The Rohr Family

I know you intend well when you tell people the reason for tragedy in the world is their pact with the Devil, but please just shut up because you sir could not be more wrong.

Telling hopeless people the reason for their destruction, is that God won’t help them because of their sin, is contradictory to the message of the cross. People in darkness are not to blame for stumbling, they are in darkness and can’t see.

For the record, God doesn’t need you to tell broken people about the mess they have made by shining the golden light of your life on theirs. God has not appointed or anointed you and your club to be the benchmark of Godly living. Wearing fine clothes and driving fine cars and living in gated communities does not qualify you to measure the rest of the world by your standard. The thing hurting people need is compassion and love and when questions about why bad things happen to them come up, “I don’t know” works every time, so say more of that.

Here are a few other suggestions I would like you to consider:

Can you please stop thinking and telling people God is American? God loves the world, not just North America, and if you read his book you will notice He is really quite fond of the Middle East.

Can you please stop drawing distinctions that one religion is better than another? Jesus wasn’t even Christian, he was Jewish, so stop thinking Christianity is the end all be all when it comes to trying to please God. Religion is mans attempt to please God but He is already pleased so stop trying to make Him happy with religion. God made it clear He hates religion. What He really wants is relationship.

Can you please stop telling people that God is somehow punishing them for the actions of their ancestors and in the same breath, demand they serve that vengeful God you just painted for them? God settled all this a long time ago on a hill at Calvary.

Can you please stop selling the name of Jesus like it is a secret decoder ring that once put on makes you exempt from pain and suffering? Life is hard Pat. Earthquakes happen, planes fly into buildings, wars are started by selfish men, and being saved does not exempt you from having trouble. In fact, it all but guarantees you will, the good news is you won’t go it alone.

And finally, will you please stop reinforcing hurting peoples idea of an angry God by telling them He caused pain and suffering because you sir, are wrong. God isn’t angry at us – He loves us.

If you could work on those things for me I would really appreciate it because when you do the opposite, from behind your cameras in your multi-million dollar studio up the road, it makes it really difficult for me to talk to people about my God.

To be fair, there is much good that comes from CBN, so thank your for the good stuff Pat. Thank you for Operation Blessing, and your prayer ministry, and Regent University, and lots of other positive stuff. You might think about letting the good people that work for you talk about tragedy when it comes up. They seem less apt to get all “Old Testament” and you can avoid most of the problems of late.

Speaking of problems, there is one thing that truly breaks my heart about all of this. It is the thing that makes me want to disassociate myself from anything “Christian” when I hear it. It is the revelation from Christians that they somehow “know” the real reason behind tragedies in the world. This banter usually comes up right after tragedy strikes and if it is true, that they “knew”, a painful question burns in me.

If you knew Pat, really knew, why did you do NOTHING to stop it?

Let’s pretend for arguments sake the earthquake in Haiti was a result of pacts with the Devil. Take this a step further and why not associate all the pain and suffering of Haiti to this same revelation – pacts with the Devil. If that is the case, and you “knew” the reason for their destruction was an alliance with evil, why in hell didn’t you do something to stop it? Saying people deserve destruction because of something outside their own ability to control leads them to question the nature of God. The message you are sending is God made this happen but you sir, could not be more wrong.

You can’t blame the people of Haiti for this as they are in darkness, by your own admission, so aren’t you in fact guilty of murder by letting them stumble to their death? To come out after the fact and tell people you “know why” tragedy happened, and in the same breath offer to them the solution to what could have prevented it appears to be incredibly mean spirited! Especially when that solution was so simple, to turn from darkness.

If you need someone to blame for the pain and suffering in the world don’t blame the people in darkness, blame me and blame you because we know better. People in darkness are doing the best they can as they stumble through life but God has given us light hope and love, so we know better how to see in the dark.

And since we know better, and were content to let them stumble, their pain and suffering is our fault.

David Deep Thoughts, Faith, Politics

From Art

From Art

My first prophetic art piece.

David Artwork, Faith Artwork

I usually decorate the pine tree in the front yard like a candy cane, but this time I wanted to do something more meaningful.

