A FATHER'S HEART (July 14, 2024)

 Dear RamFam Kiddos, 

It's 4am. I'm in a hotel room just outside the town of my teen years, it's a little strange. I moved Ben into his apartment yesterday and tried to imagine one of my kids making the full circle to this geographical area from when I moved out here at 12 years old. There was a path where it would have been natural for you all to be here. In the 1990's when Elizabeth and Hosanna were born we lived and did ministry & work in this area along with my sister and mother and other family nearby, seeing this is where I grew up.  But later we left for Jacksonville then Colorado. So, if we had of stayed here, I could see how you would have become part of this community, but this way is more unexpected for sure, especially for Ben. 

Anyway, just lots of big feelings. Just talked with Zan about tennis and pickleball and talked with Liz about her new house and life in COS. It was Eli's Gotcha Day. Mom & I are contemplating some big changes to her job situation and of course Ben & C moving is big. No big changes with Victoria but she is helping a ton and growing up, as you all have, and looking for her next opportunity. 

As I sit here I feel the weight of things I don't normally share about. The memory of my dead grandparents who are buried nearby. The memory of my childhood homes and the places I worked, drove, played and hung out. They are all right here. I have clear memories of joy and pain and my entire life of transformation to Christ happened just down the road. Those seasons are now past, but not lost on me. They are mixed up into the soupy mess that was the first 25 years of my life. 

I thank God for meeting me in that mess and I do not dispise the time or the people. I love the light and learned from the dark. If I'm tough or resilient to any degree, it's partially because of those times. 

As a teen I drove down these streets looking for a sliver of hope or light or joy and rarely found it. I can tell you exact places and times where I buried my depression with dark behaviors. I can tell you exact locations of jobs I had where I had no idea what was next or why or how my future would unfold. I travelled these streets from one parent's house to another, hating them for being separated and yet, loving them in their new journey with new family. 

Just a few miles from here my most difficult days unfolded during my teen years and my most brilliant days when my first two kids were born years later. I experienced miracles in Plant City and Brandon hospitals when I held these two little girls full of beauty and grace and joy. I was a change man. 

I can remember Crystal living with us and coming to church in her goth vampire outfits every Sunday on the front row. I remember my step brother Vinnie getting saved and singing Christian music on our stage. I remember high school friends, my father and other family, all giving their lives to Christ. I remember playing in the parks with family and friends and feeling a Fear of God and Honor for His Name back then as I lived in a walking miracle path of transformation. 

Those days had many, many challenges. People are broken and we must remember that. We learned the hard way that everyone is broken and that no one should be exalted above the other. We loved God and loved you guys well, or as well as we could, spending hours and hours in prayer and worship and the Word of God, living in obscure devotion to a God who only saw us for who we were, not what we did. 

Last night I fell asleep to the news reporting on the alleged assassination attempt on our former president and my feed this morning included another mega church pastor in TX being fired. I was seeing a report of the mass shooting from July 4th and the war in Gaza where I have friends putting their life in danger to rescue hostages who have been held for so long now. It's dark and yet, still God's Mercies are new every single morning. 

I have found myself getting up more and more early just to find the light through the darkness wherever I may be traveling to, God is always there. I may not walk around being extra-Christian everyday, praising God and using all the Christian words, but I promise you, I have my gaze on Him and His Mercy, not on this world. I am just not acting like I am churchy or Christian. I would rather just serve my family by helping my son move boxes, then pray over the phone with Nancy, one of my donors who's cancer, then FaceTime with my wife and the day, then text my adopted son about taking care of the pool and his Gotcha Day thoughts, then plan to see a high school friend who also found faith in Christ while I travel, then read my books and Bible in my hotel without posting it for everyone to see, then asking God to bless my kids with families of their own who love Jesus and bring light to the world. All of that in obscure everyday life, while also thinking about how to make more investment income, have fun playing tennis and how to be ready for my Alaska cruise. I take care of my work people and share in God's love every day but not from a stage or microphone or posting and I have never felt more real. 

Today I wanted to point to a scripture that I think is being highlighted to me. Malachi 3 is a sort of prophetic telling of what the Bible calls The Day of the Lord. The most important things to know are not when this type of day will happen, but rather, how to recognize and react. You have to decide, which part of the activity of the Day of the Lord will you be involved with. The ideas expressed here are so important for our future. I want to just say, I pray we are the group of people who Fear and Love the Lord.  Malachi 3:16 begins a contrasting statement from behaviors that are deceptive and destructive. It begins in vs. 16 saying "Then, those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard."  

