As I was beginning to start my blog this am I found our computer telling me it had to reboot in order to operate. Not sure what that meant but I took it as a satanic attack because he doesn’t want today’s message published.

As I attended my 7-Pillars class last night an unexpected message came screaming at me.  In reality it didn’t say a word–the old voice of my dad said it all.  As part of an assignment months ago I was to post a picture of someone in our home that when seeing it would remind me to never step back into my old habits.  One would think a picture of Kathy, my kids and grandkids would do this.  However, at the time I was given the assignment I never stepped into doing it because no picture served this purpose.  In last night’s class the reminder of using this tool was talked about.  The truth behind my never doing it had to be spoken.  The reason I never placed a picture up was that it only served as a reminder to me that I was not worthy of them–the one or ones in the picture.  As I had to confess this, one of the men said, “Earnie, maybe you need to put your own picture up to remind you that you are the valuable one.”  With that I just broke down.  All I could hear at the moment was dad’s voice screaming once again what an arrogant guy I am.

This morning I had to find God in this lie, but a “truth” deep within me.  As I opened my journal the scripture at the top of the page read, “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him.  I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.  He will call on me and I will answer him.” Psalm 91:14-15.  It was then that I asked God to take this lie buried in me and replace it with His Truth.  God showed me that because I love Him, He will rescue me.  He will protect me because I acknowledge His Name.  In truth that is what I’ve wanted to do all my life so I could be valuable to God my Father.  Here, He is telling me this not because of my actions, but because of my belief.

I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this with anyone, but the reason I wanted the picture of me as a little boy in the corner of the front cover of my book was to show readers that this little guy was important.  Now, I am needing to recognize and know for certain God loves me and wants me to love me too.

There is no arrogance in this.  In reality what is in it is a deep commitment to love, cherish and honor.  It is all the things I want to do for others and God is wanting me to see that I can do it for me too.  It seems a strange reality, but one I’ve sure needed to get anchored in.

Isn’t God amazing?!  How much I love Him and thank Him for His gentle, yet firm commitment to restoring great life within.

Coming off of such a powerful weekend, I spent yesterday getting some things done in prep for this week’s work.  Today I start up the consulting work I’ve been doing.  However, in doing so I feel/sense the past habit of steeling myself to needs around me so I can focus only on “the work”.  I also sense a subtle attack creeping in or attempting to.  In the leadership training of last Saturday there was an exercise we did displaying how Satan can deviously enter into God’s Kingdom Work with us and we don’t even know it at the time.

So, let me go into yesterday a bit more.  As the day continued I was feeling some temptations.  The work I was wanting to do outside was being halted due to rain. What would it matter then and who would know if I took only a minute and looked?  Also, my wife and I were struggling over an activity  we are committed to this coming weekend supporting our Celebrate Recovery but interfering with family/kids and grandkids.  I felt like we were compromising what God wanted us to do–testing our faith in Him not knowing the outcome of His planned work, but easily seeing what our kids wanted us to do for them.  This morning I was seeing how Satan is wanting to use both of these relationship issues to halt what God is intending.  It is easy to say no to an unknown when we can see the direct outcome of something else.  So, this morning I sensed God showing me how Satan is wanting to use my closest relationships to deter me (us) from His Kingdom Work.

I know that our family isn’t at risk with staying focused on God’s Work.  God has a way of bringing about His miracles when we obey His nudges in our lives.  I do want to be very awake to His nudges as I continue my journey with Him.

The weekend has come and gone.  A new week is before me.  As I was reflecting this morning with God about the next steps, applying what I am to do with all I learned from the weekend, I read Jeremiah11-16.  In these chapters God is having Jeremiah tested to see if he is ready to complete the assignments given to him.  There are some important, critical items God wants brought before the Israelites.  Jeremiah has some tough assignments ahead of him so God ran him through testing.  I can sense my own testing now that I’m home. I sense God asking me if I am willing to do any next steps on His terms?  All through my life I’ve been one to get new info and very quickly put it into action once I’m home.  Any teacher who ever taught for me will tell you they cringed when I went to conferences knowing I’d be coming home with all this new learning for us and new applications to try.

