Light a Match? AMEN!

I wandered off and tried to catch up with everything this morning.

It didn't happen as I had planned. Too many emails waiting to be sifted over and taken care of. And too many great posts from friends to catch up on. And I'm sure I am still missing some great reads out there!

But, I had to catch up as best I could given my time-frame online, with Michael Bunker's notes. I'm behind terribly on keeping up over there, but I gleaned through and can tell already I will need to get more ink for the printer and get myself a notebook for some reading offline.

This phrase jumped out at me as I gleaned this morning over there...

Because it is easier to curse the darkness than to light a match. It is easier to blame Roosevelt or the Creature from Jekyll Island than it is to separate from this modern industrial toilet and go to work producing food and a society and culture for our children.

Not that it was the only thing that struck me as I skimmed over for a cursory read, but it did stay with me. He was talking (ranting as he calls it) about being a Conspiracy Theorist. After reading what I did, I think I'd have to agree with him and line myself in that same category. Our world is totally based on conspiracy...God conspired to move every moment in the direction it has gone, for better or worse as seen from our own eyes at times.

But this comment really stayed with me while I moved down to read about being prepared, truly prepared -- another whole rant close to my own heart. And much better said by his keyboard than by mine, that's for sure!

Think about it...look at folks you know in your life. Look around you while in town. Relate his comment to everything around you. It's easier to curse the darkness than to light a match. We are a people who are content to bemoan this or that, to belittle the choices of others when they aren't line with our choice selection...but do we every try to light matches? LOL...yes, I know some would argue I spend my days doing nothing but lighting matches....

When was the last time you sat in a pew on Sunday, or Saturday, mid-week or whatever day you happen to be at church services and truly listened to a deep, hell-fire and brimstone preaching of something akin to lighting a match as opposed to simply cursing the darkness? It's been too long for me, though I do see sparks of half-lit matches more often here than I have in other churches. We are content to complain about all that we feel is wrong with the world around us, and the people we meet or know but no one ever seeks a better way...no one lights their own match and moves on.

I have just under 20 acres here, overgrown and brush-covered, but it's still land and were I to really find some level of contentment with it, I could make something far more useful of it. But...I bemoan the soppy clay ground I have. I should be lighting a match here and working around it to make it productive.

No, this isn't exactly what he was talking about, but this is where The Lord brought me with that single phrase this morning. I am not seeking to do what I really believe I need to be doing. I do not belong to this world, though I am called to live in it. I roll against the grain rather than simply pulling myself out of it and moving myself along the path I know in my heart I need to. I can make a million excuses for why I do what I do, but honestly, when held up to any true scrutiny, they fray apart and vanish into the wind of pure common sense.

That's why I find myself drawn to Mr Bunker's blog so often. There are no mixed words to be found over there. It's plain and simple, cut and dried. There are no weak apologies for walking against the common grain of this world. It's plain common sense found in Scriptures, laid out just waiting to be found.

Stop cursing the darkness and light a match.

You complain your children are being subjected to the rot of the world, filled with evolution and not creation in school, tethered to some public school agenda producing inferior education....pull them out of that cess pool and teach them The Truth at home.
You have a small home without space to produce food stuffs for yourself, but claim your heart is there in thought....get some books on square foot gardening methods, find some buckets for container gardening, pull out the daisies and plant a tomato plant or two instead. There are always ways to grow something, even if only something small.

Turn off the television -- it's nothing but garbage anyway, no matter how educational they tout this or that program to be. It's teaching something you don't need to fill your head with until you have some sense of grounding in The Word of God. Turn off this machine here...it will steal your time and zap your creativity, despite all the good you can find for it to bring you.

Stop complaining about your current situation. You brought yourself to the place where you are by careless planning and lack of clear action...well, maybe I'm the only one who did that. I kind of doubt that, though, but for lack of argument, let's say I'm here alone.

I am where I am because I placed myself here. I have the debt I have because I lack common sense and a true calling in my life. I allowed stupidity to flow freely and I'm paying the price for it now with my husband having to work a job he doesn't have his heart in so we can ride back to the other side of this whole debacle. It is useless for me to complain about it. I need to pull out the box of matches and start striking some fires around here.

I can cut my expenses at least in half. Could have done more had I forced that garden to do its thing this season. No use crying over that. We won't starve, but we will have to pay other sources for that. I can do much more than I already do, but I don't. I moan and wallow in my discontent instead.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify... sell almost everything and attempt to pay off your debts. Cut off your cable and sell your TV. Sell, sell, sell... right now is the time to liquidate. While the world is selling stocks, you should be selling bonds (the things that keep you in bondage). Buy only those things that will guarantee you something in the future.

Anyway, I've covered all of this in my Off-Grid Living series... Go read it...

Go read it for sure. It's good stuff. All of the thoughts shared are. You might think you are walking on some thorns, but if you clear your mindset and look around you, it's not thorns...it's your own choices poking at you. The path is pretty clear.


Yes, little of this has anything to do with what Mr Bunker shared, but this is the bunny I ran off to chase into the brambles this morning..I do that...follow bunny trails here and there...now I'm going to can up some sweet potatoes and finish some sewing.