If you want to read the story, it is in Luke Chapter 16.
When Jesus’ spirit went down to Sheol, it was to announce that the Messiah was here, and that He was the promised One. The promises of a savior that those on the paradise side believed in was now fulfilled. They would no longer have to be separated from God, and all their spirits went up to heaven with God the Father. Those souls on the hell side of Sheol stayed down there. In fact, every unbeliever from all time, including those who die today go straight down to the hell side of Sheol. The paradise side is empty now, and no longer necessary. Because Jesus already paid the price for us, the spirits of all believers now go right into heaven with Jesus. Jesus spent 3 days down in Sheol before His spirit went back into that lifeless body in the tomb, and He rose from the dead. His spirit which never died, was now reunited with that perfect body and He walked right out of that tomb.
Jesus conquered death, and we can to. If we believe in the sacrifice Jesus made for us, we will also rise from the dead. Our process is a little different, but we get the same result. More to come on that later. The sacrifice was already made by Jesus, so we can accept it and get right with God. How is that possible when our spirit is corrupt from Adam? Our belief in the second Adam, Jesus, is how it happens. Ever heard of the term born again? When we believe in Jesus, our old sinful spirit nature is replaced with a perfect, sinless spirit. A spirit that will never sin and therefore can be in the presence of God forever. Are you starting to see how God worked around our dying corrupt spirit? He replaces it with a new perfect one.
A good Bible student would ask how is it possible that we have a perfect spirit, when I know uncle Bill still sins? Yep, we all sin, and having a perfect spirit doesn’t fix the whole issue. We still have these sinful bodies. Therein lies another problem God has to solve. We were created to live on earth. We need physical bodies for this to be a suitable home. If we were created as spirit only beings like angels, why would we need a physical earth? God intended for us to have physical bodies, and He made us to live on a place like this earth. So how does God solve this problem?
As I told you earlier, our bodies die, get buried in the ground and turn back into the dust that they came from. If you are a believer, when your body dies, your spirit will be released and escorted by angels right to Jesus in heaven. Because our physical body was full of sin, it had to die. It couldn’t be with us in heaven, because you have to be perfect to be there. Because this physical body is sinful and cursed to die, it will never be used again. There are all kinds of weird things people believe about how you have to be buried, or that you can’t be cremated, or if you drown and they can’t find you in the ocean, God can’t use your body later. All are nonsense. God will not be using our old dead sinful bodies again, so it doesn’t matter what happens to them after they die. This body is the only thing keeping us out of heaven right now. If I was spirit only, I’d be with God.
The spirit only life we have in heaven will be temporary. Everything will change at the resurrection. This is when your old dead body is replaced with a new perfect sinless one. Just like the perfect spirit all believers have now, soon we will be matched up with our perfect physical body. As I wrote about before, our new bodies won’t sin, so they won’t die EVER! Now, think about this: If we get new physical bodies, then we will need to live on a physical earth. Heaven for us isn’t in the clouds, it will be a real place that we walk and live on. Guess what? God has a plan for that.
So when does this resurrection happen? It is different depending on when you die and if you are a believer or not. I’ll try to keep this simple; we will have to dive deeper in a Bible study.
There are only 2 kinds of people from God’s perspective. The saved, and the lost. The believer and unbeliever. The living and the dead. In God’s view, it is pretty cut and dry. You are either written in the Book of Life or you aren’t. These 2 types of people have similar experiences after death, but different paths and eternal homes. Everyone will be resurrected, and the group you are in will tell us when you will get your new body.
Believers in Jesus and His sacrifice for us. (Those born after Jesus came are called the Church )
All members of the Church will get their new bodies at the same time.
Many members of the Church have already died, and are in spirit only form in heaven now. (I think of my grandparents and my in-laws up there to name a few)
There will also be a lot of members of the church still alive on earth, with a perfect spirit and sinful body when the resurrection happens.
When does all of this happen? The Bible tells us that the event that triggers the resurrection of all the Church is when Jesus comes down to the clouds. All the current church members in heaven will be there, and any member of the church still alive on earth will get whisked away instantly up to that same spot in the clouds. You may have heard this event called the rapture. It is when believers alive on earth somehow get shed of their physical bodies and their spirit is called up to the clouds with Jesus and all the other Church members from all time. We all get our new bodies at the exact same time, and we go back to heaven with Jesus and wait for the Kingdom to start.
So when will the rapture or resurrection of the Church happen? God tells us in His word that it can happen at any time, and there is nothing that needs to happen before it comes. This is a way for God to keep us on our toes, and for us to always be aware that it could happen today. We should always be ready for Jesus to call us home. This is the only event where we have no idea when it will start. All we know is that in a blink of an eye, we will all be changed. (resurrected) Whether you are here on earth, or already up in heaven, we all meet together and God gives us our new and improved, guaranteed to never break down bodies.
Unbelievers. (don’t believe in Jesus or His sacrifice, from Cain through the end of the kingdom)
All unbelievers from all of time will get their new physical bodies at the same time.
