Nettles

By Ronnie Lee Johnson

In this book you will discover Johnson simply telling his story through a maze of interesting and down-to-earth experiences. As you read you can personally experience and empathize about the dreadful, abusive nettles from the author’s past. It is a book about life itself and all the fluctuations and demands that we all encounter at one time or another. But you, the reader, will be inspired and encouraged. Nettles will help you to learn more about yourself as you careen through each chapter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781973684275

Ronnie Lee Johnson

Ronnie Lee Johnson is an American author, painter, financial adviser and ordained minister. Ronnie, having experienced the Drama of the Dawning firsthand, provides the very heart of a transformation in Christ. He is “more enamored with Christ than any other person, place or thing,” as he often says.

Book preview

Let Them Alone

THE EARLIEST FOLLOWERS of the Lord were called disciples. They were under attack constantly by the religious leaders in the days of the Messiah when He ministered upon this earth. Because of the barrage of insults, criticisms, and personal attacks upon them, these disciples worried about how they should react to the Messiah’s teachings and ministry.

Finally, on one occasion, when they were very concerned that the Lord had offended these religious leaders with some of His teachings, they let Him know about it. It was obvious that they wanted to get along with both the man from Galilee as well as some of their friends and perhaps their own relatives who served in these prestigious religious groups.

But the Messiah, the master of the universe, gave his followers, these disciples, a lesson we must all learn. I truly believe that the Lord said more with only three words than could be said by us in a whole lifetime.

He simply said, Let them alone (Matthew 15:14a, KJV). These nettlesome religious leaders had their own selfish, biased, and ugly opinions. They were extremely shortsighted, narrow-minded, and haughty with their attitudes. Superficiality is the word. They were such traditionalists that they could not see the God-man standing right before their eyes because of the deep ruts of religion that they had followed and created over many centuries of time.

Please know that these words are like a subtle theme to this book, Let them alone. You and I want to quickly mend everyone around us, especially a spouse, child, or close family member. But the truth is we need to follow these words of the Messiah.

Letting go of other people and their attitudes and their behavior is one of the most difficult things you will ever do this side of heaven. But it is a must. Freedom comes through responsibility and regard for others. But also it comes through regard for you—that’s right, you.

When you are drawn off course by trying to correct others, you are already asking for it! This distraction is the perfect storm Satan wants to create in your mind and in your life. The adversary works through the religious most often, I believe. He still does just as he did in the day of our Lord, the master of this universe.

It is so easy to become distracted and find yourself attempting to correct the world around you. Some people become so ingrained in attempting to make others right in society that they forget their own faults and their own value to God and to humanity.

These early disciples just knew they were right and the Lord was totally wrong. They thought He was too offensive toward these religious people they knew. His statements appeared to offend people. They felt it was only natural to comment about this. But this also reveals a greater problem—those who are watching for the reactions of others.

You cannot change people. God changes people. God transforms minds and hearts. You can influence and mentor people. You can pray for them. You can educate them. You can love them. But you cannot change a person. That is, and has always been, accomplished only by divine intervention.

It took a Damascus Road event to change an enemy of Christ and the New Testament church. God is the source of all power. It took real, authentic, divine power to radically change a man like Saul of Tarsus. When a person’s disposition is transformed, that’s truly a God thing! No person or church or any other representative could have changed the Apostle Paul. No one! No other entity! No religion!

There is power in quitting. There is power in letting go. There is power in acknowledging your own weakness and inadequacy. There is power in leaving other people alone.

Nettles will stick you. They play a mind game with you. Like having the H1N1 swine flu in your brain, in your psychology. They will hurt you. They will annoy you. They will frustrate you.

My dad said he once got into what he called bull nettles while picking wild, lush berries in a big bush. He related how he suffered from the sting and bites those bull nettles gave to his skin. He said he developed whelps the size of a quarter all over his arms and chest. He wanted the berries bad enough that he suffered through the nettles that covered the big bush where the wild, lush berries were. He said the nettles actually made him sick for a while.

