Hi Phil,

I really like that. If it's okay with you, I would like to print it 
up for a friend who loves Jesus, and she doesn't have a computer.

I'm saving it.

Thanks a bunch.

Love and Blessings,

Pat Ferguson
At 11:51 PM 1/20/2010, you wrote:
>I'm pretty certain I posted this awhile back but I hadn't finished 
>the article.  So, if you read this following testimony, and think 
>you have read it before, you likely have.  However, I have added a 
>lot to it so I thought some might like reading it again.
>
>Phil.
>
>
>You Can Do Better Than That
>
>
>By Phil Scovell
>
>
>
>
>
>
>I was just 20 years of age.  My wife and I had only lived in Denver 
>for a couple of
>months.  That year was an extra harsh Colorado winter for the Denver 
>area. At that time,
>in 1972, the snowfall in Denver was 61 inches for the seasonal 
>average. That first winter
>we lived here, the weather service recorded over 100 inches of 
>snowfall and a dozen
>major storms of 12 inches or more.  A couple of blizzards were over 
>20 inches.  Over the
>years, fortunately, this type of weather has dropped off to the 
>point that the annual
>Denver snowfall total is down to about 30 inches.  The high country, 
>as we call it here, in
>the higher elevations of the Rocky Mountains, still continues 
>averaging 10 to 30 percent
>above normal seasonal snowfall nearly every year.
>
>I remember these wintry details for many reasons but largely because I found
>myself out in this cold freezing, snowy, icy weather during November 
>trying to learn my
>way downtown using my white cane.  At that time, we lived in west 
>Denver and where I
>ended up working was about a 45 minute bus ride with an exchange of 
>buses in between
>and that alone, the exchange, I mean, lasted several minutes just by 
>itself. I had already
>trained considerably with the use of the white cane for mobility but 
>Denver was much
>larger, with more traffic, and streets that were less than the 
>average squares created by
>corridors north and south, east and west, which provided for more 
>convenient right and
>left turns.  I was more accustomed to traveling this way from living 
>previously in Omaha,
>Nebraska.
>
>I also quickly learned that places of intersections in the Denver 
>downtown area, at
>that time, had four-way stops.  That is, all four lights turned read 
>at one time and people
>could cross diagonally to any corner they wished.  This made crossing such an
>intersection, especially since I learned the hard way the first 
>time, quite difficult.  As a
>white cane traveler, you listen to the people in front of you, or 
>around you, and judge
>direction by where they are going.  Logically, when the light turns, 
>you cross just like
>everyone else around you.  Not so fast, Quick Draw!  I stepped out, 
>the first time I
>learned otherwise, following a man in front of me when he suddenly 
>swerve and makes a
>hard left angle turn.  I thought, "Where in the Sam Hill is that guy 
>going," and fortunately
>I continued straight across the wide street.  A tip about this type 
>of crossing is to listen for
>the waiting traffic to the side.  Cars are pulled up, engines 
>idling, waiting for the lights to
>change.  This is, by the way, what kept me from following the man 
>who curved away
>from a straight walk through the painted white lines of the 
>crosswalk. Later that day, I
>mentioned this event to a blind friend and he explained to me what 
>was happening and
>indicated streets where this was permitted.
>
>Since I had a considerable bus ride, bus transfer, and several 
>blocks to walk to
>work even after leaving the bus, a mobility instructor was appointed 
>to come to my house
>during evening hours to teach me where to find the bus stops, going 
>and coming from,
>work, and to learn the route in-between.  This was extra training 
>just to get to work and it
>lasted two weeks.
