When we need to know if something is genuine, we first must know what genuine actually is.  On July 31 I began journaling to God my Father rather than to Jesus.  This was a big step for me and it has led me down a path of tremendous challenge learning to know my Father as a loving Dad as well as the Creator of the Universe.  He Himself is the One who gave me His Son Jesus to pave my way to Eternity once and for all.  At the end of September this walk had me coming to a fundamental reality that I not only am a new creation, but I live each day as one.  All of this has been rather ethereal–lacking material substance for me.  I had to live here for a while in order for the substance of this reality to begin to set in.

It is now close to 3.5 months that I’ve been journaling daily to God and this process has not only become comfortable, but I love our time together each day.  Now let me get into the substance side of this.  A week ago yesterday Kathy and I got back from China about midnight.  The next morning I went to the school district to meet with the administrator I was temporarily replacing.  I hadn’t had but a few hours of sleep which was now building into the 40+ hours range.  As I got home from the district I desperately needing to sleep and I couldn’t.  My body was steeped in time change adjustment. I found myself being severely tempted to step into a pattern of sinful behavior that was a common practice when I felt lost, weary and confused in my old self.  I began to go there and finally got myself out of it but never did get any sleep.  I hadn’t been to Celebrate Recovery for 2 weeks nor to the Conquer group for the same amount of time.  It was my first day back home and all the tools I’d learned to take at these times were seemingly lost someplace.

It is now a week later.  I have kept all of this within me wondering what I do with it.  Yesterday morning God told me I needed to talk to my accountability about it just like the tools I’d learned said to do.  He said the clarity would follow this step.  So, last night at Celebrate Recovery I talked to the two men I needed to see and completed this step.  Now it is the morning following obedience.  When I was asking God what He wanted me to know today, this is what I heard Him say, “You’ve just experienced My Team at work.  The Spirit of Truth has brought about the clarity.  You took the steps and now the door of clarity is open–you no longer see the sin–you see fertile land.  Unconfessed sin is a wall that entraps you.  Satan hammers you inside it.  Face the mountain and take the steps from the tools I provided and the walls come down.  You again see the fertile land–my people waiting for interaction with you.”

The remarkable thing about all this for me has been experiencing all of this as a new creation rather than as an old man still trying to hide the behaviors I’d learned from living a life of hiding a past I wanted to keep buried.  This time I now realize my desire to keep this a secret is simply my pride.  I am a new creation, but I still battle with being me.  This experience has been such a great learning one for me.  I’m certainly not happy that I failed for a moment, but to see myself as a child of God rather than that sinful, abused self is a real awakening.  I’m sorry I have to confess this to you, but I am not sorry for the lesson God is teaching me from it.  The walls of sin are gone and I see a world of fertile soil–men waiting to know this loving Father of ours.  So, if telling this helps even one of them to know God loves you, I will tell it from the mountain top.

In my 3.5 months of journaling to God my Father, I am developing a trust I’ve not had in Him.  This is the genuineness I was talking about at the start of today’s blog.  My experience has been the substance to show me what this is all about.  This Father of ours is a most Loving, Forgiving, Caring One.  He’s proved it over and over again.  How much I love Him!

My word, our country did something yesterday I don’t believe any other country could or would do–elect a redefinition of who we are.  I’m so proud of America for seeing our need to do this.  I wait in wonder and fervent prayer that in this redefinition we place God, Our Heavenly Father, back on His rightful throne for our country.  The separation of church and state which our forefathers created for America never intended it to look like it has been presently defined.  God is giving us a new chance to make Him great again by our re-establishment Him in our leadership of man.  Pray with me that our newly established team will see this as a paramount first in their work.

On a personal note now, I have been reconnecting with my support groups after being gone the past couple weeks on the China trip.  This has been awfully good for me.  While I was in China I was somehow in a different state of mind where the old Satan attacks didn’t even happen.  I was caught up in enjoying all I was experiencing and learning.  Coming back however, my humanness looms to the front and I find myself needing the support of my support groups.  One of the things from last night that truly stood out in our Conquer series was the fact that we can’t overcome our addictive behaviors in isolation.  That’s an old man’s thinking.  The new creation knows I must keep myself in connection to human support for God’s great healing in part comes through our “telling/sharing” our truth with others.  God is so faithful and I want to be a good and faithful servant.

