Last night’s 7-Pillars’ class brought out not only my fears but I heard so many from the other men in the group.  Fears that “I can never change”, I am unlovable”, “God has given up on me” and so many more.  These all come from the lesson where we finally face the blunt lies we’ve kept in denial and in the closet all our lives.  They have also been the same lies that feed the need to flee to the addictive pattern of behavior we struggle with.  For me personally, these beliefs have fed my fears–“What if these are all true?”

As I stated about the Holy Spirit in my life yesterday, God is truly nudging me to turn and face this darkness in my life with the help of His Holy Spirit.  This morning I asked God to help me see why and when the fears became so dominate for me?  I could hear Him telling me how accumulative these have been.  There is no one event when I became fearful.  In fact the fear came as I continued to be in denial and in hiding.  So, I asked myself what it would be like to turn the coin over and I’d say I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength?  (Philippians 4:13).  I would say something like, “Thanks for the chance to do this and to find Your Glory in completing what You have given me to do.”

In the past couple weeks I’ve had more fear-filled dreams than I’ve had in quite a while.  I’m realizing these dreams are not from God, but God is using them to help me see the lies I’ve been believing about myself for so long.  I’ve always thought others were giving up on me.  This morning I’ve seen the truth in that I have been the one giving up on myself thinking I can’t any longer memorize songs, do a dance step and so much more.  These are things needing to happen for the upcoming Christmas production we are doing.  It sounds so silly as I write this, but inside myself I’ve been a wreck knowing I’m going to blow this royally.  Today, I’ve decided I’m going to glorify God in doing my part.  I’m not going to believe this lie and when it comes I’m going to act on the nudge of The Holy Spirit reminding the lie that that it is no longer my truth.  God’s scriptural promises are my truth.  God loves me and has given me His Holy Spirit as evidence of His love.  This is a step into greater freedom than I’ve ever known.

If you struggle with this same belief system, I pray you will not give up.  Believe the truth of God’s word about you.  Satan wants his crippling lies to dominate our belief system.  We don’t have to stay in that belief any longer.  Praise God!

God’s Gift to each of us who asks Christ to be our Savior and Lord is The Holy Spirit living within us.  This has the been the most precious gift I’ve ever received and I’m finding it to be the one gift I’ve needed to pay a lot more attention to.  As we grow into our adult years our humanness takes control.  We have full capability to operate on our own thinking.  Often times I’ve not even considered what my spirit may be telling me–it was all about emotions.  I’ve written much about this in times past.  I didn’t trust them.

God today is driving home for me a criticalness I’ve needed to awaken to regarding the need to realize how important His Gift of The Holy Spirit is.  The Holy Spirit is God’s very presence within me (us).  He nudges me and I so often don’t pay attention to this until later.  This morning God is letting me know that these nudges are intended to be acted on when they happen.  I really want to spend time growing this sensitivity in me.  If God is going to transform the desert of my soul into a garden of His making I need to be truly sensitive to following His lead as He nudges me.  If I’m going to be a good gardener I need to be a fertile garden within.

Yesterday certainly reminded me just how much being away for a week can do to one’s system.  I had relaxed like I didn’t realize.  But, yesterday reawakened me to a day at home:  worship team, choir, step study, two quartet/group productions and finally home at 9:00pm.  Not all days are like this but this one happened to be the one following our return home.  What I noticed most is just how much my voice wasn’t up to that much singing.  Just like my body muscles get sore when I’m out working in my yard, my voice muscles were very sore last night by the time I’d finished.

Yesterday, I felt really good about God’s enlightenment with the mental picture He gave me of Christ standing in my broken boundary gap.  However, when I was in step study I was reticent to share it thinking the guys would think I’m going nuts.  However, I just felt too many nudges to share so I finally did.  I found it amazing to hear a couple of the guys say they had not ever taken journaling seriously until I shared this.  They want God to speak to them more clearly and hearing how journaling promotes this, they want to be more disciplined with it.  They also said they appreciated very much that I would share something like this with them.

What I didn’t say yesterday about God’s message to me was that I wouldn’t always see Christ standing in the gap each time I’m tempted.  However, The Holy Spirit is always with me and I would know His voice at these times of temptation.  Last night I was exhausted when I got home and was glad  I could sit and relax with the newspaper getting caught up on the week’s happenings.  I found myself suddenly being tempted.   This morning as I was journaling I asked God to speak to me about this because I did not see Christ standing in the gap just as He’d said.  I also wasn’t sure I heard anything from The Holy Spirit.  He reminded me that I heard clearly the message:  “I don’t have to do this.”  I knew instantly this was The Holy Spirit’s message.  I told God it would be nice if He’d scream this rather than whisper it.  However, God reminded me that this is now my choice.  God never removes our chance to choose. His Spirit’s voice simply reminds me I have that chance to choose Him.  So the question is–will I choose to follow “the still small voice of God’s Holy Spirit?”  My answer is, “Yes, Father, I want to obey each and every time.”  I know I will have to take this one day at a time and one moment at a time, and discipline will come greatly into play with this but I want to obey more than anything else!  To God be All Glory!

