The Lord Chastens Those Whom He Loves

 

A friend of mine recently went on a trip from Arizona to Maine.  But it was not God's will for her to go on that trip and the Lord chastened her for her disobedience.  It reminded me of my hitchhiking travels throughout the United States (1996-2020):  if I was going in the wrong direction, I would not get a ride.  Jesus Christ was Lord over my hitchhiking.

Here is her story:

I Don't Get Why So MANY People Have Zero Fear Of The Lord

Here are a few comments from that post:

My comment:  Pauli: When I saw the photo of your cut lip, it reminded me of what happened to me back in September of 1999.

I had been hitchhiking for over three years at the time. I was standing on an on-ramp on I-95 in Lumberton, North Carolina. These two guys walked up to me and started talking to me. I knew something was not right.

All of a sudden, the smaller guy started hitting me with his fists. I just shoved him aside because he wasn’t doing any damage. Then the bigger guy tackled me and started kicking me IN THE MOUTH. The guy probably kicked me several times in the mouth. Then this car pulled up and this tall guy got out and yelled, “Get the hell out of here!” Those two guys ran off.

He asked me if I was okay. I said, yeah and thanked him. He then drove off.

So I grabbed my backpack and started walking north on I-95. I had a bloody nose. This deputy sheriff saw me walking on the interstate, pulled over and picked me up. He asked, “Were you involved in a fight?” I said, “I just got jumped by two guys.”

Then this lady drove up in her car (she saw the whole thing) and told the deputy sheriff that those two guys walked across the interstate and into that motel. She pointed at the motel.

So the deputy sheriff called for backup, we drove to the motel and they brought three people out of this motel room. I identified the two guys who attacked me.

We drove to the sheriff’s office and they asked me if I wanted to press charges. I said no, because I would have to wait around for the trial or hearing. So I think they charged them with a misdemeanor.

As the deputy sheriff drove me to the sheriff’s office, this scripture welled up within my spirit: The Lord chastens those whom He loves (“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” Hebrews 12:6)

Why did the Lord chasten me? Because I was grumbling against the Lord. I was saying things like, “Why do I have to do all of this hitchhiking? I am sick of hitchhiking. Why can’t I settle down, get a job and live a normal life?”

GRUMBLING AGAINST THE LORD IS A SIN.

Even though I had a bloody nose, my nose was not broken. The guy kicked me IN THE MOUTH and not the nose. The Lord’s chastenings are absolutely perfect. Or else you could say THE LORD KICKED ME IN THE MOUTH because I was sinning with my mouth.

It was God’s will for me to hitchhike the United States for most of 23 years. Obedience is better than sacrifice. And obedience goes a lot better without grumbling against the Lord.

Jesus Christ was Lord over my hitchhiking.

Pauli's reply:  I get you, Tim.

Lots of people told me this was not the LORD’s chastening. It absolutely WAS.

I also was grumbling: “Why can't I leave this house? Why do I have to live in this desert? Am I supposed to just sit here forever?” “I'm going to console my friend”, ‘I'm going to the sea”….ETC!!

It's part of the prophetic call to ‘sit and wait’ on the Lord – or in YOUR case: Hitchhike for the Lord.

My comment:  Absolutely positively AMEN!

Right on target. Right on target. Right on target. (In the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established.)

Read the several definitions for the Hebrew word PAGA:

PAGA
https://hitchhikeamerica.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/paga-intercession/

Definition #2: “An intercession that hits the exact mark.”

If we are out of God’s will, we cannot hit the exact mark. Or else you could say, if we are out of God’s will, He cannot use us to hit the exact mark. The Lord has you and David in Arizona where the Lord can use you to hit the exact mark. Praise the Lord!

Example: I Samuel 17. David was anointed. He was in God’s will. He saw Goliath; Goliath mocked the armies of the living God; this really pissed off David. Because David was in God’s will (protection, covering, anointing), David was able to sling that stone and HIT THE EXACT MARK! Goliath was killed and a Satanic stronghold was taken down.

An Interview with Andrew Whalen, Johnny Enlow & Steve Shultz

52:50 - 53:00:  "The highest and most powerful weapon is waiting on the Lord and His peace."

A Conversation about High Plains Drifter

My Trip of Disobedience Against God Caused a Brother to NOT go on another Trip! Hallelujah!

The Representation of Justice in HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER

"The Aesthetic Representation of Justice in Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter"

By Erin E. Flynn, Ph.D.

Ohio Wesleyan University

3. The Representation of Justice in High Plains Drifter

[footnotes have been omitted]

The order of justice in High Plains Drifter is distinctively retributive. It is a matter of answering for a crime, of getting precisely what is deserved. Consider, for example, the reversals and exposures that unfold once the Stranger is placed in charge. The greed that led to the town’s corruption is turned on its head. Economic exchange is reversed, as the Stranger appropriates and redistributes goods according to his whim. These reversals occur while the Stranger ironically attempts to teach the town the courage it needs to defend itself. Hence, in the process of teaching Lago the importance of courage, the Stranger exposes the corruption that flowed from the town’s lack of moral courage when it acquiesced to Duncan’s murder. That lesson is fully learned when Mordecai (Billy Curtis), the town “runt” who had cowered beneath a porch during Duncan’s murder, kills Belding as Belding aims to shoot the Stranger in the back. It is the final killing in the movie, marking Mordecai’s moral elevation and ensuring Sarah’s liberation. 