I thought an eight foot star of David sixty feet in the air would be sweet.

Happy Birthday my King.

David Faith

The view from behind the microphone is almost always the best view in the house.

David Faith, Supernatural

God loves you.

He really, really loves you.

How do I know this? Because He keeps telling me. To the point of distraction. That He loves -

You.

In fact, He shouts it so loudly that most days it is all I can do to function normally – whatever that is.

I am not being melodramatic here, even though I am prone to it, He really, really loves you and I need you to know it.

I wish I was better at conveying the love He has for you, but most days I forget myself. I strive and I work and I push and I, well I just don’t remember who I am. It is easy to forget who we are. Life has a way of poking holes in us and draining us until all that is left is an anemic shell moving out of momentum and not purpose.

I know the shell, I have lived in the shell for much of my life.

The thing is, that’s not real life! That’s not even life when you get down to it, that is just, well, it is just sad and was never part of the plan.

The plan was family.

The plan was children.

The plan was fellowship.

The plan was love.

You know what? That is still the plan.

And it starts with a simple understanding that God is Daddy. God is Pa Pa. God is Father. God is really, really happy with you and really, really loves you because it is all He talks about.

All He talks about is You!

With your faults, regrets, fear, pain and bitterness. Your love and fear, good and bad and all you do that is wrong. Your anger and selflessness, jealousy and kindness and all you do that is right. He hears you when you laugh, sees you when you cry, and tenderly holds you when you are broken because he is your Daddy.

You are His Son.

You are His Daughter.

And as His child, there is nothing you can do to make Him love you any more, or any less.

So just for today, stop and hold out your hands and ask Him to show you. Just do it, don’t talk yourself out of it, right now as you read this, ask Pa Pa to speak to you. Ask Daddy to tell you what He tells me.

About you.

Please, just try it.

For me.

David Faith Pa Pa

David Everyday Life, Faith

“Hi beautiful!”

“I love it when you call me that Da Da.”

“Are you ready to go for a ride?”

“I love rides Da Da – where are we going?”

“To church”

It went something like that.

We visited Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Smithfield yesterday afternoon on a glorious fall day in Southern Virginia. We decided to take a short day trip becuase the weather was so nice and I was compelled to visit this old church.

I had been to this historic landmark before, in June of 2006, the year we lost our pregnancy and the year I hit bottom.

I had spent almost a week away by myself at a retreat center just down the road on the banks of the James River “trying to figure it out”. I was a little bit of a mess that summer. So much came crashing down in my life I decided it would be best to purposely dismantle the rest on my own.

It was a difficult time coming to terms with the loss of our baby, the effects of growing up in an alcoholic home, and the mess I had made in my own life because of it. As gut wrenching as it was to realize my role in all of the pain in my life and others around me, it was also a wonderful time with just me and my God. I let Him know what I thought about things and He let me know He was there. Stopping by this old church on the way back home from my retreat seemed the perfect place to transition back into reality. I wasn’t sure how I ended up there, but had the unmistakable sense that God was in it.

I guess that is the role of the church – to be a doorway to and from reality.

A place where heaven and earth mix, a place where truth and lies are set before you as clear as black and white.

A place where what is real and what might have been collide, sometimes with spectacular results. A place where you learn to trust that even though life is hard, you may screw things up with the ones you love, some things hold true.

God is the God of second chances, and God is always good.

David Faith

I didn’t get a chance to watch the President make the case for more Socialism last night, but I have heard all I need to hear about it.

There are so many things that could be said about this predicament we find ourselves in. I wrote this post ten different ways in my head while washing my glorious naked body this morning, and as the shampoo drained away so did my fear. No one likes a no-it-all so I won’t pound the drum that I told you so, even though I did. No, instead of yelling to the wind about government education, Ron Paul, the Constitution, taxation without representation, I am going to try and connect the dots to what is really going on in all of this.

There is a foundational premise that we must understand about the world. That premise is that God is good and He has an enemy that is not. God loves us and the Devil hates us. This is key, every bit of knowledge comes from this foundation and is the magnetic north that must be established.

Point #1: Only God makes stuff.

