God has a standard

Yet we blame him for the decisions we make

by R. Douglass Mahaffey

      For years now, I’ve heard people criticizing God for what people in His church do. Just because someone says that they are doing something in Jesus’ name, doesn’t mean that He honors what they do. One quote you will read on my blogs time and time again, is that if someone’s actions, words, and beliefs that they promote don’t line up with the word of God, then His blessings will allude them, and He certainly isn’t to blame for their ignorance.

        I read a news story today of yet another teacher who had been involved in an inappropriate relationship with one of his students. This man was also a youth leader at his church in Wiley, Texas. I read comment after comment of people who blame God, or even the idea of God. They were condemning of the man as well. 

As wide spread as this type of atrocity is these days, and as rampant as the sinful nature is, one would be arrogant to believe or proclaim that it would never happen to them. First of all, no one knows if the girl in this situation was making it up to cause trouble. That’s not always the case. In fact, nine times out of ten, I would venture to say that the adult was most likely guilty. But we don’t know because we weren’t there. 

It’s one thing to post a comment on a news story that one reads on the Internet. They are hidden. No one knows who they are and never will. It’s another to be a parent of the victim in this type of case, or the spouse or family member of the alleged offender and have to live with what they did and still be a family member or spouse after the smoke cleared and the punishment was handed down from the judge. 

When we make comments that push the blame on God, asking, “Why  would God allow that to happen,” or,  “Where was God in this matter?”, we are definitely barking up the wrong tree. God was right i the midst taking names and placing the proper judgement on the guilty. I will say in this case, that if the teacher was guilty, he was found out. If the girl is making it up, as one commenter suggested, then the truth will come out and it’s best to leave the judging and condemning to the only perfect one there is, who is qualified to judge them. 

To say that in my flesh, I don’t agree with the severity of some of the comments, would be a lie. In my flesh, I wish true punishment for the guilty. But in my spirit, I am reminded to pray for everyone involved. Alas, sometimes, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, as Paul wrote in his Epistle. 

The bottom line is this; we can never be sure that we are above doing things of this nature. Paul wrote in Romans 3:10-12, 10 “There is none righteous, no, not one. 11 There is non that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. (God seeks us). 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; (Again, Paul repeats), there is non that doeth good, no not one.” 

We in and of ourselves can do no good thing, because the flesh is weak. But through Christ Jesus, who conquered the flesh, sin, death, hell and the grave, we are found innocent in His righteousness if we are standing in His holiness on the day of judgement. For the sins of the world, we can not blame God, because mean listened to his flesh and chose to do evil, even after God warned us that we would surely die. 

That was not the way God intended it to be. Sinful nature of man chooses evil, even when God has given us a way out of temptation. 

That still small voice that Christians hear when met with temptation that says, “Hey, you know God isn’t going to like that, and you will be robbing yourself of His blessings if you go through with it,” that’s the Holy Spirit trying to give you an out from temptation to follow through with sin. If we go through with it anyway, we can’t blame the devil, he get’s too much credit for what we do anyway. We certainly can’t blame God, because as I’ve written before, God is not the author of confusion. 

Listen to that still small voice and choose to do what’s right. Don’t condemn another man for doing what any of us are capable of doing as well. Pray. Listen to the Holy Ghost. He will direct your paths. 