At the heart of these reversals is punishment for Duncan’s murder, and the punishment is startlingly precise. The wicked are killed; the weak are terrified. Those who bullwhipped the marshal are whipped in turn. The mayor (Stefan Gierasch) and the sheriff, who abdicated their duty to the law, are stripped of even the trappings of their false authority, replaced in their offices by Mordecai. Callie Travers, who used her sexuality to curry favor with powerful men, is raped. It would be no overstatement to say that, in the universe of High Plains Drifter, desert is the only engine that drives the narrative. 

The Stranger avenges Duncan’s murder, but he also forces Lago to acknowledge its guilt, which is essential to the retribution. This is clearest at the movie’s climax, when the townsfolk fearfully realize that the assassins are being killed by bullwhip at the site of the marshal’s murder. It is telling that nearly everything the people of Lago say about themselves and their town is false. Indeed, the movie’s first piece of dialogue seems designed to tell the viewer just this. The lead thug, or at least the most talkative one, tells the Stranger that most people find life in Lago a little too fast for them. But we have just seen the Stranger ride through a town that is motionless. What follows is a series of lies in which Lago attempts to hide its true identity. Of course, all of the lies flow from the town’s attempt to cover up its crime, a crime motivated by the need to keep the marshal from revealing the truth about the mining company’s claim, and so also about the founding and the legitimacy of the town itself. 

Sarah and Mordecai are the only townspeople who speak sincerely to the Stranger. Reflecting upon the threat the Stranger poses to the town, Sarah says: “You are a man that makes people afraid, and that makes you dangerous.” The Stranger replies: “It’s what people know about themselves inside that makes them afraid.” He is out to expose what they know inside and force them to acknowledge the truth about Lago. But everywhere in the civil order he would turn to discover the truth, he finds only lies. Instead, the truth about the whipping of the marshal is revealed in his dreams. The dream sequences recall the disorienting effect of the haze at the beginning of the movie. At first the viewer cannot discern what is going on, who is being whipped or why. But gradually the disorientation fades and the truth about Lago is revealed to us, even as the citizens of Lago try to obscure it, thereby revealing all the more about themselves. The Stranger need not bother with ordinary methods of discovery, and the viewer has access to what he knows via his dreams, which are perhaps revelations to him, but seem more likely to be tormenting reminders of something he already knows. And given the precision with which he metes out punishment, he seems to know it perfectly. The use of dreams makes the Stranger a kind of seer of hidden truths, and we are privy to his vision. They tell us, among other things, that knowing the relevant truth here, namely the guilt of the town, will not require investigation or argument. In short, no trial or deliberation will be necessary for justice to be done to Lago. 

The Stranger materializes out of the heat and descends from the mountains, killing and raping with ease. He paints Lago red, renames it “Hell,” and burns it clean in a ritualized acknowledgement of and atonement for its crime. He punishes all transgressors. He liberates Sarah and elevates Mordecai, the only two citizens who seem to have acknowledged and felt genuine remorse for Lago’s crime. Above all he avenges the murder of the marshal. When he leaves the town, though it has been decimated, the remaining inhabitants can breathe and even smile at last, their bloodguilt having been lifted, their civil order cleansed. He leaves Lago in the direction from which he came, through the cemetery. He was not passing through; Lago was his destination, his goal. Having done what he came to do, the Stranger returns into the haze of the hills, into whatever it is that stands behind nature, on the other side of the cemetery. 

As the Stranger leaves town, he passes Mordecai carving Duncan’s name into a grave marker. Duncan has been acknowledged, and this is a sign that the civil order has returned to legitimacy, each individual having received his due and recognition. Mordecai looks up at the Stranger and remarks that he still doesn’t know his name. The Stranger contradicts him. “Yes, you do,” he says. The final scene invites speculation about the identity of the Stranger. One possibility is that the Stranger’s name is Duncan, the dead marshal’s brother. Or perhaps the Stranger is the ghost of Duncan himself, who like the ghost of Banquo has returned to avenge his own murder. But the Stranger’s enigmatic claim that Mordecai knows his name also suggests that the name of the Stranger has been announced sometime before, or is eternally known. Death is his name. He rides a pale horse. Hell follows him. The first man he shoots, he shoots in the forehead, the crimson hole gaping as if to indicate that he did not have the seal of God on him. And though he kills the Bridges gang for their murder of Duncan, he also uses them as instruments of Lago’s destruction. Those three, Bridges and the Carlin brothers, are the other riders of this apocalypse. Hence the Stranger is an agent of God’s punishment. It is important that he remain nameless, though we are told that we know his name. This fact keeps him as close as possible to God the unnamable, to a strange and remote God. It keeps him from being one among the named inhabitants of the civil order. 

His strangeness and his precision are further keys to understanding the relation between the civil and the moral orders depicted in the movie. I spoke above of the moral law of some Westerns as transcendent in the sense of having authority independent of civil institutions. But here that transcendence appears to involve an authority beyond even nature itself. It is supernatural in contrast to the worldliness of the civil, and outstrips even the power of nature. It enjoys absolute authority over the civil order. It is supreme. When the civil order strays, its transgressions trigger retribution from beyond. This civil order of Lago cannot keep its own justice. To be righted and provided with at least the possibility of legitimacy, Lago needs an emissary, an executioner of the law beyond. High Plains Drifter represents that law as not only absolutely authoritative, but also as perfectly, metaphysically precise. The Stranger’s retribution is without error and in perfect keeping with the nature of Lago’s various crimes. He turns Lago inside out, cleanses it, while he and his law are utterly independent of it. The purity of his authority requires such transcendence. Far more radically than the gunfighter riding into the sunset, the Stranger rides out of materiality, out of corporeality, and into another world, into the domain of a perfectly just, and, for all we know merciless God.