This topic of sexual brokenness–how well I know it–cannot be addressed as though it is a passing topic.  There is a toughness needed to tackle the topic, but there is also a tenderness and sensitivity needed too.  God knows when His children are ready including when He has His leaders ready.  I told Him this morning I want to be in His timeline.  It is then that God’s Kingdom Work is accomplished.  I do know God has been working on me with my own story preparing me to use it for Him.

As I told my story to the congregation of my friend yesterday one lady told me afterwards that she could see how God has been helping me step out of myself and stepping into His Purpose.  I hadn’t thought about this from that angle, but after hearing her say this I can see the progression of God’s healing and His focus on using the healing as a motivation to help others do the same.  God is so Good.  Helping others find healing is a tough but wonderful assignment.  I praise God He would even consider me for this.  To God be All Glory.

Today will end the trip to Western Oregon.  Before Kathy and I head home we will head to Gresham where a friend I graduated from high school with is the preacher at a community church.  When he and I had talked over a year ago and he had heard of me writing my autobiography, he asked if I’d share my story with his congregation when we ever came to his region of the country.  Well, today is that day.  I don’t often go before a Sunday morning group.  Most of them only come for a good sermon, get their kids to Sunday School, spend sometime in worship and go back home to relax before their new week begins.  Of course I am stereotyping somewhat as I write this, but that is what my mind/fears say.  They don’t come to church to hear a story of someone’s troubled past.  I do know from sharing my story in various settings that there is much more sexual brokenness that man wants to admit.  It is an area Satan tries his best to keep in secret.  He can continue to do his damage if we keep it hidden in shame.  I pray much shame is destroyed this morning as I enter into this opportunity.

Yesterday’s training I attended with the Mid-Valley Fellowship group was phenomenal.  I was continuously impressed and learned a great deal.  I’d love to have my hands on the curriculum so I could be taking it home and starting it tomorrow.  However, I know there is internal work that needs to be done once I get home so patience is a key ingredient for the time being.  When the director and my brother-in-law come for our church’s conference in a few weeks I will then know how much interest there is in our community for starting this ministry of sexual brokenness.  We have a small amount already started so getting it more in full swing will hopefully be the right next step.  The one thing I want more than anything is to do this in God’s will and timing.  I’ve spent enough of my years trying to do things on my own.  Prayers for this will be appreciated as we take steps in days and weeks ahead.

God is such a wonderful God.  How intimately He loves us.  How much I am learning regarding this about Him.  How can this immense God of our universe desire time with this tiny speck in His Kingdom?  Yet, He does and for this I am so grateful.  To God be all Glory!

Today is my second grandson’s 14th birthday.  He is a tremendously good kid.  He is entering into the vulnerable teen years.  How I pray God’s protective Hands to be upholding him as he lives life in our tumultuous days.

Today I experience day two of the reason I’m here in Albany, OR.  I get to experience the day of training Mid-Valley Fellowship takes their volunteer leadership through.  It is one of the first times I’ve ever walked into a “vulnerable time” not feeling anxious.  I truly walk into this day with eager anticipation.  Meeting with the director yesterday and a couple of the other paid employees of the ministry was also a tremendously good time.  God has opened the door for them and it is apparent they are completing what God has called them to do.

