beingcoreybayless

Let’s give some back story for just a moment to paint a picture of my particular circumstance….
My Corey…my sweet little 6 year old boy who by the way has only been sick twice prior to COVID… We have been so blessed with a little boy who has an immune system like no other… He is just so strong. Colton, his brother has been sick a few times, not many but a few….He is pretty string as well, but Corey in 6 years has been sick twice. Then COVID spreads across the globe and we have done everything in our power to protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe due to our little boys and Kimberly’s job as a nurse with patients who have compromised immune systems. We just want to be sure that we are being wise and cautious.

Even having done all these things to be cautious, we still get COVID….all of us…all four of us get it. I got it pretty bad…lasted 8 and a half weeks, developed COVID-induced viral pneumonia and swelled up as if I was 9 months pregnant. It was not pretty. I went to the ER twice and then had an emergency appointment with a doctor after I had swelled up…I still have some symptoms a year later. Anyways, back to Corey…

I sat with my boy while I was sick and miserable for 3 days. He couldn’t sleep, he was shaking uncontrollably, anytime he would dose off, he would wake up pacing in circles and not know where he was or where he was going. I have never seen my little guy like this and never want to experience it again. It was horrible. He bounced back pretty quick…but those 3 days were terrible.

I have friends and even family members who can’t seem to understand what I experienced with my family during this time. They continue telling me that because I am still being cautious that I am choosing to live in fear and no trusting God. Those who truly know me and some of you may be my readers and I love that some of you know me so well already… It’s awesome to know you pay attention. Those who know me know better than all of that. I haven’t lost my faith in God. Scripture tells us to be wise and not tempt God.

I am being cautious because of what I experienced. What I went through with my little boy. I don’t want to experience that again. I don’t judge others for their stances; I merely have a problem with others judging me based on mine. I am a sheep and gullible and obviously scared and an idiot because I want to be cautious with my little boys whom I had an extremely traumatic experience with.

Now, get this, these same people who are condemning me for being cautious for having my boys mask up and limiting their exposure to unvaccinated, unmasked people until I feel that the virus in under control in our community and society, those same people are telling me that I am clueless and unaware of what is happening in our nation. They claim I need to be stocking up on guns and food because our nation is in a war right now. At some point our government may come in an seize our home and if we don’t have food rations to go off the grid and we don’t have ample guns to protect ourselves we are doomed. Oh my gosh, I literally just laughed out loud while I was typing that sentence.

Please do not get me wrong, I am not against food conservation or guns. To stock-pile non-perishable food is fine and maybe even wise. Doesn’t sound like their could be a down side to that at all. Regarding guns, I am not at all anti-gun; I am however anti-crazy-person-with-a-gun… Anyone who can not wait to get their hands on one, is the last person I want to have one…just sayin’ but that’s a topic for another day. Guns are great! I am not anti-gun at all.

The point here is that the people that are close to me that should know who I am, have really no clue at all because they are too consumed with themselves. But these people claim that I am living in fear because I have actually experienced something traumatic and am taking action to prevent the same thing from happening again. But they are working so hard to prevent something they have never experienced and have little evidence of it’s possibility. That does not mean that their fears are not valid. Who can say what fear is valid and what isn’t. If people have fears, they should be able to handle them. It is when they impede upon their lives or other’s lives, that maybe they need to address them and seek potential counseling.
The idea of their fears about our government taking over is silly to me but I would never stifle their choices to protect themselves and their family as they see fit. But my concerns about facing something that I have already faced and wish not to face again, they see as dumb, misguided, and lacking in merit. Therefor I should get over myself and stop living in fear…

I need to stop living in fear while they handle their snakes to show their faith in the Lord and build bunkers filled with guns and food to prevent the next war that they claim will break out in within the next 3 years…. Let’s readdress this conversation in 3 years when it never happens. Talk to you then…

It’s your boy here… The reality is that I had a draft that I was supposed to post a few weeks ago and still have yet to post it… It’s challenging at times because so many things get into my head. I’ve always got so much going on and trying to get it all out…much easier said than done, but I think that is what I’m going to start doing is just getting more out. I’ve got to stop overthinking it and just get the content out there and let fall where it may…

Right now, I have these things that have been burdening my mind because I feel we are losing focus as a people….as a nation…as a community… I am not a Bible thumping person because I feel it does no good…. I am a strong Christian and anyone who has known me for a good amount of time knows this to be true. I may be flawed and broken but I never claim to be perfect… I am not here to preach but to shine some light…

We need to be living with a Kingdom Mindset and few truly are… an maybe the word few is too harsh or slightly exaggerated but I feel the point is made and merits an observation.

In the grand scope of how many of us are walking the Earth, there are far too many who do not even know Jesus, of those who do know Jesus, many choose to deny Him, of those who choose to accept Him, there are so many who many know of Him but not of the Word of God… They are lost without His teachings… Of the ones who know, far too few actually practice, and of the ones whom believe they practice, many are too caught up in checking the boxes of things they did to serve God that they have forgotten about true relationship and about the basic principle of having love and compassion for their fellow man.

I have had just about enough over the last few years… I have friends, family, people whom I’ve known for so long and felt as though I knew so well, that will claim to be loud and proud Christians because that is what they were brought up to do.
They will stand so high and mighty upon their principles because they know the “right” thing to do and what is “fundamentally correct and right and good.” When you have lost the way of the Lord, these words are in quotes because they are just words at that point… that have lost meaning and merit. They no longer carry the weight they were intended to carry.

When you pass judgement upon so many others around you for their sins…. oh how you have forgotten when Jesus spoke, “ye without sin, cast the first stone,” and they dropped their stones and walked away from the sinner they were ready to stone for her actions. Because Jesus is not physically present right in front of you for you to see him, you forget the words he spoke and chose to cast stones regularly…in these modern times of social media, stones are virtually thrown by the millisecond. It’s absurd and an abomination.

Let me ask the question that sadly no one who doesn’t already agree with me will have an answer for…What does this behavior do for the Kingdom??

When you see people sinning and doing wrong, passing judgement only pushes them further from the Lord… but let’s not talk about that. I have literally had people tell me, “Corey, you are too soft and too passive when it comes to things that are wrong.”

I did a Freedom Bible Study last summer and had an excellent discussion about how I held Christians to a higher standard for their mistakes… I feel that at the end of the day, we are all people and we are al going to make mistakes but when I non-believer makes a mistake, they may not even realize it’s a mistake or may not understand it’s importance…still valid, still a sin, and still needs correcting ….but when a Christian passes judgement and makes the mistakes that we all tend to make, the non-believer who was sitting on the fence just jumped back to the other side because they have taken that to be identifying characteristics of what and who Christians are…. fair…nope…not really, but life isn’t fair… Let’s grow up already and accept the responsibility we have as Christians and start leading by example by living with a Kingdom Mindset…

Ya feel me?

Let’s do this… we’re not in this alone…God put us here together to walk together. Let’s help each other out. Let’s take a chance to remind our fellow Christians who are falling short to get back on track opposed to constantly condemning those who don’t know…if we can help get each other on track, we can begin to help more people around us know Jesus and develop relationships with Him. Let’s work together!!

God is GOOD…. All the Time (You know what you supposed to say… )