>
>During this particular November, it was bitterly cold, snowy, and the streets,
>parking lots, and sidewalks all had a great deal of ice and snow 
>incrustation.  After being
>outdoors for two and three hours, we both, my mobility instructor, 
>and myself, were
>getting more than a little cold.  Such focus mobility in bad 
>weather, for a blind person,
>creates, to say the least, extra stress.  You are listening at all 
>times to your surroundings
>such as barking dogs, are they coming this way, cars backing out of 
>residential
>driveways, not seeing you, and nearly running you down, sidewalks at 
>intersections with
>cut down curbs level which assist in helping you suddenly find 
>yourself in the middle of
>the traffic without realizing it until several car horns begin 
>honking louder than a flock of
>geese flying south for the winter, and you scurry back to where you 
>judge the sidewalk is
>and pray you don't get run down before you fine the damn street 
>corner.  Of course, no
>respectable Born Again Christian, spiritual man of God such as I, 
>would never think, let
>alone say, such a thing, but it is the way of things traveling blind 
>and hoping your white
>cane isn't mistaken for a broom handle or mop handle before a driver 
>squashes you, or
>knocks you into next week, which has, by the way, happened to a 
>couple of friends of
>mine; one died and the other survived.  So we ain't talking about a 
>warm Sunday
>afternoon stroll in the park type of relaxation sort of thing, when 
>White cane traveling is
>via busy metropolitan streets, if you get my meaning.  Additionally, 
>in such cold weather,
>wearing earmuffs, a stocking hat pulled down over your ears, or even 
>just a common old
>hat can change the acoustical characteristics of the sounds around 
>you and coming to
>your frozen ears.  If you think feeling around with a white stick 
>with your eyes shut is
>dangerous, just let your hearing freeze up and find out now you 
>can't even ear where you
>are going.
>
>Another unique experience for a blind person is crossing a street 
>with a situation
>of a parking lot, or in my case, a gas station on the opposite 
>corner. Since there are few,
>if any at all, reference points in which to allow you safe passage 
>traversing such a place,
>it is common, if you aren't staying focused, especially to the 
>traffic noise on one side of
>you, to veer off a straight line into the parking lot or gas 
>station.  In such cases of drift,
>you end up walking into a parked car gassing up, or you'll be 
>introduced, somewhat
>embarrassingly, to a gas pump with which you have collided, , or 
>perhaps you'll miss
>everything and walk right into the front of the gas station 
>building; breaking out a large
>display window with your head.  Then there is the likelihood of 
>being run down by a car
>pulling into, or out of, the gas station just as you are crossing 
>the entrance or exit
>driveways.  This was one of those cases.  Due to the extreme cold, 
>frustration of learning
>a difficult mobility route, I drifted off to my left.  I was tired 
>and cold and sick of trying
>to remember all the left and right turns to reach the appointed 
>destination. In fact, I
>occasionally, to this very day, still have nightmares that harkens 
>back to those days of
>watching your step, sort of speak, or be killed on the way to 
>work.  The mobility
>instructor, who was following at a considerable distance, began 
>yelling, no, screaming at
>me, "Think, Phil!  Think!"  There was something to the tone of his 
>voice that angered me.
>In my ears, his words sounded more like, "You idiot.  Can't you do 
>better than that?"
>
>Many decades later, I was seated in a friend's office as we talked about my
>daughter being a meth addict, the stress of closing a church I was 
>pastoring, and a dozen
>other things that had finally gotten me down.  I was depressed, 
>hardly sleeping, hearing
>voices, and was suicidal.  A ministry a man was doing is quite 
>similar to what I do as an
>intercessor and praying with people, allowed me to make an 
>appointment with him.  The
>anxiety and panic attacks I was having at this point in my life were 
>more than I could
>handle at the time.  During our conversation and time of prayer, my 
>friend said, "Phil,
>you know what to do; you just aren't doing it."  It was true, of 
>course, that I knew what to
>do, at least, based upon what he had taught me and that I had 
>learned from other Bible
>teachers and preachers.  The problem occurred when I found myself 
>doing all the things I
>had been taught by such people but it wasn't working for me.  "How 
>could the Bible," to
>which I was obedient, "not be working for me?"  This was pushing the 
>anxiety level off
>the meter's scale.  I honestly did not know what to do.