R. Douglass Mahaffey - Founder and Publisher of The Wise Conservative.

Who am I, and what's behind the name

An up close look at the publisher

by R. Douglass Mahaffey

          A man once said of himself, "To know me is to love me." I won't be so arrogant as to say that about myself. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and I have mine as well. I grew up on the tri-district line of Cy-Fair ISD, HISD, and Spring Branch ISD in Houston. As fate would have it, I lived in the house on Limestone Street that was the dividing line of all three districts. My house was in the Cy-Fair District. But I didn't start off by going to Bane Elementary as I was supposed to. Thank God my mother was made privy to the correct information, or my life would have turned out quite different; not necessarily worse, just different.
          I started Kindergarten at 4 years old at Benbrook Elementary. I was only there for two weeks when a mistake in logistics was made known to my mother. First of all, I was too young by only 13 days to begin school. Secondly, we didn't live in Houston School District. So, for a couple of years, my dad picked at me and called me a Kindergarten drop out. I thought for the longest that it was my fault because of my dad's non-stop teasing about it. My mother assured me that she was the one mistaken, but I was four and took my dad's teasing to heart about it.
          The next year, 1976, I began elementary at the right age and at the right school. I went to Bane Elementary for Kindergarten. My brother was a prodigy in those days, and went to a private Christian school that our church, Central Baptist owned, in the Spring Branch area. After Kindergarten, I joined my brother at Central Christian Academy. I was smart, but still average. I was picked on a lot on my block because of how small I was. I only weighed about 50 pounds until my second or third grade year.
          The one thing I loved was spelling tests. I loved getting home and having my mother drill me in spelling words. I would spell them all about ten times or so, then my mother would give me the definitions for all my spelling words and I would give her the word and spell it. I read over 260 books that first year in Mrs. Huffman's class. We had a bookworm program that I won a third place ribbon for. When it was time for the first grade spelling bee, I was ready. I went through all the words in the book that Mrs. Huffman had for us to spell. She had to start coming up with more words when we spelled through all the book.
          It was down to myself and a girl named Becky. We went back and forth. Soon, it was a contest, with all the boys rooting for me and all the girls rooting for Becky. After too long, Mrs. Huffman got all the teachers from second grade to sixth grade to come out to the area that we were having the spelling bee. They all gave words for us to spell. 45 minutes into the one-on-one tussle back and forth, Mrs. Huffman declared a tie. Becky and I both won co-first place trophies.
          I stayed at Central Christian Academy until the third grade. I developed a condition that affected my kidneys and spent three weeks in the hospital before the doctors could figure out what was wrong. I had a blocked ureter due to a narrow tube coming from my left kidney. They had to operate on me to unblock it. My mother was incensed because our pastor never came to see me in the hospital. He sent his deacons in his place.
          My mother called a pastor from Langwood Baptist Church in our neighborhood and he came to see me. She took us out of Central Christian Academy and sent me back to Bane Elementary in the fourth grade, and my brother to Dean Junior High in the seventh grade. I hated public schools except for the fact that there were more organized activities to get involved with like band, choir and drama. I wasn't very athletically inclined, and I had a nervous mother, so sports were out of the question, much to my dismay.
          I had a pretty good time at Bane with my grades and with making friends. Junior High was a much different beast. When I got to Dean Junior High, I pretty much expected to get beat up almost every day. It only happened physically about two or three times, and usually it was unprovoked by myself. I was treated like utter, complete garbage by a lot of people though, so I think getting beat up for no reason would have probably been better. Seven years I put up with getting kicked around verbally at school, at home by my brother, and even some of the guys at church targeted me because I wasn't athletic. They played basketball. I stunk at basketball back then and still do today.
          So there I was, stuck in a society that would rather spit in my face than give me a hand once in a while. I would show them though. I got really heavy into my acting and singing, as well as my percussive talents. I didn't do very well at my other classes, but I excelled in my elective classes. I still play the drums at church every chance that I get, I still act, (Seven films, 14 stage plays, 4 commercials, 1 music video and I currently play "The Blue Beacon" - Anti-Bullying Superhero on Keys Media TVs "Keys For Kiddos.") I sing when I'm not writing, working and when I'm not asleep. I love doing karaoke.
          In 1989, I enlisted in the delayed entry program of the United States Army. I graduated in June of 1990 and was dying to leave home and serve my country, or just be away from the life that I had long since grown to hate. I left for Basic Training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma on August 1, 1990. You guessed it! Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Guess where I was headed in January of 1991? YUP! Saudi Arabia; Riyadh to be exact. I did good there. Our unit only lost one soldier, Specialist Emanuel Sapien, to a land mine.
          I was engaged to a girl back home that still had a year of high school left. After the war, I came home and spent most of my time with her. She seemed distant, but still loving. I went back to my unit in Germany that was deactivating and coming back state-side. In November of 1991, I came home on pass from my new unit in Oklahoma, and she broke up with me. I was crushed and devastated beyond belief. I turned to alcohol when I got back to Oklahoma. It had a huge affect on me and my First Sergeant saw it. When I got out of the Army, I went and got help from God and the Church.