This is rather self evident, but it is a foundational truth. God is the creator, nothing else can be that, He is it. He is the beginning and the end, the big cheese, big daddy, the man, and woman, but let’s not go there.

Point #2: Every created thing wants to be God.

God is so amazingly awesome that everything wants to be like Him. It is programmed into our DNA, we are created in the image of God to be like Him, to rule and reign, to create and multiply, to love and be loved. We really really want to be worshiped and praised and adored and put on a pedestal and all that comes with being an awesome God. Even the angels, as glorious as they are, want to be like God – He is just that amazing.

Point #3: God gives people the choice to love.

One of the most amazing feelings is when you realize your mate loves you. Another person has chosen us, out of all the other people on the planet, they said you are the guy or the gal for me. Nothing else satisfies our need to be loved like finding someone that loves us for who we are. The same is true for God. He could have made us love Him, but He hides himself for us to discover and it brings Him great joy when we choose Him. The fact that we must discover His nature all on our own makes it that much sweeter when we do. If we were to see Him in heaven in all His awesomeness, it wouldn’t be as sweet as falling in love with Him from His still small voice.

Point #3: The Devil hates that God get’s all the glory.

I really don’t need to elaborate on this. All we have to do is look into our own lives and see we are the same way – selfish.

Point #4: The ultimate goal of the Devil is to take what God made.

Since only God can make stuff, the Devil has been working overtime to steal what he made and claim it as his own. God really loves what he makes. Obsessively, painfully, loves everything He makes. The heartache we feel when we lose someone or something we love is an attribute of the heart of God. Multiply that by billions and you can see why the Devil is so fundamentally evil. His one goal is to destroy the heart of God and everything that brings God glory because he wants it.

Point #5: Money and currency are ways to steal Gods stuff.

Things that God makes have value or wealth because they have been created. Land, livestock, precious metals, oil, gas, people are all wealth. They have actual value outside of any currency because they are “God stuff”.

Money has no actual value. It only represents wealth and only sometimes is it backed by wealth. Our currency used to be backed by gold and silver, but not any more. Now, it is only currency, an ingeniously fabricated tool to transfer wealth without actually requiring wealth.

Our current “financial crisis” is a ruse, a lie, a trick. We have been sold into slavery to money. The top prize for the devil is people as God places a value on them above Himself. I wish I could really get a hold of that in my spirit, deep down when times get tough, but it is the message of the cross. If the Devil can make people exchange their “God wealth” for money, he has effectively stolen their wealth from God. If we exhaust our lives pursuing money, the devil gets the reward or value of our life. We literally exchange the wealth God placed in us for paper.

If you take a close look at money you will see Egyptian symbols. Call me crazy, but I think that is neat. The history of Israel and Egypt has a striking similarity to the history of all mankind. We may not be making bricks but we are certainly slaves none the less. If you don’t think so, what would happen if you stopped working and paying taxes on your home? We are owned brothers and sisters. Our task masters are government and banks and they are just as cruel as an Egyptian Pharaoh. In a matter of seconds, your entire life is summed up and assigned a value. They call it a credit score.

The most glaringly sadistic example of the Devil stealing God’s stuff is the abortion industry. We can now literally place a monetary value on human life in 2008 by figuring out the fees charged to end a human life. There is much I could say about this, but my heart can’t bear to think about it.

Point #6: There is hope – God loves to set the captives free.

Help is on the way, and it sure isn’t a power grab bail out package from the Republican or Democratic party. If there is one thing I know, one thing that resonates deep within my soul, it is that God loves His stuff. He hears the cry of His people and has promised to never leave or forsake us. Our only problem right now is us. We could fix this country overnight if we turned back to God. If we could only stop giving ourselves over to the spirit of money and put our trust in God. If we could step back and see that the people in power do not have answers, they made the problem, God is the answer.

Our currency says “In God we Trust”, and even though the God they are thinking about is money, we don’t have to go along. We can trust in God Almighty – the God of Abraham, the Father of Jesus Christ, the maker of Heaven and Earth.

All we need to do is ask.

Point #7: God is for us.

Who can be against?

David Business, Deep Thoughts, Faith, Politics