It is always good to get home.  In so doing, I’m hit with the responsibilities I had escaped for a couple days.  In teaching last night’s Celebrate Recovery lesson I had a few things to learn which God has been keeping in the forefront wanting me to grab ahold of them.  One of these ties to believing and the other is about surrendering.  If I am to believe that God is Almighty God, I cannot try and determine which things God is Almighty about.  He is to be Almighty God in all things.  Secondly, if I’m surrendering my will to God, I cannot pick and choose which “will” I need to surrender and which time I surrender it.

I Thessalonians 5:18 says:  “In everything give thanks,….”  I have stayed in control or tried to stay in control of things in my life just as soon as I could take charge of them.  I wasn’t letting dad rob me of my joy one more time.  Now I am finally learning that the robbing of joy was because I was letting the deception of Satan influence me.  I was letting circumstances control joy in my life.

Last night’s lesson was about Action.  I told the group I thought it was my perfect lesson for me to teach because taking action is always easy for me–Earnie’s action.  However, my learning was about what action I am to actually take.  I was so glad when I got to college and could begin to finally take my own action without dad’s overriding influence and commands.  I wanted to do God’s nudges but I also spent my life only doing those which felt safe.  I would worry and fret over ones God would nudge me to do for fear someone would find out about who I really was.  I’m finally learning that living one day at a time completing just what God wants done in that day is what God is saying.  To let my mind go into the fears of tomorrow or the worry of the past is acting on Satan’s deceptions.  He will influence my mind into believing what isn’t even true.  Thus, he robs the joy of living one day at a time with God my Father.

I’m going to be spending time making this more of a habit.  I want my action to be that of surrender rather than acting on my own will and listening to deceptive lies.

This morning’s devotion started with the devotional entitled, “The Ability to Change”.  It is written by Charles Stanley.  This is my second year to use his devotional but it was as though it was my first time to comprehend today’s message.  It mirrors in so many ways the “believing” message God has been wanting me to see and know.  I don’t usually quote someone’s entire message in my blog but today I’m going to do so as it is so fitting for me.

Galatians 2:20–“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.  So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

“Are you amazed at the sickness of our heart–the way it strays from  God’s Word, doubts His promises, and wavers during difficult situations?  Do your efforts to reform your behavior fail repeatedly, discouraging you again and again?  It may be that though you trust Jesus to save you, you don’t really have faith that He can transform your life.  And so you work, wrestle, and strive to do it yourself–all in vain.

Friend, the Holy Spirit is both willing and able to produce the character of Christ in you–not through your effort, but through His transformative power.  Your job is to abide in Him, which means staying focused on Jesus, submitting to His leadership, and seeing the details of your life as coming from His hand for your instruction.    You cannot change yourself–but God can.  And once you learn to let Him transform you, you will have the key to living a truly victorious life.”

I have such an awful habit of trying to achieve on my own forgetting until later that I can simply abide in Christ and let Him fight the battle.  Today I’m going into believing with more substance.  The substance is the belief that Jesus has transformed me already and I will abide in this truth not having to shift into me fighting.

If you read yesterday’s blog you know already it was a big day for me as far as recovery steps go.  I left home and needed to drive 2.5 hours to get to the destination where I’m working through tomorrow.  It gave me ample time to talk with God and to process with dad so many things I needed to simply process and then let go of.  The crazy thing is that last night I had this rather intense dream which included dad.  He wasn’t this amazing man in it.  In fact, he was much like he was when he was alive–dominant, stubborn and well, just like he was in real life.  The thing that left me rather stumped was that I wasn’t submissive to him in the dream.  I spoke up to him and spoke just what I wanted to say.  He didn’t offend me and put me down either.  When I awoke to the dream, I just pondered this and am still doing so.  The other thing that’s hitting me is the fact I do not  ever remember dreaming about my dad until last night.  I don’t know if there is any significance to this, but it is what it is.

As I was having my devotions my bible reading had me reading in John.  Jesus was telling the man at the pool to believe and get up and walk.  This is in John 5: 1-9.  Joyce Meyers says she struggled many of her adult years with believing.  She was an achiever and she excelled in this arena.  God, however, wanted her believing.  This is exactly what I know God is wanting from me–believing.  I too have been an achiever all my life.  I had thought achieving gave value.  We all know this story.  Putting the substance to believing is still somewhat of a mystery to me.  I had a 2.5 hour meeting Sunday afternoon with 3 others about the new recovery ministries we wish to start.  I was wanting to get them going the first of the year.  However, everyone in the room felt I was pushing them.  I look at it today and see I was wanting to achieve.  I need to spend time believing God already is preparing the leaders and He is likewise preparing me to be leading His way rather than my way.

I’ve got much to learn about believing but today I am believing I can be a strong believer!  I’ve already started by writing in my journal that I am a believer who believes.  I’ve got to say this several times today so I can practice living it.  Join me if this is something God is nudging you to also do.

