The Splinter in your Mind

I ordered the book and the movie today. I have never actually seen the movie or have I read the book. A scene from “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suite” came to mind this morning. The scene I recall seeing very long ago has Gregory Peck, as Tom Rath, walking down a crowded street in Manhattan, NY, USA and you hear, as a voice over, his voice speaking his thoughts. Its been so long I cant recall the exact words, the basic idea being that Gregory Peck’s character is questioning how all the people around him can go on day after day, day in - and out, doing the same meaningless tasks, (OK so maybe I added a bit with meaningless tasks) His character is questioning himself, or so I recall, on “if everyone feels like something is missing or is he missing something they all know.

The same premise is laid out in “The Matrix”. If you haven’t seen it I’ll summarize the part that is important to my point. Keanu Reeves plays the role of Mr. Anderson who’s day job is a computer code writer of some sort. Like many he works in “cube world” When not at work he is Neo, a computer hacker. Mr. Anderson/Neo is plagued by the persistent thought that something isn’t right. He doesn’t know what "it" is but he knows it's there. As the movie progresses you find that his premonition of something out of sort is that the world he perceives is actually an illusion and that the real world is something vastly different then what he thought, and from what the rest of the world think, it is.

Now if you saw “The Matrix” please rest assured I’m not about to begin telling you how the world is controlled by machines and that our lives are actually just bits and bites of code pumped into us so we will produce energy for the new rulers of the world.

My point IS the feeling/ premonition/ fear/knowledge that both of these characters had. Something is amiss, something in them or in the world just isn’t right, and they are troubled by it.

As long as I can remember, much like Tom Rath and Neo, I have known something is missing. As a child I didn’t recognize the question but felt it. As a young man and later an adult I recognized the question but could never find words to express it. I just assumed everyone else in the world “just got it” that they knew some precious secret that I didn’t which allowed them to go on day after day, doing much the same things I did, and being satisfied or fulfilled. As an adult I learned that I could drown out the question , make it go away or mask over it with some new interest or challenge that captured my attention. Horses, motorcycles, fast cars, girls, fishing, hunting, shooting, mirage, having children, business, politics, booze, money the list is almost endless. One thing the distractions have or had in common is they all held my attention, blurring my vision and thought that something was missing, ------ for a season. The season would eventually end and I would again know that I am out of step, something missing.

Just to clarify I’m not taking about happiness, I am happy and in a very natural way content. This is something more then happiness, deeper then contentment.

Before anyone starts to pontificate the “standard” Evangelical, Full Gospel, Born Again, Church Attending mantras please allow me mention a few items of interest.

I have been a Born Again Christian since 1978. I was baptized in water that same year, as well as receiving the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. I attended church 3 times a week, participated in outreach ministries, and prayer groups for years.

My wife and I sold all that we owned packed our two babies into an old car and drove half way across the country to attend and for me to graduate from Christ for the Nations Institute.

I believe in the gifts of the Spirit and have seen all of them work through me, some many times, some on occasion.

I believe I have met and talked with angels, two times that I know of. Hebrews 13:2

I know I have met and talked with demons, and I’m not speaking in a figurative sense.

For more years then not I have read my Bible almost daily, on the days I don’t read it I normally listen to it on CD in my work truck.

I had my right hand crushed in an industrial accident to the point that the doctors told me I would never regain the use of it. Believers prayed for me and within 2 weeks God fully restored it.

I have been shot at for witnessing to prostitutes in Dallas Texas at point blank range and the Lord stopped the bullets. Where they went I have no idea. They didn’t hit us, the wall behind us or anyone around us. Oh, and the girls did accept Jesus that night.

I was buried alive 27’ underground at 9:05 AM on August 2005. The circumstances were so bad that the 100+ fireman sent there to “rescue” me treated it like a training exercise. Witnesses later told me that my rescuers seemed to have had no real hope of saving me. In fact, they had so little hope that they turned back the helicopter dispatched to rush me to the hospital when they dug me out. I climbed out of the pit, on my own, just 2 hours after the cave in. The Evening News called me “the luckiest man alive”

I’m not a rescue worker or an EMT but God has used me to snatch 5 souls, that I know of, from death. Two from drowning in pools, one who fell through the ice in a reservoir, one who fell off an observation platform over 100 feet above a waterfall and one who stopped breathing from anaphylactic shock. I also know of two I should have saved but lost.

God- the Father, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit are and have always been deeply involved in my life. Even at those times when I drifted or willfully walked away.

I am very happily married for over 35 years, to the same woman. We love each other more each day.

I have 4 great children who are grown, 3 married now. All are successful and we have wonderful relationships with them.

I have 2.95 (at the time of this posting) grandchildren, all bundles of joy.

I own a small but successful construction company and God, despite the present economy, has blessed us with a flow of business and customers.

In short I have just about everything I could want or of dream of. Against all odds we have become an embodiment of the American Dream.

On the other side of the coin, I have needed Gods cleansing, forgiveness and restoration more times then I care to remember. Take it from me, if there is a way to mess up as a Christian I have probably done it. The Holy Spirit has been faithful to convict me and the Father to forgive me through the Lord Jesus Christ each and every time.

“No brag, just fact” , (Walter Brennan, “The Guns of Will Sonnett”)

I have come to realize that the rest of the world does not know “a secret” to fulfillment and satisfaction that I somehow have missed. In fact I am now certain that “the secret”, is that some of us know something is wrong or missing and the masses do not. Romans 11:8


I and other Christians have talked about this and they understand the existence of the question. This fact suggests that the prompting is of and from God. My Spirit tells me “the secret” needs to be revealed.

This post is The Proclamation of my intention to seek God to answer the question , to uncover, understand it and then share the answer “the secret”.

These scriptures are my anchor, my assurance that I will find the answer.
2 Corinthians 9
8And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9As it is written:
"He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever." 10Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.


Matthew 7
7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Do you understand this yearning? Do you hear the question? Please take a moment and share your thoughts with me on this. Please drop me a post at STofSoul@gmail.com.

More importantly, the quest for this prize will be traveled primarily in prayer.
Please, while your thinking about it, mention this to God.

It will only be prayer, by his Word and through The Holy Spirit that the answer will come.


Footnote, I received a call from a dear brother in Christ doing the Lords work in Columbia this evening. I believe God is anxious to answer "the question". Tonight’s call might very well have been His notice to me that the answer has already been dispatched.

Bill