Hello!
I recently started to read a book that was recommend by Pres Gillham at the Fall Retreat on the Hill in Hardin, KY. Quiet, the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain.
It actually is a book about introverts and extroverts, but primarily focuses on Introversion.
After reading a paragraph I had to chuckle because it just described me. Did you know that introversion does not necessarily mean that you are a shy person? Shy being defined as fear of social disapproval or humiliation. Extroverts can actually be shy and Introverts social. So introversion has very little to do with people and much more about being sensitive to the environment. A temperament that you were possibly born with.
Being more sensitive to your environment and stimulation will cause an introvert to have to get away to recharge. Being alone is not a bad thing for them. They are much more likely to devote much of their social time to family, close friends and coworkers, listen more than talk, dislike conflict, think before they speak and be guarded in many ways. Many have a horror to small talk and would rather have deep conversions.
I always wondered why I needed so much margin in my life. Margin being the space between your load and your limits. I need a lot of space to regroup. Now I know it is from over simulation and not a character flaw. I am learning to see how it is all connected. It explains why I am more likely not to go to class reunions or have coffee with a large group. And why even though I have a lot of responsibility at a busy medical office, I would much more prefer to do the paper work.
The Creation of All Things
Susan Cain’s book has opened my eyes as I also study the creation story, to the way our God has created ALL things for a specific purpose. So, if He created the tiniest of seeds and the largest of …(you fill in the blank), He has created me exactly the way He wants me to be with the purpose He wants for me. Which goes back to the question of my last writing, Am I living the Life God has for me today? I write these things to encourage you as believers in our Lord Jesus to be who He has made you to be whether introvert or extrovert. We do it for His glory.
We all have to live and work with introverts and extroverts. I live with a variety.
- Cora enjoys being in the kitchen baking, is getting interested in golf and can be found in the corner reading
- Prudence loves gymnastics, always gets the last word
- Theodore loves a great adventure either in real life or with his video games, which at 6 he is very good at. He enjoys his music and crafts
- Jensen can be found playing usually by himself in a world all to his own. If it has dirt involved that makes it even better
You can put your guess on who is an introverts or extroverts in our family. But it doesn’t much matter as long as they are aware of the Lord with what He has gifted them with.
Love you all. Be a lover of His soul.
Donna
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Over the years, I have spent energy daily trying to pay attention to things that I now realize are bigger than a day.
Foremost, now, I am coming to remember each year by the things that touched my soul. There were some very sweet touches in 2023 such as an increased awareness of God, learning first-hand that on my own I am not enough, and the unforeseen indelible kindness of a son and his son at my door.
Mentoring and Counseling
Through the mentoring and counseling of believers I find God is swiftly building a people of great character who love God, themselves and others. A remnant has always been in place, but less so was my awareness of its growth until 2023.
One way to explain what I am now aware of is to know many have grown weary in very recent years, but weary from hardship. That is a good weariness! The history of humanity tells us some will respond to a weariness from hardship by becoming people of great character. That is what is happening in my circle.
However, some outside of my circle are doubling down. The daily message from the loudest voices is to overcome the weariness through making bigger, faster, stronger humans, as if this generation will eventually overcome what the Greek gods and Roman Caesars could not. They, being made by the imaginations of men into gods, failed along with their followers. They failed because humanity needs absolutes. That’s a problem, because mankind will never find life-building absolutes from within himself, or in others or society regardless of how big, fast, strong or autonomous he believes he has become.
Confidence
My confidence has never been higher than it now is in the God of the Bible. Like Paul on Mars Hill (Acts 17), my own life experiences and ongoing studies continually lead me to believe only one view of the world explains the existence of the universe or its form, and the uniqueness of man.
My belief is different than the one seeking bigger, faster, stronger humans. He or she believes man is to be free from external control or influence. Such a view of autonomy is not capable of providing an explanation for the universe, its form or the uniqueness of man. To believe this about mankind also requires the removal of proven understandings of what is good. I know this by reading their books and listening to their lectures.
Once the understanding of good is removed, it is a but a next step to proclaim the good things as the bad things. That is one way to explain what has finally come to a head in my lifetime. The belief that humanity is to be free from external control or influence has opened the door for personal peace and affluency to finally win the day as the ultimate good (a belief stated to be true, though not so, since the heels of WWII). This ultimate good of individual peace and security has therefore sought the removal of the only good foundation (Christ and His way). Only this foundation gives the forms and freedoms needed to recognize what peace and affluency actually are.
A wrong view of good also seeks to refuse and suppress that which does give an answer to the universe and its form, and the uniqueness of man, Romans 1:18-32. A wrong view offers brief answers to big questions. I continue to find the uniqueness of man and the universe actually give irrefutable evidence to what the Bible teaches in detail. The God of the Bible does exist and has not been, nor is He, silent.
