January 4, 2026
Will It Be A “New” Year?
Does simply making the number on the end of the numbers, 2025, make it a “New” Year? Yes, we will add another year to our age, yes, we have to change the date on all our dates where signatures are required, yes, we must take down that calendar and put up a new one that has replace 2025 with 2026. But, think about it and honestly answer the question being asked: is this really a “New” year?
I’ll bet the majority of you still live in the same place you did at midnight on December 31, 2025, still have the same job, still drive the same route to wrok each day, look forward to your favorite food being placed in front of you or ordered from the favorite kitchen, and so on and so on. Now what is your answer?
I know, a lot of you have made what are called New Year’s Resolutions, which will dractically change your life. Today is the 4th of January and a bunch of you have already busted that bubble. Give it a few more days and another huge bunch will be holding their deflated ballon.
I read an article about a person who stopped making those resolutions each January 1 when it rolled around, just like clockwork. She has a medical problem that has caused her all kinds of trouble all her life, even causing her to be made fun of during her early school years. Kids can be cruel as I am sure we all know having experienced it at one time or another. The allegience towards “friends’, “systems”, etc., changes periodically just like the dirt we wash off one day, only to get a new barch to wash off the next.
Anyway, she never really made resolutions because her life was not set up to make long term commitments. She literally never knew when she would be back in the hospital bed of on the ski slope so she took her days one day at a time. She started waking up each day and making a plan or goal for that day. I don’t remember what she called it but it replaced what everyone else would be calling those New Year’s Resolutions, except she made them daily.
The lady writes on Substack. I read a couple of articles and she has her own way with words that will keep you reading to the end. I do not remember her name but will probably get another free diatribe to try and get me to subscribe. Of course, if I subscribed to all the people who want me to subscribe, I would be spending my entire Social Security check on Substack.
I haven’t made any New Year’s Resolutions but I have decided I want to read the Bible again this year and write a little more faithfully on The Grist, contiue my adventure with Divi, and get my Business Directory finished. I guess not having a time table is an issue as I could do all this on the 30th of Decenber in order to reach my goal. I shoiuld have a busy year as I also want to get my podcast going concerning interviewing the runners at the back of the pack at ultra raxes up on my website, “faithruners-runyourownrace.com”, keep filling up my map at: citystrides.com/users/39025; and run/walk/crawl to the finish line at a 100 mile race, along with a group that are too numerous to mention.
Everyone reading this knows I have no way of finishing any of this if I do not get organized. The statement, “Too many cooks spoin the broth”, works here as, ‘too many goals keep Roy from finsihing any of them”.
Here is what started me asking the question about the new year. How many of those goals did I have in 2025? ALL OF THEM! So this is not really a New Year, just an extension of the old one that must become organized so the march to completeness can be accomplished.
January 15, 2026
One Rotten Apple
So? Have I become organized? Is my room cleaned? Is my mind set on the journey before me? Have I moved one square ahead, put one piece in the puzzle, gone the two steps so I can go one step back? The answer to all is NO! I got the emails down to 300 unread and it is now back close to 2,000. I cleaned at least half of the front part of the desk by moving the stuff to the side. Now it is above the window ledge, i.e., both boxes.
I was thinking about how we would start the home group Bible study with each of us giving two numbers, from 1 to 10, one for how our week was and one for how we feel. After a couple of months, I decided that was not a way I wanted to present in public or a way I lived my life because it focused too much on me and my troubles, rather than God and His promises. I am looking for joy in the morning to show up, not the opposite, i.e., no joy in Mudville because Roy struck out.
I started giving a 10/10 every week. I probably insulted a few people, but I was determined that having the Holy Spirit in me caused the world to react to me, not the other way around. I still feel that way. One of the problems is I forget sometimes how it is supposed to work and get off the train where there is no station, no adoring crowd chanting my name, and the train did not come to stop. The landing always seems to be in a bed of cactus that stretches for miles, it is downhill, and I can’t stop rolling, picking up those spears at every roll.
There are times it is not easy living your life in the manner and belief system you espouse. Temptation rears is beautiful head, (if it was not beautiful, would we go after it?). To an addict of any kind, the lure of the item, i.e,, needle, bottle, person, etc, is tempting and beautiful, even though you know it will not be beautiful in the morning when you wake up next to it, clutching the bed sheet to wipe the tears from your eyes.
One more issue is pulling all those spears from the cacti is painful. I have even had some of them go so deep that I had to go down to the VA for surgery to get them out. I shared a picture with friends and relatives of one of thos visits.
You know what that trip to the doctor means: it was a long way down to the last group of cacti, I picked up speed and the landing was at 100 miles an hour instead of a couple of miles an hour. So, either I caught it quick or went all the way down, [probably with people and friends shouting at me all the way], that invisible ladder of joy I was decending at a breakneck speed. And I discovered at the bottom it was not joy, even though I considered it joy at the time, but, in reality a wrong turn on the path of life.