Clint Eastwood's film High Plains Drifter (1973)

Meeting a Former Editor from Warner Brothers

The Aesthetic Representation of Justice in Eastwood's High Plains Drifter

A Conversation about High Plains Drifter

This is an exchange of comments between Belinda Thorne, formerly from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and Tim Shey, author of High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America.  These comments were taken from Belinda's post "Remember Lot's Wife" on her blog Grace and Truth:

September/October 2020

Belinda:  Tim, why is your book called High Plains Drifter?

Tim:  Now THAT is a very good question. I think that in all of my years of hitchhiking around the United States and in all of the years that High Plains Drifter has been available via manuscript, book, Internet Archive or blog, no one has ever asked that question.

I named my book High Plains Drifter after Clint Eastwood’s film High Plains Drifter (1973). I don’t know how many times I have seen that film. I absolutely identify with the main character played by Eastwood (the Stranger) who rides into town and kills some bad guys and then burns the town to the ground.

The Stranger in the film at one time was the town marshal: he was whipped to death by some bad guys who were paid by the owners of the local mining operation. To me, it reminds me of the death of Jesus Christ. There is a scene in the film where the townspeople are having a meeting at the local church and you see this Bible verse on the bulletin board: Isaiah 53: 3-4. The town marshal was rejected by the townspeople and then killed; I have been rejected by family, friends and church people because of my testimony, so I have been alone most of my life (that’s why I identify with the Stranger in the film).

I have a film review on my High Plains Drifter blog that you might like to read: “Clint Eastwood’s film High Plains Drifter (1973)”.

[Here I posted some links pertaining to my book High Plains Drifter.]

I hope these links aren’t overkill to your question, but as far as I can remember, no one has ever asked why I titled my book High Plains Drifter, so I am pleasantly surprised and a little bit flattered.

Belinda:  No, not overkill at all, thank you for answering my question.

Two things have stood out to me. One where you said in your short story that you like wide open spaces. And two, hitchhiking you are on the fringes of society.

I’ll tell you why I asked you that question. Last night I was praying. Praying about what to do. It’s so hard here now. Can you imagine, you who like open spaces, that we are in home prison now for 23 hours a day. Allowed out for one hour of exercise or one of us is allowed to go get essentials. And our Premier has extended this lockdown for an indefinite period till we get to less than 5 cases. I am now convinced he is a madman, full of demons.

Of course I am not sticking to these ridiculous rules. I’m doing what God leads me to. My husband and I have been running an underground church in our home for months, because church is now banned. We have mainly men come, those who’ve just left rehab and prison and we sing and praise and read the Word. They park up the road and walk to our house in the dark and sneak in one by one. It’s the only thing that’s kept me going during this dark time.

So I’m praying last night and the Lord takes me to a cliff top and we look down together over a dusty plain where there is dirty, tattooed, fighting people. He has shown me this before. A few weeks ago He showed me it and said “this is the land I am giving you”.

But last night He just showed me it again and I thought how we were on a high plain looking out over.
Then your book title from nowhere came into my head “High Plains Drifter”.
And I felt to ask you why.

The fringes of society, the outcasts who God has called us to. It has always been them. We can never fit in a church. We fit with the homeless and mentally ill and drug addicts. No one else I know is doing anything at the moment. All the churches are quiet and obediently closed and it makes me sick and angry.

I love your Shiloh poem, wow. The line about Cain bludgeoning Abel to death….

Anyway I am going to buy your book, it’s on Amazon yes?

Thank you for reading this, I don’t know what’s happening to me at the moment, it’s all very strange but I know my Lord and I trust Him.

Bless you Tim

Tim:  I think it is VERY interesting that you asked about the title of my book on a post that has the title “Remember Lot’s Wife”. If you watch Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter, at the end of the film, the Stranger burns the town of Lago to the ground (God’s Wrath). The Scripture “remember Lot’s wife” is alluding to the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah by fire and brimstone (God’s Wrath). So maybe eventually the Lord will lead you out of Melbourne into the wide open spaces (the Outback?) before God’s Wrath hits Melbourne?  You are led by the Holy Ghost; the Lord will reveal to you what you need to do.

About my book on Amazon. I think there is one copy left, but Amazon is charging an exorbitant price for it (probably because it is the last copy). You can read High Plains Drifter for free on my blog.

Yes, I am definitely on the fringes of society. The Lord led me out of the church back in 1991. The Lord has had me alone for most of my life. The Lord’s thoughts are higher than my thoughts. I know that the Lord has you and your family in the palm of His hand (I am thinking of Psalm 91).

Belinda:  You make a very good connection there . . .I had not connected that! I am going to watch that Clint Eastwood movie.

Yes I believe the Lord is leading us out of Melbourne. I am praying for His specific guidance as to where, but we are quite sure we are going.

Thank you for your link to your book. I look forward to reading it.

I have a scripture for you Tim:

Micah 4:6-8 ["In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted;  And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever.  And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem."]

Jesus was an outcast. If we follow Him we also will be. You have to be an outcast to intercede for the outcasts.
You have blessed me greatly and I pray God will bless you greatly in return.

[A few weeks later . . .]

Belinda:  Hi Tim. I am reading your book. I’ve just finished chapter 7. I love this chapter.