Last night I attended Dwight’s Celebrate Recovery group.  (Dwight is my brother-in-law).  I taught lesson 16–Amends–for the group.  It was a good experience meeting with the people attending and seeing once again that God’s ministry is not isolated to one area or another.  God’s Kingdom Work is taking place all around us once we open our eyes to it and allow ourselves to be available.  I truly want to be on track with God to do His Kingdom Work from this day forward.  I do have “Earnie ideas” of what this may look like as Kathy and I return home Sunday afternoon, but I also know I will need to be very sensitive to only stepping where God is nudging.  I don’t any longer want to be attempting to pry doors open that I see with human eyes rather than with God’s Spiritual Eyes.  We sang “Good, Good Father” last night in the worship time.  It talks of how much we are loved by our Heavenly Father.  I’m finding that in obedience to God, I not only get to experience this Godly love, but I also get to witness God’s love for others as they find Him in the midst of their own Hurts, Hang-ups and Habits.  God is truly our Amazing Father.

Today I write this from Albany, OR.  I am at my brother-in-law’s home.  At noon time I will be meeting the director of Mid-Valley Fellowship.  My brother in law, the director and I will spend much of the afternoon together so I can become familiar with the programs they use and much more.  This all sounds important I suppose, but deep inside me there is something far more important that has taken place just this am.  Let me explain.

Prior to making this trip I’ve blogged each day about the angst, worry, anxiety, stress of making this trip.  I knew beyond a shadow of doubt God wanted me doing it.  However, I had a multitude of fears bombarding my mind and soul.  I was putting myself into the very presence of all my years of abuse all over again.  Why would God want me here I kept asking?

I mentioned a book I’ve finished reading, Homosexuality and the Christian, I wanted to read it so I could better understand how these two topics could be placed into one person–if that were ever possible.  Little had I understood that this has always been a tremendous haunt of mine.  Just the thought of a gay topic made me just like my brother–an abuser.  Well, today I know beyond a shadow of doubt the lie in this message or thought.  Satan has had a hay day my entire life keeping me in tremendous bondage over it.

As I was reading the start of the Old Testament book, Jeremiah, this morning, I read that Jeremiah, when young, doubted his ability to be a prophet of God.  People wouldn’t listen to him, etc. he thought.  God assured him that he was to obey Him, not his fears of man.  God says He chose Jeremiah while he was in his mother’s womb.   God made a comparison to obeying Him in His bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt where they had plenty of water from the Nile to a parched land called Israel.  What the people couldn’t see in their Promised Land was the wealth of water under the parched land–Springs of Living Water.  It was at this moment this morning that God showed me He had placed those same springs of living water within me long ago.  This Spring of Living Water is His Very Holy Spirit.  I had always seen myself as this parched, barren land.  No matter what I’d done, I never could picture myself as being productive.  I was only temporarily lucky.  The next time I probably wouldn’t be lucky.  Today, the idea I needed to hope I was good is replaced with assurance that His Gift within me was what was good.  I–the vessel of this beautiful Gift–as chosen by God and even created by Him is now with a purpose and I can be good.  So much of this I’ve known in my thinking mind for years.  Today, I know it in my heart and feel real assurance it is now true.   How I love this patient Father of mine!

I feel as though today is a milestone day.  Before I step into the driver’s seat of our car heading to Western Oregon, I need to reflect a moment.  In my first 20 years of living I learned to loathe a few things to the point that I had to keep them firmly hidden.  One of those was the homosexual use of me, the other was the feelings I had about myself fed from my father’s disappointment in what I wasn’t.  During the next 20 years I did keep this all hidden with the exception of telling Kathy when we married and one other friend.

In the next almost 20 years (17 to be exact) I opened up about my past only in a very controlled setting with a few people who might benefit from knowing I had a past so they could address getting help with their own.  In the past 10 years, finally opening up fully to the hurt of my past, God is taking me to a place where my past will become the topic of my future.  I have no idea if it will be my only topic, but I do know He wants me free to do this and I really am free.  Satan did his best to deter this from happening but God’s faithfulness prevails.  My prayer warrior sent me some scriptures yesterday to bolster me.  She said, “We talk about Satan’s strongholds and addictions but I love Psalms 27:1 that says the Lord is our stronghold!  He is much more MIGHTY that the devil or any of Satan’s strongholds.”

