God was very kind yesterday making known to me what I wrote.  There is something however I was still needing to grab ahold of regarding the new creation God gave me.  In my mind I’ve always wanted to be a person I’m not.  I was fine with the fact I love to garden–any kind–vegetables as well as flowers.  Both give me great delight.  I also love singing and working with people as I do with education and with the ministry connections.  I’ve hated the fact that the worldly definition of “manly characteristics” included at the top of the list:  sports, mechanics, building things, etc.  These were not strengths for me.  I wished I could be a person of all of this.  Well, I’ve settled in my mind I am ok with who God created me to be and I can be “His masterpiece” with who I am.

So, yesterday another flaw I’ve known about me came to the forefront just as I was going to bed.  Last week I was in the attendance of some tremendous training specific to the educational consulting I do.  It was excellent.  From it three of us, two from the state dept of education and I, are going to a conference at the last minute which the presenter invited us to attend.  If Kathy had been with me she’d told me to check my calendar.  I even texted her about checking hers to see if she could go along.  She couldn’t because next week is VBS and she’s taking grandkids daily.  I on the other hand didn’t check mine, I just “knew” I was OK to go.  As I was getting ready for bed last night I was reviewing next week’s schedules in my head and was grateful the conference didn’t conflict with the quartet practice we have next Tuesday.  I leave Wed. am.  Then it hit me!  Our quartet is practicing next Tuesday because we are singing a big program Thursday night in Boise which has been on my calendar in my phone for 3 months.  Somehow, today and Monday I will need to see if someone else can go in my place to the conference.  I’m writing all of this because something that I have known is a weakness is checking detail.  Usually when this happens it is just a matter of rearranging things so they can still take place.  In this case, I can’t abandon the quartet and it is a costly error in that the flight is already booked, etc.

In times past I would be beating myself up for days regarding this.  Today, God is wanting me to see that I’m a new creation that is still human.  He has given me a great detail wife who I need to access compensating for this weakness.  She’d happily complete this area with me if I’d allow her.  So, today I will swallow my human pride and ask her to help me do this.  She has been trying to get me to coordinate our phones so she can see my calendar as well as her own.  Now, I see why she wanted to do this!  She knows my weakness too.  God gives us those who will complete us if we will only use this help.  I don’t have to beat myself up for being incomplete.  I can instead thank God for giving me a strength to compensate for where I’m not.  Only Satan and my “old self pride” wants me to resist help.  My new creation recognizes my weaknesses and seeks to fill the gaps with the help God has already given me.

This morning’s devotion showed me something I’ve longed to know and understand.  It started with a devotion by the Blackaby’s which was titled: Tempted as We Are.  It defines from scriptures:  Hebrews 2:18 and I Corinthians 10:13 how we can be tempted and God gives us a way of escape.  Then I was reading my scripture which was the end of I Samuel and the start of II Samuel.  Saul and three sons including Jonathan were killed.  When David was informed of this he mourned and led the mourning for all of his men.  Joyce Meyers writes a footnote about the importance of mourning and that God comforts those who mourn.  She goes on to say that if we keep in denial what we are to mourn we will have side effects which will lead to unhealth.

As I began to journal I wrote to God telling Him I’ve mourned the loss of my innocence but I still do have struggles with temptation and finding the way of escape as He promises.  I asked what I’m missing here?  It was quite incredible to have Him say, “I want you to back up.  Yes, you have grieved the loss of your childhood and the abuse of the child you were.  The physical abuse and sexual abuse were two things, but added to it them was the abuse mentally to who I created you to be.  No, you were not like your father or many of your brothers.  You learned to despise yourself for this and thought you were less than a man for this–thus you thought your own sexual use was due to this.  You now know this is a lie, but you have never found the love for the very one I created you to be.  This is what I want you to see.  Ephesians 2:10 says I created you as My masterpiece.  There is no mistake in this.”  He went on to tell me that believing the truth that I am a masterpiece adds the element of strength I’ve missed all this time.  It is now time for me to grab ahold of it.  This truth of character is part of the new creation God has given me.

I hope this makes some sense to you as a reader of this blog.  It is foundational for me.  I thank God for His patience as He continues to create in me (each of us) the new creation He gave to us as we accepted His Son Jesus into our hearts and received the Gift of The Holy Spirit into our lives.

