Of Mice and Men…
The statement “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” is from the 1785 poem “To a Mouse” by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. That could be said of my carefully crafted aspirations for 2026. As one year closes and another begins, I reflect on those plans. Yet there is another quote that governs my life: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” The verse can be found in Jeremiah 29:11, and the translation I just used is New International Version. It reads much the same in other translations.
In my last post, I wrote about Christmas Eve in the hospital. On Christmas Day, Tanya was released from Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Woodlands, Houston, Texas. After driving home and resting, we celebrated Christmas with family on the 26th. Upon leaving the hospital, we received orders for Physical and Occupational Therapy, though Speech Therapy was inadvertently omitted at first. Our Primary Care Physician has since corrected this. We are now awaiting two of the therapy appointments. Speech Therapy is finally scheduled for next week. Tanya is doing much better since the scare of the “Brain Bleed.” She is taking care of herself—for example, Wednesday evening she made a salad for our home group and participated eagerly and freely in all discussions. Then Thursday she took the initiative for our supper. There are still lingering effects of the Expressive Aphasia, but even here, there are distinct signs of improvement.
The challenge has been to schedule the therapy. I spent a number of attempts since we got home to schedule Tanya into a rehabilitation facility. Over the Christmas and New Year holidays, the scheduling was difficult. Then there were communication delays as I attempted to go through the “gatekeepers” and the extended phone calls (many) to get the necessary approvals. It seems, finally, after a marathon session Thursday morning, that scheduling is about to happen. So far, Speech Therapy is scheduled as for the rest, we’ll see!
So, “best laid plans” have had to be adjusted. I’m reminded, that God still has the ultimate plan. A primary aspiration for 2026 was to resume work on my book, Cleansing the Temple, A Dwelling Place for God. I had intended to concentrate on writing while on vacation in Alaska, two and a half years ago. However, the weekend before we were to leave, I was attending a men’s retreat. The Saturday morning assignment was to ask the Lord what He had to say and journal the answer. We were given an hour. I was somewhat reluctant because I do journal. Not as consistently as I once did. But I do journal. I was surprised when I sat down and asked the Lord if He had anything to tell me. Wow! For an hour, the words came as fast as I could write. The final essence was NOW is NOT the time to write the book.
I sense the Lord’s leading me to write the book now, two and a half years later. What happened during that pause that might change the book? I’ll explain it in this way. Three prisoners at the Duncan Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice asked me to teach a leadership course. They had done their research and chosen a topic and source materials. All they needed was a teacher. I submitted the proposal to the Chaplain and the Warden. The Chaplain turned down the request for a number of reasons. However, the Field Minister was in the office when the Chaplain said, “No,” and he suggested that they needed someone to conduct church services. The Chaplain asked if I could preach. I said, Yes. He then asked if I wanted to conduct church services for the inmates. I said that I would be honored to do so. Now, more than a year later, the schedule is interesting. Tanya and I are responsible for services on the second, fourth, and fifth Tuesdays each month. We also have the third Sunday each month and the third Saturday in odd months. Instead of a class of however many students in leadership, we now have services of 30+ to 70+ men. It has been rewarding in many ways for us.
Studying for the services led the Holy Spirit to teach me and bring me deeper into the Word. I believe two key concepts would have been missing from the Cleansing the Temple book if I had not waited. The first deals with the Unseen Realm. I asked Google, “Where in the book God Has a Name does Mark Comer write about he Unseen Realm?”
Here is that answer,
in his book, God Has a Name, John Mark Comer discusses themes related to the Unseen Realm primarily in Chapter 2, as part of his exploration of the name “Yahweh Elohim”.
Key points regarding his writing on the unseen realm include:
- The Existence of Other “Gods:” Comer argues that God needs a personal name (Yahweh). The Bible acknowledges the existence of many other lower-case “gods” (elohim). He surveys scriptures concerning these spiritual and demonic beings to show they are real entities. However, none is like the one true creator, Yahweh. NOTE: Elohim is either singular or plural by usage.
- The Divine Council: He references a “Divine Council” and interprets Psalm 82:1 as God (capital E Elohim) presiding over an assembly of spiritual beings (small e Elohim), not just human judges. He connects this idea to Jesus’ ministry, suggesting Jesus came to address the “injustice” of these spiritual powers.
- The Demonic Realm: Comer emphasizes that the demonic is an active part of life. He identifies various spiritual powers behind false gods as real demons.
- Influences: His treatment of these topics closely reflects the “Divine Council Worldview” popularized by scholars such as the late Dr. Michael Heiser (author of The Unseen Realm).
Comer also explores the “invisible” nature of God and the spiritual world in the book’s final section, “Contemplation.”There, he discusses spiritual practices for sensing the presence of the invisible God.
I used this source because it clearly summarized my study of Dr. Heiser’s work in The Unseen Realm.
The verse associated with my study of Cleansing the Temple for the Habitation of God is Ephesians 6:12: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
For the Christian wrestling with Sin, this is the battleground. We are tempted by demonic forces outside ourselves. An illustration is found in
Romans 7:14: “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”
There are, of course, many interpretations and commentaries on these verses. I will elaborate on my position in the book Cleansing the Temple. What came next was a revelation to me. Romans 7:24 “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
I have found a few among those whom I teach at prison and in the Schools of Ministry, and my preacher friends, the general knowledge that the body of death refers to the practice of binding a living person to a dead body is a historical form of torture and execution primarily attributed to the
The Etruscans and mentioned later in Roman literature.
The Etruscan Practice
- The Method: This gruesome punishment involved shackling a living victim to a decaying corpse.
- Exactitude: The two bodies were bound “face to face, mouth to mouth, limb to limb” with meticulous precision so that every part of the living body corresponded to the matching part of the rotting one.
- Duration: To maximize suffering and ensure the living person succumbed to the decay rather than starvation, the Etruscans would continue to feed the victim until the “differential continuity” between the two bodies—often bridged by the presence of maggots—was fully established.
- Historical Sources: Aristotle (cited by Cicero) famously referenced this as a torture inflicted by Etruscan pirates.
Roman Literary and Cultural Context
Biblical Imagery: The Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans (7:24), cries out, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Scholars and theologians believe this may be a metaphorical reference to this specific Roman/Etruscan torture, illustrating the internal struggle between one’s spiritual self and “the flesh” (the rotting body of sin).
Virgil’s Aeneid: The Roman poet Virgil describes this practice in Book 8 of the Aeneid(written in the 1st century BC), attributing it to the tyrannical Etruscan king Mezentius.“The living and the dead at his command / Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand / Till, chok’d with stench… the ling’ring wretches pin’d away and died.”
The answer to Paul’s question, “Who will deliver me…?” is answered in Romans 7:25. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
Life in the Spirit
Romans 8 : 1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.”
These are the studies over the last several years that the Holy Spirit led me into that I sense are key components of having a body cleansed for the Habitation of the Holy Spirit.
I will be working on my book over the next several months. It will be finished when it is finished with God’s help and the Holy Spirit’s guidance. I look forward to sharing it with you. Until then, our primary goal is by prayer, therapy, and patience get Tanya back 100%. And this we will do by God’s grace.
I bless you in Jesus’ Name.
Spiritual Wanderings 