Yesterday’s journey was a time to awaken to a couple things I believe God wanted me to see and experience.  Three important things were taking place in the day:  the training for the upcoming consulting work with low performing schools, Celebrate Recovery night, and our family’s reunion dinner at one of my brother’s home.  I stayed for all the training but left immediately to get to the worship practice for CR.  As soon as CR’s worship was done I left to get to the family.  In doing this I was unable to recap the day with the ones present, I was unable to associate with my share group or even hear the testimony shared in the evening and I walked into my family’s conversation cold to all that had taken place.  None of this was wrong, but I felt incomplete because one cannot know the relational connections unless one is present.

This morning God was showing me how important relationships are.  They cannot be controlled only by my wishes/wants/needs.  If I don’t stay present with the ones I’m working with or socializing with, there will not ever be a deeper trust and relationship with them.  I know that yesterday was an unusual day but I needed to see the importance of this relational disconnect.  I’ve lived my whole life pulling out to get to the “next important thing”.  God seems to be wanting me to know He wants me going deeper with my connections and staying put.  This is true for my connections with Him as well as with the people He puts in my path of work or leisure.  (I’m also reading Job right now.  I sure don’t want to be the kind of friend who judges the way Job’s friends were doing with him).  God is Amazing!  I sure want to serve Him well.

Today I take a detour from the family to re-enter the consulting work for education for a couple days of pre-training with the author of the work we will be addressing.  It was almost like I was abandoning the family to do this. I was thinking I had misinterpreted God’s voice last spring when all of this new consulting opportunity was being developed.  My mind has been preoccupied with what God wants me to do with my family while we are all together.  However, as I took this to Him this morning He reminded me that I simply have more than one assignment.  As an educator I certainly know about multiple assignments due in a day or over a period of time.  Life in and of itself isn’t just one assignment.  I get so occupied with the topic at hand and then I question whether I should have ever stepped into something else.  Yet, at the time of stepping into the other I knew God was leading me there.  I just forget the emotional tug God was giving at that time and replace it with the tug of the present thinking the present tug is now the only right one.

I certainly realize today more than ever I am man and God is God.  Now that I’ve learned to not compare me to dad to determine my worth, I realize man simply does this comparison thing all the time.  God wants me to lift my eyes only to Him to see what He wants done.  I may confirm it with man He such as my wife, but leave it there.  God is God and I want most of all to be His obedient servant.

My sis and her daughter arrived on schedule last night and are settled into our home.  I was able to talk to my younger brother and sis last night about bringing up the topic of each one’s personal relationship with God as we all come together this Saturday.  My brother was comfortable with the idea as long as we don’t try to be preachy with it.  That was all we knew growing up as well as the condemning side of the topic.  Along with that the hypocritical side was the most offensive due to our dad and a couple other close relatives.

As I was reading my devotions this morning God was impressing on me about the desires of His Heart.  As we go to Him with the desires of our heart, we ought to first seek to know the desires of His Heart to ensure we are only seeking that which first pleases Him.  He doesn’t want us preaching to our family or condemning them if they don’t live as a religion says they ought.  He wants us to reflect Him as we talk.  He will inspire and provide the words that shed this Light.  This He confirmed this morning once again.

As God and I were meditating I asked Him about the fear I sense regarding this.  He reminded me that there is no fear once the step into obedience is taken.  He replaces any fear with His Light.  In this Light will be words to share inspired by His Holy Spirit.  He will also provide the listening ear and any responses to follow.  I do love God and want only to complete His Heart.  God is so amazing!

Today our remaining siblings will be together as our oldest living sis and her daughter fly in tonight.  The rest of us are meeting for lunch earlier today which will be a start to some fun times.  As I started my devotions this morning I had my typical anxiousness.  I didn’t want to dwell in it but I am learning that my feelings are often twisted by Satan’s deceptions stifling me from taking steps God’s Light would have me act on.  I don’t want to be crippled any longer from this so I took it immediately to God Who began to shed Light of His choosing. It seemed to start with—-

Yesterday afternoon I had finished the chores I was wanting to complete for the day, freezing blackberries (2 gallons) and canning some beans I had picked earlier at my brother’s place.  Kathy was gone to the store so I went on-line to the facilitator training I’m taking for one of the groups we will start this fall addressing abuse.  An assignment I was to complete had me pausing before God and choosing an anchoring verse God would give me.  As I did this He brought to mind a song I’ve sung in years past which I knew was a verse but didn’t know where it was found.  I asked Siri to help me and it is Psalms 27:1:  “The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, whom then shall I fear?  The Lord is the Strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”

I know my younger brother and younger sis are concerned about the spiritual walk for a couple of our older siblings.  Yes, they have a relationship with God but they do not know God’s freedom.  They are lost in what “church” said in times past rather than freed from what Christ says separate from church laws.  This is all confusing in one’s mind when dad would claim his Christianity yet beat his kids and say awful things to us in his anger and pride.  I have had my own battle finding God’s freedom and I now sense God wanting this topic to be opened for our family members.  I’m going to bring this to my younger two siblings to see what God may be placing on their hearts.  It is like God is saying that He wants His freedom known within the family too, not just those in the world around us where the ministry work forthcoming is addressing.

