Joel Osteen: Inspirational Speaker

I was feeling the strain of portfolios cut by one third to one half by the last 2 years. Though I'm still okay there are many people who are not okay worldwide. I started praying last night for guidance. I know I and my family will be okay. But these are pretty tough times for the average person on earth.

I was channel surfing with my cable TV and saw Joel Osteen. It was about midnight and the rest of my family had gone to sleep hours before. But I was still up trying to feel good about the world and my life. It was like an answer to my prayer when I turned my TV to Joel Osteen's show.

He reminded me of many of the religious folks I grew up knowing through my parents, a lot like Norman Vincent Peale and other positive thinking Christians. Since my parents were positive thinking Christian Mystics I felt touched to the core listening to Joel's uplifting rhetoric.

I found my emotions being turned around and beginning to feel more positive about my life and the world.

He spoke of things like "The wealth of the ungodly is being laid up for the Godly." Since God and angels have never been theoretical but an actual experience all my life I have seen this in action all my life.

My wife often says, "How can you worry so much if you have these experiences with God?"

My answer is that even though I have experiences with God all the time my worry reminds me of the man that was in a flood and knew that God would save him. First a log floated by but the man didn't get on because he knew God would save him. Then a raft floated by but the man didn't get on because he knew God would save him. Then a boat came by but the man didn't get on because he knew God was going to save him. Then a helicopter tried to pick him up out of the flood but the man wouldn't get in because he knew God would save him. Finally, the man drowned and he went to heaven and he said to God, "God! Why didn't you save me?" God said, "I sent you the log, the boat, the raft and the helicopter. Why didn't you use one of these things I sent to save your own life?"

I guess my worry is that God will send something to save me in a situation and I might not recognize that I'm being saved by that device in that way. After all, God does things in very unusual ways and sometimes it is hard to recognize some of the ways God saves our lives.

I think another reason is that though God has always been in my life it is a lot like being an ant on an elephant. You just have to watch out when God(the elephant lies down). Knowing God for me has been in some ways both the most wonderful and yet terrifying and traumatic experience of my life. When God grabs you time and again and throws you off a cliff that free fall and hitting the ground is pretty traumatic. People often envision God as all hearts and flowers. The actuality for me at least is much more harsh than that. Wonderful and terrifying. That's God.