I felt to share with you this:

“The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8

Tim:  I am glad that you liked that chapter. I remember that time back in 1998 when I was in San Luis Obispo, California. I stayed in a motel one night and then I slept outside on the side of this hill the next night. I was in this Burger King having a meal and for some reason I began to think of northern New Mexico (I worked on an apple farm in New Mexico back in 1986). Then all of a sudden the Holy Ghost fell on me very heavy, so I knew that the Lord wanted me to go to New Mexico.

So I was hitchhiking in New Mexico and that guy named Israel gave me a ride. Then the next day, that pastor preached about Jacob wrestling with the angel and then the angel named him Israel. It was quite a trip. When you are led by the Holy Ghost, your life is never boring, let me tell you.

When you are led by the Holy Ghost, your life looks a bit crazy. I thought at times that all of that hitchhiking was crazy. But usually some God-thing or something profound would happen virtually every day, so I knew that the Lord was in the hitchhiking. I knew that the Lord protected me and provided for me in my travels.

So why did the Lord have me hitchhike all those years? I talked to a lot of people about my Christian faith. Intercession was a big part. I was taking up my cross and following the Lord which helped to break curses off of my life and I was delivered of many demons (I am still being delivered of demons). The devil hates a life that is dead to self. Also, hitchhiking was simply obedience to the Lord: when we enter the Kingdom of Heaven, our life is obedience unto the Lord: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven”.

Thank you for the Scripture above (John 3:8).

Belinda:  Amen the devil does hate a life that is dead to self. But the Lord loves it, because He can use that one. And that one has power to prevail with Him.

[Twelve days later . . .]

Belinda:  Hi Tim, I have just finished reading chapter 9 of your book. It struck me that God was training you to be led by the Spirit. That your life was /is a literal representation (like Ezekiel's was) of how God wants to lead us and how we are to respond. We think to go east but we don’t get a ride so we go west and immediately God sends a ride. The children of Israel had to get their feet wet before the Jordan River parted.

You will hear a voice behind you say this is the way, walk ye in it.
To be so trained by the Spirit, to be sensitive to Him, this is it. This is everything. Just some thoughts that have struck me reading your book.
Blessings.

Tim:  Amen. I was definitely led by the Holy Ghost as I hitchhiked the United States.

Hitchhiking, also, was fasting and prayer. A lot of people think of fasting as fasting from food. Fasting can also mean fasting from a former lifestyle: I used to work at a lumber yard back in Iowa before I started to hitchhike. I would get odd jobs here and there on the road, but most of the time, I really had to put my trust in the Lord for Him to provide for me, protect me and find a place for me to sleep. Working at the lumber yard or working for that construction company was a vacation compared to hitchhiking.

Remember when Jesus said that these (demons) can only come out through fasting and prayer?(Mark 9:29)  So many curses were broken off of me while I was hitchhiking around the country; I was delivered of so many demons while hitchhiking. Why? Hitchhiking was fasting and prayer and hitchhiking was taking up my cross and following the Lord. The cross is death to self-will. Demons hate a selfless body; demons love a selfish, sinful body.

In hitchhiking, I met many people on the road and talked to many people about my faith in Jesus Christ. My hitchhiking also reminded me of when the Lord told Isaiah to walk naked and barefoot in Egypt as a witness against them (Isaiah 20:3). Even if I was not able to talk to people on the road, my hitchhiking was a powerful witness of my obedience to the Lord. Obedience is an end in itself. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.

Thank you for reading my book. I greatly appreciate your response.

Romans 8:14: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”

Sent Ones

What God is trying to tell us

Book Review:  High Plains Drifter

The Representation of Justice in High Plains Drifter

The White House and a Manuscript

Last night I had a dream where I was at a friend's place.  I was in the kitchen looking for some tea.  While I was looking for some tea, I found these letters and packages on the counter---they were addressed to me.

I remember that one of the letters was from Kansas and one of the packages was from the White House---it had "White House" written in bold letters at the top of the package.  The few packages that I saw had my manuscript High Plains Drifter: A Hitchhiking Journey Across America in them.  I thought they were rejections from publishers.

I asked my friend about all of this mail.  He said that he found them locked in a cupboard in the kitchen.  The mail looked old---like they had been postmarked several years ago.

If this dream is from the Lord, then I believe that the package from the White House is significant.  That package had my manuscript High Plains Drifter in it.

The letter from Kansas.  My home base used to be St. John, Kansas back in 2001-2002.  I have a lot of good memories of St. John.  Whenever I hitchhiked into St. John, it felt like I was coming home.  The last time I hitchhiked through St. John was in 2008, but all the people that I knew had moved away.

The fact that these letters and packages were locked in the cupboard for a number of years is very interesting.  This reminds me of a Scripture about something being sealed until the time of the end:  Daniel 12: 9:   "And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end."

The unsealing of these letters and packages could mean that I am coming into a new phase of my life of obedience to the Lord.

Maybe I will hitchhike no more forever.

Book Review:  High Plains Drifter
The Road
Caretaker of the House - The White House

My manuscript before it was published

Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel

High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America
By Tim Shey

Excerpt from Chapter Seven:

Sometime in July 1998, the Lord wanted me to take a bus to San Luis Obispo, California.  Of course, it seemed to make not a whole lot of sense, so I said, why not?  I took the bus from Ames [Iowa] and went through Denver then LA and ended up in San Luis Obispo.  I slept in a motel the first night.  The second night I slept on a hillside just outside the city.  I was in a Burger King and the presence of God came down on me heavily and I believe the Lord was telling me to go to Santa Fe.  So I got a bus ticket to Santa Fe.