Instead of fearing this chance I’m going to embrace it and see what doors/windows of opportunity God is opening.  I have known bondage my entire life.  Today I thank God for His Freedom and I want to be a helpmate for others to know their own including my own family.

This week is my own family reunion week.  When we got home I quickly got the lawn mowed, something I rarely do on a Sunday.  But, I needed it out of the way and besides, the garbage is picked up early this morning and I didn’t want two weeks of it sitting at the driveway all week long.

In getting home I knew my brothers and sis-in-laws were eager to get details outlined for the week and I’d said I’d call when I got home and had the lawn mowed.  In so doing I found there was dissention.  We got together last night and in an hour we had all the details outlined and all were happy.  God was showing me a nudge I hadn’t listened to however that caused the dissention.  I hadn’t called my two brothers with the arrival times for my sis’s flying in and their wives particularly were upset that I was being negligent about this.  The thing that got me was I had more than once been nudged to get this info to them but I simply didn’t do it.  It always seemed to be when I was doing something else “more important” at the time.  I’m writing this today because over the weekend God had been talking to me about my obedience to Him.  Last night when I found out that my two sis-in-laws were upset like they were and it was my fault, I heard God say, “See, this is why I nudge you.”  I told them I was sorry and the evening was over and all is well.  I learned my lesson.  I don’t want to be the cause of dissention when it is triggered by disobedience to God’s nudging.

This morning God is helping me to see how Satan’s devious ways are interwoven into our daily lives just like this.  I don’t call when I am nudged to do so and when the family arrives, everyone is out of sorts so we can’t enjoy one another’s company like was planned.  I sure don’t want to be an initiator of this or one of Satan’s ploys.  OK, lesson learned.  Now to enjoy day one with the family.

Today we will head back to Idaho.  It has been a great time here with Kathy’s family.  The reunion was enjoyable with so many of Kathy’s mom’s family.  They are a gregarious bunch.  I’ve personally enjoyed the time with Kathy’s brother who is the one who originally brought me to Celebrate Recovery so many years back.  His own walk with recovery is now having him engaged with recovery ministries that allow his past to help others with their present and future.  God keeps putting him into ministry work that parallels with my own.  He and I are going to stay in touch more closely as we continue this Kingdom Work God has given us to do.

Yesterday I mentioned about obeying God’s voice when I hear Him tell me something He wants me to do.  Today in scripture reading I read about Esther.  Of all the people to become a queen, she would never have been picked out by man’s ways.  However, God had a plan that was put into place because His kids were good listeners and obeyed what He had them to do.  Joyce Meyer has a footnote at this point saying that God does give us direction and insights as to His plan for us when we ask and obey His voice/direction.  Along with this, Jesus is often called our Counselor/Guide.  However, His voice is not to be considered as optional, even though we have the choice to not follow it.  God has always given man choice.  However, I am greatly learning that to be a Godly servant completing Kingdom Work for God, it is not an option for us to disobey the nudges He gives us.  If we do disobey He will find someone else to do what He has asked of us.  We miss out on the glory of knowing and being part of the affirmation which comes from obedience.  I don’t want to be one of those who only does what he wants to do from God’s direction.

As I head home I sense God leading me into better obedience.  I’d like to think I’ve been obedient, but I know that isn’t true.  I am one who is obedient when it doesn’t stress me too much.  I’m finding that the stress I feel is simply me trying to determine what obeying God’s direction will lead me to.  Instead, I want to leave my thinking out and act on what God says.  It gives new meaning to the Serenity Prayer’s line about “…one day at a time and one moment at a time taking hardship as a pathway to peace.”  I see hardships if I try to determine the outcome of God’s leading.  Instead of this, I want to obey knowing even if there are hardships, God will see to them.

Trust & Obey, that is God’s message for today.

Kathy’s family reunion is today and while this is happening here, I have two sisters flying in at home for the reunion my family will have a week from today.  The other sis is flying in next Tuesday with her daughter.  All of this is for a good time reconnecting.

