It's The Last Friday Of The Week!

Yes it is, and we've made it another week.
We're still clean and sober, above ground and ventilating. 
In the old life, Friday was "party hearty" time. Time to cut loose, as we use to say. A time to shuck off the work week and go for the pleasure. Bars....music...the river....friends....and the list went on and on. But the only thing that held it all together.....the only thing that brought the so called "friends" was the alcohol and/or the drugs. Stop and think about this. The only thing that kept that group together and functioning on any level was a substance. Take the substance out of the picture and you all probably would not have hung out together.

Time goes by and you and your friends go through changes. Instead of gatherings and parties, you find that isolation has become your closest friend. You become your own best friend. And Friday? Well, your entire week becomes a blur to the point that you don't concern yourself with what day or time it is.
Sound's like fun, doesn't it? It is the truth of addiction.

Addiction is an equal opportunity destroyer. It takes no pity on anyone. Of course you know these things, but it doesn't really register with you, does it? You continue to make that long slide down into oblivion, jail, the legal system and eventually death. You even rationalize that death would be welcomed. It would stop the pain, the guilt and the shame, death might be a good friend. But here is where it gets crazy. Such thoughts of embracing death is birthed in darkness. Darkness will not let you see what lies beyond death. You think to yourself, "There's  nothing after death. No heaven or hell. No Jesus or the devil. Nothing. You just die. Really? Do you really believe that? Or are you just trying to convince yourself that such is the reality of this world.

Don't be a chump.
You may be asking me, "Well, prove to me that God is real and heaven and hell are there! Prove to me that this Jesus you claim to know and follow is for real. Prove it!"
I can prove it, but you're not going to like the proof. You'll even claim that it isn't proof at all.
How can I prove it? By my own personal life.See, I told you. But here's the rub. I know how my life use to be. I know what darkness filled my heart and my life, and touched everyone I came in contact with. I was miserable, my wife was miserable and we didn't know how to get out of the mess that had covered us and was choking the very life from us. 

But God sent a young man and a record album. Yes, you heard me...a record. The young man gave it to me and told me to listen to it, that he thought I might enjoy it. So there in the living room of our apartment, one Friday afternoon, I put the record on my turntable. He was right! It was the funniest thing I'd heard in a long time. No one home, but I was laughing and crying at the same time. Side one finished and I hurriedly flipped it over to listen to the second side. But something happened. The humor slowly waned and I found myself hearing the Gospel of Christ again. I'd heard it years before but such had been shelved and then covered up by the sin I had let into my heart and life. With each word that came out of my speakers, I felt conviction like I hadn't felt in a long time. It was God talking directly to my heart. I knew it. It was scary and comforting at the same time. The tears came harder and quicker. I was broken. I remember sliding out of my chair, to my knees and praying over and over...."Oh God! Forgive me...Oh God! Forgive me." I don't know how long I was down there......the record had long since stopped. But the one thing I do know, is that when I stood up I was changed. I couldn't explain it. I didn't have language for it. I just knew it. I also knew that I had to play this for my wife. I did. She too was changed. That was 1979 and we have been on this Jesus journey of change ever since then. 

We have had things happen to us over the years since 1979 that could not be explained any other way than God intervening in our lives. I could write you stories about His faithfulness that came in real physical, tangible ways. I could tell you about healing's and deliverance's from demonic spirits. I could go on and on about the love that God re-birthed in my wife and me.
You see, all your doubt about the reality of God and all this "stuff" I write about daily here on the Greene Street Letters...doesn't negate the truth about who God is and what He has promised He would do for anyone who cries out to Him.

Because of God, I can get up every morning and post something here on this blog.
I can do so and rest in the knowledge that someone some where is given a seed of encouragement to not give up today. It really has nothing to do with me, but has everything to do with God.
Why not find out for yourself.
He is waiting.

God on you....
mb