Keith has written several blogs recently.  Due to a week of confusion they are just now ready to post.  We apologize for the time lag.

December 24, 2011

This morning our friend Trice took me to a meeting of a group of men.  These men have had such an enormous positive influence on my life the last few years that I continue to get up on Saturday mornings and pay whatever price it takes to go and learn more about God.  And I am also learning to become a more authentic man in a world that seems to have cut itself off from the moral and spiritual roots to the extent that, in 1961, my mentor told me the world was turning into a cut-flower society.

This meeting is unique in my experience in that all we do is listen to those who want to share their experience, strength, and hope with each other without contradiction, giving advice, or trying to “straighten each other out”.

Since I have often been reticent to show my real feelings with men, this place has been a real spiritual oasis in the midst of a desert of conventional thinking.

This morning I shared with this group the reality that I had had to stop three times in getting ready to go to the meeting because I had pooped in my pants and had to clean up three times before I could come.  But after telling these men about this experience of shame as a very proud man, I felt spiritually cleansed somehow.  And I thanked these men I’ve come to love so much for all their help and support in dealing with the progress of the aggressive terminal cancer with which I have been diagnosed.

At the end of the meeting, a dear friend handed me this page which I am including in the blog.  It is a reading from the book, Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.

The principal reason why prayers are not answered is because in our hearts we limit the power of God.  The Bible constantly tells us that the people got into trouble because they limited the Holy One.  When you say, “There is no way out of my difficulty,” what can it possibly mean except that you cannot see a way out?  When you say, “It is too late now,” what can that possibly mean except that it is too late for you?

When you pray you are turning to the power of God, and surely you will admit that God is omnipotent, and therefore nothing can be too difficult or too late, or too soon for Him.  You will surely admit that Infinite Wisdom knows at least more than you do, to put the thing rather mildly.  Well, Infinite Wisdom takes action when we pray and so our own limitations do not matter—unless we think they do.

Children often find themselves completely overcome by a difficulty that a grown-up person easily solves.  What to the child seems an impossibility is quite easy to his father, and so even our greatest difficulties are simple to God.

Infinite Wisdom knows a beautiful and joyous solution to any dilemma.  Do not limit the power of God for good in your life.

“…Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem?  Or have I no power to deliver? …  (Isaiah 50:2)

I thanked the members of the group for the enormous gift of their acceptance of my reality on this journey, which without them would be the loneliest passage of my life.  Then I went home with a song of gratitude in my heart for this band of powerful, loving, and compassionate men whose presence and acceptance are as close to a community of wisdom and holiness as I can imagine.

Tonight, hours after the meeting was over, there was a knock on our front door and, to my amazement, I saw (and heard) a group of these very unlikely Gentle Giants and some of their women friends and relatives — singing CHRISTMAS CAROLS!!!

I don’t think Andrea and I have ever been so moved by the Spirit of God on Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas to you all!

With much love,

Keith Miller

At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises: Glory to God in the heavenly heights, Peace to all men and women on earth who please him. (Luke 2:13, The Message)