Today I sense the Lord’s Stronghold on me.  As I was having my devotions I could sense the storm around me but I was sitting in the eye of it.  I suddenly awoke to the reality that the eye of the spiritual storms we face is God’s Holy Spirit.  Nothing can penetrate the love and grace of this place.  Hallelujah.  As I now go into the next few days to be introduced to a program helping those struggling with homosexuality and other sexual addictions, I know I’m facing one of Satan’s strongest grips on mankind.  However, I now know why in Ephesians 6 Paul says when we are equipped with the armor of God, we can stand in the spiritual attacks.  It is not our strength that allows this, it is the very presence of God’s Holy Spirit surrounding us.  I know this today like I never have before.

My mind wants to take this weekend and jump ahead to planning all that will be done resulting from it.  However, this time I’m surrendering that thought to God.  I only want to do what He opens doors to do.  What I do know from His Presence today is that He is pleased I have joined Him in this battle of men.  I will hopefully be able to daily keep you abreast of the developments.  To God be ALL GLORY!

Today is the birthday for one of my older brothers–Herb.  He is the one most people say I look most like.  I like to tell him that is his compliment!  Enough of that nonsense.

Today I awoke early, earlier than usual for a calm day.  In fact, I simply awoke at 4:58 and waited 2 minutes so I wouldn’t get up until 5.  I spent my typical time in my devotions reading more in Isaiah–a tremendously good book in the Old Testament and then began my journaling.  It was then I asked God if He had a reason for awakening me?  I didn’t awaken this morning to the anxiety I’ve had the past many days.  It was unusual to be so awake and be calm.  Let me now back up to last night’s 7-Pillars class.

In class last night we needed to disclose what is called The Arousal Template.  In it one needs to tell what their struggle/addiction is.  In the 2nd column one then tells what events in early life fed this struggle’s development.  In the 3rd column one tells what effects the items in the 2nd column had on you.  In the 4th column one tells what core beliefs you have resulting from all of the other columns.  Lastly, in the 5th column one identifies the steps to breaking out of the bondage of these core beliefs.  It is a most difficult assignment, but also a very necessary one.  Last night we had to talk through our template.  As I did I couldn’t help but notice myself being freer and freer to talk about this.  It was no longer being said from shame but it was being told from a foundation I hadn’t known until last night.  I was actually telling it to help someone else.  It was no longer a mass of filth I needed to hide.  It was the filth of my past that, if I told it, would help someone else be freer to tell their own.  In past I’ve needed to steel myself in order to tell these things.  I would steel myself from the emotional angst it would generate.  Not so last night.

This morning’s freedom from anxiety told me God has helped me overcome a major hurdle.  I know His timing is perfect.  Tomorrow Kathy and I leave to head into a weekend of facing these past giants of my life.  Instead of hiding them, I’m looking into the work of using these giants as God’s tools for His Kingdom Work.  He seemed to be asking me this morning if I am ready to do all of this only for Him?  I can’t have any other lingering needs:  sympathy, praise, etc.  Not that these aren’t nice, but I can’t be going into God’s Work expecting my needs to be met.  I want to fully be committed to His Work being done.  Wow, I write this with anticipation for the weekend.  It is a new day in many ways.  To God be all Glory–Great things He has done!

The path I’m on in this journey today walked me into Light I have never known.  That probably sounds very strange, but it isn’t.  I’ll try to make it as clear in words as the Light is clear right now.  As I’ve journaled these past few days regarding my anxiety and fear and facing this upcoming weekend, God has helped me see something about Himself and me.

