Today begins the countdown for this weekend.  I believe I’ve mentioned our church is hosting a Friday night and Saturday conference entitled: Hope for the Hurting.  We are tackling some major issues of entanglement Satan uses to entrap mankind into thinking there is no hope for me.  Already yesterday I was told of one of our men in Celebrate Recovery who had found sobriety and now has fallen, I talked to parents of a 16 year old son who is struggling with his sexual identity, and last night I got a call from another of our CR men whose wife had passed out from her drinking and he didn’t know what to do.  This was just the start I know of Satan’s attacks for the week.

I’ve begun reading the book of Daniel in my devotional time.  If you don’t know of him, take time soon and read of his courage and that of his three friends:  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  These men faced the fiery furnace and came out unscathed.  Daniel faced the lion’s den and came out untouched.  No matter what Satan is throwing into our lives, pathways, God is bigger, stronger and He is Mighty to Save.  I know the fear, the hopeless, helpless thinking that “I must do this all on my own” which Satan feeds into our minds.  But, praise be to God, Satan is defeated if we declare God’s Victory over him.

Pray for this coming weekend.  Our keynote speakers Friday night are a couple who have won the battle over sin and now use their story to glorify the Name of Jesus.  If you are local and reading this, come yourself and send anyone who is hurting.  God is going to be glorified–I am waiting in great anticipation!  To God be all Glory Great Things He has done and is going to do!

Thirty-five years ago today I was a nervous wreck–I was marrying Kathy!  Yes, today is our 35th anniversary.  I got over the nervousness and it has been replaced with a desire for us to be together to the end.  God brought her into my life through friends at a time when I knew I was never going to be worthy of a wife.  Yet, He knew something I didn’t–He wanted us together.  Through the years I have found so many reasons why Kathy was given to me by God our Father.  I love both of them for this!  Thank you God my Father for the gift of Kathy and thank you for giving yourself to me–Kathy my wife!

Yesterday was a day of “getting things done”.  I had a laundry list starting in the morning with work for my consulting and then to get tires on my car, meet up with a Celebrate Recovery young man, get my pickup from my daughter for today’s use, and finally spending the evening with my grandson for his birthday.  It was our evening for dinner and a movie.  He and I love superheroes so we got to be one for about 4 hours.  That should hold us over for a little while.

It seems the lessons of the greenhouse and its subsequent lessons are coming to a close.  This morning I was able to reflect on the past week and see some big steps God has brought me through.  It seems I’ve been able to let go of the need to “be like my brothers or like my dad,” to help others as they do or did, and that I don’t need to be like them in order to be worthwhile to man and God.  This is something man has told me for many years, but I now know telling rarely teaches the lesson.  (I know this in a school setting and a life setting is no different).  We have to walk through the learning in order for the learning to finally take hold and become owned.  This is what God has done for me this week.  That yearning/longing to be something I’m not is gone and the peace of being who I am is present.  I’d like to think this is permanent but I know I’m still a man so the journey may still have some hiccups with this–however, for the present, I’m truly grateful that God has brought me to this point of understanding and peace.

So, today I get to go to a 3 hour choir rehearsal preparing for Christmas and the rest of the day is mine.  It’ll be a grandpa day taking pumpkins to the grandkids and squash to the mom’s for winter feeding.  I enjoy this.  It’s one of the many pleasures I get from gardening.  God is so good!

Do you know what follows Ezekiel 36?  Well, yes, it is chapter 37.  In chapter 36 yesterday I learned that God wants to give me a new heart–one of flesh and he wants me to believe–He will achieve through me once I am able to fully believe.  So, today as I began to read chapter 37 I find my next step–a mighty, powerful one.  In chapter 37 Ezekiel is asked if he thought the dry bones God’s Spirit was showing him could live?  As this continues God tells Ezekiel to tell those dry bones to hear the word of the Lord.  At this point of hearing the word of the Lord, God places sinew, flesh, life and spirit on and in those dry bones.