          I am proud to say that I no longer have a problem with alcohol, because on July 13, 1992 I found a friend in Jesus. I had been in church my whole life, but I lacked the relationship with God that I needed to make my life complete. I had gotten into ice skating and playing hockey. One day, on my way to the ice rink for a drop-in game, I was on the bus and a homeless man got on in Downtown. He smelled bad, he had severely dirty clothes and long, shaggy hair. As he sat down, there were young people laughing at him and holding their noses. I was getting impatient with them to say the least.
          The bus was approaching the Salvation Army shelter and the man pulled the cord to signal for his stop. He got off, but tripped and hit the ground. The whole bus, minus myself, busted out laughing. I got off as well, because I had taken all of them I was going to. I offered him some money for some food. He turned it down and said that he had enough money to stay at the Salvation Army shelter. He told me that instead, he had something to offer me.
     He asked me if I was a child of the living God. I told him, "Sure, I go to Langwood Baptist Church. I sing in the choir there, I was the chairman of the events committee and I was a youth sponsor." "I, I, I, I."
          He stopped me and said that wasn't what he was talking about. He asked me, "Have you come to the point in your life where you realized that your sin offended God?"
          No one had ever asked me that before. I guess I had never thought about that. Needless to say, I missed my hockey game, because that homeless man, Don White, showed me in his Bible how God wanted people to desire to live in His will, not some flibberdy-gibbet wanna-be that played Christian on Sunday and then lived like the devil from Monday t Saturday. He wanted a person who was real with himself and everyone he faced.
          That started my ministry. I had already appeared in a music video, a film and two commercials. I stayed the course with my acting career until my two year modeling contract ended and I learned how to land my own gigs without the use of an agent. There was no sense in paying someone when I could do their job and perform as well. So I appeared in church plays, a couple of more films and one more commercial...then, I got married and put it on hold.
          I married a friend from the church I used to go to that owned the private school I went to. We lived in Katy, Texas and had two children. That marriage lasted all of about 10 1/2 years before we just grew apart. It ended in August of 2007 when I left just for what I felt was the right thing to do. (Keeping things private on that matter.)
     While spending the next four years on my own, I performed in about four or five more plays, was cast in three films that I actually got speaking parts in, and then came Facebook. I went to a church that was just down the street from where WWE's The Undertaker went to school at. I had a friend on Facebook that was a mutual friend of his. I sent him a friend request and he accepted it. One day, I saw a picture on his wall that I thought was interesting. I posted a comment on it about my Christian views of marriage. Later that afternoon, I got a private message from a girl on his friend's list named Lisa. She simply said, "Hello there."
          I saw that she was a friend of his. I asked her how she knew him. She worked as a security guard in Dallas at the Sportatorium where World Class Championship Wrestling was held in the 1980s and 90s. She knew the Von Erich's, Chris Adams, Gino Hernandez, and a lot of the famous wrestlers back then. That was how she met Mark (The Undertaker). We talked for a few weeks and I got restless one weekend and traveled by bus to Rhome, Texas up in Wise County, to meet her. We met for a few more weekends, and I felt it was right, so, I asked her to marry me. When you know, you know.
          On September 9, 2011, two months after I was divorced from my first wife, Lisa and I were married. (My first wife and I stayed separated for four years before she filed for divorce). I took Lisa back to Houston with me and we got married at the Civil Courthouse in Downtown in Judge Michael Engelhardt's courtroom. We stayed in Houston for exactly one year to the week of my moving Lisa to Houston. We decided to move to Rhome where she was from after her sister was arrested for criminal trespassing for crossing a railroad track in a field across the street from her home, instead of crossing at the intersection.
          Lisa and I moved to Rhome and immediately, I fought with City Hall and the Railroad company that owns the railroad she crossed, to have no trespassing signs installed where she crossed at. Most people don't even know that it is a crime to do so. I only found out a few years ago on a safety test when I was working for ExxonMobil. (I was laid off from ExxonMobil just 2 1/2 months after Lisa and I got married. Really good timing on that one. I was there 9 1/2 years).
          Six months later, after moving to Rhome, we found a place in Boyd; also in Wise County. I received a job working for Bridwell Publishing Company that publishes the Bridgeport Index and Chico Texan newspapers. Writing is a love of mine. I have written three feature length screenplays, one short screenplay, one pilot episode for a Christian Television Series idea, countless songs and poems, so naturally this was a job I would excel at. Not! I'm not from here, I don't know anyone here except the people that I go to church with and my wife's family, we are limited to such a small reporting area, the publisher doesn't compensate for fuel, doesn't give raises, doesn't pay sick pay or vacation time. WHAT WAS I THINKING??? I know, I'll go into business for myself writing a Christian Conservative Magazine.
          The Wise Conservative is named that because I have strong Christian Conservative views and because I live in Wise County. I didn't want to call it The Wise County Conservative, because there is already a newspaper in the county that has Wise County in its name. I didn't want people to get me confused, and I certainly didn't want them associating me with that particular publication, because they are the Bridgeport Index's main competitors. So, where it is a play on words, no it's not suggesting anything about my wisdom in comparison to anyone elses because I am still wrapped up in this fleshly body and am far from perfect.
          But, I believe that God has given me a message to share with as many people as I can with this blog. This blog is only experimental. I want to learn what I need to about this process before I invest a lot of money in an online magazine publication, because I want it to be successful; not for my sake, but for the sake of the Glory of God.