Today wraps up a work week that has been a continuous time of surprises seeing God working in multiple settings .  I was able to talk with my sis Bonnie last night and she sounded like a new person.  She knows nothing yet about her test results but it was good to talk with her while she felt so much better. My other sis in Calif. is coming this summer as of yesterday’s call.  She is being accompanied by her daughter.  Bonnie may come with them.  All we need is to get our third sister from Indiana and we will all be together for the first time since my brother Ralph’s funeral service four years ago.  With the waning health of some, it would be a blessing from God if this could materialize.

Yesterday morning as I arrived to the training I’ve been attending this week I walked into the auditorium to have standing right in front of me, the speaker who will come in July to work with our Idaho team of consultants.  I thanked him for his great work and availability to work with us.  He then invited me to come to his focused training next week in San Diego, Thursday and Friday.  he gave us tickets allowing us to attend and bypass the $700.00/person cost.  He also reserved rooms in the hosting hotel.  He is bringing together the leadership for the districts across our country on their next steps.  So, the state dept. lead and I will be attending this for our own state.  I just stand in awe of how God is opening up the doors we have needed to get this coming year’s work aligned with His Purposes.

Yesterday in my journaling I asked God what He wanted me to know from Him.  One thing He said that took me by surprise was that He’d healed me of my voices of self-doubt.  He wanted me to know He’d place a hedge of protection around my mind.  I thanked Him for this but I was reticent to write it.  However, this morning’s scripture had me reading about David’s assurance from God of His leadership in his life in spite of all the doubting family members he had about his being Israel’s next king, etc.  God wanted David to only trust Him and His leadership in his life and David did just that.  Joyce Meyer wrote a footnote in this saying how God had brought her to this point in her walk with Him and her ministry work.  I just felt confirmed that this is what God was telling me.  How affirming this is as well as humbling to know God cares intimately for each of us in this way.

I just have to start today wrapping up yesterday.  Kathy’s testimony last night was truly a God moment.  She was fully present, but more importantly, God’s Holy Spirit was even more present.  I always love it when men are as touched by a woman’s testimony as they are from one of their own gender.  Thank you Father God for the way you use the story of Your work in our lives to assist others with their own walk and healing with you. I do not know yet what the outcome of my sis’s tests are.  I’m hoping to know something today. I know God is Good all the time and I am trusting Him.

Another unexpected miracle happened yesterday that I know is God’s work.  I’ve been attending 3 days of training for the consulting work I do for our state’s educational system.  I asked permission to be part of it for it’s training isn’t being done intentionally for the work I do.  The gentleman presenting yesterday has written a book I had read and am actually presenting tomorrow to some fellow consultants.  I knew this book was right on target for the work we will do next year.  I had shared this with the 3 state dept of education folks also attending this by their invitation.  We were going to meet with the author and presenter following his work yesterday to see if there were anyway he could do a specific training just for us and specific to our work with highly struggling schools.  Well, only as God ordains, He is available next month and we are now on his calendar.  This just never happens with internationally acclaimed people like this.  Yet, God is always in charge when we just let Him lead what He has us doing.  I thanked Him yesterday for having this door open but this morning while reflecting, I just smile with the opportunity to see Him mightily at work in what I used to call my secular work.  I know that all is done for His Glory.  He told me a year ago that He wanted me re-entering this work.  I was struggling so much to say yes to it thinking it wasn’t God’s kingdom work (in His eyes).  He assured me that was only in my head for all of His creation is His work regardless of man’s labels.

What a Great God we get to serve!

If someone were to ask me who the most important women in my life today are, I’d say my wife Kathy and my sis Bonnie.  It is difficult to place a priority here because I also have 3 daughters who stand in line neck to neck with them.  However, there is something powerfully important taking place with these two women today.  Today my wife gives her testimony for the first time to our Celebrate Recovery group.  In all our years of participating in this ministry she has not taken this step, however, today is her day.  I’m so proud of her!

On a very different note, this afternoon my sis Bonnie is having tests done to help the doctors determine some critical reasons her health is declining as it is.  In a matter of a few months she has been diagnosed with heart failure and there are other lingering issues the doctors can’t seem to call by name and treat properly.  The treatments being done complicate other physical concerns.  Being almost a thousand miles away, I want to simply drive down there and stay until she is “fine” again.