Praise the Lord for His Mercy.

I found it interesting this morning of election day that my devotional title was “Facing Life’s Mountains”.  I have always been a huge supporter of our country’s political system in light of the rest of our world.  But, I haven’t lived through such a hateful, divisive six-twelve months as these have been.  I purposely have not addressed any of this in my blog because my blog’s purpose has always been my life’s journey from the darkness of my past into the light of my being a new creation–an heir of God as I say in my book.

So, why am I doing it now on election day?  It’s because today is the first election day I’ve lived where I know and breathe as a new creation of God.  Thus, it has been different for me as I’ve witnessed what we all have in this raucous campaign.  I don’t think either of our major choices lives a life committed to God but it is not difficult to see which one better supports God’s Kingdom work by surrounding themselves with committed Christians.  As I was praying this morning while having my devotions I prayed for God’s fullness to be made know this day.  He reminded me that His gift to man in His first creation was choice.  Either way this election goes, He will ultimately bring this world to its intended end.  What we do with our portion of time is in our hands of choice.

I sincerely pray that God will be seen today as the One recognized for the outcome of this election.  So, be sure and use the gift God gave to us all–choice.  This is one thing that our country has not moved away from in how it recognizes man.  Most of our world’s other countries dishonor their people with their election times.   God be glorified today!

Today starts the work with the school district where I’m filling in for a lady whose husband is getting treatment for his MS in Mexico.  The treatment is not approved in the states yet, so they are going there.  If all goes well, he will walk again!  Praise the Lord.

I have been stewing that taking this temporary assignment was just my will jumping ahead of what God wants me doing.  I had lots of reasons I could do it and it was part-time and temporary.  God does want me to bring all of these things to Him, but he assured me this morning that I needed to quit stewing about it and go into it seeing where I can be a blessing to Him.  So, that is what I am going to do.

Trusting and Reasoning are two items I had always thought were rather synonymous.  However, I’ve been hammered yesterday and today in my devotional and in my scripture reading about these two.  God was wanting me to understand that all the reasoning in the world will not bring Him the glory He wants from our simple Trust.  When we trust, we often find that reasoning has to be set aside.  Trust comes from God speaking to our heart and our heart can assure our mind that its ok.  There is a huge gap between the two of these once I look at it this way.  I’m going to try to do a better job trusting as I move into this day today.  God’s blessings be with you.

No matter what we do or why we do it, we will have consequences physically and spiritually.  We are a physical being living in a spiritual world.  I say this because this morning I am feeling physically ill–cold has set in and yet I feel spiritually full.  The consequences of our trip to China has led into a full blown cold which I now have and most on our trip got while we were there.  I just completed my devotions and some lessons for a Celebrate Recovery Step Study that takes place this morning after our first worship service.  The lessons were so specifically for me I thought God had this curriculum written just so I’d wake up more fully to His Spiritual purpose/s.  God is awakening in me our need to share our physical stories in order to help others connect to His spiritual work in our lives.  If we keep our personal struggles quiet, man tends to believe “we live in a more perfect world than they do” and Satan uses that to isolate them just as we always felt isolated before we stepped out of our denial.

I have someone very close to me who is living in tremendous physical hurt/pain.  No matter how much doctor treatment or meds have been tried, there has been no relief.  He is definitely discouraged and feeling less than worthwhile to God.  He recently told his wife that he wished others struggling similarly would share their struggle rather than telling their overcoming.  He is in the midst of struggle and doesn’t know how to get to spiritual overcoming.  I always thought in my head that I had to have my torment removed in order to be “whole” and worthwhile.  God has taught me that in my sharing of my torment that I find the greater healing which turns out to be freedom rather than physical healing.  I also have to have a physical support team that reminds me how to surrender these times and to tell these times.  My friend is afraid to share his pain for fear that others will judge him for it.  Does that sound familiar?  It sure does to me as I lived in constant fear of judgment by man.  I finally found that in sharing I was only being judged by myself.  God was waiting for me to learn this spiritual lesson of sharing.  I was wanting others to share their hurt but God was wanting me to open up about mine so that others would find the safety to tell of their own.  I tell in my Celebrate Recovery testimony that I prayed for years for someone to share their struggle from sexual abuse, same sex temptations, etc., but no one did.  Now that I can tell mine, I have had scores of people come to me admitting their bondage and now they are stepping into spiritual healing about who they are to God.

