God's Hard-Knock Lessons

By Larry Cumberland

I wrote this book to communicate many of the lessons that God has taught me through many trials in my life. I hope to provide you those hard-knock lessons without the cost I paid for them in physical, mental, and spiritual pain. My reference to hard-knock lessons is based on the fact that most of them were self-inflicted in that God promises chastening to those that He loves. I clearly understand that God must love me a lot based on the frequency of the chastening. Those lessons sometimes came with scars that lasted a lifetime although God forgave the sin from the beginning. Also, I included doctrinal truths that I learned far too late in my life. I so wish I had learned them earlier as my life would have been more peaceful and spiritually more productive. The lessons were typically learned later than desired due to my lack of knowledge from a specific doctrinal teaching in the Bible. I sincerely feel God inspired and led me to write this book. The initial thought occurred when several people commented on my extraordinary life experiences and the lessons learned from those experiences. God healed me miraculously on two occasions during my life. Those comments were usually followed by a comment of needing to write a book. As for my investment in time and effort in providing you knowledge that I hope you find as valuable, I offer that my time in writing was precious as related to the time I have remaining to live. I write it while doctors have diagnosed me with stage 4 cancer and two to five months of life remaining. I pray for God's third time of healing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891306387

Book preview

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God's Hard-Knock Lessons

Larry Cumberland

ISBN 979-8-89130-636-3 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89130-637-0 (hardcover)

ISBN 979-8-89130-638-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2024 by Larry Cumberland

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Author's Note

Introduction

Chapter 1

My Childhood and Teenage Years

Lesson 1A Serving God through Fear or Relationship

Lesson 1B Legalism and the Damage Caused

Lesson 1C Reading and Understanding God's Word

Chapter 2

A Decade of USMC

Lesson 2A God's Provision of Our Needs

Lesson 2B God's Work or Lucky Circumstances

Lesson 2C God's Priorities for Your Life

Lesson 2D God's Chastening

Lesson 2E God's Personal Plans for You

Lesson 2F A Sin unto Death

Chapter 3

Those Middle Ages

Lesson 3A Understanding God's Will

Lesson 3B Christian Fellowship

Lesson 3C The Bible Is Inerrant

Lesson 3D The Relationship of Salvation and Works

Lesson 3E The Role of the Holy Spirit

Lesson 3F Spiritual Gifts

Lesson 3G God's Command to Be Righteous

Lesson 3H Christian Trials and Tests

Lesson 3I Lifestyle Evangelism

Lesson 3J Nonnegotiable Doctrines

Chapter 4

The Retirement Years

Lesson 4A Five Parts of Prayer

Lesson 4B The High Points of Revelation

Lesson 4C Are There Gray Areas in the Scriptures?

Lesson 4D God's Two Priority Commandments

Lesson 4E Spiritual Music As a Source of Peace

Chapter 5

Seventies to the End

Lesson 5A Fear of Witnessing

Lesson 5B Do Not Fear

Lesson 5C Attitude over Outcome

Lesson 5D Teach the Next Generation

Lesson 5E Life after Death

Lesson 5F Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin

Summary

About the Author

Author's Note

The book, as written by a layman, is written to other Christians with the hope that the lessons learned by the writer can be useful to the readers, but without the paid cost of pain and frustration. The format is autobiographical with footnotes pointing to detailed discussions of the doctrinal lessons learned through seventy years of life.

Introduction

The purpose of my calling to write this book is an attempt to pass along those doctrinal and practical lessons that were learned through a Christian lifestyle of seventy years. The motivation for the book is to hopefully provide those lessons in a practical format that other believers can read, understand, learn, and accept without experiencing the pain that I experienced while learning them. Those pains did not occur with every lesson but occurred over many of them. Some of those lessons included pain as related to mental health, physical health, and spiritual health.

I also invested my best effort in providing an accurate teaching of the presented doctrines. That accuracy is important as many of the lessons occurred early in life through a misunderstanding of interpretations and knowledge. In attempting to always provide accuracy and truth, each doctrine and Bible reference shown in the book was thoroughly researched. Additionally, biblical scholars were often consulted to ensure I accurately understood and presented the material as best interpreted by the Scriptures.