We are home! The trip going to Charleston had many stumbling blocks but the one coming home was as smooth as silk.  I’m sure glad the time changed last night since we didn’t actually get to our house until a little after midnight.  This made getting up this morning at 6 a little easier even though I’d begun to wake up at 5.  There is much going on today so my mind was whirling.  I forget how much I do relax while gone.

As I was having my devotions and the fears of all that’s in store for today was attacking my mind I felt God saying to journal about them.  As I got to my journal I wrote down just that–“I’m sensing so many fears for today–don’t know the worship songs for this morning, choir number hasn’t been rehearsed for 2 weeks, the songs our group is doing twice today haven’t been rehearsed and I have a solo in one of them.  I’ll be letting everyone down including You–God.”

As I wrote this down an amazing mind picture came to me.  I saw Christ standing in the gap of my mind’s boundary.  He was telling me to give these old fears to Him.  He wasn’t going to let them own me any longer.  Satan can attack all he wants, but today I’m awake to the work of Christ in this area–His standing in the gap.  God really is doing amazing work.  Today’s lesson for the step study is exactly about all of this too.  As I went to prepare it I could hardly believe the parallel.  The guys are getting ready to face the fears of sharing their inventories.  God (Christ) is there for them just as He has shown Himself there for me.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Well, the saga of the flat tire ended just as God was trying to show me.  I called the rental car company.  They had me drive the car to their nearest rental office which is at the local airport.  There they kept the car saying they take care of their own tires and gave me a new car.  It was that simple–no charge, no hassle, just kindness as though I’d done nothing wrong.  I think there’s a huge lesson here for many of us self-condemning souls.  I’m not useful to God when I’m condemning myself–I now see that this is a trick of Satan himself.  He’s the devious one who wants me making a mountain out of this molehill.  God doesn’t want me listening to the lies that scream in my head.  He wants me to call them what they are–lies.

Today ends a week of leisure.  Kathy and I have kept ourselves rather busy just doing a lot of sightseeing, driving through the country taking many back roads so we see just what the country off the freeways look like.  It really is a beautiful land.  It is so much different than the desert of home where plant life is scarce unless we plant and water it.  Here the plant life strangles one another there is so much of it and so much water.

Tomorrow I reenter life in its reality:  worship team in the morning, step study, quartet singing twice (once in the afternoon and then in the evening) then home.  Monday starts the work with the schools.  I didn’t come here thinking I was worn out and needing a break, but after the week is over, I do see things more clearly–steps to take at home I didn’t see before.  God has a way of using everyday as a focusing agent helping us see Him more clearly.  How much I love Him.

Yesterday was a tremendously good day.  Kathy and I loved the walking tour of historic Charleston and the visit to the Magnolia Plantation.  Amazing history is buried here in this part of our country.  Out west we are only a couple hundred years old.  They double that and more here on the east side of our great land.  It is enjoyable to connect to the stories behind the history we learned as a youth.  On the way home we were stopping in a town not too far south from Myrtle Beach where we are staying.  I was needing to make a left turn at the light ahead.  I could see the turn lane (it was dark by now) so I started to veer left into it.  However, I wasn’t past the 6″ cement rail dividing lanes yet.  I was only going about 20-25 mph, but what I did caused a hole in the sidewall of the left front tire which went flat immediately.  Luckily, I was close to a bank so I pulled into their parking lot and changed the tire.

Wouldn’t you know my scripture reading this morning in part was about giving mercy–Matthew 9:13.  Christ was telling the Pharisees to give mercy.  There is a story at this point in my Bible written by Joyce Meyer.  She tells about God awakening her to her need to be merciful.  However, in learning about this she found that she could not be merciful to others until she was able to give herself mercy.  Mercy simply means kindness.  This message was screaming at me after last night.  “Good grief, what is wrong with you.  Why do I ever let you drive?  All you’re good for is making more messes and costing more money.”  These and more were the messages in my head I was fighting last night and into the night.  This morning I asked God to help me learn mercy as He gives it.  If I’m ever to be the merciful friend, I must love my neighbor as myself.  This includes being merciful to my neighbor as I am to me.

I felt God asking me to join Him today being merciful.  For heavens sake, it is a flat tire and that’s all.  I know He wants  me to hear what He is saying and even what I’d say to someone else if I knew this story for them.  Try saying to me what I’d say to my neighbor, “Wow, that’s too bad.”  Kathy even tried to console me a little last night and I about bit her head off.  She wanted to give me a hug to comfort me and I backed away telling her I’m not able to be comforted.  She saw my inner turmoil.  She finally just told me to not let this incident spoil our great day.  I knew she was right and this morning God is joining her in telling me the same.  Mercy is the right starting place.  I’ll accept kindness from myself and others and go forward getting a flat tire fixed today and thank God that’s all that was wrong.