I have learned that God waits for us to awaken to His truth about our walk.  His truths are spiritual truths.  We so often want a physical healing from a spiritual truth but God waits for us to see His purpose in physical/emotional/psychological pain.  These are physical ailments resulting from being a human/physical being.  If we hide them they fester and build as mine did for almost 60 years.  God heals us (not necessarily from the pain) but by freeing us to share this burden.  Pain is built in part by isolating it from spiritual help.  I hope this makes some sense to you.  God is certainly driving a point home to me that I want to help make clear to those in their own personal journey.

C.S. Lewis once said, “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”  If you are on the road of isolation about your struggle, make an about face and tell this struggle.  God’s truth promises freedom and it sometimes promises healing.  Find the freedom of telling and maybe there will be healing along with it too.

More sleep finally came last night!  I had to go to bed by 8:30 again and did awaken a dozen times but each time I went quickly back to sleep.  Didn’t get up until 4:30 this am.  I finally feel somewhat back to normal.  One of the things I’ve experienced in the last two days is a flurry of emotional angst I don’t usually have.  Because I was so tired each thing I was to do was being met with old anxiety attacks I thought were behind me.  Finally this morning I was able to see all of this as simply a human response to sleeplessness.  Satan was trying to show me it was tied to a spiritual problem, insufficiency, inadequacy–all of the old Earnie attacks.  It worked for a short while but this morning God and I were able to put it back into perspective.

One of the things that happened during my devotions that helped so much was the story in Mark 4:35.  Jesus had finished talking with the crowds of people and told the disciples to get into the boat as they were going to head to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus fell asleep and a huge storm came upon them filling their boat with water and they thought they were goners.  They awakened Jesus in a panic.  Jesus commanded the storm to be still and of course the disciples were in awe.  I was hit by the “insert” in my Bible written by Joyce Meyer.  She says, “It is always exciting when Jesus tells us to do something new–like go to the other side of the lake.”  Rarely do we think to ask the questions about how to prepare for this–we let the excitement carry us.  However on the way to the other side a storm hits and we panic.  We wonder why Jesus is asleep when our boat is sinking.  Trust vanishes.  Joyce says that when we have a storm inside us and then one hits on the outside of us, we evaluate the outside one by the fears of our inside storm.  That’s just what I was doing the past 24 hours.  I was inadequate, insufficient, shameful and just plain stupid for thinking I could do all the things I’d committed to prior to our China trip.  It took the past 48 hours for God to awaken in me that I needed to re-establish the PEACE that comes from surrender and let trust be my action.  I didn’t have any angst ahead of leaving for China regarding the work I’d do in return.  Satan just wanted to bring me back to his old stomping ground with me.  In the emotional state I was in I allowed that for a moment.  It is a good learning experience for me and one I’ll remember as I move forward.

Yesterday morning I met with a lady about 12 years younger than me who had been a child when I was a young adult attending our church.  She is a marvelous singer and she was saying she had admired me and my spirit all those years ago.  She had moved away when she went to college and I hadn’t seen her since.  She’d read my book and wanted to meet.  She had come down from Seattle where she lives and had some time.  She needed to know how God had brought me to the point of trusting Him to write the book and share such deep hurt and sinfulness.  As we talked she seemed to relate most to journaling.  She doesn’t do this and in sharing how God has always used journaling as an item that helps me organize my fears and anxieties so I can release them to Him and get His perspective on them, she said that was the message she needed for the morning.

Hearing God’s voice and message and then trusting it fully is a lifelong skill needing to be built and supported.  I know God wanted Kathy and me to go to China and I know He wanted me to return to the things He has me doing when we returned.  Little did I anticipate the difficulty of returning to them after being gone for only 2 weeks.  The good thing–the 48 hours are past, I’m back to being a new creation and ready to move forward in genuine trust.

Well, jet-lag hit!  My post yesterday told you about going to the school district which I did.  I got home a little after 1 pm thinking I’d sleep for a couple hours–well, 20 mins was all there was.  My body was exhausted but my mind was whirling and there was no stopping it.  Our grandson and girlfriend came out for dinner and afterwards I went to bed by 8:30 pm.  I awoke at 11:30 pm ready to charge into the day which I knew wasn’t going to work.  I got up for a hour or so and finally about 1:00 was able to sleep until 4:30 am.  OK, that’s enough for the pity party.