It often is as Paul says in Romans 7:15: “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate”, NASB Of course, that verse is speaking with 20/20 vision after the fact and not before. You know what I mean as we both have picked those spears from the bandaged black and blue body while looking back at the fall and unmitigated destruction during the fall.
So, my 10/10 shout out was not without recognizing I could say 1/1, and maybe even, -10/-10, without over exaggerating. But I want to keep my eyes on the goal set before me, i.e., to honor the Lord; to live my life abundantly; and most of all, to have the world react to the Holy Spirit residing in me rather than me react to the world, forgetting Who I belong to and Who lives in me. Complaining about the situation I caused; complaining about the actions of others, who have no real power over me except the power I give them; and accusing God of leaving me in the woods with no compass, food, water, or His presence, is basically working on the negative instead of the positive.
Sammy Maloof would give the admonition, almost hourly, if not minute by minute, that it is what comes out of the mouth that determines what happens to us, using different verses. I remember him quoting from James 3 about the tongue and the direction towards good or evil it steers like a rudder on a ship. Sammy loves to talk abou the Lord and is an example of the tongue being used for good and honoring the Lord.
I grew up in a house where you were threatened with getting your mouth washed out with soap if you said bad words, (I would be rich if I owned stock in soap the way people talk today). I would now add to my upbringing that I will bring about more misery by complaining about it while accepting it instead of just denying it and moving on, trusting in the Holy Spirit to comfort me and cause the problem (maker) to suffer.
Sammy would use the example of saying, “I am sick” or “I don’t feel well”, is only acknowledging or accepting those statements as they applied to you. I tried to argue about what you say when you are sick and his response was you were giving it power over you, instead of you having power over it. I will admit, I struggled with his answer because it was true and yet what did I do with that fever, cough and headache, because simply denying they were not there did not take them away.
At some point, I realized what Sammy was saying was what I was saying about trouble, temptations, sadness, etc., i.e, that it had to react to me because I was filled with the Holy Spirit, God was my provider, my shield, rather than me having to react to it. That Sammy was a pretty smart guy.
So, that was the long way around to the reason I gave a 10/10 rating each week at Bible study. If I gave a 9/9, there was room for 1/10th/ 1/10th of negativity to enter. And you know it only takes one rotten apple to spoil the barrel.
January 18, 2026
Blinders
I was watching Jack Hibbs start his message and the power went out. I owe Edison a rather large bill and my first thought was what Dorothy and Ali were going to say. Then what would I say, and the conversation in my mind was not pleasant. All that because I was trying to watch the Sunday service at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills.
How fast the mind can turn something that is not true into something huge, kind of like making a mountain out of a molehill. Of course there was some truth in the story. I do owe Edison a large bill. The rest was all made up in the mind of a madman thinking the worst. Edison was working at the corner of Lower Azusa and Elrovia and the electricity was out until 4:00 p.m
What is the % of the incidents with trauma being caused by a runaway mind? I know all of you have seen those offramps on the side of a road going downhill. They are ueually soft dirt so the wheels will start sinking in and slowing down, with a big mound at the end which will stop that fast moving vehicle. Do we have one of those ramps available to us when the voices start being raised and items lifted off the table or shelf with evil intent as the reason for the lifting?
The issue is we do not seem to have the capability to see that offramp and clow right by it and continue gaining speed on the way to a much louder and destructive crash than if we took the offramp. It seems like the blinders they use on horses when racing to keep them from noticing what is going on around them have found their way onto our head and there is no way we can see anything but what is straight ahead of us.
That is a negative use of the blinders. I was thinking about how successful people use blinders in a positve way. Indiana and Miami play for the National Championship this coming Monday night. If they do not apply the blinders and get ready to play their best, they will definitely lose. One team may be better than the other, (just ask the Indiana or the Miami fans which one is the best), so just getting ready may not bring the victory, but going out partying the whole week before the game will definitely make it difficult for the team to raise the trophy.
I have been struggling with my “shiny object syndrome” for some time now. I have a lot of ideas on what I want to do, I see another item to make it easier to reach the pinnicle of success in one of my ideas and off I go for a short period, then life’s daily requirements raise their head, and by the time I think about going back and finishing that idea, I see another wonderful item that fulfills this other idea I am working on and off I go until life’s daily requirements take over once again.
I read a statement that fits me to a “T”, which went something like: getting prepared is diguising procration. The idea was one is trying to get prepared so everything is perfect before you launch what it is you are launching and in reality you are guilty of procrastination. It will never be 100% ready and if it is something new, there are obviously things which will change once you get going. The last part of that statement was stated by Tom Gaddis in the last Friday coaching from Offline Sharks.