Today is getting started early as Kathy and I are heading to Charleston for the day to tour a plantation and do a walking tour of the historic city.  I look forward to all of this.  After posting yesterday’s blog I spent the next 3 hours talking with Kathy.  As people of our generation it is easy to look back onto our lives and see how society influences how adults parent, what abuse looks like, etc.  The interesting thing is, no matter what society or culture says and does, abuse still leaves huge holes within the makeup of us.  This is shown throughout time.  What I find interesting about abuse and men is that we men are not easily able to talk about it.  Our present culture is so oriented towards “buck up,” suck it up,” etc., we will rarely take time to address the holes in us.  We much more easily address the addictions we use to hide the pain of past abuse.  In so doing we never get to the core of our issues.  Satan has a hay day with this too I believe.  If he can keep us tuned into ourselves instead of to God in these vulnerable areas, we will continue to fail at finding God’s true strength for our lives.  Thus we will never find true freedom in Him.

I am becoming more and more convinced that this message is what God is wanting me to share with our men and our people.  Women want men to be strong.  It takes a mighty strong man to stand up and say, “I need help with this area of past abuse.”  Writing this makes me recall a statement a gentleman in our church made a couple years ago after I had done an interview with our pastor on a Sunday morning around the topic of homosexuality.  I had told of my past abuse and how it had impacted my own thinking about sexuality.  As this gentleman left our sanctuary he said to my brother, “Wow, that man has balls.”  He didn’t know the one he was talking to was my younger brother.  Men do recognize the strength of telling once it is done.  A woman can say it and still be a strong woman.  A man can only say it if he recognizes the truth of what Christ wants him to say.  For Christ wants us to let Him fight this battle.  So much of it is a spiritual battle and not a human flesh one–at least the part of admitting we need help is.  Once we admit our need for help, much of the gap in our wall strengthens for Christ is able to stand in the gap at that point.

I’m not going to try and expound on this any further.  I am a novice at this point.  What I do know is that God is wanting me to be a voice for Him with our men.  “Be strong and take courage….” II Chronicles 32:7.  This has a whole new meaning when I don’t try to stand in my gap of abuse denying its grip on me and finally admitting its truth.  Christ is now the very One I will let fight this battle.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.

As I finished the blog entry yesterday, I spent the next hour or so beginning to examine the material I brought with me for “abuse”.  I had already looked through the one regarding homosexuality and I wanted to see how they compare.  I was hoping I’d find some indication for a starting point.  I want to do both of them but I needed to know which one was the right one for now.  Well, that didn’t take long.  Maybe it is because abuse is a weakness for a man and all that ridiculous thinking, but I had thought I’d be starting with homosexuality.  “God needs us to get this topic rolling at church,” I thought.  However, as I began reading through the preface of the material and into the first lesson I could hardly contain the tears that kept wanting to pour forth.  I’ve never read anything that hit home over and over like it was.  The real problem with it was the emotions it was stirring up.  They were all about HURT.  My word, does this never end?  I told Kathy that it was apparent which workbook I personally needed to work through.

This morning as I brought the topic to God asking Him for His guidance I felt Him saying, “The time has come for this next surgery.  The new creation I made you to be is ready now for the root of your identity in hurt to be removed.”  I know why He has waited so long to do this–I needed to be ready, emotionally strong enough.  Boy is this hard to type.  I’ve  been hit and miss with it for the past 28 years–since I started counseling the first time when I was 39.  I think I can best describe how I feel this way—–:  When I’m consulting with anyone in my work field, I’m often thanked for the wisdom and assistance.  As I receive this message I thank God for using me to help.  Within me I know God gave me a mind that can be used for educational purposes to help those needing it.  To take it any deeper, like I’m a smart person who God can use for His Glory, doesn’t happen.  I get really uptight then.  I know the truth of that!  Down deep inside I know I’m no good except for being a receptacle of God’s use.  Inside me is a vacuum of value. Only when God uses me do I have any value.  This morning God awoke me to realize He wants me whole.  A new creation can be a receptacle of His use and still accept a compliment and not be anything but thankful for it.  The compliment doesn’t go into a vacuum to be swept away.  I don’t need to make excuses for it.

I don’t know where this will all go, but I do know I’m now ready for this hospital visit.  The surgery and recovery time I’ll leave to God.  I feel as though God has taken away my defense–my mind.  It is the right thing and I know it is.  I’m strong enough in Him to take this step, but it surely is one leaving me tentative.  Oh well, here we go Father.