October 14, 2020 – Click here to listen
I have moved back to the keys and it hasn’t taken me long to get back into the island groove; No hurries – No worries. It is very different than anywhere I’ve ever lived. Residents are super friendly and why shouldn’t they be? They live in a tropical paradise with beautiful turquoise and deep cobalt blue waters, gentle trade winds, coconut trees, and abundant seafood restaurants. And anyone who has missed the sunrises and sunsets that make the sky look as though it is on fire, often followed by mysterious moonrises over the ocean, well, they are missing out on a tantalizing portion of God’s incredible glory.
The other evening I’d returned from fishing with some buddies and as we cleaned the boat and processed the fish out on the dock, boat after boat came by with smiling waving people returning from fishing, visiting the sand bar, snorkeling for lobsters, diving a wreck, or just riding around in their boats seeing the sights.
Wildlife abounds in the keys with birds of every description, tarpon gently rising, and we saw a manatee cow with two calves when we turned into our canal in water as clear as bath water. At first glance it is as though the keys has everything.
The one thing that is really missing in the keys is the scarcity of churches. I wondered about this for the many years when I lived here before moving to Honey Lake and it hasn’t changed in that regard now that I’m back. One would think that living in such magnificent surroundings that most everyone would be in awe of God and reverence Him all the more with churches on every street corner.
Unfortunately the keys is known for what they call the “Keys Disease.” The symptoms are drinking, chasing women, and fishing with little time for anything else. As I study the Bible, especially the kings of old I think they may have had a similar malady. They lived such pleasant lives surrounded with beauty and fun things to do that they lost focus from whence it was all derived; The Lord God almighty.
In our modern society it seems the kings of anew have the same problem and in fact, this problem has probably been a plague to every civilization since the dawn of time.
God cannot be ignored. He created us for fellowship, and it is not a one way street. I urge you to do as I’m trying to do and that is focus on God and make Him number one in my life regardless of all distractions.
I thank God throughout each and every day for His blessings and I’m determined to find ways to witness to others. If I cannot find a church that God calls me to within driving range and I have to start a church in my home, then that is what I will do. What I refuse to do is live a life apart from God no matter how much there is to do here. Living for God and realizing that your citizenship is in heaven and Discovering that He is our friend and not the world, which is no one’s friend, is sound wisdom. I choose God as my friend and not the world.
James 4:2
You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong – you want only what will give you pleasure. You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.