Today is a quiet victory.  As yesterday was beginning for me, I had arisen early and had read my devotional and my Bible.  I was getting ready to journal when the electricity went off.  It flickered 3 times and then stayed off for about 1.5 hrs.  We live close to our church so I was afraid we would have huge issues having our last production of the Christmas program which was at 10:00 am.  The power resumed at 8:30 so all was well.  As I experienced the program one last time I felt once again the deep remorse (need) to settle once and for all the hurts deeply imbedded in me from dad and my childhood.  I didn’t have time to think about it during the program nor afterwards.  As soon as it ended I had a meeting scheduled with 3 others organizing steps to be taken for our expanding recovery programs at church.  As soon as this was done my quartet was singing for a gentleman’s 80th birthday party.  When I got home about 4 pm I needed to pack and prepare to leave this morning for central Idaho where I’m assisting with a federal program review for 3 days.  Then this morning arrived—-.

As I was having my devotions I felt God nudging me to address the deep remorse I’ve felt each presentation of our program and all the different times I’ve practiced it on my own the past few months.  So, I did.  I journaled to dad telling him how much this boy in me wanted to know his love and support when I was actually a boy.  Instead I was given such criticism and even beatings for being who I was then.  I had a huge emptiness inside which wanted to give and receive love.  (I knew dad had died a Christian and had lived as a born again Christian.  Yet, I despised so much about him.)  If you’ve read my book you know the story about dad telling me he wanted me to write the book letting people know he didn’t do his job as father well.  Somehow, even though I knew all of this, deep within I still ached to love my dad.  So this morning I was able to tell dad all of this and that I not only longed to love him, I did love him and I forgive him.  With all of this I let go of the entire past hurt to God Almighty, Jesus my Lord and Savior and The Holy Spirit.  They can do with it only what they do when we finally let it go.

As I asked God what He wanted me to know from Him this morning, He said, “Earnie, now you and your dad can both live as new creations today and henceforth.  You can know your past and use it in the ministries of recovery but this past hurt and agony can now be a powerful tool for you rather than a sense of shame which you need to tell but desire to still hide.”  I wept at this point.  I know I need time to let all of this sink in fully, but I am freer than I’ve ever been as I write this.  Praise God and His Three in One Team!

Today I feel like a ton of bricks is sitting within my head.  My quartet was singing for the funeral of our bass’s mom.  She was loved and respected very much like my own mother.  There was a beautiful bouquet of lilies right smack in front of where we stood each time we sang.  That’s all it took.  I am so allergic to those critters!  I use to get sicker than a dog from an exposure like that before I had my sinus surgery and got rid of all the pockets of sinus infection.  Today, an exposure like that still shuts down my sinus passages so all the pressure I feel is the passages which have swollen shut temporarily from the exposure.  However, it will subside within today and I’ll be fine for day 2 of our Christmas production this afternoon.

As I was having my devotions this morning I realized how much an allergy attack is like a temptation.  It seems a temptation is always attractive at least to the one receiving it.  Most people know I love gardening and flowers.  So when I saw the lilies yesterday I knew immediately to ask to have them removed or at least placed farther away from where they were sitting.  I didn’t go smell them but I didn’t say a word and so they had their full effect on me.  In Celebrate Recovery I’ve learned well my need to call for help when I am tempted.  If I do I get help immediately.  If I don’t  and I try to handle it on my own——well, I will end up just like I’m feeling today–a ton of bricks weighing me down.  Then I have to tell a different story.  The first telling would have removed the problem.  The second telling has to confess the consequence of not telling the first one.

God seems to know how to turn every situation into a lesson.  I want to be a good student and learn well from Him.  Today is no exception.  I love my Teacher!

Yesterday was an amazing day.  As I had posted yesterday, it started with anxiety and dread.  However, after renewing my mind with God during devotions I was equipped and ready to head into it.  What is so amazing is that all the things I’d written in my journal I was needing to address were either addressed or will be today, and I got much, much more done than I’d ever anticipated.

Today as I was having my devotional time I found myself rereading in Luke 23:39-43 the part about the one thief on the cross scolding the other thief for criticizing Jesus and challenging him to do something miraculous.  In fact, the one thief recognized the magnificence of Jesus and asked him to remember him when he entered into glory.  Christ’s response was that this thief would be with him in Paradise that day.  What was so amazing to me was that this thief went from a criminal to a believer in that instant.  He saw Jesus for Who He Is.  Jesus then saw the criminal for now believing what he wants all of us to believe–Christ came to be our Savior.  With that, the criminal was saved.  This was just a few hours before death for both of them.

I bring this point out because it just doesn’t matter what our charges are that Satan holds over our heads making us believe we are not acceptable to God.  Christ simply says to see Him as my Savior and receive Him and I will be saved.  It is not about saying the right words, it’s about believing the Truth of Who Christ Is and receiving Him.  We can do this early in life or as life is ending.  Christ just wants us.  He came for this very purpose.  Angels are waiting to rejoice too as each of us takes this step.  It has tremendous eternal value.

I haven’t been what man calls a criminal, but I have been what God calls lost.  I’ve been lost believing lies of value and worth and lies of how I must prove myself worthy of Christ’s Kingdom He invites us to.  Now that I’m much more awake to this I know Christ is wanting me to hold this torch of truth high so others can see and know this Kind and Loving Savior who came who came some 2000 years ago.  If you don’t know Christ as this Savior, take a moment and believe.  He’s right there (here).