I have organized the material chronologically as I grew, matured, and learned. Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 represent different periods in my life from my childhood in church to my current life at the age of seventy. Within each of these five autobiographical chapters, subchapters are included with the first digit being consistent with that period of my life and the letter representing the series of lessons learned from God's leading in that same period of time. Notes are included in the autobiographical text to point to those subchapters. Documented lessons start in my teenage years as I painfully understood the untruth learned in a legalistic church attended at that age. These church beliefs resulted in an environment where my service and worship of God was completely based on fear and through my personal disciplined efforts to be righteous. That path to righteousness, I later learned, only led to a feeling of failure, disappointment, and frustration.

After learning and resolving those challenges, I moved to college and to those painful spiritual lessons learned during an early career. I soon learned that the devil and his helpers are a sly bunch and that they attack many in a subtle way by confusing the believer's priorities. They lure the young believer from a list of God's defined and appointed priorities to those of man's desired priorities. Those lessons came with as much pain as could be endured for several years. As I painfully learned, God chooses to forgive our sins, but the pain experienced from the scars of those sins are often experienced for a lifetime of years. To this day in my life, some of those scars still take a toll when mistakes are remembered that caused others hurt.

My midlife years brought much maturing as a Christ follower, or Christian, as more popularly referenced. I prefer the use of the title Christ follower since the title of Christian has been overused on our culture in our country. Everyone seems to be a Christian. As an engineer, I found it surprising that, unlike our chronological lifetime of physical experience where a child is born and will physically grow and mature, a Christian of many years or decades of experience may continue to be a babe in Christ.

The Christian maturity process does not occur automatically like the human physical growth during life. The Christian maturity process is defined by the individual's choice to study, to learn, to consistently read God's Word, and to apply those learned lessons into their daily lives and lifestyles. As a layman, I often chuckle at the reaction of full-time and educated Christian ministers when I claim to be an expert in the Bible. My claim is that any individual should be embarrassed to not be an expert after studying a single book for seventy years, having classes three times per week by biblical scholars in their field, and reading countless commentaries to ensure an accurate understanding. As I explained to them, one book is studied for seventy years!

Every Christian should at least understand the key New Testament doctrines, be able to defend their position on each one, and be able to identify those false teachers that teach inaccurate interpretations of the critical doctrines within the Word. Shamefully, some Christians have chosen to apply their time to other of life's priorities, never reading the entire book a single time in seventy years of life. When finally entering heaven, each of us should want to compliment the Author of the book, as any other author of any book, with the comment I read Your book.

The next season of life, as shown in chapter 4, brings those maturing years when one sees the end of a working career and a major change in life's priorities. All of a sudden, one has more available free time than any time since school was started at the age of six. This is a time for adjustment of priorities and a searching for God's will in this new season of life. A complete set of new challenges face the believer as one faces the challenges of maintaining physical and mental capabilities developed over a lifetime. New challenges with minimal experience are faced to include raising adult children, mentoring grandchildren, attempting to teach and to mentor the Christian doctrines and learned lessons to the next generation. Every Christian generation is responsible to ensure the next generation is educated, prepared, and qualified to become the leaders on the battle front for an army appointed by God in ministering in a dark world to unbelievers living in that world. As physical capabilities begin to decline for some, a whole new level of faith, belief in God's protection, and successful travel through the dark valley journeys become extremely important.

Finally, we soon face that challenge that many ignore or even fear—exactly what occurs and what am I to expect in our life after death. As believers, we all know generally what we have been taught about life after death, but that event takes on a whole new priority and a motivation for understanding as our age continues to progress beyond the early retirement years. I am consistently surprised at the lack of knowledge of older believers as related to our death on earth and our transition to our eternal home.