Sticky people, stinging family members like nettles, can make all of us sick at times, both mentally and physically. Painful words, disregard for your feelings, insensitive comments, and downright meanness can be the sharpest of needles in your heart.

It is so wonderful just now and then to have a super-duper day with the absence of nettlesome people and situations in your life. These days, you will find as you age, are few and far between. People hurt people. People can be extremely difficult to deal with. Most often, this happens when you disagree on a subject, and the reaction is often worse than the action.

Sometime ago, I visited a lady and told her about my book, Nettles. I shared how I had a heavy heart to write about those awful, little nettles that disturb us so much each day of our lives.

I expressed to her that nettles in essence are stinging, painful little hairs upon leaves. A picture of the frustrations and aggravations we encounter every single day we live.

I also explained to her how my day had gone, how much fun and excitement I had had. For some reason, it was one of those exceptional days where everything went perfect. This lady had been very ill. Her life was terminal with only a few months to live. Due to her condition, I really wasn’t sure that she had totally caught what I said or the actual concept of my book, Nettles.

However, as I was leaving her, she turned from her bed and muttered softly some words. I went back to her bedside. Then from a closer distance, I asked, What was that you said?

Oh, she restated to me, sounds like you had a non-nettles day.

Yes, I replied. Yes I did. You got me there. But I really did—it was a great non-nettles day to say the least.

Those non-nettle days rarely come in your life. You are going to face little things that will almost drive you nuts. It’s never the big issues. No, it is the little digs and insults by a co-associate, a small criticism by a spouse, or some stupid little incident where you feel you are treated unfairly.

Remember, nettles are hair-like in size. They are very small, very insignificant when you look at the actual herb or plant. But their powerful, pungent sting gives a totally different story.

No day is ever the same. During your life, you will have ups and downs, successes and failures, happy moments and sad moments. And in reality, the nettles you encounter and endure will make you stronger, wiser, and even more powerful as a human being.

Nettles will needle you. But they will also build you up over time. Or as Paul Evans once declared, Adversity is God’s university.¹ Epictetus declared, We are disturbed not by things, but by the view which we take of them.²

How true this is with nettles. The stings from others are inevitable. They will really disturb you too. However, it is how you view those stings that means everything. The Lord made a bold and perfect statement, Let them alone. If you really want to live, let them alone. If you really want to die, hold on. When the Lord walked this earth, He actually warned you and me about nettles. Remember, He said, In the world you will have tribulation (John 16:33, NKJV).

This word tribulation actually means troubles. In the back of your mind, or maybe I should say in the front of your mind and all throughout your mind, you recollect people, happenings that bug you. They did not treat you fairly. They acted indifferent toward you. These nettlesome people and happenings keep surfacing in your mind. This is just a fraction of the tribulation that the Lord warned us about.

However, how you develop your frame of mind means everything when it comes to coping with nettles, tribulation in your life. Out of the core of most tribulations often comes the solution and secret to a better and more productive life.

My late father-in-law, Lloyd R. Schahn, was a pile driver in construction work. He managed crews that built the large clusters of piling that stand beside docks where huge ships come in to unload their cargo. These clusters were made up of tall creosote oak poles, or timbers, I should say. They drove them deep into the earth below the seawater and then wrapped the timbers with bands of steel cords to hold them together.

My father-in-law fought the burning sensation from these creosote oak poles for years. Creosote treatment has been used for over one hundred fifty years to protect and preserve wood. However, the flammable, oily liquid with a smoky odor can be a hazard to one’s health—even causing cancer. Lloyd used to come home with the darkest skin after working out in the sun all day and around the creosote. This horrible creosote timber treatment became his nettle. He suffered daily from the burning and the stinging of the creosote. It was the price he paid for being a pile driver and building those supporting pilings for the big ships to dock.

