My wife, jane, came to visit me in April for the first time.  It had been over seven months since we said our goodbyes outside the courtroom and our first time since my sentencing in February seeing each other without tears of sadness filling our eyes and pain rending our hearts.   What follows are my self-examinations and learnings as written in a letter to my sister.  ~jdoe

I wish I could express my joy in seeing, touching, jane after 7 ½ months.  I’d forgotten how holistically beautiful she is.  How I love her heart.  It confirmed what I know: All I need in life is God, jane, family, food, and shelter.  Life is simpler than we make it,  you know?

Life Should Be Simple

Yes, I know “life” is out there:  kids with swimming, bills to pay, dogs to nurse, chickens to quiet (lol), etc. but really – if all of these are done to glorify Him in these basic categories they become basic!  How I wish I’d known this simple truth decades ago.  Imagine the wonders He would have shown me – and will show anyone who lives this way.  I know I lived this way in many ways but it was, truthfully, almost accidental,  you know?  “Be good to others,” “If you can’t say anything nice…,” “Treat others as…,” “Remember what you learned in kindergarten…,” lived as a collection of adages – not a collection of truths or graces as told in God’s word, The Bible, and available by living with Christ as Lord and Savior. 

There is a difference and it matters. 

The issue with living life through adages (and I’m not dismissing them as most are rephrases of Bible scripture) is you pick and choose and develop a man-based, worldly, definition of life and behaviors which must, by definition, fall short of what we’re meant to be.  And where does that lead?  For me, prison; but with God’s Word leading me, hopefully Heaven in the end.  For others… well… it can’t end well in eternity.  The sad thing is – for the masses of the world – it leaves them wondering, unsure, and saying, “I live as a good person and that’s what God wants,” no dear friend, He wants more.  Or they point at great accomplishments like: “I raised four wonderful kids and had a great career and ran my church choir and was a coach for little league and…”  Sound familiar?  It’s me in case you missed it… God didn’t.  Because it all allows you to hide your sins – from man alone.  We can rewrite one old adage as,

“The road to hell is paved with good adages.”

Psalm 71:20