My Bible reading in my devotional time each morning has me presently in Deuteronomy.  I’m about to finish this book and the Israelites will soon be headed into the “promise land” by crossing the Jordan River.  They have been on this journey for 40 years.  All the adults who left Egypt have died except for Moses, Caleb and Joshua.  Moses is giving them his final direction that he received from God and then he will die with only Caleb and Joshua going in with the multitude.  The sad part of this journey is that it was sheer disobedience that kept the first generation of Israelites from entering.  Upon entering they would have found God’s power revealed destroying all the ones they feared would be too powerful for them.  So, what does this have to do with my personal journey?

This morning the key word for me is obedience.  There are some things to fear when man begins to truly address with God what He tells us to do in order to find His freedom from our hurts, hang-ups and habits (as Celebrate Recovery categories them).  For me, the most difficult obedience has been the part that includes man.  One example is James 5:16 that states our need to confess to God, to self, and to someone we trust.  Well, that someone is a man.  For me, this confessing started with telling man:

1. I was abused
2. The abuse was from a homosexual brother
3. My father also emotionally and physically abused me
4. I haven’t repeated any of these behaviors
5. I have homosexual thoughts
6. I’ve used pornography (even gay)

It has taken me 8 years to unravel telling all these realities of myself to man.  I started with the first one but it took all these years to get to the most personal one which shames me the most.  Yesterday I was sharing with one of my accountability men and he said for him it is sheer pride that keeps him from confessing what I put above.  He isn’t ready to admit all of this to the men in his life.  He fears judgement and condemnation just as I have always feared.

It is amazing to me that we can have a Bible, thick with pages that tell the consequences of man’s obedience and disobedience to God and yet we don’t learn to step out of disobedience when it comes to the personal obedience God asks us to take.

OK, so Joshua is almost ready to take the lead for the Israelites.  In a few more chapters, Moses will pass the baton to him.  It is at this time that Joshua makes one of his most treasured quotes to the Israelites:  “But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose you this day whom you will serve….  But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:15  It has taken me a lot of years to come to this point of genuine obedience to God.  In fact, it isn’t a one time event, I have to choose daily to be this honest.  But, I will say, the freedom from sharing truth has the most rewarding intrinsic gratification.  That’s the freedom I’m after.  To God be the glory!