You and I have our own creosote (nettles) every day too. The key, the victory in dealing with adversity, is always how we use our minds. It is an attitude issue or, should I say, an attitude adjustment? Every day should be prepped with prayer. You can cope with nettles. I have a client who says he simply asks the Holy Spirit each morning to be with him, second by second, moment by moment, and hour by hour as he goes about this thing called living.

When I think about the Apostle Paul, it is obvious that he had many nettles in his life and in the ancient world he lived in. But when you read his letters to those early churches, you read about the awesome spiritual power that he drew upon daily. He learned the secret of leaving them alone—those gnawing, vicious, and mean adversaries who constantly threatened his ministry for Christ. There are many uplifting and incredibly positive thoughts he gives us in his fantastic letters to the churches. He rose above the nettles of life, the burning creosote of his work.

Just listen to three comments he makes:

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13 (NKJV)

If God be for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:31 (KJV)

For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV)

What an attitude of confidence and hope and power! How do you deal with nettles in your life? I can point you to the light at the end of your tunnel. It’s through His word, through the memory and sheer dynamite of employing verses of Scriptures every day of your life. There is power in Christianity, limitless and soothing power in El’s (the Lord) holy and divine Word.

Try it and you’ll like it. Use it and you’ll see it works. In His Word there is life, strength, stamina, and unbelievable energy that you will never get from any other textbook on this planet. The Word becomes the source for God to condition your thinking into positive and powerful thoughts. Without His Word, you are on your own. That’s no fun. Been there! Done that! Won’t work!

Satan has a way of creating those little stinging nettles in your life into mountains out of molehills. He is a master at making dirt out of people’s lives, out of your thinking and your capacity to believe. He loves to discourage you. He loves to slow your momentum down. He knows exactly and precisely how to weaken your faith and entangle your life over nothing.

It is no wonder that the wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon, perfectly describes the portrait of a person affected by stinging nettles. This is why Nettles is both the title and the motif for this manuscript. It is also a very clear and obvious sign of just how nettles can so deeply influence your behavior and your thinking. This occurs, of course, when nettlesome people and situations divert you and me. If you allow them, they can destroy your purpose for living and detour you away from what you were actually called to do in this world. Take your time as you look through the same window with King Solomon and listen to his timely words:

I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.

Proverbs 24:30–34 (KJV)

Nettles over time had covered the face thereof. Wow! What a purview of their powerful presence. I once attended a movie at the IMAX Theater in Denver. It was the Hubble. When I saw the millions and millions of galaxies in our universe from this extraordinary telescope, I could not help but wonder how we human beings get so messed up down here when there is so much beauty, wonder, light, and incomparable knowledge out there.

Somehow, someway, you and I get all the wires crossed up. The nettles of life overtake you, me. Just when you think you have a handle on your life, it becomes all broken. As I watch those incredibly brilliant, colorful, and unthinkable formations of stars and radiant bodies of energy in space, I cannot help but think of the small, shallow thinking of humanity.

While you and I go about our little worlds every day, there is an endless space beyond us that no finite mind could even begin to conceive, much less explain. We can get a glimpse from a 43.5 ft. telescope weighing 24,500 lbs, flying at an altitude of 347 miles above the earth and at a speed of 17,500 mph, and powered by the sun.³ Dr. Edwin P. Hubble (1889–1953) would be proud. The American astronomer was ahead of his time studying space and this universe.

If man could just be ahead of his time dealing with those awful, nasty, and stinging nettles. Presently you and I are seeing presidents, senators, representatives, governors, and leaders who have become ethically and morally bankrupt. The nettles are chewing some of them apart. There’s something missing. What is it? Where are the true statesmen today? Where are the gallant leaders of this age?

The portrait that King Solomon draws and describes for us in his Proverbs tells it all. Bad choices lead to the birth of nettles. Before long, the thistles, the thorns, the weeds, and the nettles take control. You and I need a Hubble Telescope to help us see better morally, ethically, and spiritually.