As I was praying for them just minutes ago, God reminded me that these two ladies are His first, not mine first.  He appreciates my love and support for them but He doesn’t need me trying to do His Work–He is very good at being God!  This reminder was all I needed to reestablish my trust in Him.  I would ask that readers of this would lift Bonnie up to the healing touch of God this afternoon and to lift Kathy tonight as she shares her story to our body of attenders.  God wants us to tell our story to strengthen others struggling so they know God hasn’t forgotten them and loves them unconditionally just as He has proven over and over to us who give our story.

I have my own day of training for the consulting work I do.  God told me to go do what He has me doing and He will take care of what He does.  I do TRUST HIM and I love these two ladies.  Today is an important day in my journey.  I’m so glad God my Father is in charge.

God is so faithful.  As I obeyed Him yesterday addressing the one item I had been fearful to address.  It was accepted as though there was nothing else to do but it.  It was such a clear example of me still believing that old man voice inside my head.  All day long I felt like a ton had been lifted from me.  It is amazing what a single step of obedience can do.  Tonight I am to address the second step made clear to me yesterday morning.

As I was reading this morning in I Samuel 18:5 David is prospering under Saul’s kingship.  It says he behaved wisely.  He has already been anointed king of Israel by Samuel, but his time to assume that role has not yet arrived.  Saul grows more and more envious of David and tries more than once to kill him.  Joyce Meyers writes something that truly resonated aligning with this scripture.  She says God gives us times of trial that allows us to grow in character with Him.  If God has anointed us to leadership, He prepares us allowing someone who is like sandpaper to us.  It is amazing to read this.

When I was in my third year of teaching many years ago I was given a teammate who was the most awful example of a “caring teacher” I’ve ever witnessed since that year.  I had two fantastic teaching partners my first two years and they had taught me so much about the art of teaching.  This new partner threw mud right into the face of the art.  I have used examples of her behaviors so many times in the consulting work I now do.  I had never thought that God provided an intense learning opportunity for me that year.  I’ve always called it my nemesis year.  All those years ago God was allowing me to learn what the opposite of the art of teaching looked like so I could help others know what to do and what not to do.  Even in my secular work God is very present.  I can see that more clearly  now.  Thank you Father!

Yesterday was a most insightful day.  As I got to church early for choir warm-up I knew immediately the song we were singing was going to be sung for the man I met with Saturday.  It was titled, “Even in the Valley”.  I texted him just to let him know God was going to minister to him this morning.  It wasn’t until I was headed home that I saw I had 6 texts from him which had come during church.  When I got to my house I read them to find he hadn’t come.  Things had worsened.  The details are many but the results were in God’s control just as they are when one is staying obedient to Him.  In not coming to church this man came face to face with his uncle.  This one relative heard all that was taking place.  Instead of chastising, this uncle said, “I love you.  Feel free to talk to me anytime you want.  I won’t judge anyone, but I will be here for you.”  God is amazing this way.

As I was having my devotional time I read in I Samuel where the Spirit left Saul and God told Samuel to anoint Jesse’s son who turned out to be David.  When Samuel did anoint him with oil, the scripture says God’s Spirit came upon him.  As I was journaling later I wrote that I’d really like it if God would make His Spirit that alive in me.  As I was writing it I was checked because I instantly realized once again that the Spirit lives in me because of my accepting Christ in my heart.  Yet, I don’t sense His leading as I would like.  As soon as this was on paper God reminded me that the Spirit is in me for the purpose of obedience.  There are a couple things God has been wanting me to take action on and I keep making excuses for not doing so.  In my eyes if I do take action it will have the people thinking I want things just about me.  (I have this constant voice screaming in my head which I know comes from my childhood.  I can do all I want to help others obey, but if I do it, it is always about conceit on my part–the voice in my head says.)  So, today I will complete the one and the other one I can complete tomorrow as the right people will be together.  My whole body tenses as I type this, but I know God is wanting my obedience.  It is all for very good reasons, but doing something just for me is only judged as selfish the voice says.  It is time to obey God’s voice and not the old man voice within.

God’s patience with us is amazing.  I look forward to stepping into obedience and getting to the other side of it relating to these two items.

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”  Psalm 46:10.  Yesterday I had the time with my friend who needed to talk.  So much came out that needed to be verbalized.  He kept apologizing for the randomness of all that was said.  I kept reminding him that emotions are not orderly so don’t expect to tell them in any order.  Just tell.  By the time we were done he was feeling much better and he seemed to know what he was to do next.  I won’t go into all of this for it is his story.  He needed to know that God is God.  He needed to know how to be still before God in this trial.

