In the same way we battle health concerns that matter we can look at our brain heath too.

Dear reader, can you identify whatever health problems you have? 

Let's began with things that matter. Do you have problems with your heart, your arteries? Do you have problems with high blood pressure? Think through if your brain affected by your artery health?

Do you have problems with cancer? Is part of your problems with cancer-related to cancer is you're trying to prevent the disease? If you are battling cancer does that battle interfere with your ability to combat infections and disease?

Do you have problems with blood sugar, diabetes?

These kind of problems are the problems that normally threaten our life. I think we all agree that there big problems. Sometimes the fear of them causes us not to seek out help until they become more problematic and even life-threatening.

Whether or not you made these problems public or not it's totally up to you. I think it's a good idea to tell people who can help you deal with these things, but not everybody indeed needs to know. If you choose to publicly endorse some type of action that may help others, how you do this has many options and it's totally up to you.

Cardiovascular, diabetes and cancer has always been at my focus in walking with the fat-man. As the years of past, I've added dementia to my list.

My first goal was to prevent an early heart attack that many of my family has experienced. One of my favorite uncles passed away in his 50s with an early heart attack. My uncle Bruce was one of my favorite relatives. My brother died in his late 50s. My father was 68 and my mother was 71. I am now 67. On one level I enjoy each day of life, but on another level, I would like to outlive my parents. Years ago I made a magical number of 83. I thought about this back in my 30s when I came up with that formula. I thought that would be a good long life. I still think so. I may not get there but it is a good goal.
In my thirties whatever I thought about being older getting there is a lot different.

As we get older we begin to understand the aging process in personal ways.

There is another area of health that aging brings its problems. Our brain health can be affected by aging. Dementia is something that we should become more informed about. There are things that we can do that may help us for several years. 

What about depression, anxiety? What about the possibility of withdrawing and becoming isolated? Is our world becoming dark? Are we experiencing the"black dog"? 

Do we have negative friends and relatives that we need to set boundaries?

Losing mobility or the ability to be independent changes our relationships as well. Open your intervention to capable doctors and therapists to help you change living with depression. Thankfully most people never experience clinical depression, but at least 255 of us do.

One of the things that we can do when we get older is to understand what is important to us. We often get an ability not to care what other people may think about it. Use that for your favor if you need to reach out to develop your medical team to include the brain. 

There is no need for guilt or shame here the brain is a complicated and wonderful organ. As we get older probably have so many things wrong with it much of which we probably have discovered yet. But there is a great hope for depression and anxiety. We can live on the upbeat in our senior years. Today is a beautiful day, blue skies a nice summer temperature. Good time for a summer drink, an outdoor grill, taking in a deep breath count every good thing we may have going. Thank you, Lord, thank you, friend, that you Rover, etc. Thanks for this day. Keep walking.

As always follow your doctors advise. 

Helping the little grey cells spiritually. Online support - cool

One of the challenges we face as we get older is continuing our own growth spiritually. I have been personally talking to friends fighting burn out and are depressed. As they share their stories it helps me in my own life to focus on activities that build up and encourage the mind and spirit.
It seems my interests are many but new studies through the net have really encouraged me. Listed below are 6 sites with excellent resources for continual growth.
For my friends they have their work cut out for them.
https://www.biblicaltraining.org
I am taking a graduate class on Proverbs that is really stimulating my mind and spirit. Many of these teachers have different theological prospectives than I do, but the desire to know the truth of it makes it worthwhile. Good stuff
http://bible.org is a Cadillac of Bible study. The Lumina study tool is outstanding. Follow the menu and there is a lot to experience and learn.
https://www.biblegateway.com tops
https://www.studylight.org I have used this site for years. With many of these sites, you will find interactive material with great library support.
https://waynestiles.com/livethebible/ I do a lot of internet travel with Wayne to the Holylands. I am doing a study with the podcasts in the Gospel of Mark. A very good study.

Below is a blog entry on Biblegateway. It gives you reading levels of various popular translations.

Two levels are given for example. I worked 15+ years helping kids improve their reading. A Big thanks to Nancy, Dee, Marci who helped this ole boy learn how to help the kids.
KJV 12+ - 17+ which means it was written at 12th grade+ reading level and is best understood at a graduate level after 4 years of college. Many people through the years through vocabulary acquired have learned to understand this Bible at a lower reading level but it takes work. It can be a great Bible to work the little grey cells as we age. Much like studying a foreign language.
My favorite Bible NASB 1964 11th+ and understood with a senior college 16+. It definitely helped raise my reading level. After reading the NASB the KJV was a breeze.

My new favorite translations for study and reading pleasure the NIV, NET, NKJV, HCSB are at 7+ level and best understood at a 12+ (senior in HS) reading level. These translations are easy to read as you grow in vocabulary understanding. Not everybody agrees with the writer including me. Working with HS students generally finding books that are 2 years below their own lexile level they could read well for comprehension and understanding. So I would say NIV 7+, 9+ and so on.
Newspapers tend to be a 5+ understood best at 7+-10+ reading levels.
What happens if one has a lower lexile level than the Bible translation? Over time low readers may have higher listening skills and audio Bibles are wonderful. People can gain experience and growth in vocabulary acquisition. With greater recognition comes understanding. It takes work and learning coping skills such as listening, The Bible acted out. Preaching and explaining the meaning in language and experience people understand. Why Bible art in churches? Was this a way to help lower readers understand? A picture is a thousand words. We can never underestimate people who are often smarter than you might think. Of course, there is the other side of it where people have college degrees and are dumber than rocks.
Of course, there is God Himself interacting with the reader revealing His truth to the simplest of saints. How do you measure that? Keep walking

bible-translation-reading-levels

Before I forget, a thought on forgiveness

“As far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalms 103:12

The problem with the past, good or bad, is we stay in the past and do not take hold of today. We are not looking to the future and the promises of God. When God forgave us in Christ’s redeeming death, He did so unconditionally. Our past, present and future sins were forgiven at that time. 

