“Beauty from Ashes”> Episode 2 > Much work and progress has been made on teepee and the Christmas Outreach to neighborhood. I’m so busy working on teepee that it has become difficult to find the time to Blog. But we do! Praise the Lord.

While all the burnt ruble still lies in front of the teepee, a transformation of beauty is rising behind it like a phoenix out of the fire. But the subject of this article is about how it is the little foxes that spoil the vine. So many Christians do not realize why they never seem to reach the promised land, and keep experiencing the wilderness. Last article we spoke of supernatural levers and leverage. Every Christian should know and live by them, but so many do not seem to know. We have a whole Bible on them, and we still do not know. I have an example to give.

A relative of mine, who lives right next door to me, I’ve been trying to teach this for years, and still, they do not see it. I will explain. It saddens my heart to see the things they suffer, which I believe much is because of the little foxes. What I’m about to share may seem small, like a fox, but scripture says to be careful of the deceitfulness of sin! Crafty like a fox! These things are not small. They are crafty to deceive.

When our fire burned down the barn, destroying a very expensive building and a lot of expensive tools and etc stored in it, and we risked our lives managing to save a rider mower and Dodge Neon car, and a Dodge van, and considerable damage to east side of our house, a single spark managed to ride the wind to my neighbor. That spark landed on the vinyl siding of their home and began growing.

A fireman spotted it and put it out, but before he did, it damaged one strip of siding and a wood post in the same area. The post is still strong and will stand for many years, but it did get a little burnt. Nothing compared to ours, which was a new fence I had just put in.

It was no time at all and my neighbor began screaming about their one damaged siding and post. Your insurance better cover this because we have no money! Why is your insurance taking so long? Our insurance pays off immediately. (Of course our situation required an investigation. And hail damage usually is confirmed very rapidly, which was their previous experience with insurance.)

My wife and I had a devastated grandson to deal with, because he thought we would all hate him now. Our lives had been risked. A pickup truck was total loss and we only had liability on it. Our house vinyl was severely damaged! A brand new fence severely damaged. Barn totally gone. Ruble laying everywhere. Major clean up. And only enough insurance to “help” restore what we could. And here was my neighbor screaming about her burnt post and one panel.

They immediately had their “guy” out to estimate damage. Of course they wanted that whole side replaced! He said 2,000 dollars to do the job. Now they wanted 2,000 dollars. I went over to look at damage. I saw one panel. I googled on Youtube and saw how easy it was to replace one panel. It also said if their was a color difference due to age and fading, simply remove a panel from an area of house not easily seen, (which they have), use that on the seen area and put the new panel on the unseen area. Simple, done, and cheap! Panel and post maybe 200 dollars. Not 2,000.

My neighbor did not like my information. Our insurance said we did not owe them anything. The direction of the wind was an “act of God” and we could not be held responsible for that. But they said we had a certain option in which they could pay them 1,000 dollars if we AGREED to it. We said, PAY THEM! (get them to shut up.)

Funny thing is, now that they have the money, they are talking only fixing the one panel, and the post is still good enough. While they thought they could get 2,000, they made us feel terrible for suggesting such a thing. You should have better insurance. (I doubt they have any coverage on us at all, if the rolls were reversed. But I’d only be looking for 200 dollars anyway. Sheesh.)

So…my point is…do you see the problem here? Or do we think the American Jesus who justifies such things is the real Jesus? What we fail to understand is no one gets away with anything, and the seeds we sow do grow! They can grow into monsters! The little crafty foxes! We are throwing the wrong levers and the crane is moving the wrong stuff! And then we watch such people suffer many things, wasting their life on so many foolish things, and they have no idea why?

So…while my relative is quiet for now…and using the money to eat out a lot, I have been working hard to build something beautiful out of these ashes to reach out to our neighbors. Something I call being a Priest to your neighborhood. I will show pictures at the end here.

But here is the rest of the story, and this blows my mind. Several years back, this neighbor had to have heart surgery. It was pretty serious. I tried to teach them then about L7D. They never got it. It is as if they are “unteachable”. I believe if they had learned and changed their way, they may have avoided the cancer they now have. And after three years of treatments, losing hair and everything, they were just told there is nothing more they can do. They have been told they have one to two years at best.

Now…this blows my mind because if I had a sentence like that hanging over my head, I can’t imagine me being so concerned about one burnt vinyl panel! I wouldn’t be concerned about it even if I were healthy! And while they were screaming about the panel, I asked them if theysaw all the damage we were sitting in? I wasn’t upset at all! I was already moving on to the next thing, because I know what God blesses and what He curses! I know the right levers to throw!

Now you know the rest of the story. We have been praying for their healing, but it is hard when you know you offered them the ounce of prevention and they did not learn. Now we are praying for a crop failure of what they have sown. And they still have not learned. They are only 67 years old. I’m still climbing on buildings and building things, while they have not the strength to do anything more than eat out and shop.

Now… I only share this because it is so hard to get the American mindset to realize what Jesus really taught. And so… many Christians are chasing the American dream rather than the dreams of God, and they have no idea how this creation of God really works. It’s tragic in the eyes of God. So these crafty American foxes are keeping us in a stressed out wilderness rather than enjoying the peace of God, a Garden of Eden inside us.

I don’t have to worry about my relative ever seeing this article, because they never read my site even though they know about it. And if they did read it, it might be the best thing for them. But maybe this true story will make sense to someone and they are teachable. Maybe they will leave the wilderness and enter God’s power before it’s too late for them. I could tell you so many stories of such obvious lack of understanding from this neighbor. But this one should be enough. They don’t seem to even realize how hard it was on us having their constant questioning and complaining while we were dealing with an emotional grandchild, and a huge mess affecting how we even lived our daily life. So many things damaged or lost. A dog getting out of the damaged fence. Needs fixing right away. So many things you do not even realize until it happens to you. But our neighbor badly needed 2,000 dollars to fix their burnt panel. They were suffering! Good grief.

Now for pictures!