Yesterday was a beautiful day.  I got my lawn mowed and then even had time for a brief nap.  I found myself feeling very despondent.  I couldn’t seem to shake it either.  There was some of my own emotions tied to it I knew.  It was as though all the questions and struggles God had me hearing from my friend were now my own.  So much of this person’s past resembles my own.  I was struggling to not believe old thoughts as true for me.  This didn’t improve throughout the evening either.

As I began my devotions this morning I confessed this.  God began to show me the importance of the scripture I started with.  One of the meanings of “be still” is quit fighting.  All my life “I” have fought these feelings.  God is showing me that HE is God and if I try to fight this I am attempting to make me god.  Instead of waiting upon God to give His Light, I just want to do away with the problem/s. I act impulsively and usually make things worse.  Then, Satan has won again.  These are tough lessons to learn, but I don’t want to any longer be a victim.  Instead, I want to be a victor.  As I write this I see that victim ends in IM while victor ends with OR.  I don’t want to be focused on I AM, but choose the OR and be a victor.  So, I surrendered these feelings as a lie.  I’m letting God fight the battle I cannot win, for He has already won this through His Son–Jesus Christ!

Our God is One Amazing God.  The move for the friend took a few more hours than expected yesterday.  It will finish today and there will be more helping.  Only two of us could come yesterday but thankfully it was two men.  We were able to move all the heavy pieces and get them into storage.  Today will finish all the rest which will be a huge relief for the one moving.  She is a single gal needing to get out of her present living arrangement.

Yesterday I wrote about God telling me to be still and He said it twice in a row emphasizing its significance for me to pay attention to the message.  As the day went along I had lost track of the message.  One of our Celebrate Recovery guys text in the middle of the afternoon regarding some struggles he is encountering.  These are ones he has only shared with his wife and me but triggered by some huge childhood abuse issues.  They were upon him again.  He sent this message while I was driving to the storage unit so I saw it but didn’t read it until I arrived to the unit.  I did a quick read and made a quick response.  Once we were all finished and I was driving to a store to do an errand before heading home I reread his text.  In it he had said he might need to meet with me which I’d missed completely in the first read.  When I got home I text him saying I was open most of today if he wanted to get together.  His response was immediate and he thanked me for being so sensitive.  I have a quartet practice for a couple hours first thing this morning and he is coming right after that.  I’ll tell you that God is the One who is sensitive.  He was the One who told me to “be still”–twice.  I had even written that I could listen better if I am still.  Well, God sure used this opportunity to show me the significance of listening while I read and respond.  I get overly involved in what I’m doing and when an interruption comes I see it as an interruption.  God wanted me to see it as His message and to be still and listen.

In my past God has always had a friend, often my wife Kathy, who has been right there when I needed to unload.  God was wanting me to be this friend–being right there when He opens the door.  I sure don’t want to not be listening and not be available.  Being still is an art form I am going to want to spend more time allowing God to mold me into.

Yesterday was an interesting day.  Kathy and I were heading to the hospital in Boise where she was having an angiogram done to rule out any blockage that may be causing some pains she’s been having.  (They weren’t from me!) I was somehow so totally at peace about all of this that I’d not even considered any report except she’s ok.  Well, as it turned out, that is exactly what the report was.  The cardiologist prescribed a med which she said will relax the arteries around the heart.  Sometimes they can spasm causing what seems to be heart issues.  We were glad to hear all of this.  It wasn’t until I was in the hospital that I began to realize how serious these tests were–it is all about the heart.  Fortunate for me I am physically very healthy.  The down side is that I hadn’t considered the seriousness of what was before us.  Being in the area of the hospital where I saw so much anxiety from others who were waiting for their reports I began to realize I was there with them for the same.  I’m grateful all was good, but I felt rather ill prepared for what could have been.  It was all just a good wake up for me to step out of denial when things like this are upon us.

Today doesn’t have too much going.  I’m helping a friend move and that is about it.  My mind wants to organize a list but this morning God told me to “be still”.  In fact, He said it twice–one right after the other.  So, instead of creating a list of things, I’m writing this working on being still, relaxed about having time.  I know there are things to do but I don’t have to put a tight structure around them.  I think I could be a better listener if I am still.  I think God is up to something.