Click here if you haven't read Part One yet.

P comes from similar background as Mom and Dad. He started with the Church after being basically non-Christian for the first 25 years or so of his life. But, he hasn�t left the lecture � pass/fail � type of learning yet. P is still in the �no questions� phase. (I�m not sure that he won�t always be in that phase. That�s between him and God. He may well be best suited to that form of learning and if that�s so, then more power to him.)

D, on the other hand, has a long history of Christianity. D�s father was a minister (Methodist, I think, but I don�t remember) and D grew up in it. D was also a minister. He was asked to leave the ministry because he started preaching straight out of the Bible and required his congregation to think� to come to their own conclusions. (D and I are very similar in this regard as both he and I have the natural desire to start with a road map and see all the sites along the way. We have a specific destination in mind, but we�re going to take a bunch of side-trips along the way� and, we might not even land at our original destination.

D is truly a zealot. He is on fire with the Spirit, but not in an overtly offensive way. He gets excited (like me) about what he�s discussing/learning. He wants to share what he�s learned with everyone, but he has learned how to restrain himself and just ask the question� then he is more than willing (again, like me) to enjoy his audience�s discoveries, knowing that whatever they learn in their journey, can probably help him learn even more. *laughs* He seeks after knowledge and he pursues it diligently. (have I told you that I really, really gravitate toward D?)

I don�t know a whole lot about M simply because she is more quiet, gentle and soft spoken. But I know this, she has truly learned many valuable things and when she shares them, I learn stuff. She has a unique perspective and she almost always gives me pause, requiring me to re-think my previous stand. (probably why she and D are so well matched. He is prone to flights of fancy, she grounds him. My husband, whomever he may be, will probably be like her in that regard)

Now� the Nephew and his wife are going to be here also. The Nephew�s wife is a surface Christian. She�ll go to church if you want her to go to church and she�ll just sit there with a smile on her face, but she doesn�t have any deep commitment. What�s more, she doesn�t really pay a whole lot of attention to what�s going on around her. She is focused on whatever is in front of her at the moment. This is not a bad thing, it�s just the way her mind works. She has other things to think about.

Nephew is a baby Christian. He�s experienced the Church a few times and has a basic knowledge of God, but hasn�t actually done much with it. He�s not quite sure that he wants to be a Christian. Part of him does, but there�s an underlying thought of �what�s in it for me�. In light of his past, rather troubled to say the least, that�s completely understandable. It�s really easy for someone to doubt when they grew up the way he did. But, he will make his own decision.

G, on the other hand, spent the majority of his life being Anti-God. So much so, that he would carouse� well, much like Paul (from the Bible, just to clarify). I don�t think G has ever, under any circumstances, beaten up Christians or anything like that, but he was definitely against them.

He was converted and as of about six years ago or so started on his path. As is the case with many anti-Christians-turned-Christian, he was extremely loud and forceful in his comments about God. He was full-tilt into converting other people, to the point where he would grab a person off the street and talk God at them. I know at least some of you have had experience with this � there are just some people out there who think that no matter what you say, if you�re not professing Christianity the way they do, you�re not Christian and therefore, you�re doomed to hell.

G was this way for quite a long while. I have seen him mellow out a little over the years � my ex had a few dealings with him and he (G) is part of the Full Gospel Businessmen�s group in this area, a few meetings of which I have attended with the folks � but I don�t know how mellow he is now. He has been, over the past six years or so, the kind of man to �lay hands� on you when praying for you with that sort of �vise-grip-of-the-Spirit� thing. It�s a somewhat unique phenomenon where the prayer will grip you tightly as if by squeezing hard, they can push the Spirit into you. *chuckles*

Yes, I think it�s funny. Some people work that way, fine for them. But I�m not that way. I�d far rather just smile and nod and laugh to myself. In my world, you can�t force the Spirit into or out of anyone. To think that by gripping tightly and squeezing you can force something� well, it�s like this� remember that scene in The Matrix where Neo is waiting to see the Oracle and the little girl is bending spoons with her mind? The �squeeze-the-Spirit� method is much like someone trying to physically bend one of those spoons. It simply can�t be done. Instead, one must remember one thing� that the spoon � whatever is blocking the path of the Spirit � doesn�t really exist.

Erm, anyway. So, we have D � a zealot � and M, Mom and Dad, P, Nephew and Wife, G and N (I don�t know much about N besides the fact that she, like M, is quiet), and me � a zealot in training � all coming together for Night to be Much Observed. The dynamics of this night will be extremely interesting.

And, to throw more fuel onto the fire, Mom and I were contemplating inviting the ex and his daughter as well. *laughs* That would have been so very interesting. Let�s put all these people, these different personalities and methods of belief, together and see what happens. *laughs more* Oh, the people-watcher side of me just loves it. *grins*

Anyway, it will be an incredible night. Thursday morning, I�ll have such an interesting entry for you all.

Ezekiel 20

In this chapter, God gives yet another warning to Israel, saying that because they don�t keep His Holy Sabbaths (the Sabbath day and the Feasts) and because they continue to worship the idols and images from when they were enslaved in Egypt, He will not allow them into the land He promised them and their descendents. Atop that, He scattered them among the various nations because they continued to worship false idols. He would have just wiped them out, but He made an oath by His name that He wouldn�t do so. He refused to wipe them out because He wasn�t willing to defile His name before the nations.

It makes me think of the current situation in this world. There are so many people worshiping false idols � people who claim to be Christian, but are actually worshiping money, stuff, celebrities, work, sex, etc. There are so many people in this world today who refuse to believe God when He says those things are secondary to Him.

The thing that strikes my mind hardest? The hope that I don�t do that. *shrugs* I know I do, though. I�ve put cigarettes before God. I�ve put my own comfort before God. I�ve put food before God. I have to put God first in all things. Once I do that, the blessings will flow.

Hmmm, makes me think.*

*usually, that means that the topic is too close to �home� and I can�t force myself to think about it anymore. I have to let it percolate in my brain for a while. I have to give up the lusts of my heart � food, smokes, comfort � and truly rely on God for everything. But I don�t want to admit that to myself right now, so I�m going to go �think�.