I touched down in Santa Fe in the evening and walked to a motel room and I was not a happy camper.  I have wrestled with the Lord before and I was really wrestling with Him now.  I just couldn't understand why I had to take a bus here and take a bus there, hitchhike here and hitchhike there.  Later, I calmed down and realized that God's thoughts are higher than my thoughts and that I have shared my faith with lots of people on the road.  So I might as well shut up and put up.  I am here to take orders.  The Lord tells me to jump and I ask how high.

I started hitchhiking north out of Santa Fe on the road to Taos.  I got a few rides to Dixon and stopped by to see Mike and Pat Johnson who owned La Chirapada Winery.  I met them back in 1984.  Nobody was home, so I continued north.

This guy picked me up north of Dixon and drove me north of Taos.  When he dropped me off, he shook my hand and said that his name was Israel and that he was Jewish.  He drove off and I stood there semi-stunned:  that is the first time I have ever heard someone called Israel (except Jacob in the Old Testament, of course).

I walked up the highway for a mile and this older guy picked me up.  He drove to his house just north of Questa and I said I would keep on hitchhiking.  I stood there for an hour and then it started to rain cats and dogs.  The guy ran out of his house and told me to get inside because of the rain.  We sat down and watched some TV.  We watched some Spanish TV and then a Christian station.  He told me his wife and daughter were gone and that I could sleep on the couch if I wanted.  The church he attended was just up the road and I was free to come along.

We went to church the next morning---it was a small Pentecostal church.  The text that the preacher used was from Genesis 32: 28:  "And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel:  for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed."  My jaw just about hit the floor.  Is God's timing perfect or what?  Israel.  Jacob.  Israel.  Lord, what are you trying to tell me?  Remember the guy yesterday whose name was Israel?  Later I looked up the name Israel in Harper's Bible Dictionary and it said, "Israel:  May God strive, contend or rule."

After the service, I got a ride into southern Colorado and, later, into southwest Kansas.  This Christian family picked me up outside Garden City and took me to Cimarron where they let me stay for supper.  The husband drove me to Dodge City and we had a little prayer before I got out.  I stayed in a motel that night.

The next day I walked out of Dodge five miles and this truck driver picked me up and drove me all the way to Hutchinson.  He was a Vietnam vet and had married and divorced twice.  He said something interesting:  he said that if Jesus ever came back, he would hitchhike all over the place just to take a look around before our Father let Him be the King of kings.  I thought that was pretty unique.  You never know who some of these hitchhikers were; they could be angels---or ex-sawmen.

_____

[Genesis 32: 24-30:  "And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.  And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.  And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.  And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.  And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.  And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.  And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."

Hosea 12: 3-5:  "He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God:  Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;  Even the LORD God of hosts; the LORD is his memorial."]

Intercession
High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America
Clint Eastwood's film High Plains Drifter (1973)
He Walks With a Limp (Jacob)
A Dream about General George S. Patton
The Struggle and the Crown

Book Review: High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America 

by Tim Shey 

This review is by M. Canniff (Valora Raziel):

A Hitchhiker Following God

“I first heard of Tim Shey through his web site, and then ordered his book. (I have yet to ever meet him.) I was curious about what life on the road must be like for a hitchhiker following God. His path that he details in this book, blew all my previous misconceptions about hitchhikers clear out of the water! He receives guidance from the Holy Spirit, through the spiritual gift of knowledge, in what I see as a unique twist to the usual. Some have claimed to hear the voice of God speaking to them and directing them into His Ways, but in Tim’s experience, He feels the anointing of the Lord upon him, giving him great peace and joy, thereby letting him know, that he is indeed upon the right path. And what a path it is! Tim shares how the Holy Spirit leads him into intersecting paths of those people that God wants him to meet. Sometimes it’s just a simple conversation with another believer, that leads them into a stronger faith in Christ, and other times it is to actually, physically, lend a helping hand to those who (at that moment,) are in desperate need. It shows how the Lord can be trusted to work out even the smallest details in ones life. It also shows how one can live for Christ without all the encumbrances that come with having and getting material stuff. My only disappointment with the book was it’s lack of a good solid ending. (I am a ‘happily-ever-after’ and an ‘all-loose-ends-tied-up’ kind of reader.) However, I also realize that it simply isn’t possible for him to have one yet, as he is still out there, on the road, doing the Will of God. So, in conclusion, if you’ve ever wondered what it must be like, for a man of God to live the life of a hitchhiker, then this is the book for you. It will open your eyes to a world that few of us have ever experienced…”


Clint Eastwood's film High Plains Drifter (1973)
Two Pleasant Surprises:  High Plains Drifter Revisited
High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America

The First Time I Rode a Freight Train & other hitchhiking stories
Hitchhiking Stories from Digihitch

A Letter from Israel
Writings from the Road
Book Review:  The First Time I Rode a Freight Train & other hitchhiking stories

Remember Lot's Wife

High Plains Drifter (short story)

A Conversation about High Plains Drifter

Jonathan Cahn gets attacked by a demonized man on the plane

Providence

This morning I hitchhiked from Cedarville, California to Lakeview, Oregon.  This tractor-trailer pulled over and gave me a ride into Lakeview.  The driver said that he had picked me up before; he was a Christian and we had a great talk; he knew my friends in Cedarville.