I write all of this today because God had a big lesson He was wanting me to get connected to yesterday’s. It is like day 2 of His lesson plan.  I was very pleased yesterday to know that God gave me a new heart and with it I was to believe and He would do the achieving.  I won’t go into all the details of the day but as the day continued I couldn’t make this promise concrete for me.  Temptations were hitting me right and left and I couldn’t make the promise work.  So early this morning as I had my devotions I was starting my Bible reading with chapter 37.  It was here I got my next step.  I heard God asking me if I believed my dry bones could live in the promise of yesterday?  Yes, I’d had a “dry bones” afternoon/evening, but would I take the step of telling the tormenting spirit “to hear the Word of the Lord?”  That tormenting spirit has owned my belief system for a long time.  God wants me to know His Holy Spirit will replace it if I only believe.  Somehow, today–I believe.  I can actually see in my mind’s eye that The Holy Spirit resides in my belief system–that I am on purpose and with purpose.

I know that God uses all things to His honor and glory.  The events of the greenhouse lessons, the torment of yesterday afternoon have all been used by God to bring me to this place of finally seeing His Holy Spirit within me rather than hoping it is as I’ve always done in past.

The thing I want to encourage any reader of this is, don’t quit on your journey of freedom until this is true for you.  If it is already true–I praise God with you.  If it isn’t true yet, don’t believe the lies of that tormenting spirit.  In Christ Jesus’ powerful Name, tell that tormenting spirit to hear the word of the Lord just as Ezekiel was told to do and I too did.  Our victory is found in God’s Word.  Lets proclaim it!

“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!

I have a completed greenhouse!  Everything is done except a few things my brother and his friend told me to do which will strengthen it and keep it more airtight.  In the process of getting this done God has shown me a couple of life pictures that I need to turn into lessons for living each day.  First of all, my Tuesday night class’s lesson was “Trauma”.  Last night we had to say out loud all the trauma from our childhood into our adult years.  I found myself very tense and uptight.  I didn’t want to step into saying more than beatings, sexual abuse, absence of nurture, etc.  Telling any stories defining them was too painful.  This morning God was tying this together with the greenhouse work.

Spending 4 days with my younger brother would seem fun and enjoyable and for the most part it was.  However, the teasing triggered so much of past that I was continuously feeling raw.  It also, at first, shut me down inside thinking I am still worthless.  I can’t do any of the skillful things dad could do and my brother can do.  This led me right into the worthless feelings of past–the things Satan has had a hay day with me.

Today’s devotional time was very focusing.  In it God was showing me how my brother’s areas of life gifts are very similar to dad’s and other relatives I have.  Mine, however, are in the intangible realm.  What my brother and I have in common is the gift of using our gifts for the help of others.  Every week my brother is helping several folks needing plumbing, household repairs, etc.  Every week I am helping those who are hurting inside emotionally or needing help working through other problems.  Both of us are willing to share our personal strengths with others.  I have never seen my strengths as comparable to my brothers or my dad’s.  I’ve always seen them as a “filler”.  I could try and fill my value with something that was hopefully useful.

Today I rejoiced for a moment that I am like my brother in being useful.  I do what I do to glorify God.  My brother does this too.  I can more easily let his teasing flow right off my back instead of going to my old beliefs.  This must be part of learning to live as the new creation God says I am.  Praise God!

Yesterday was disrupted with an early morning trip to our daughter taking my pickup to her as her car was needing some work done.  As I got back home I quickly wrote the blog and now this morning I see it never posted.  How that happened is beyond me.  Anyway, sorry for the absence.

Yesterday turned into a day of turmoil.  There were problems to face which always leave me feeling helpless.  These times are the ones when I am easy prey and I know it.  I hate feeling helpless and I’m sure that goes right back to the early days in my life when I actually was.  So, this morning I was conversing with God through journaling asking Him how He ever establishes the boundaries within us when our early years destroyed them?  I know that my boundary strengths are strong in many areas but when it comes to the temptation to flee to porn when I am troubled like yesterday I am very weak and need to use something other than my own strength.  I did get through the day but it was troubling.