When I journal each day I always ask the question regarding what God wants me to know from Him for today.  Every so often there is a specific action He wants me to take.  As I was rereading yesterday’s journal entry there was an action I’d written and I did not act on it–in fact, I’d forgotten entirely about it.  The conversations of the day led me to think that acting on it today would not be the right thing to do.  However, when I asked God again if He wanted me to act on this He seemed to remind me that He doesn’t change His mind.  The things about yesterday were just that–things.  I needed to learn to trust God’s voice in my life as definite.  Too often I have preconceptions about outcomes that are not in alignment with God.  So, I’ll follow through today with my task of yesterday.

Learning to trust God all the time and not to question steps He gives me to take will be an area of growth for me.  I’ll likely stay here for quite some time.  And now it is time to start being a good boy and helping where my wife and sis in law direct.  This is their day!

Yes, the journey continues.  Right now I’m glad the journey has us in Wallowa, OR where Kathy was born and raised.  Being here for her family reunion puts me in touch with her younger brother who was the very one that introduced me to Celebrate Recovery long before we ever got it started at our church.  I’ve learned to trust and respect him for he is one who not only has found his sobriety, but he is instrumental in mentoring, sponsoring and guiding ones seeking help in the programs that he helps lead back in western Oregon.  I love having him as a sounding board.  On top of all of this, he has a great sense of humor as well as does his wife.  This makes time for humor as well as great counsel.

Being away from home does allow God to give perspective to the work he asks us to do for His Kingdom.  One can see it differently than when one is in the midst of it.  I am seeing that as I’m here and working through items I’ve had in my head and being somewhat nervous/fearful about.  God wants His Work anchored in trusting Him and this is just what He is doing while we are here.  I thank Him so much for this.  God is good all the time and all the time God is GOOD!

Kathy and I drove to Joseph, OR yesterday to be with her family here for their annual reunion.  As we drove the 4 hour trek we listened to a CD given to me last Sunday by my mentor and friend.  I wasn’t sure what it was about, but she has never given me anything that wasn’t meat and potatoes for my journey.   As God always does, it was spot on for my next step.  The focus of the talk was Satan using our past to lay claim before God just as he did with Job or as Jesus said to Peter that Satan was attempting to stop all of the intended work God had for him.  All of this is in the spiritual world so we don’t see it but we certainly feel it and are bombarded by the effects of the attacks.

The speaker in the CD was telling how we can confess any sins which may be used by Satan both sins done to us as well as sins we have committed.  In hearing “done to us” I hadn’t ever known I could repent of those sins.  I’ve lived in the bondage of them thinking and hoping dad and my brother had repented of theirs so they wouldn’t own me.  Satan has used them all my life.  While I was driving and listening I asked God to take those sins done to me and that I repent of them and leave them at the Cross of Jesus.  It was amazing.  There was much more the speaker was saying, but this was a prominent message for me to hear.

God is truly uprooting all the lies which have been buried within me.  I’m so grateful for God’s faithfulness as well as inspiring those He has placed in our lives to continue to help us with our overcoming.  This is my hope and my prayers for the forthcoming recovery classes.  God is wanting all of us to find the freedom of sin’s bondage.  God is wanting His truth to be known for the victims He is preparing to come for their own healing.  May we be a beacon for God in this where He is opening doors for others to step through.

This morning God wanted me to face and commit to jumping one of the hurdles I was facing yesterday when I wrote the blog.  In the recovery ministry classes we will be starting this fall, the four of them are all centered around sexual brokenness.  I continually live in the fear that the brokenness of my life will never be healed so I could be “perfect” like everyone around me.  The moments in life whether days or minutes when I don’t feel broken are reprieves from the other times when I am brought back to the reality of the brokenness.  This hurdle has been a haunt all of my life.

Today in my scripture reading God had Ezra tell the returning Israelites they are to make a covenant with God of their faith, commitment and surrender.  They will not destroy their sexual purity with God by marrying foreign women and worshiping their gods as was started by Solomon.  Last night I was listening to Joyce Meyer as she spoke on TV.  She was challenging the audience to obey God when He speaks.  This morning God spoke telling me He wanted me to no longer face these recovery classes in fear, but in faith, commitment and surrender.  My fear of my own brokenness still owning me is just that–fear.  God took care of that brokenness and now it is time for me to live in the freedom full time.  When I start to fear I tell my accountability.  I’ve already contacted him this morning.

Satan wants me hearing him remind me how many times I’ve failed at this.  It is already happening even as I write this.  BUT, I am praising God for His Promise that Jesus Christ’s work on the Cross replaced my brokenness when I asked Christ into my heart.  It has taken me a lifetime to claim this, but today I claim it as mine 24-7.  Praising God disempowers the enemy and allows God’s Power to be put into action.  So, in this I will praise God both in word and in song.