No matter how hard or awkward it gets, I pray we are family who fears the Lord and has the impulse and conviction to turn to one another and discuss the things of God and how to serve with and for each other till the very end. The Lord listens and hears. 

This prophetic book of Malachi then says "A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name." Notice, there will be no mention of fame, following, style, impact, success or pleasure being involved in defining who will be in the scroll. Those who feared the Lord and honored his name, those are the remembered ones. 

Vs. 17 he writes, "They will be mine" says the Lord Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possessions. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not." 

I love this verse because it qualifies those who God will spare and share compassion at this time when something is causing a distinction between the righteous & wicked to be known. Those who fear God and honor his name, those who choose God will benefit from this choice by experiencing a protection and care, to the point that Father God says "they will be mine".  

While the events of the day and the choices people make create division, there will also be distinction between light and dark, good and bad, Godly and non. This will not happen inside the church we grew up knowing, but much of it will happen in the population at large and much will happen "to" the church. The people called the church or Christian will be divided and sorted out, including all these leaders who are being tripped up and deceived and broken. Sin abounds everywhere and is no respecter of persons. 

As I sit here right now, my body and emotions remember a path where just down the road I came to Christ a broken man walking the isle in a Baptist church to become a New Creation. I was coming to God not a church, not a man, but church became my family and career goal. From that day, I was madly in love with my father in heaven and deeply disappointed in the deception and disfunction in the place I landed, called the church. Never have I served in a local church where the Sr. Leader did not live in lies, deception, scandal and narcissistic dysfunction, all while preaching the Word. So, yes, it's been confusing. 

I never fit in and I never will. Not because I'm so bad or so good. Not because the church is bad or good.  I believe the local church in the US became and has become a version of Christianity not found in the Bible and has put leaders and members in a position to be caught in the middle of real life in a way that sets the entire picture up for failure and disappointment. The corporate model where one man is raised to lead and most money and time are dedicated to a weekend service where that one man performs, even if it is selling us the Bible, this is bound to fail. He is bound to fail. The people are bound to be less than perfect church members and this model depends on making money and attendance to build buildings and create programs... and that is just not sustainable in the long run, no matter how many times we try to replicate and fix and repair and upgrade. It was never the model and now, we have a new season where finding God is more global and integrated. I prefer that and as we read the book of Acts and the letters of Paul, you see the Christians being Christians in and among the context of the world they live in. So, I say all that to say, my prayer is that we all find God where God is, now where we put him or imagine him to be. 

I want to point that out to say this. Your mom and I tried to show you a path to building a family who loved one another, loved God and served, and worshiped and gave and did life on a mission together. The context of families & the local church was our choice. Schools and communities who favor these family ideas were our choice. But, truth is, we knew then and know now, those models will fail us as well. I would like to say there is a legacy right here where I sit, in my home town, where my Faith became your Faith and my Family became your Family, etc... but instead, conflict and difficulties hit us early in my home church so we were forced off that path and out of that place. God alone knew why and when and how. 

So, we moved to Jax to suffer even harder shock and challenges. We then found a breath of fresh air in COS where prayer, worship, serving, family, missions and giving were our culture and we loved that for what it was allowing us to do, for a while. Then, evil in many forms touched our lives there and caused us to become resilient and to focus on our own family and faith. Our church community and faith community changed over time as we moved and grew up & out. Even now, as I sit here not being totally sure where all of us stand with God and with our local church and with the darkness and light we see on display all around us, I am hopeful, because I see God at work. 

So, I pray today, back to this scripture, that maybe, just maybe, as a Father who deeply wants to impart the Faith in God that YOU need to complete the race God has for YOU. I call you to see this scripture critically and be encouraged to be the faithful who are Fearing the Lord and Honoring his Name. 

This is not church, this is not saying and doing the right things, this is not being like mom and dad. This is certainly not being what you see online or in the world.  I pray you have a hunger and thirst for righteousness, as the scripture says, and that you find a fresh discovery of God, the God of all time and space, and that his Lordship in your life would take most importance in this next season. I pray you can block out the extremes and bad interpretations of this faith in God and will be able to understand the book of history and Faith we call the Bible and what lessons it has for us every day. 

Let God arise and His enemies be scattered over the Ramsdell family and their futures and let hope and faith and joy and mercy cover us, all our live long days. 

With a heave heart but joyful revelation of God's Mercy once again, I say I love you and will never ever stop my relentless pursuit of God and His truth and presence and pleasure. 

A New Creation in Christ, 

Nothing More, Nothing Less, Nothing Else

DAD