Many unbelievers have already died, and are in spirit form only down in Sheol/hell. (I try not to think about anyone I knew being there)
There will also be a lot of unbelievers on earth right before they get their new physical bodies.
So when do unbelievers get their new bodies? Not until after Jesus rules in the 1,000-year kingdom here on earth. After the Kingdom, and before the “new heavens and new earth” come, they will all stand before the judge (Jesus) and get their new eternal bodies. Yes, they get eternal bodies too, just like the Church. Again, its all about where you spend eternity, and unbelievers have a much different location. The Bible tells us after unbelievers all get their bodies and are judged for their unbelief; they are thrown into the lake of fire for eternity. A much different outcome for unbelievers who are separated from God for eternity.
There are other groups of people who get resurrected at different times. One is the Old-Testament saints. These are the believers before Jesus came. They trusted in God’s promise to bring a Messiah before they knew who He was or when He would come. They are all up in heaven right now in spirit form only. They all get their bodies right before the Kingdom starts. The other group is what many call the tribulation saints. These are new believers who will come to faith after the church was raptured and resurrected. They are alive during a very special period of time during the last 7 years of this age. More on all this later.
The problem is now solved! The issue created in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned and became separated from God, is now fixed for the believers. We will have a perfect spirit and body and will be able to be around our Creator forever. Unbelievers will always have their same corrupted dead spirit for all of eternity, and can’t be around God forever. Right now, you have a choice where you want to spend eternity. You also want to make that choice before Jesus comes to get the Church. I’ll have some more on that later in the book. There was a lot in this chapter. Re-read it a few times if you need to.
I could hardly sleep last night, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face all day. I have never felt like this before. EVER! I’ve never been this close to finishing anything with my writing. This is it! The last chapter of the book that took 40 years of “research,” but was written in about 40 days. Right after I finished writing the last chapter it hit me. I wanted to be super stoked, but all those failed attempts to write in the past flashed in my head. I held it back. I kept telling myself: “It isn’t finished yet Bruno; you still have a chapter left. Get er done before you get too worked up pal”.
Another sign that God commissioned this book, is how excited and relieved I am about completing it, even though I have zero expectations that it will ever get published. I could care less if I make a dime off of it; that is not why I wrote it. I wrote it for an audience of 6, not 6,000,000. In the past, it was never about the subject of my book, it was all about the money honey. I always looked ahead of the actual writing of the book, to the glitz, glamour and gazillions I would get when I was done. Flash forward to today, and I am just so thankful it’s finished! If this book never goes any further than to you guys, who cares? I helped God achieve His mission in my life, and in part of yours. I think that is pretty darn cool, and much more valuable.
I’ll have to ask God what He wants me to do next. Maybe He will want me to go back to work in corporate America, or maybe a job working with young people at a school or church. Maybe it will be more writing, or the Bible study like I used to do for Zach. Maybe now that the book is done, He doesn’t need me here anymore; or maybe He has a lot more for me to do and I’ll be here for longer than I planned. Whatever chapter in my life comes next, I can’t help but feel like a huge weight has been lifted from me! Maybe now I can finally get my life started. Lol
A couple days ago, your aunt Steph and I were talking out back about all the work that needs done around the ranch. (that sounds cool calling it a ranch even though the only animals we have are two mini doodle farm dogs) I casually told aunt Steph that I would start working on everything once I finish the book. She turned to me so quick I thought she was going to get whiplash. “What? You can’t wait for that.” I said “chill girl, I’m almost done. It won’t be that long.” It was a funny and surreal moment. I have said that same phrase to her: “wait until I finish my book,” hundreds of times since she met me. This time was different though, and it felt really strange knowing I was almost done. I don’t have any anxiety about what comes next. How could I? I just saw what God did for me the last 40 years. If I am doing what He wants me to do, I expect it will all work out and end up being what is best for me. This book is proof of that.
The world will tell you to never give up on your dreams. I am here to tell you that until I gave up on my dream, it didn’t happen. God wanted me to know that writing a book wasn’t the most important thing in my life. Once I realized that, the book got done. Once I put my trust in Him, and not in my future book earnings, my dream of writing came true. Sure, it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be, and the subject of the book isn’t anything I would have ever predicted, but that is how God works. He can turn all things to good; even me and my book. My old plans were much different, but God had the right one. The way this book came about takes me totally out of the picture, so there is no way I can get credit for it. See how that works? My whole life I took credit for any of the good that happened to me. Now, the biggest thing I’ve wanted to accomplish my whole life, I can’t even brag about. I can’t say “see dad, I told you I would be a writer someday!” lol.
I am literally sitting here stunned. I don’t know what to do now. I am so happy writing this last chapter, but I still can’t believe it is happening! What an amazing God we have! This is it kids, this is it! Uncle Bill’s book is done! The moment I started writing this book, the pain and anxious feeling in my gut was gone. I don’t even remember what life was like without that feeling…and now it is gone? Wow! My world has been a blur since the moment I wrote out the first page. I’ve spent nearly every waking hour working on it. I swear it felt like I was in some sort of out of body experience, because it went so quick and easy. I know I was getting help.