>
>Recently, at a low point, these two memories collided in my 
>thoughts.  I could not
>identify the emotions associated with either of these two memories 
>which had caused me
>to instantly conduct my standard automatic (SAD), Search and Destroy 
>mission.  I felt,
>based upon the Lord displaying both memories at the same time, they 
>had to have a
>common theme, commonality, or buried lie, but how and where?  I 
>could not see the
>connection but I knew it was there.
>
>Several weeks passed and I had, of course, prayed about these two memories
>repeatedly and seemed to make little, if any, headway in 
>understanding the memories and
>their relationship.  One day, as I sat at my computer, not typing 
>but just finishing a task, I
>felt the Holy Spirit say, "So how did you feel in both these 
>memories?" Since I was
>finished with that which I had been working, I stood up and walked 
>about 6 feet to a
>secondary room where I have a reclining rockingchair I sit in when 
>praying with people
>on the phone.  Sitting down, I allowed my thoughts to instantly 
>focus on these two
>memories and straight up, whatever first came to my mind, answered 
>the Holy Spirit's
>question.  I named things such as rejection, a feeling of defeatism, 
>and other related
>emotional feelings but somehow, none of what I felt really touched 
>the core of the
>woundedness these two very vivid memories brought to my mind and 
>emotions. Then, I
>heard it within the flow of my thoughts, "You can do better than 
>that."  It was actually a
>more menacing and threatening thought in my mind along the lines of, 
>"You can't do
>anything right.  You're blind.  Blind people can't do anything 
>right.  And you call yourself
>a Christian."  These fiery darts of outside thoughts attempted, and 
>accomplished,
>penetration into my mental flow of thinking patterns, (I.E. my 
>mind).  . Recognizing
>what it was, demonic oppression with a truck load of lies they were 
>dumping on me, I
>took every thought captive, praying against it, and authoritatively 
>cut off their ability to
>continue trying to gain a spiritual handhold in my thoughts and mind.  The two
>memories, although different, were linked.  Thus, the Christian and 
>the secular crossover
>perpetrated a dual mental attack.
>
>In such wounded memories, there is also the truth that is needed to 
>bring healing
>to the circumstances and the damaged emotions associated with the 
>pain one feels.  I was
>stumped as to what the truth might be and turned the memories over 
>and over in my mind
>trying to probe for the truth that Only the Lord can give.  It 
>eventually dawned on me that
>the lie the Enemy was attempting to hide was, "You can do better 
>than that." The
>problem was, this type of a lie contains truth.  We all can most 
>certainly do better.  We all
>can achieve personally.  We all can succeed in any area of life we 
>desire. In short, there
>is no limit to what we can do but even great achievers in life often 
>suffer from depression
>and overwhelming thoughts beyond their control.  So what's the 
>truth? Usually doing
>better means based upon someone else's standard, that is, "Do it 
>like me, and as well as I
>am doing it, and you will not only be ok, you'll be like 
>me."  WRONG!  I want to be like
>Jesus and I am, so buzz off.  This attitude, though normally 
>unspoken, creates an endless
>and impossible level of accomplishment because, quite simply, 
>everyone is uniquely
>created differently.  So, in short, in an earthly sense, there is no 
>human standard of
>success or failure.  In this case, Jesus answered my question 
>concerning the truth and He
>said, "I have already done all that needs to be done.  I accept you 
>as you are.  You don't
>have to become a better person to impress me.  I am already 
>impressed with you just as
>you are now, and this is because you are just like me.  I have made it so."
>
>If you try and improve upon this concept, you will discover you can never do
>enough; you can never achieve adequately, to the point, that you are 
>fulfilled or satisfied
>with yourself.  You will be that little cute hamster in his wheel; 
>running, and running, and
>running, and spinning, and spinning, and spinning, yet without ever 
>reaching your goal
>and satisfaction that you have done well in the sight of the 
>Lord.  You will, in short, spin
>yourself into what I call, (CQG), Christian quasi genericism simply 
>put, performance
>based Christianity.
