Below is a message I had out at the end of 2001 called "Very Close" that I remember having online here but for whatever reason I pulled it again (that rarely happens, by the way). However, it shows some personal frustrations that I believe we can all relate to. In addition, you can see that this site was fairly new at that time (less than a year old) and I felt the pressures of the so-called religious establishment, especially the "anti-lost tribe" crowd (which I will call anti-LT) were great at the time. We can all be glad I did not pull the plug on this site. For the regular readers of this site, you must admit you are far better educated, the anti-LT establishment's prayers were never answered to shut us up, and indeed we became stronger than ever answering all the arguments. As a matter of fact, in addition to this message below, I have here links and answers to the solid, Biblical teaching about the Lost Tribes that preacher sinners so heavily despise. This message is a refutation of an article that an anti-LT person sent to me: Refuting the Refuters. In addition, I gave even more evidence supporting the Lost Tribes in this message: Additional Proofs of the Lost Tribes. Notice that even if the refuters are remotely correct, they still do not have answers to the passages we explain. In other words, they will tell you "Lost Tribes" do not exist, but then they fail to explain what the passages really mean. It's like trying to take away a bad habit without filling something in its place--- indeed, they do not have enough understanding to know what to put in its place. No matter. The important thing is we survived, and this teaching is stronger than ever. Everyone we reached, both in our churches and without have nothing but positive comments sent via email to us. It sure looks like the refuters ran and hid with their tails between their legs--- I doubt we will ever hear from any of them by email ever again. But feel free to say "hello" to us. You can reach either of us (Liaf or Morfessa) at the "new page" Email Links.
With all this said, enjoy our resurrected message below and how we overcame!
Very Close
By Liaf
You don’t know how close I came tonight. You cannot imagine what turmoil about the things that happened came very close to pushing me over the edge and "losing it" with God. Today’s economy is bad, I don’t know if I’ll have a job several months from now, the whole world is worried about terrorists, and the list of pressures that we all face goes on and on. Several months ago, my youngest son had pins put in his arm from a very severe break while falling from a lay-up while playing basketball. I told him time and time again to be careful. Well, unless you can strap a kid down, you can’t stop all activities, especially since his orthopedic surgeon allowed him to play soccer after eight weeks --- the kid got his confidence back and just had to try new skateboard tricks. You guessed it. At a friend’s house he fell on the same broken arm off of his skateboard. No, he did not re-break the arm. He did what any good kid would do (at least this is what I figured happened). He held his arm down and broke a collarbone instead. The pins in the arm are fine, but not his shoulder. And yet I prayed that day for God’s protection. What went wrong? I really cussed God out like no other time. I wanted nothing to do with him. I felt like a spurned wife whose husband doublecrossed her. I almost took this site off line. What’s the use? I thought. All I ever did was defend God’s Word and show off his faithfulness, and I felt nobody was listening anyway (maybe even thinking I’m eccentric). Was God too impotent to answer a simple prayer? Does God side with the impotent religious establishments and scorn all the Biblical insight I have to share? I didn’t want anything to do with a shallow God like that. After a frenzied rage, I rushed upstairs to boot up my computer and just spit-can the whole site. Thank goodness my computer takes about five minutes to boot up. I lost patience (maybe something deep inside me was stopping me) and immediately shut down the computer while saying, "What’s the use?" I did nothing further but brood while my wife had my son in the hospital for treatment. Fortunately after all was said and done, they came home and said it was not severe and only requires wearing a shoulder brace for six more weeks.
I repented and asked the Lord to forgive me, but I felt hurt at the time. I can take major things better than so-called minor aggravations, but this incident was pivotal to me for some reason. It was the line in the sand. Don’t ask me why (and I will not analyze it here), but sometimes things build up for awhile and there is that "straw that breaks the camel’s back" and all fury comes out.
Maybe that’s it. I feel that many do not see the importance in what we teach here. I feel like Elijah. You know that story. Elijah asked God to take his life and Elijah said, "I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." Realistically, it’s not all that bad. But a cold or indifferent shoulder (no pun intended!) is of the same spirit. They might as well take my life. Satan will use a person that is known as "a good man of God" to denounce anybody who would teach something against the religious establishments. I’m going to state something here that will give some of my readers the chills. Nobody told me this, so you cannot put any blame on anyone. I am aware that some of you are praying for me to "see the light" (or to that effect) by praying that I stop teaching some of the things I do. You think I am in error but wish that I could change and teach "proper" and familiar things. (I’ll let you figure out how I know all this, and I did not spy on anyone, either.) That’s because I really think you like me, but maybe you see me as one who came in contact with the wrong crowd. ("Oh, Liaf’s so nice if he only wouldn’t teach such weird things--- he’d be such an asset to the church community if he taught normal things.") In all honesty, I do not think God would allow you (who think this way about me) the pleasure in believing that your prayers were answered by having me impulsively remove this site. I’ll tell you what you really should pray for. Pray that I will never "lose it" permanently with God. With the Scripture I know, I could do serious damage to the faith that some have. The best critic of a religion is one who personally experienced that faith. In other words, if you label somebody and they become fed up, they play the role you fear. Fortunately, inside of me, I feel a very deep love. No matter how bad things get however, something stops me cold from ever turning away from God. Please do not underestimate the power of Satan. It is intense spiritual warfare out there. And the biggest enemies (or critics) are sometimes in one’s own household.
On that note, if Satan cannot win the war with religious people judging each other, he may turn to secular means. Everything here at my house is calm. I got things right with God again. I scared the bejesus out of some people who thought they were praying the right things for me. My boy is healing fine. I still have my job. Now comes a knock on my door. Some insurance, investigative or governmental agency wants to see why the kid breaks so many bones. Tell ya what. My kid does one thing right. He always had an audience 3 of the 4 times he broke a bone. Maybe he needs more calcium or magnesium. I’m not even around half the time this happens. Neglect? No. He was at a friend’s house this time. It would take a horrendously preconceived bias and emotionally illogical subjective reasoning to totally twist the facts to make him sound like he’s some sort of "victim" (other than a victim of his own restlessness). Nevertheless, it’s a shame things like this have to cross our minds these days. This pseudo-puritanical "watching" in the name of whatever is starting to irk me. As if I need anybody else (especially a governmental agency) to tell me how to raise my kid ---clean up your own house first. (Based on what Jesus said, they must live in log cabins.) Tell ya what. I am a good American. Bush himself said it. We are either against terrorism or for it --- there is no in-between. I have a US flag on my web-site; I proudly displayed a flag on my house and car. Prior messages of mine were meant to comfort the feeble-hearted. I used prophecy to do nothing but bless this nation of ours while grave evangelists blaspheme God by preaching about our destruction to the horror of those weak in the faith. I generously supported the Red Cross and Veteran funds. I prayed for this nation and the people in it. I figure you can’t get more American than that. I treat my family the same way, too. Enemies? I have no enemies. Nobody is against me that has any brains or worth. I agree with Bush. And if you are an American like me, you have every right to feel the same way I do. We are either together or against each other. So I have no concerns.
Yeah, I’ve been through the emotional mill. You can probably relate to some of the same things in your life. However, in the end, nothing really that terrible becomes of it. Not unless somebody else deliberately wants to stir things up again. Any religious or secular person who would be contrary to or against any of us good Americans has a choice. They can seek out their own company and live with Bin Laden if they want to.