I had this poster on my wall for years. This was how I imagined my life ending up. I put it on my wall hoping that if I looked at it and envisioned it enough, it would all come true. Although it would have been cool for you guys to have a rich uncle with cars and a house like that, I would have probably been a jerk, and I definitely wouldn’t have let Jack, Miles, or Nikk touch any of those cars. I bet there are a lot of mosquitos when you live by the water too. Uh, no thanks…
God had a better plan for me; and instead gave me this place. What an awesome God! Had He given me the choice when I was 18, I would have picked the poster. Now, there is no chance I’d pick the poster because what I have is perfect! God knew better than me, He always does.
Ok, so back to business. The goal of this book was never to help me feel better now that I accomplished my life-long dream. The goal of this book is to help answer some questions you guys had, and to give you the truth from a source you can trust. I wanted to tell you how God orchestrated it all, so that you know how our God works. The hope is that I can play a small part in your journey to heaven. I spent over a decade behind the scenes planning, observing, and researching the material for this book. Material designed for you guys. The rest of my book is just an awesome example of a man trying to achieve something great on his own, only to realize he can’t do it without God.
Don’t get it twisted. God wanted me to write this book, but I am not the one who He wrote if for. God pulled everything together over all the years, just for you. Its possible that for some of you, this will be the closest you ever get to hearing the truth. For some of you, it will be eye-opening and get you curious to learn more. Some of you will read the whole book right away, some will read part of it then stop, and some won’t read it until later down the road sometime. But God has His plan, and it obviously involves you guys reading it at some point. If you won’t read the Bible, maybe He can get to read my book which is mostly about the Bible. Only God knows, and I can’t wait to see what He does.
40 years to write this book. Not even one of my efforts over the years paid off. It wasn’t until I let God take control that things started moving. God made it a long journey for me because everything I lived through had to be in here. I’m also a slow learner. Don’t forget that I had to wait the last 20 years for all of you to be born and grow up. All of the time we have spent together was not by chance, and was all part of God’s plan. I can’t wait to see what the next part of His plan is for you guys too.
So what is next for my wonderful, caring, cool, and crazy nieces and nephews?
If you believe what I told you about Jesus, then you need to get baptized. Baptism is NOT a requirement to be saved; just ask the guy on the cross next to Jesus. He was saved while hanging on a cross, and he never had the opportunity to get baptized. Even though baptism isn’t required to get to heaven, it is something very important to Jesus. He would tell you that He died on the cross for you, and you can’t even let others know you believe in Him? It should be the first act we do after we come to faith. We should do it immediately, and not wait months or even weeks to do it. The good news is there is not cutoff date. The offer to please God by getting baptized doesn’t expire. Maybe some of you needed this book to remind you. Well then, let’s go before the water gets too cold!
If the savior of the world asks us to do one thing to show we have faith in Him, what is to stop you? If you don’t quite know what you believe yet, that is fine…don’t get baptized. I am strictly talking to any of you who are believers right now. I can guarantee you one thing: if you don’t get baptized, God will find ways to keep reminding you until you do it. Just make our Lord Jesus happy and get dunked already, will ya? Do you think it is a coincidence that right as I am writing this last part on baptism, that your aunt Steph tells me it was 10 years ago today that Zach got baptized in grandma’s backyard? There are no coincidences, only God incidences.
Baptism is a picture of what happened inside you when you came to faith in Jesus. Your old spirit died and was buried, and you are raised back to life with a new perfect spirit. The water is symbolic for the earth, and dunking you under it is representing burial in that earth. You then come up out of the grave (water) alive in God. This outward act of baptism symbolizes the inward act of being born again. It also represents Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. It’s telling others that because Jesus died, and was resurrected from the grave, we will too. If you have questions, please let me know. I volunteer to baptize you wherever and whenever you want me to. Yes, this means I will come do it even if you live out of state at the time.
My best advice is to attack studying the Bible like it is just as important, if not more, than anything else you learn. If you do that, you won’t end up like your Uncle Bill, and having to wait until I was in my forties before I found real peace in this world. Because I know so much about the next world, and because I know when we are getting close, I don’t have that stress. Because I know that God is in charge of when I die, I don’t worry about it. Who cares? The most important thing is that I got to get this stuff written and in your hands. I got to be a part of the plan God used to bring Zach to faith, and I pray hard that I can help Him with you guys too. What else could I possibly want? What else really matters? I’m here to please the God of the universe, not the god of this world.
I’d like to help you guys and other young people with my Uncle Bill’s Bible Hour, and I feel like I can start on it as soon as I get done with this. Again, it all depends on what God wants me to do next. I guess we will see. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions or if you are ready to get baptized. I’ll answer your call 24×7, and I will respond to texts when I am awake and not napping like us old people do.
I love you guys!
Uncle Bill
Matthew 28:19
‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ‘
THERE IS HOPE MY SON 