For the only good God and His ways to have now become the bad has also led to other things I encounter on a regular basis – confusion about who we are and what is acceptable behavior, discontentment and unfaithfulness among those who have made unconditional promises to one another, weariness through instability, and the lack of confidence in ourselves and beliefs we know to be true from a life well-lived.
Image and Likeness
“Let Us make man in Our (God’s) image, according to Our likeness,” Genesis 1:26.
This describes both man and woman.
The image is something in which all were created, and continued even after the Fall, Genesis 9:6.
Image is replica. It means a visible representation of something else. Image is to be visibly enough like God that those who have seen Him (angels, spirits) will recognize Him when they see humans. The word for image is used 17 times in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), referring to images, statues, idols, figurines and a picture drawn on a wall.
Your body is a reservoir of meaning, not matter without a message. The way you use it reveals your low or high view of creation. Knowing this, there should be no confusion as to why the perversion of the image (your body) is at the forefront of humanity again.
The likeness is something towards which all were created, that we might attain it in Christ, see James 3:9.
Likeness is similarity. In the Greek it is a word relating to moral behavior with God as the source, and used only once in the New Testament. It is used when talking of people. It is not used when talking about Jesus. Likeness is used 25 times in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). 20 of the 25 times it is translated with the same meaning as the one time the Greek counterpart is used in the New Testament, James 3:9.
To say that humanity was created according to His likeness is to say that God gave to us some form of His moral characteristics – and enough so that we could accurately represent Him to all observers through faith in Christ. To attain the likeness, humans are made to have input from outside of us, from the Lord God. (Note: This design by God is the opposite of man being free from external influence and input as explained earlier in this newsletter.)
Strongholds
In the late 1980’s, the Lord used Bob Warren to teach me My Identity in Christ, that being the person who lives inside my body is completely whole according to God’s divine standard. God conformed my person to His standard of completion the moment I accepted His Son Jesus by faith as the payment for my daily rebellion, as well as payment for the sinful nature I inherited from Adam. The Adamic Nature being eradicated, and my sins forgiven – both by faith – I began to understand spiritual warfare, Ephesians 6:12. I began to believe it was possible to live as Jesus did while on the planet. I began to live on the friendship of God, the life found in the Father. This would be a relief to my soul.
On a scale of 1-10, the thoughts and behaviors I struggled with began to drop dramatically. My confidence now being well-placed in Christ and not my performance, led to some struggles dropping 5 points on the scale. Through time in relationship with Christ, relief was coming for many other struggles as well.
Some of my earliest awareness of what follows began in the early 1990’s, when a friend and I quietly and privately convened face to face for a 3 day conversation. God had done something a couple of weeks before to overlap our lives in a way that we had no context for. God had done this to us during the same evening, 600 miles apart, in uncanny detail. Now we were looking each other in the eye to find a context for the new awareness we had of things other than us. There are several points of interest along the way since that experience. I will repeat but a few, in order to bring you to consider a way to deal with a stronghold – a fortress, 2 Corinthians 10:1-5.
Fast forward to 2022. The Lord God added a marker pointing to another truth in the same space as my Identity in Christ. We (Believers) are to learn who we are in Christ, so we can make peace with ourself, learn to fight spiritually, forget ourself and rest. I wrote in more detail about this in the February 2023 Seed 4 Life Newsletter.
In 2023 I leaned in on the Lord God about a subject I believed needed clarification. What is a stronghold, I asked. I had come to a place where I was willing to fight a stronghold if the Lord would add clarification to what they were, and how to fight.
What had changed that I would go into a stronghold to fight?
Truth is, I want you to know I am a long way from halfway the person God aims for me to be. I know this. Yes, most things on the 10-point scale of my own struggles are now below 5. Occasionally there is a 5 or a 7 flair up. But, I get to live below a 5 most days. Still, God had introduced a new question into my mind. What is a stronghold?
What changed over the 2022-2023 winter was even at levels below 5, I was worn by the daily 45-year beating on my person. I wanted to know if a levels below 5 still might be a stronghold – a fortress. If it was, and the Lord would teach me, I was willing to fight.
Buckle in. We’re cutting to the chase.
In spiritual warfare all image-bearers (humans, Genesis 1:26) face many foes. The Devil, fallen angels, Spirits/Demons, the Flesh, the Power of sin, the World System and Strongholds each oppose all humans because they are reminded of the Lord God when they see us.
A Stronghold is any argument and/or claim over you or another person, patterns of thinking (theories, reasoning) that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. Said another way, a Stronghold is entrenched reasonings in your life after your own pleasure, which you have made more important than they are. Strongholds can happen by Fleshly or Demonic means. You choose independence (fleshly) over faith, and/or you welcome something which has a concentration of evil at its core (demonic). The repetition of these ways give a base of operations for the Power of Sin in your life, for a Stronghold to form, James 1:13-15.
In a Natural Disaster, people come forward for food because there is a shortage. But, when there is too much food, people develop bad food habits. A bad habit may be a fleshly Stronghold, sometimes choosing independence rather than faith in God. Although for others this could be the influence of the demonic.