I “was going to” start exactly what Offline Sharks has turned into a mutiple 7 figure business back when Ali was in high school. Where were those blinders when I needed them? There was some hesitency in starting because I wanted to get one thing ready but it really was beause I did not completely turn over my energies to setting the path towards my goal without stopping at all those offramps that made it really difficult to back up and return on the path to my original goal. I would actually hit that soft dirt, stop at the mound, see a trail going a new direction, and try to Go Wast, Young Man, as Horace Greely said, even though I am already pretty far West in California.
For me, it is the procrastination, not fear of going forth. I remember driving down to the Bankruptcy court, which everyone told me not to do because it was difficult, the Bankrupty attorneys were a brotherhood and I was not a part of that brotherhood and would be eaten alive by the judges, and thinking, here I go again: I don’t know where to stand, I don’t know the terminolgy, and certainly did not know all the Bankruptcy law. But, I am on the way and I can handle any issue that arises. I wound up doing a couple of trials in Bankruptcy Court and they certainly do not operate like Superior Court or Federal Court, both of which have their own way of operating.
The moral of the story is Blinders are both good and bad. You have to know when to war them, and recognize when to wear them and when to take them off as we roll down the path of life.
January 21, 2026
Martin Luther, Daniel Penny, and Don Lemon
My position about most trauma drama people and their attempt to rope me into their one person stage act is well known in my circles, deal with the Holy Spirit and not me. Unfortunately, my emotions do get me involved in some situations, and on occasion, those which are a deep pit that have leaves covering them . I have been in those pits and there is no ladder waiting to be climbed to exit and it is dark because the light is far off.
But, what about when life ot limb are at stake? Is there a firm covering over the pit? I believe Penny did the right thing on the subway. If I put myself in Mr. Penny’s place, the question concerns whether I am on solid ground or heading down into the put? As a side note, Bragg is a tool of the unvarnished left and the cases he files and those he doesn’t file speak loudly about the kind of person he is. Shame on you if you are a follower of the Bragg, James, and Willis philosophies of who to prosecute.
Martin Luther, besides the 95, (was it 95?) Thesis he nailed on the church door, wrote other letters and manuscripts. He did not believe you were to be a doormate simply because you were a Christian. He addresses the turn the other cheek mentality in a manner which no one I hear today espousing. The church that was invaded by that washed up idoit, Don Lemon, and his fake journalists and phony Jesus worshippers are where the turn the other cheek could be applied, using Luther’s hermeneutics and Scripture.
I will admit, Lemon told the pastor to stop pushing him, which he was not doing, but, if I was there, his request might have been well founded. I would have been wrong, according to Martin Luther. The key issue is whether you are doing it for the Lord or for civil protection. If Lemon had of started physically harming anyone, that turns it into the civil area instead of defending because the Lord’s honor is not now being questioned or criticized. Luther goes so far as to show in Scripture that we are to protect our neighbor from harm or we just as guilty as the one doing the harm.
I foolishly did not take down the name of the book, which was a referenced source in an article I was reading about Christians growing a pair. Of course, that was not the way the author of the article put it, but that is what he meant. I read Bondage of the Will years ago and still have my copy. I think I will read it again in 2026. I have 11 months to complete that task! Anyway, I should have copied down the name of the book.
I also should have taken down the verses. One was in the garden when Jesus told Peter to put away his sword after chopping off an ear. I wonder what Lemon would look like with one ear sown back on by the Lord? I think He used super glue instead of thread and needle as Jesus just seems to stick it back on and it stays. Imagine that!
Now we have Lemon accosting the pastor, I strike Lemon and his ear falls to the ground, the partor picks it up, chews me out, and sticks it back on the side of Lemon’s head. You would think all those agitators who just witnessed that, would leave the pastor alone, as well as Lemon, as they made their way towards the door with their mouuths wide open and a bubbling sound escaping from their mouth, while murmuring, “See you around, Lemon”.
Now, as I recover, the pastor tells me God is in control, I am not to rease my sword and he will see me in a room in a week or two, not to be discouraged, be strong, and take his message to the ends of the earth and make a few disciples along the way.
I realize you think I have made the pastor into Jesus, but in reality I used the verses in Scripture that say we are to act like Jesus did, and we are to do miracles as Jesus did. But I will make a bet that if anyting happened anywhere close to what I just described, the room will empty at breakneck speed, except for the true believers. And I wouldn’t be surprised if even some of them snuck out with the open mouthed heavy breathers.
So, Martin Luther says God will protect the church, we are not to strike the agitators, unless physical peril is emminent and unavoidable. Interesting, Penny did the right thing, because he was protecting others from phusical harm, just as I said all along.