Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties

Trust God for support, personal development

To the Editor:

There are religious denominations which claim that their baptisms, whether infant or adult, fulfill all the requirements of Jesus Christ’s command, “You must be born again.” Now, my intentions aren’t to give you Bible verses that refute that assumption. If interested, you can find them for yourself. An extensive Bible concordance would guide you.

However, there is one scripture I would like to point out. “It is better to trust the Lord than to put confidence in man,” Psalm 118:8. Coincidence that it is in the heart of the Bible? Not to me. My opinion is that the Almighty placed it strategically, so going back to the book of Genesis or forward to Revelation, everything in between most certainly was inspired by the Holy Spirit and has withstood the test of time, without man’s help.

This writer is a few years from 80, which is quite significant in as much as neither of my parents lived to the age of 70. A fairly recent bout with pneumonia I experienced makes me wonder if I’ll reach the next plateau. To me, that’s insignificant, for I can offer an emphatic amen to the apostle Paul’s words: “For me to die is gain.”

God alone is to receive glory from our attributes. He has made me something of a wordsmith, for which no man can take credit.

In 1962, in Royal Oak, I went to a creative writing class. Circumstances wouldn’t allow me more than that initial session where our teacher asked of all in attendance to write a short sentence or two, not wasting words. In thumbing through each writing, she singled in on mine: “My brother is the laziest person I know ... in a roundabout way.”

If we allow God to hone the skill he has given us, he certainly will.

Donald Kleimola

Ramsay