People come forward daily to express sexuality, but is it because there is a shortage? No, they go public because there is too much. The free and excessive availability of sex has created an environment of over-emphasis and abuse. The abuse of sex is a demonic Stronghold, something that has a concentration of evil at its core. It is designed to harm the image, Genesis 1:26.
Wherever there is excess and persistent abuse there is evil present. This is more than illogical, more than changing a habit, or an environment. It is a demonic Stronghold.
The authority of God over the Foes
- Speak out loud to the God of the Bible
- Confess the Lord Jesus
- Ask the Lord God for specific input about what is coming against you or another
- Renounce these things as a member of His family
1 John 4:1-4
A few years after a friend and I had quietly convened for the 3 day conversation in the 1990’s, the aforementioned foes tried to scare me away from my new awareness. I came home understandably shocked by the experience. But, I realized one thing to be absolutely true that very long dark night, “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world,” 1 John 4:4. The first three verses of the same passage were without application to me that night. But, I wholly trusted God gave me the truth I needed to keep moving. Nothing will ever talk me out of 1 John 4:4.
In 2023, the Lord God gave me the first three verses. He did so that I might know a way to fight a stronghold. Test the spirits.
Submission is resistance which Foes will flee
Foes are unwilling to submit, James 4:7. Therefore…
- Speak out loud to the God of the Bible
Father it bothers me that daily I (or another) experience this (state the struggle) at any level.
- Confess the Lord Jesus
I believe in the life of Jesus. I believe He is God in the flesh. I believe He conquered death. I believe He is coming back again. I believe He is the Son of God, and I am His brother!
- Ask the Lord God for specific input about what is coming against you or another
Please tell me, sir, what has come against me or another? (Usually, I go with the first words or phrases. Words like confusion and selfishness, or fear and control might come into my mind. For starters there are several lists of things in the Bible fed to us by the foes, Galatians 5:19-21, James 3:14-16.)
- Renounce these things as a member of His family
Father, I renounce the spirit of confusion and fear over me (or another). They have no authority over me (or another as I am with them), or in my life
One more thing
It was a new understanding of Matthew 12 that threw fire on my resolve to give you the news of my Stronghold discovery in 2023. I used to think Mathew 12:43-45 applied to me like this. You had better not mess with evil spirits, because if you get it wrong, you and others will be seven times worse off than before! I recently learned that application is the foes talking smack to me. It is a lie. They wanted me to stay silent on this.
The verses actually teach this. Israel, you are like a man who has been delivered from an evil spirit. You know it to be true, and yet you use your freedom to serve yourself and reject the deliverer, God’s Messiah. You are therefore now seven times worse off than before! With that in mind, we can understand why Jesus offers the Kingdom of Heaven to all in the very next breath, Matthew 12:46-50.
You may need to renounce some things
Speak out loud to the God of the Bible, confess Jesus, and ask what do you want me to know about this evil fortress, and renounce it as often as needed.
I have done it. I still do and I will again. Deliverance is happening for me and others because well-placed Belief works, John 6:29.
Seed 4 Life
The ministry at Seed 4 Life is to make ourselves available to be with people. Some receive our offer to help them recognize God in everyday life. We’d like to think God uses us to introduce a new rhythm to their life; a newness they can count on because the Lord God is to be counted on according to the Way of Jesus. We are with people on a regular basis. Once a week, twice a month, normally in the evening or on a weekend. These conversations (most always one on one) are part of our lives, just as are being a spouse, a parent, a grandparent, a child, a friend and an employee. It is all holy ground.
Should you want to get in touch, you have many ways to reach us. Donna and I will be glad you did.
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Biblical Counseling and Discipleship
In February of 2020, Rick completed his training to incorporate Biblical Counseling into how we at Seed 4 Life disciple others. Dan, a member of our Seed 4 Life Board, attended the training as well. Since then, Troy, another member of our Board has completed the training.
You can learn more about the process at seed4life.net
To learn more about on my own I am not enough go to rickshermanunderhill.com
Life is seldom a highlight real, but we set our minds on what is of good report. We make it our aim to submit and depend upon the life found only in Christ Jesus. Thank you for encouraging our hearts. Some of you do so with regular notes through the mail, while some come from hours (and states) away to spend a few days, and others from across town to spend the evening. Our lives are richer by the fragrance of Christ with and in you. May Donna and I be the same fragrance to you.
SOME PRAYER NEEDS:
- For the two of us to have favor and wisdom to be a help to others
- Discernment as we, along with the ministry board, seek the Lord Jesus
- Provisions to complete and maintain Seed 4 Life on the new land
- And a host of other unknowns (unknown to us), but not to the Lord God
JESUS
NO OTHER NAME
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Seed 4 Life • PO Box 54 • Boonville, Indiana • 47601
Underhill Home • 299 West Tennyson Road • Boonville, Indiana • 47601
rick@seed4life.net • 812-319-4907 • donna@seed4life.net • 812-453-6377