>
>Aren't you sick of living like all your Christian friends?  Haven't 
>you, by now,
>exhausted about everything the pastor has told you to do to become a 
>well behaved good
>little Christian?  Haven't you read one too many Christian books 
>telling you how to live a
>successful, productive, Godly Christian life?  Hasn't legalism, in 
>all it various shapes and
>ugly forms of phony spirituality, gotten the best of you by 
>now?  When will you ever
>achieve the best you can be and how will you know you have 
>spiritually arrived?  My
>answer is simple.  Whatever I can't do, Jesus already has done.  Why 
>should I reinvent
>the theological wheel, whipping up a denomination in the process, or 
>in order to maintain
>a good strong hold, that is, control, just have one big megachurch 
>with thousands of
>Sunday-go-to-meetin' folk and thousands more on television that send 
>me money.  Boy,
>ain't we having church now!
>
>Recently, a good Christian buddy of mine tried reaching me three 
>times over the
>weekend.  I don't know where I was but it wasn't where I could hear 
>my office phone any
>of those three times.  He did record each time, a voice mail 
>message, leaving strong
>words of encouragement and instruction.  How did he know I needed to hear his
>encouragement?  He knows how to pray and how to hear the Holy 
>Spirit.  It's easy;
>anybody can do it who learns how to pray.  In his direct words of 
>challenge, it included
>mild rebuke for trying too hard and forgetting to let the Lord do 
>all the heavy lifting, plus
>confirmation of his personal love and concern for me as friends and 
>Christian brothers in
>the Lord.  He also told me a story you also need to here, so I'm 
>going to tell it to you.  It
>is more than worth retelling.
>
>A good old boy is walking down a dusty old road in the summers heat with a 100
>pound see bag toss over his shoulder.  During his long walk into 
>town, an old beat up
>pickup, with bald tires and rusting paint, slowed and stopped next 
>to him. "Say, son," he
>called out the open window which handle had busted off three years 
>before, hop in the
>back and I'll give you a ride right on in to town.  I'd let you ride 
>up front but got my wife
>and two young-uns already up front, if-en, that is, you don't mind 
>ridin' yonder in back."
>
>"Naw, sir," the young boy replied.  "I'm much obliged and I surely thank yaw
>kindly."
>
>The boy, with his heavy feed sack, climbs into the back and sits down with his
>seed sack still hanging off his right shoulder.
>
>As they drove on in toward town, the driver of the pickup looks back 
>and notices
>the boy is still trying to hang on to that heavy feed sack tossed 
>over his back.  Since the
>back winda of the truck had been blowed clean out accidentally by 
>the farmer's shotgun
>discharging last fall when he had been hunting rabbits and 
>squirrels, blowing the winda to
>Kingdom Come, nobody hurt, praise be to the Lord, the farmer said, 
>"Say, son.  I knowed
>this here truck ain't much but she's strong and big enough to carry 
>that feed sack you be
>trying to carry.  Drop the load, boy, and enjoy the ride."
>
>Do you see it?  Even as Christians, and I don't care if you have a radio or
>television show, have written 50 books on how to be a magnificent 
>specimen of Jesus
>Himself, are a millionaire and give a 20 dollar bill each week in 
>the offering at church, or
>even if you've been saved and healed from disease, bowlleggedness, 
>bald headedness, an
>athlete's foot, if you are still dragging that heavy sack around 
>when Jesus has done
>already done all the heavy lifting, you best be getting your head 
>examined real soon like.
>And if you cannot understand plain English, you ain't never gonna be 
>free in Jesus.  If
>you need help finding out how to get rid of that heavy old sack, you 
>all give me a ring.
>Yaw hear?  Better yet, get Jesus on the horn and talk it through with Him.
>
>It Sounds Like God To Me
>WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.com