“I believe and God achieves.”  I am going to keep this new saying in the forefront of me until I live like I believe it.  As I was reading Ezekiel this morning I was in the 36th chapter verses 26 and 27.  They say, “A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall heed My ordinances and do them.”  This new heart idea isn’t new.  For the past few years I keep reading it in places in the Bible.  I know it is a promise of God but I’ve not been able to find the reality of it for me.  Well, it is finally taking root.

Back to the greenhouse for another lesson–A big stumbling block for me, about me, has been the tender heart God gave me originally.  I’d cry as a young boy when “Lassie” was on TV.  I’d cry when a book was being read that had a touching ending.  Dad would immediately pick up on this and I’d be labeled again.  I hated this about me. So, I began to steel my heart to “tenderness”.  Steeling my heart also gave me power over the teasing I’d get about my “lack of skills” and the traits that were me.

Last night one of our own folks gave her testimony for the first time to our Celebrate Recovery group.  She did a masterful job.  It was full of raw tenderness.  I found myself not wanting to steel any feelings but to fully relate and take all of it in.  I’ve never felt this way during any event in my life.  My unspoken goal has always been to limit as much as possible any emotions.  Today God has been reminding me that He wants me to be the man He created me to be–accept myself and even enjoy being who I am.  God gave me a tender spirit so I could relate well to the people He puts in my path.  I have needed to learn to “let go and let God be God.”  Joyce Meyer says accompanying the verses above,  “Our job is to believe and God’s job is to perform.  If we were called to achieve we would be called achievers, not believers.”

The more I look back on the past few days of assembling the greenhouse with my brother the more God is showing me that He made Ron the way He did on purpose and He made me the way I am on purpose.  I don’t need to be ashamed of who and what I am.  Instead, I need to believe I am on purpose and God will achieve His purposes with me by my believing.  I’m going to keep focused on this.  Thank you Father for your patient endurance!