In the two weeks being gone I lost track of all the things I do here.  Yesterday, throughout the day, I was continuously getting reminders of things I’m committed to doing or things I will be doing in the weeks ahead.  I found myself swimming into a mess.  In the mental state of jet-lag I found myself quickly sinking.  This morning as I was taking all this to God, He simply reminded me of what I say to others all the time from the Serenity Prayer:  “take one day at a time, one moment at a time….”  Just hearing that in my head made me relax.  I was bombarded with individual meetings with those who want to talk–there is one this morning at 10:00 am, the choir rehearsal tomorrow morning, quartet practice, Celebrate Recovery meetings and needs, Conquer commitments along with family connections and grandkid games to attend.  And, these didn’t include the work I’ve committed to do in the next two months.  All these things I love, but Satan was using them to throw me into a helpless state while I was physically and mentally weak.

In my devotions this morning I read:  “Jesus teaches us in Mark 3:27 that we mush bind the strong man if we want to plunder his house.  The strong man represents the devil.  Do not ever become passive as a Christian and forget that Jesus instructs us to take authority over and bind the enemy.”  That was the state I was in yesterday afternoon.  Satan was attacking me and I had momentarily lost my grounding due to my lack of sleep.  I’m awake now and reconnecting with the tools God has given me already.  We don’t need to stay in the mindset of a loser as Satan would want us to.  God has provided a way of escape even in what we think is a “helpless state”.  Onward we go with The Holy Spirit within and Christ at the helm.

My word, it actually feels good to sit down to the computer and update readers on the current travels.  Kathy and I got home last night at 11:30 from our China adventure.  It was amazing to get up in Shanghai at 5:45 am Nov. 2 and arrive home 31 hours later and it is still Nov. 2!  Of course, we lost most of Oct. 22 in going so this was our payback in time.  I’m sure later today I will be feeling the jet-lag,but at this point, I am glad to be home and am ready to tackle the work of the day.

My mind is whirling with “what does one do with the results of a trip like this?”  We brought home some “stuff” that will turn into gifts for Christmas and decorations in our home, but what glorifies God?  In my journaling this morning I was asking God to show me what He wants.  He was quick to remind me that He only wants obedience to His Spirit’s leading in my life.  We did learn in a stark way what Christianity looks like in China.  It is in the top four religions of the country but only 4% of the population is Christian.  That is a population of 1.5 billion.  I was told that most of the Chinese people don’t claim a religion.  This is what Communism has done.  One of the guides told us that when students graduate from their universities they have much passion.  However, when they experience life for a couple years first-hand in the working world of China, their passion is gone.  They have no voice in their life whatsoever.  That voice is killed by the ruling government.  We were told that imagination is not a word for them.  There is no hope or dreams that they have for themselves.  God is telling me they need to know He is their HOPE and their DREAMS but this message wasn’t too much a part of this trip.  My first morning in Beijing I was in the hotel lobby reading my Bible waiting for our group and our tour guide.  A young lady was sitting a couple chairs from me.  She scooted close and asked if I were a christian?  I told her I am and she said she is too.  She is a university student she said.  She told me the Christians meet in home churches mostly.  Her English was limited so we couldn’t get too far into this topic.  I was excited to meet someone my first day but this was the only day this happened.  I later learned that I had met one of the 4% in the country’s population.

There is so much I could talk about in this writing and I will in the days to follow.  For now my day’s journey takes me back into the nuts and bolts of daily living right here at home.  I’m going to a school dist. this morning where I will be doing some part-time work for the next couple months.  I’ve got some connections to make with some of the Celebrate Recovery folks and Aslan Christian Academy has a major meeting tomorrow with a potential location.  These things are real and I will reconnect with them through the coming days.

Somehow I’d like to know how Kathy and I can take a trip like this and use the time more intentionally for God’s Kingdom work as well as fulfilling lifelong dreams for both of us in seeing this magnificent world our God has created.  I wait to see how these two dreams can come together with greater purpose.  Right now, I’m glad to be home and getting grounded again right here.