This morning I have been reading in Isaiah chapters 51-56.  In chapter 54 one reads about shame/guilt and condemnation/conviction.  God’s Holy Spirit uses guilt and conviction to show us the steps He wants us to take regarding any sin in our lives.  Satan uses shame and condemnation to tell us to run from the sin because if we bring it to light man will judge and condemn us.  There is a clear distinction God wants us to know in this.  I was pondering, as I was reading this, how all of this fits with the Holy Spirit being in our heart–the amygdala of our brain.  In the amygdala we find fear, flight, fight and more.  As I was meditating on all of this God brought a picture to mind I want to keep forever.  Our amygdala houses the storms of our lives–the things we fear the most and are the ones we are most anxious about.  So, what is in the midst of a storm?  What is in the middle of Irma or Harvey:  the eye of the storm.  In the eye is unexpected calm.  It is in the eye of our amygdala (the house of life’s storms) that our Holy Spirit has taken residence.  I was picturing that I’ve always fled life’s storms, life’s shames and condemnations, and tried to find a place of hiding while I’d flee.  Today God showed me that instead of fleeing into the storm to hide, to stay with Him in the eye of the storm.  There He resides.  There I can find peace in spite of any storm.  I think this must have been where Jesus would go when he would leave the crowds to go into the hills while the disciples and others slept.  He needed to find the “peace of His Father” regarding the storms He was facing. It’s in this place I can hear “the still small voice of God’s Holy Spirit”.

I sense God showing me that this is how I can be strong in Him.  I don’t try and escape the storm.  I let it whirl out of control all around me.  I stay in it but in so doing, I stay with His very Holy Spirit that promises–Peace in the midst of the storm!  To God be all Glory.

Wow, today is a day to reflect and remember the tragedy of 9-11.  And, it will also be remembered as a day when a different tragedy ravaged Florida and on into the South.  We really do need to take heed to these times and be ready for Christ’s return.

The Isaiah scripture 40:31, I mentioned yesterday tells us “to wait” on the Lord.  I went on to say that Joyce Meyer tells us that to wait translates today meaning “to rest”. There are a lot of ways to wait–anxiously waiting is often heard by ones around us.  To rest, however, has a totally different context.  If I’m going to rest I must relax.  For me to relax I have to surrender whatever is holding me in some state of anxiety.

Remember last fall when I blogged that in The Conquer Series I was attending the authors said our home of the Holy Spirit is the amygdala of our brain?  When I first heard this I thought it was so “stupid”.  Why would anyone think the Holy Spirit would make its home in the primitive part of us?  I quickly began to understand why God did this.  It is in this primitive part of our brain that all our reflexes are housed.  We do not control our reflexes–they take over when we go into a fight or flight mode of behavior. This morning, having awakened many times during the night quite anxious, I asked God why this continues to take place?  Why I am not finding any peace in these moments of anxiousness?  It was this morning during my journaling that all of this began to make sense as God spoke to my quieted spirit.  The trip this week to learn about working with the topic of homosexuality and helping others overcome, giving my testimony twice while I’m in Oregon, preparing for some upcoming performances with my quartet, restructuring some recovery programs we have at our church and more, all leave me anxious by the end of the day.  As God speaks in the morning I can take them step by step and do what needs to be done in the day.  At night though I begin to hear the voices of fear within me.  These are the ones that come from the amygdala in me.  So, as I talked to God about this, He told me these are the times I give them over to the very Holy Spirit residing there.  Just because He made his home in this part of me doesn’t mean He supersedes what has been there.  I must still do my part–surrender them at the start of  the day and again as the day progresses and I need to draw upon The Holy Spirit’s Strength because anxiety and fear is returning.

My childhood taught me well to fear–not trust the unknown.  I never knew when my brother would be coming and trying to do something to me.  I never knew when dad would blow and we would suffer the consequences.  Thus, I learned to fear really well.  I also learned to camouflage it too.  I don’t want to do this anymore.  I’m not this kid afraid of my future.  Day by day I will better learn to surrender at all times of the day knowing why surrendering is the Powerful step for me.  I hope this helps any reader who may struggle similarly.  God be with you as He is with me.