This is why I write about the miraculous and mindboggling power of Christianity. Through Christ, there is energy beyond any other. He can change your heart; and that will also change your thinking. He can help you cope with those nettlesome people who want to bring you down—to the ground.

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale once wrote, If you get your consciousness overflowing with God, you will not be afraid of anything in this world.⁴

You and God. You and nettles. You and love. You and hate. You and kindness. You and grudges. These are all choices. Nettles grow best where you allow them to grow. The wall comes down; it’s broken and covered by debris and ugliness because of the choices you and I make.

Your greatest source of power comes from God. God can help you with anything you are going through. As I have said for years, The key is upon the knee. Just as the Hubble Telescope focuses in on planets, stars, and all kinds of celestial bodies millions and millions of light years away, so your faith can focus upon your greatest source of power and energy—the loving God who made you.

God wants to help you with your most nettlesome issues. And He can if you will let Him. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable (Psalm 145:3, KJV).

Life Sure Does Get

Daily—Not You

EVER HAVE A fabulous day? Ever have a bad day right after that fabulous day? Of course, you can. We all do. In fact, if you have a wonderful, fulfilling, and profitable day, in all likelihood you are going to have just the opposite some day or days thereafter. It’s called living.

Each day is how you look at it. How you weigh it. How you value it. Each day is a gift within itself. Or it can be a grueling grind as well.

When you open your eyes, when you are vertical and able to go, you are having a great day compared to others who cannot even get out of their bed. Even those bad days, those bad-hair days and moments you wonder why you got out of bed, can be turned into fantastic days. It’s your response, your reaction that counts. Your attitude means everything—your perspective of yourself and others around you. If everything goes your way all the time and you have absolutely no nettles to sting you, provoke you, or bite you, then you are not alive.

Life is filled with the uphill and downhill experiences. I attended a small university in east Texas, East Texas Baptist University. The small college is built upon a hill. I discovered how to save on gasoline as a student. If I parked my car at the top of the hill, I could let it coast downhill before I even started it. That’s passive motion. Effortless. It would be so nice if all of your life was downhill with no barriers in your path, no nettles in the way, and the sky was perfectly clear and blue. But you cannot coast through this world. Doesn’t work! Never has. Never will.

Power is needed to surge uphill, up the mountains, up the rugged terrain to reach your destination. People who seek the coasting life never amount to much. Remember, and nettles had covered the face thereof (Proverbs 24:31, KJV). Such souls are given to the doors of least resistance. The most insignificant nettle that spurs them or stings them makes them run in the opposite direction.

A person, like a diamond, is forged into an inestimable value over time. Think about a diamond—this stone of pure carbon. It is a clear, colorful, and beautiful gem that reveals incredible luster and brilliance as light shines upon it. And yet this same stone, the premier gem of the world, can be reduced to ashes and turned into powder as well. Its strength is in its creation over many generations.

Over countless years and centuries, the diamond becomes the gem that it is because of the incredible heat and pressure it goes through. In the end, the diamond becomes a priceless and lovely gemstone that is superior to any other gem.

Nettles are necessary for you to become who you are and what you are. The pressure, the heat you are under, is a must to forge your character and principles for your life. Nettles make diamonds. Yes, life sure does get daily, but not you. But there is a reason for this. Each day is a gift. Each day is a learning experience. Each day you grow. You develop. You become.

Zig Ziglar, in his book See You at the Top, talks about the purposefulness and power of believing. And when you experience something like I did in the middle of the night, you need a very special, renewed faith to get you through such a miserable nightmare. Zig says, The deepest ocean—the tallest mountain, the most powerful animal cannot believe. Only man can believe. The height of man’s success is determined by the depth of his belief.¹

Nettles move us to a deeper and greater faith. The more you are stung in life, the more you are taunted and tempted, the more you will grow in Christ. Think about it: trees, animals, buildings, stars, cars, dirt, or things do not talk down to you or