In summary, this book is written by a layman for other layman. Although I have not attended seminary, I have attended many classes on the teachings of the Bible, decades of study, thousands of sermons by some of the best pastor/teachers in the field, and a desire to understand the Bible at a level of being able to teach. The disadvantages viewed by some in regard to not being a fulltime seminary educated minister are outnumbered by the layman author's ability to understand the layman's challenges in life, their temptations and spiritual failures, their fears and frustrations, and their desire to better understand the Bible clearly. Hopefully, I, through God's inspiration and guidance, can provide His best view of those truths and lessons. A priority doctrine forming the foundation of the information presented in this book is that life is so much more enjoyable and rewarding if lived through a personal relationship with God, understanding His divine appointments as provided to each of us, and clearly understanding and applying God's will in our lives.

Respectfully submitted,

Larry Cumberland

Chapter 1

My Childhood and Teenage Years

This story starts when I grew as a child in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. My family included my parents, one brother, and two sisters. My father and mother were the hardest working couple I observed during those younger years as well as my entire seventy years of living on this earth. They worked so hard (sixteen-hour days were normal) in order to provide for their family in the best manner possible. Their strong work ethic left me to be often corrected and mentored by my older sister. She did a great job until, of course, she started her working career at age eighteen, leaving me as a twelve-year-old often home alone and with minimal supervision or guidance.

I remember living in two apartments prior to my parents buying their first home when I was seven years old. Each move was relatively painful as friends were left and new surroundings were learned. I sometimes developed relationships with good kids like my cousins in our first apartment neighborhood. Other times, I have been told, the kids I befriended were not a parents' choice. At any rate, I feel like I grew up with a good childhood environment, having fun every day although often by myself as my brother and sisters were six, ten, and twenty years older than me. The strongest attribute to form character in my childhood was clearly the blessing of being raised in a strong Christian family environment.

Regardless of the exhaustive work schedules, we were always in church on Sunday morning and quite often on Sunday evening and Wednesday evening. I was in church for as long as I can remember but publicly professed my salvation at age twelve. I always disliked when people said that you should remember the date you were saved. As a second-generation Christian being raised in a home where biblical discussions were common and in children's Sunday School classes that progressively taught key biblical stories and principles, I do not remember when I accepted the truths of the gospel and the requirements of salvation. I only remember hearing at age twelve the need to publicly profess my beliefs in the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus during a sermon on a regular Sunday morning church service. I decided to go forward during the invitation in obedience to the call of public profession of my faith, not having anything to do with the time of my salvation.

I developed a tremendous respect for my father during my childhood and preteen years. That respect was initially based on his work ethic that clearly exceeded any comparison to other adults being observed. Looking back on those days, as I have explained to my children, my dad was as much viewed as a king in the palace called home as he was a loving father. My respect for him included such characteristics as never correcting him, never criticizing him, doing what he wished as if it were an order, and viewing him as infallible. That respect grew as I was always entertained by stories about my father as told to me by him, my siblings, or friends of the family. Although the stories most often showed his integrity, work ethic, and character, some amount of humor was often enjoyed to include the mere mention of the names of his friends and acquaintances during his younger years.

An example of the referenced stories includes his work at the steel mill. He would oftentimes work so hard that he would hit the maximum premium performance levels as much as an hour earlier than the end of the shift. He would then sit at one of the lunch tables and read the paper as he did not want to anger his peers by exceeding the premium levels. His practice did not anger management as he hit levels never achieved by most or all other workers. This respect somewhat contributed to my less than desired experience in legalism as I believed everything taught in the church was especially proved true if believed by my father.

The church was excellent in teaching the doctrines of the Bible at a significant depth of understanding. Learning God's Word at a level of detail beyond most of my peers provided significant value and development of character over time. I do not mention this history as entertainment but as information that will be shown to strongly affect my life in later years. During my later teen years, I was confident in my beliefs and studied them to a clear understanding. I could defend my opinions of doctrinal truths to any peer challenging those positions. This understanding of God's Word was important to me as a teenager because of my family's values and the teaching of the church. I had a driven desire to understand the details of God's character, my responsibilities in that relationship, and some fear of being chastened by God for any disobedience in my decisions and subsequent behavior.