In time, we walk with the Lord and deal with those present and future sins as they come up. 1 John 1:9; Ps. 51 share with us those principles that keep us in fellowship with God. He forgave us when Christ took on the cross our sins, but He does work with us in the process of sanctification and growing in Christ. 

In Isaiah 43: 18, 19 Gene Getz shares a principle to live by to forget the past. Paul did this in Philippians 3: 13, 14 “forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead”. When we became a Christian “we became a new creation,” 2 Corinthians 5:17. 

This idea of living in the moment is what Jesus had in mind when he talked about worry. Worry and anxiety about our past has dynamics that make it hard to forget. 

Jesus teaches about anxiety in Matthew 6:25-34. The principle here is helpful for the worries and anxieties of life. Anxiety attacks, in connection with depression, become a medical issue. The truths contain are solid for any therapy and treatment that may be required. Notice what Jesus says in verse 34, “Therefore don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Here we are warned not to negatively think about the future. Like dwelling in the past, focusing on the worst possible outcomes for the future can keep us from doing what we may need to do right now. What we think and do right now we have some control of. 

In sports as a coach I always wanted my players to be in the moment. The best players can make a mistake and quickly put it out of their minds to be ready for the next play. It takes experience for player to get this ability. When a player stays in the moment their best performance will be seen. 

It is often a good habit after the game to review what can be learned. A good coach may bring into practice drills what will improve a weakness. God does the same thing with us. We may, at the end of the day, review our actions and thoughts to learn from our experiences. He will give us plenty of practice to overcome what we need to overcome. But in the sports world it does no good to dwell on defeats. To dwell on defeats can eat up a player.  

The same is true of us as we dwell on our past sins. We actually have to make the focus on the good things to do and think about. That refocus reduces the energy of the negative behaviors or thoughts. We will experience a whole new freedom by letting go of the past, focusing on now, looking forward to the promises God gives us about the future. The apostle Paul shares the reasoning behind our forgiveness in Colossians 1:13, 14. Keep walking                                     

Have fears in the night? Know your prayer line is secure...

Some where in this wilderness Satan Tempted Jesus,
an easy place to get lost.

This week I have taken myself up with the question that came from a reading Screwtape Letters from CS Lewis. In Lewis' letter Screwtape the master demon is instructing his prodigy a Wormwood about keeping his client from knowing the truth and acting on it. In Lewis first letter Screwtape is able to understand the thoughts of the client Wormwood is working with. "saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way."...The Enemy (God) presumably made the counter suggestion (you know how one never quite over hear What He says to them)"The demon is not so clear on what God is saying that's a mystery to him. The Screwtape letters is a wonderful fiction and I do encourage you to read it. But I had a question, can Satan read our minds? Can he enter into the very thoughts of our prayer? Does he have these abilities?

It doesn't do you any good to go to movies or literature especially the stuff written today, to find answers. I say this for one simple fact, Satan, the devil is a liar; he tells half truths and he's an expert at it. The only place where I think you'll get the truth about Satan is in the Bible. Now there is always an onslaught of a lot of films that bring up all kinds of possibilities. There are so called documentaries all the time the deal was various Occult, Satanism, and other weird ideas. 

A few basic things, the Bible teaches that Satan and the demons are created. They want to be like God, but they are not God. They do not have God's abilities. They are different than humans, they have more experience, they are stronger, they are invisible for most of time, I haven't yet knowingly seen an angel. (Some of the kids I work with where demons LOL) I know they can changed their appearance.

I believe only God can read our thoughts, read Psalms 139. I cannot see this ability of knowing our thoughts that Satan has it from the Bible. Angels being invisible can certainly hear us talk. I tend to ramble and ramble so if a demon or an angel is around me for very long he probably knows a lot of what I'm thinking.

Satan operates from the outside in.
(James chapter 1:13-15 "13 No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God.” For God is not tempted by evil, and He Himself doesn't tempt anyone. 14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desires. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.)
We are informed that sin works from the inside and we can only blame ourselves for our wrongdoing. But the demon world can use sin and temptation from the outside, He can use thoughts and ideas from the world that are opposed to God. Satan is the prince of the air, the god of this age. He moves us towards the motivations of greed, power, forse, lust, a desire to be like God - pride, all seem to be within the ability that he has to influence and deceive us. I cannot see where angels has the ability to read our minds.

Even if our minds are inflicted and become ill from injury, with mental illness or dementia, he can't read the mind itself. He can certainly interpret what comes out of the mouth or the body language, and use it to his advantage.

But here's my idea, I was encouraged in my studies, that our prayers are between us and God himself. We don't have to say our prayers where anybody hears them if we don't want. But it's very clear that if we draw near to God, Satan does do something that he is and that is he's afraid of God and he will flee.  James 4:7. Our thought life is our own with only God who seeks our best as being privileged to it. Satan and the demons are creatures who were not given that ability. I take comfort in that. Remember that the demons and Satan are created and limited.  There abilities don't include reading minds. Their desire is to be like God and defeat God. But God is God and is stronger than He who is in the world. Praying is a secure line, you can have confidence in your thoughts and prayers. keep walking