This morning God began to talk to me about boundaries.  He reminded me that I have a picture of me when I was young and not abused.  I am still this person He created way back then.  He also reminded me of the men He has placed in my life any of which would be glad to pray with me when I reach out to them.  He then told me that boundaries set in our adult years require us swallowing our personal pride in order to use them.  When boundaries are set in place there is no temptation that can overcome us.  However, Satan’s manipulative ways try to make us think we have to do this on our own or we are just plain weak.  That is me!  I never want to be weak again as I felt I was all through my childhood.  So, the scripture, 2 Corinthians 12:9-11 says:  “…My grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness….”

I’ve always known that Christ had to be the strength during these tempting times, but how do I access this strength?  Today God pointed out that it is my personal pride that has to be weakened.  I can’t try to be strong in pride only–this is exactly what my father did.  If I am to live what the scripture says, I have to let my pride be weak so I reach out.  Somehow I’ve always felt that was some kind of weakness relating back to my childhood.  Instead, it is what Christ has always wanted me to understand about His ways.  I’ve never wanted pride to be prominent in my life.  I hated how it was so for my dad.

So, my lesson for today—-Man’s spirit is very proud.  It is this that I surrender to Christ and then I take the steps I need to take by taking that picture and calling a friend.  This doesn’t make we weak.  This is replacing my weak spirit with God’s Holy Spirit where all strength is found.  To God be all Glory!

Yesterday’s event seemed to be a meaningful success–God was honored greatly and His work was made known.  My friend Mike always puts the programs together.  This time he took the story of a holocaust victim who has been part of our church for many years.  She is not Jewish but Dutch.  She was the oldest of 6 children.  She had to witness her father’s death and even some of her own siblings.  She was placed in an orphanage separated from her remaining siblings.  She was raised a believer but thought God was a revengeful One.  She was most angry with Him.  Yet Mike wove God’s tender restoration steps into the evening’s words and songs.  (He had visited her several times recording her story so he could write the script).  At the end this lovely lady stood (with help) to a standing ovation.  It was difficult to sing while this event rolled out.  I know this lady–and I also know the same God.  How intimate and caring He is.  No matter the sins of man He takes them and turns them into a story of Grace and Mercy if we only give Him a chance.

This morning’s scripture reading is in Ezekiel.  As is Jeremiah, Ezekiel is filled with God’s warnings and judgment.  I started to tell God it is hard to read this knowing He does these things.  Yet, He nicely reminded me of the hundreds of years which took place before He finally acted on the prophecies He’d given to the people of Israel.  It was then I could easily reflect on His loving patience with me–with each of us today.  How many times does He allow us to make our mistakes and pick us up, dust us off and set us on our path of life refocused on Him.  God is the same, yesterday, today and forever.  Praise His Holy Name.

One last story before I end this–A young man from our Celebrate Recovery has been in jail in a neighboring state for a DUI which when added to the ones he had in our state, kept him there.  He has now been sentenced to 2 years in prison.  His mom contacted me so I could get some letters of encouragement to her from the guys who know her son.  She was going to see him one last time last night before he is moved to prison on the other side of the state.  I had gotten the letters to her Friday evening.  She text me late last night which I read this morning,  as she and his two siblings got to the jail last night she was unable to take the envelope of letters into the room where they converse.  As they were leaving the mom asked the guard where the post office box for the jail was so she could leave the letters in it.  The guard said to give the envelope to her and she’d take it to him right then.  This was the mom’s wish as he is being transported next week by bus to the prison.  She wanted him to have these words of encouragement in hand for the ride.  These intimate, loving ways of God are happening all around us.  I praise Him for these.  No matter the sins of man, God is far more interested in our restoration through His Son Jesus than He is in our punishment and judgment.  How I love and praise His Holy Name.