So I got dropped off near the county courthouse in Lakeview.  I went to the library and asked the librarian where the barbershop was in Lakeview.  I spent some time on the Internet and then walked up main street.

I saw the barbershop and walked inside.  I was sitting there getting a haircut when this older man and lady walked into the shop.  We started talking and she told me that she had read my first book High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America a while back!  That was a pleasant surprise.

I guess a friend of a friend of her's bought my book and then passed it on down.  We had a very engaging conversation.  She invited me to a local writers group that was meeting this evening.  I am not sure if I am going to make it.

Man, I tell you:  the Lord really knows how to put people in your path.  God's timing is everything.  A few weeks ago, I tried to hitchhike out of northern California, but it didn't happen.  I walked eight miles north and didn't get a ride.  So I changed direction, walked half a mile south, got a ride to this intersection and then waited five minutes and got a ride over Cedar Pass back to Cedarville.  So it was God's will that I leave today and meet that lady in the barbershop in Lakeview, Oregon.

Obedience is better than sacrifice--which is another way of saying that it is a good idea to obey the Lord.

A Short Hitchhiking Trip
Book Review:  High Plains Drifter
 

An American Pilgrim: Some Reflections on High Plains Drifter

In the past few weeks, I have been thinking about my book High Plains Drifter: A Hitchhiking Journey Across America. I know that it was God’s will for me to write this book. It was God’s will that High Plains Drifter was published, even though it was published by a self publishing company. It will be interesting to see how the Lord uses this book and how it will influence the people who have read it.

At one time in my life, reading the classics in literature was a passion. High Plains Drifter is not literary, so I have wondered why the Lord wanted it published. But I shouldn’t be judging my book through a literary lens. The New York Times Book Review may not think highly of my book, but the Lord may think it an inspiring, worthwhile testimony. There are some literary classics that really have no value in the Judaeo-Christian world view. The reprobate mind is not the mind of Christ; worldliness is not to be found in the Kingdom of Heaven; blindness is the opposite of prophetic vision.

Then the Lord gave me this Scripture: “the Lord chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.” I really believe this verse describes High Plains Drifter best. This book is not meant to entertain; it is not a how-to book on hitchhiking. It is a book to draw people onto the narrow path of obedience to the Lord. High Plains Drifter would not be considered dense writing (i.e., lots of details, much time spent working on the text). Watchman Nee’s classic The Spiritual Man and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov would be considered dense writing.

I wrote the book very fast: 200 pages in 10 days were written in longhand back in January/February of 2000. I really didn’t want to write High Plains Drifter—I wrote it in spite of myself. Back in 1999, I was on the road for probably eight months. During that time, people kept telling me that I should write a book about my hitchhiking travels. I kept telling them, no, I didn’t want to write a book. Finally, in January of 2000, I was hitchhiking in Texas and I ducked into this convenience store to get something to eat. I talked with this young lady who was working the cash register. She could see that I was hitchhiking, so she told me that she wanted to read my book someday. She was speaking words of faith; I believe the Lord was using her.

High Plains Drifter is autobiographical; it is about hitchhiking, the people I meet on the road and my Christian faith. It is a fast read (120 pages). But mostly, I believe that High Plains Drifter is not unlike the jawbone of an ass: it doesn’t look like much at first glance, but it will help destroy satanic strongholds in the long run. I know that Satan hates High Plains Drifter. A couple of nights before it was accepted for publication (August 2008), I was attacked by a demon while I was sleeping in my tent. The attack was so real and so painful that I thought my ribcage was broken. Later, in December 2008, I was attacked by a demon the week it was published. Somehow High Plains Drifter is a threat to Satan’s kingdom; it is symbolic of the intercessory work that I do for the Lord. If the Lord is in a work, it will grow stronger and become more influential over time.

Time is nothing; the timelessness of the Gospel is everything. Some people are drifters, some people read about drifters and some people don’t care for drifters. Inspiration sometimes comes from the quiet lives of wandering, broken vessels. It is the narrow road that leads to God. American highways were meant for pilgrims.

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Dreams from the LORD 2003-2006
7 March 2005

I have also been burning my High Plains Drifter: A Hitchhiking Journey Across America and Dreams from the Lord and Journal onto these mini-CDs (210 MB). When I am hitchhiking around the country, somebody invariably says something like: “Hey, Tim, you should write a book about your travels.” So if they have access to a computer, I can give them a copy of my book on a CD. The typescript of High Plains Drifter (160 pages) weighed about one pound, so it is nice not to carry any extra weight in my backpack.

2 August 2006

About a week ago, I hitchhiked from Jackson through Salmon, Idaho to just south of Darby, Montana where I slept in a barn. Walking out of Tetonia, Idaho, this guy picked me up--he had picked me up before in 2001 or 2002. I had given him my typescript High Plains Drifter when he first picked me up and he said he really enjoyed it. He gave it to his wife and she liked it, also. So when he dropped me off near Sugar City, I gave him a copy of my CD so he could read my other book.

Dreams from the LORD 2007-2010
16 August 2007

A few nights ago, I had a dream where I saw this man sitting alone in a church pew. He told me that he didn’t like my book High Plains Drifter. After he said that, I couldn’t hear him anymore. He talked and talked, but I couldn’t hear him; it looked like he was talking to himself or talking into the air. There was no one else in the church. He seemed very agitated.