I clearly remember having a reverence for God and understanding that disobedience in not keeping His commandments and directions would result in chastisement. This understanding motivated me in my attempts to be righteous although I am sure I never used that word in describing my pursuit to be good in God's eyes. Even at this age, this service to God through my own efforts was frustrating in my failures and exhausting in my attempts. I viewed God as an omnipotent being in heaven overseeing my behavior and always at the ready to punish me for any sin and mistake committed on a minute-by-minute basis. I would not discover the wonderful understanding that one could achieve continual growth in righteousness by simply developing a personal relationship with God. In this personal relationship, positive works were a result of the love for Him and not a result of self-disciplined efforts out of fear of being chastened. That fear, accompanied by consistent failure, was a relative heavy burden for a child and a later young teenager to carry.

(Reference lesson 1A for a more detailed discussion of serving God through fear or personal relationship.)

God clearly provided a strong protective hedge during those early teenage years, given minimal supervision and oversight of my activities. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, I clearly was a mischievous young teen, never getting into big trouble but clearly not being the Christian testimony I had been raised to uphold. I recently tested that self-evaluation by asking a high school friend if she knew me to be a believer in high school. Her answer was a short and quick no. I was not a bad testimony in high school; I was just no testimony at all. I ran, in those days, with a small group of neighborhood kids of similar beliefs and mischievous motivations.

Again, looking back, I was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I appeared to lack common sense as provided in my home environmental guidance and expectations. As a few examples of this mindset and behavioral choices, I remember climbing the local radio tower one night on a dare that I take the red light cover from the top. I was so disappointed after making the two-hundred-foot climb in the middle of the night only to find flathead screws in the light since I had only brought a Philips head screwdriver. There you have it—part of that sharp knife characteristic.

When basketball at the playground was not the activity of the evening, riding one's bike around the neighborhood was sure to gather attention with adequate patience. I remember gathering a collection of friends on bikes when riding alone but growing to a group of twenty riders for many hours of joking, laughter, and minimal mischief. Those were the days of baseball cards or balloons being carefully placed in the spokes to create a loud and—I am sure—disliked noise among the neighbors in my quiet neighborhood.

The sport of running from city police officers was not an infrequent event as we often played basketball in the playground well past the lighting curfews. This lighting was made available at those late hours by simply breaking the padlock from the playground lighting panel. This sport was enjoyed by the group to determine who the losing group member was for each event if they were caught by the police officers. In that day, the capture resulted in the friend being taken to the police station and held until their embarrassed parents retrieved their child. I still take pride in informing you that I was never caught. I do remember being swept off my feet many times while running through backyards—only to catch a clothesline at neck height. I also remember one poor unfortunate friend falling into an open septic tank during one of our late night chases. In a final bit of not the sharpest knife evidence and for the furtherance of the sport, we later started to call the police on ourselves in the playground after basketball in the case the neighbors failed to do so. Some may ask how I could behave like this if knowledgeable of Scriptures. The answer is simple—poor judgment and peer pressure.

A few highlights of those later teen years included getting the opportunity to deliver newspapers every afternoon to the eighty subscribers on my route. This responsibility not only taught me the value of work ethic and reward but the ability to now buy the things I desired with my own hard-earned dollars. A second highlight was getting my first car, a 1962 Chevy Impala convertible. This car was always waxed to a gloss, detailed cleaning of the interior, and installation of glass packs to ensure the proper level of engine noise during town cruises. Again, relating to my independent lifestyle with minimal supervision, I soon discovered this asset allowed me the capability to date girls with no supervision beyond the threats made by her parents after the initial meeting when picking her up that evening. I have little doubt that God saw the riskiness of this arrangement, and He was so kind as to arrange a third and most important highlight—meeting my wife during my senior year of high school. She became a calming influence on my life and in my behavior. She was truly a Godsend as I spent more time with her and less time with neighborhood friends executing