R. Douglass Mahaffey - Founder and Publisher of The Wise Conservative.
         

Turn around and run

God's escape route from sin

by R. Douglass Mahaffey

 
        Every day we are faced with opportunity to choose to either cross the line, or turn around and run toward God’s sheltering arm. Sadly, in America only 45 percent of all marriages are successful in lasting until “death do we part.” The courts have made it easy for couples to get divorced and try for a do-over with someone new. 

I, for one, was in such a marriage for over 10 years. It had the making of a story-book romance at first. I was 25, she was 27. Both of us thought we were “of age” to marry. That term “of age” is relative in the sanctity of marriage. Unfortunately, there are children caught in the middle that learned first hand how reconciliation shouldn’t go. 

Just when two people who think that they are in love, believe they have all the answers, here comes the main stream media changing all the questions. Things can get way out of hand when a contributing partner to the marriage hears on television often enough that there is someone out there who will be much better than the person they’re with. They say it doesn’t hurt to weigh all your options as far as your romantic happiness goes.

After all, people break promises all the time, it’s no big deal these days. Those same people see nothing wrong with terminating an unwanted pregnancy either. After all, it’s only a fetus until it’s actually born, right? Not so, according to the Bible. Jesus told his disciples and the Jews that terrible things will happen to anyone who so much as harms one hair of the littlest of the children. Those so called “Fetuses” count in that too. As soon as the cell splits and turns into what scientists call a zygote, life is born. 

But that’s another topic for another article. This one is about the sanctity of marriage and the vows exchanged between a man and a woman who are supposed to love one another. I recently saw a post on Facebook that I shared. It said that cheating didn’t have to involve kissing, flirting, sharing or having sexual relations with someone. As soon as you start deleting messages that you don’t want your spouse or partner to see, you’re already there. 

The Bible says that it is better to never vow, than to vow and not pay. That means that once you make a promise to another person to forsake all others and keep themselves solely unto their spouse, you owe that person, as well as God a debt to keep every word of that promise. Once you decide to go sneaking under other fences to find out how green the grass is, there is no way back without causing hurt. 

God says that there is a way out of temptation. Turn the computer off if you get a mysterious message or friend request from someone you don’t know, or haven’t seen in a long time. Tell your partner, or spouse about the near encounter. Be honest and forthcoming from the get-go and you won’t have to back track with lies later. 

If you get a text from a co-worker or friend of the opposite sex, delete them, but show your significant other the message first, to let them know that it was unwelcome, and was not responded to. Then the two of you together confront the person sending the texts. 

If you have snuck, you will cause hurt. But, there is forgiveness where God is in the midst. There can be rebuilding of bridges and there can be full restoration. It doesn’t have to end in pain. It can end in victory, as long as both parties of the incident realize that neither are perfect and can fall into temptation just as easily as anyone else, because the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. 

Turn to God in your times of temptation. Open His Word and read it. Ask Him to guide your path as you guard your heart and turn the other way and run!

R. Douglass Mahaffey - Founder and Publisher of The Wise Conservative.