I believe I know the meaning of this dream. The man sitting in the church pew either did not like my book, High Plains Drifter, or he did not like my life of obedience to the Lord, i.e. hitchhiking all over the United States, living a life of intercessory prayer, being a prophet and living on the fringes of society (this is what High Plains Drifter represents). The man sitting in the church pew represents church people in general. Some church people don’t like my work of obeying the Lord and taking out satanic strongholds [or else they don’t understand; sometimes people fear or hate that which they don’t understand].

12 August 2008

Last night I had a dream where I was in this office. There was this bookcase and there were files and books in the bookcase. As I was leaving the office, I noticed my two books, High Plains Drifter and Dreams from the Lord, in the bookcase. I pulled Dreams from the Lord out from some files, looked at it briefly and then sandwiched it back between some files. For some reason, I believe that office had something to do with a public relations firm.

1 August 2009

Last night I had a dream where I saw President Ronald Reagan. He was playing a guitar and looked very old. It looked like he had been out of the White House for several years. President Reagan was surrounded by many people—they looked like reporters.

President Reagan saw me, smiled at me and walked over to where I was standing. We spoke for a short while.

Then this woman walked up to me; she looked like a reporter. We talked for a while. I told her that I had a book published. She said that she had heard of it and told me the title of a book. It was the wrong title. I told her my book was High Plains Drifter. I found a piece of paper, folded it in two and began writing High Plains Drifter: A Hitchhiking Journey Across America. I was writing with an old-fashioned fountain pen—the ink dripped onto the paper in a couple of places. I was almost finished writing the title of my book when the dream ended.

A Book Review for High Plains Drifter 

A Public Relations Firm

Dreams from the LORD 2007-2010
12 August 2008

Last night I had a dream where I was in this office. There was this bookcase and there were files and books in the bookcase. As I was leaving the office, I noticed my two books, High Plains Drifter and Dreams from the Lord in the bookcase. I pulled Dreams from the Lord out from some files, looked at it briefly and then sandwiched it back between some files. For some reason, I believe that office had something to do with a public relations firm.

Book Review:  High Plains Drifter

Hitchhiking in Wyoming

This is a video of Tim Shey standing on U.S. 26 between Moran Junction and Jackson, Wyoming. The footage was taken by Randy Mulhall on 4 December 2010. Randy picked up Tim when he was hitchhiking just west of Kinnear, Wyoming; Randy drove him all the way to Victor, Idaho. In the video, Randy and Tim are heading due south. Jackson is straight ahead twenty-some miles in the distance.  The Teton Mountains are to the right of the camera hidden from view.

Wyoming to Utah

Hitchhiking Stories from Digihitch

Rock Springs, Wyoming to Barstow, California

Why is Hitchhiking Illegal in Wyoming?

This Letter to the Editor was published yesterday by JH Weekly:

LETTERS

Why is Hitchhiking Illegal in Wyoming?

I have hitchhiked through Jackson many times over the years. I have met some very friendly people as I have hitchhiked over Teton Pass, north to Moran Junction or south towards Pinedale. But why is hitchhiking illegal in Wyoming?

In September of 2009, I was camped out south of Riverton. The local police were driving by and noticed my tent by the river. They stopped and asked for my ID. They ran a check on my ID and told me that I had a bench warrant for my arrest. I asked them what the bench warrant was for. They said it was from an unpaid hitchhiking ticket. The fine was $60.00; I had 50 bucks on me.

They handcuffed me and drove me to the jail in Riverton. They asked me if I knew someone who could help out with the last 10 bucks of my fine. I gave them a phone number of a friend of mine. I spent a half hour in the Riverton holding pen till my friend arrived to help pay the rest of the fine.

I have no complaints with the Riverton police: they were friendly, professional and helpful. I can see why hitchhiking would be illegal on the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles because it is so crowded with fast-moving traffic. But Wyoming? Wyoming is the most sparsely-populated state in the Union. Some people in various parts of this planet hitchhike just to get to work.

Is hitchhiking illegal because it is potentially dangerous? So isn't rock climbing, scuba diving and surfing. People get killed skiing, coal miners get killed, lumberjacks get killed. Most people die in bed. You're going to die eventually, so get used to it. Life is risk.

If anyone is interested in my life of hitchhiking (I have been hitchhiking for most of 14 years now), you can go to the Victor, Idaho public library and read my book High Plains Drifter: A Hitchhiking Journey Across America.

Support your local hitchhiker.

--Tim Shey, hitchhiker

JH Weekly
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
December 1-7, 2010
Volume 8, Issue 50

[As of 2013, it is now LEGAL to hitchhike in Wyoming]

My First Time in Jail for Hitchhiking
Hitchhiking in Wyoming
A Conversation with a Deputy Sheriff in Fremont County, Wyoming
Roots
Bill Would Legalize Hitchhiking in State 
Hitchhiking Stories from Digihitch

Two Pleasant Surprises: High Plains Drifter Revisited

Dreams from the LORD 2007-2010
17 November 2010

About five days ago I was hitchhiking south of Columbus, Montana and this guy picked me up. He drove me to Absarokee.

I told him that I had been hitchhiking for a number of years. I also said that my book High Plains Drifter was published two years ago. He said that a friend of his from Forsyth, Montana saw my book at the public library there and had read it. I never told him that my book was at the library in Forsyth. That was a pleasant surprise.

18 November 2010

This morning I hitchhiked from Victor, Idaho to Wilson, Wyoming. I got dropped off at this gas station in Wilson and I bought a candy bar there. As I walked through Wilson heading towards Jackson, I saw this guy walking to his vehicle that was parked on the shoulder. He looked at me and I looked at him; I thought I recognized him.

He pointed at me and I walked up to him and said something like, “I know you. You’re the guy from Scotland.” (Actually, I think his dad was from Scotland.)

We shook hands and hugged each other. His name was Ian. Ian had picked me up about a year ago and he took me to his place in Wilson and we had a cup of tea; we had a great talk. I think Ian has picked me up twice coming out of Jackson.

So Ian and I were talking and he said, “I read your book and loved it!”

“What?!” I exclaimed. “Wow, no one has ever said that to me before. Thanks. I hope you got something out of it.”

Ian told me that a friend of his bought a copy of High Plains Drifter for him.

We talked for a while longer and then he said that he and his friend were going up to Teton Pass to go skiing. We shook hands and parted company.

God’s timing is always perfect. I could have gotten a ride from Victor to Jackson, but no, the Lord had me dropped off in Wilson instead. It was good to see Ian again. I am guessing I will run into him again in the near future.

An American Pilgrim: Some Reflections on High Plains Drifter
Book Review:  High Plains Drifter

The Ronald Reagan Family

Dreams from the LORD 2007-2010
30 September 2010

Last night I had a dream where I was on a passenger train. It looked like the train was going through some mountains. Sitting across the aisle from me were Ronald and Nancy Reagan and their two small children: the boy looked like he was three years old and the girl looked like a few years older. Ronald Reagan was singing a song—I believe it was an American patriotic song. His wife, Nancy, glanced at me.

Then the train stopped at this station. We were in a foreign country. The Reagan family filed out of the train and onto the platform. It looked like we were in China. I followed behind the Reagan family as they left their seats. I did not get off at the exact place that they did. I may have got off the train at the next station.

_____

Dreams from the LORD 2011-2012
1 August 2009

Last night I had a dream where I saw President Ronald Reagan.  He was playing a guitar and looked very old.  It looked like he had been out of the White House for several years.  President Reagan was surrounded by many people—they looked like reporters.

President Reagan saw me, smiled at me and walked over to where I was standing.  We spoke for a short while.

Then this woman walked up to me; she looked like a reporter.  We talked for a while.  I told her that I had a book published.  She said that she had heard of it and told me the title of a book.  It was the wrong title.  I told her my book was High Plains Drifter.  I found a piece of paper, folded it in two and began writing High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America.  I was writing with an old-fashioned fountain pen—the ink dripped onto the paper in a couple of places.  I was almost finished writing the title of my book when the dream ended.

Quotes from Thomas Jefferson
President McKinley's Dream
Ronald Reagan's Dream
A Dream about Donald Trump

Win Worley - Reagan Election & Reagan Assassination Attempt (20:10 - 22:00)

_____

Dreams from the LORD

By Tim Shey

23 March 2026

A Leader Will Come Out of Hollywood

Last night I had a dream. It looked like I was somewhere on the west coast. I met several people; it looked like they were on vacation. We started talking and they said that they did not support our military intervention in Iran. I told them that we are freeing the people of Iran from Islamic tyranny. 

Then I met these two guys. I told them that I spoke in a French tongue. Immediately, they began to speak in tongues--in the exact French tongue that I speak. I asked them what I was saying (because I don't understand French). One of the guys said, "You are saying that a leader will come out of Hollywood."

[This dream may be about Spencer Pratt who is running for Mayor of Los Angeles.  Could Spencer Pratt be Ronald Reagan 2.0?]

Chris McCandless Revisited

Chris McCandless, 1968-1992

Dreams from the LORD 2007-2010
15 August 2010

Four days ago (11 August), I was hitchhiking in Idaho and this guy picked me up. He told me that he went to school at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; he graduated in 1994. So I asked him about Chris McCandless (Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer) (McCandless went to school at Emory).

This guy said that he was three years behind McCandless in school. After McCandless’ body was discovered in Alaska (1992), he was in an English class (in 1993?) with a professor that had taught McCandless a few years previous. The professor had the class study some of McCandless’ papers.

This guy told the professor and the class that he thought McCandless showed a lot of hubris or suburban hubris when he tried to live in the wilderness of Alaska; he thought that McCandless was not well-prepared to live on his own. The professor and the rest of the class reacted very negatively to this guy when he used the word “hubris.” This guy ended up getting a C- in the class.

Hubris: “n. [Gk., violence] Excessive pride: ARROGANCE.”
--Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
The Jerry Shey Family
Few Thumbs Barred From Rides
Fairbanks Bus 142
Book Review:  High Plains Drifter
Into the Wild (2007) (Tragedy, Epiphany and Closure)
Chris McCandless on 20/20 (1997)
The Wild Truth by Carine McCandless

_____

I just discovered a couple of days ago that someone is trying to sell my manuscript (High Plains Drifter: A Hitchhiking Journey Across America) on Ebay.

I got a ride from Lolo, Montana to Orofino, Idaho on U.S. 12--I rode in the back of a pickup. I walked to the library in Orofino and googled "Tim Shey hitchhiker" just for the heck of it. One of the results was "Hitchhiking America/ Hiker Rage", so I clicked-on to it. I was surprised to see that someone was trying to sell my manuscript.

I thought it was pretty funny.

An American Pilgrim:  Some Reflections on High Plains Drifter
The First Time I Rode a Freight Train & other hitchhiking stories
The Short, Short Hitchhiker
The Life of a Hobo  
Hitchhiking Stories from Digihitch
Stobe the Hobo