This morning has been about warfare–the spiritual kind.  As I was reading Isaiah, King Hezekiah was surrounded by the Assyrian army in Jerusalem.  The Assyrians had already captured the other fortified cities in Judea and were now threatening Jerusalem.  However, King Hezekiah, already dressed in sackcloth was in prayer to God Almighty.  He’d spread out the letter given to him from the Assyrian king.  Hezekiah put the war man was creating into the hand of Almighty God.

Yesterday God was glorified in many ways during our services.  The forthcoming kickoffs of Celebrate Recovery and the Recovery classes were highlighted by testimonies from present participants.  This will be done one more time next Sunday as we kickoff the classes on the 18th and CR on the 20th.  We had our monthly CR meeting after church where obstacles were addressed and last minute assignments were given.

This morning I was writing in my journal all the obstacles Satan is trying to throw in the path of next week’s start.  There was literally almost a page of them.  He is trying so hard to have the leadership of both ministries only looking inward at problems so we lose sight of God’s purpose and the fact that man is being the stumbling block if we allow these hurdles to stand in the way of our first purpose.  I took this list I made and laid it out before God just as King Hezekiah did and said to God that these are now His.  I release them to Him.  This is Kingdom Work we are involved in.  Man is doing his appointed assignments, but God is Head and in control.  He has already conquered this battle in the Spiritual realm.  He wants me to claim this victory in man’s secular realm.  I sure don’t want to lose sight of this.  I actually feel at peace as I write this.  My TRUST is fully in Him.  Thanks be to God our Savior and Friend.

This morning I was journaling telling God the importance of this day and how glad I am that we are finally at a place where substance hits the road putting our recovery ministry work in action.  I had written nearly a page of my gratitude regarding this when it seemed I was reading my script as I was writing it.  God was pointing out to me just how much this journal entry was only about me.  I am the one who want to quickly move from planning into action.  I enjoy the work of action much more than I enjoy the work of planning and preparation.  However, God being complete in nature knows the critical side of planning and preparation.  (I know this too in my educational field but it is always difficult to apply when I’m in another realm).  He seemed to say, “Earnie, I’m glad you are glad, but I do want you to know I’ve been in action all along.  I’ve been not only preparing all of you who will lead but I’ve also been alive and well in the community preparing people to receive from this preparation.  This is “heart work” and it is what I do for that is where my Spirit resides.  These classes will give healing to the hearts of man so I can be much better known and trusted.

I’m realizing that heart work, which God does, is in direct conflict with man’s work so much of the time.  Even though I may be doing God’s Work, I find myself wanting to control it or complete it in my timeframe.  In so doing, I am taking the focus off of God and making it mine.  The conflict between these is great if I am doing this for my own satisfaction.  As I saw this from this morning’s journaling I asked God to forgive me.  His words were, “Turn your fretting into praising.”  As I began my prayer time I raised my hands in thankful praise to our/my God.  He is complete in all ways and His healing work and power is all sufficient to take whatever hurt, hang-up and/or habit and make it a glorious message for Him and His Kingdom.

This morning I praise Him and thank Him that He has included me in this opportunity to work with this ministry.  I also thank Him for the many lessons He has taught and is teaching in all the planning and preparation for it.

I can tell I am overly anxious as today starts.  My first cup of coffee is not even finished and my guts are in knots.  There are a number of things happening in the next week and a half which start the year’s work whether educational work or Kingdom work.  Tomorrow we are interviewing one of our Celebrate Recovery couples in both worship services prepping for our kick-off on the 20th. There will be two more interviewed the following Sunday.  The sermon tomorrow accentuates a young man from our group and how CR helped him find his place with God and to find his place with man.  After church is our CR leadership meeting getting the last minute items in place for its kick-off.  Monday through Wed., I have full day meetings with the new district I’m working with for the next 3 years.  (This is part-time consulting work but the prep for the start is always big).  Tuesday night is the last meeting with our recovery group leaders before we kick-off the following Tuesday–18th.  I have my prayer warrior coming to equip us with God’s scripture.  All of these are wonderful things but my mind goes to all the details that “could” happen.  I’ve always used this characteristic of me to know if everything is in place.  At my age now it seems Satan wants to use this characteristic to shut me down with anxiety.  I see this quite plainly.  God tells me to “be still and know I Am God”.  Satan tells me to “be anxious in everything because nothing is going to turn out right”.  It is actually good for me to write this out so I can see the blatant difference in front of me rather in the emotions inside of me.

I love getting a week or two beyond the start of everything–even gardening.  That is when the seeds begin to sprout and one can see new life forming.  These details of the present are important but I must remember to TRUST GOD.  Seeds are being planted and it is God who will help the seed sprout and grow into a glorious blessing for Him and man.  People will be nudged in the next couple weeks to come to Celebrate Recovery and also to come to the recovery classes.  These are seeds being planted.  God is the One who will use this time of planting seeds.  I am his servant and equipped to do my part–not His.  I want God to be glorified.  In so doing, I can have God’s peace.

Yesterday had much in it to praise God for.  Yes, my brother got home and we had a prayer of thanks for this.  He was grumpy but then he is a Lewis!  From his house I went by a couple’s home who are in their mid-80’s.  They love tomatoes.  I usually bring them a bag each Sunday morning but they’ve been unable to come to church due to her severe hip pain.  She has forthcoming surgery in October but until then they are housebound.  He can’t drive due to his vision so it is up to her.  Anyway, I’ve been taking produce to their home the past couple weeks.  He prayed over me while I was there–my family, the ministries at church, and our quartet.  I was so touched–and I needed that.

Staying tuned into God’s Spirit and realizing it separate of my own emotions is something I’m much more awake to but I wish I were better able to know one from the other.  It is always easy to see the difference in the rearview mirror.  But, at the moment, it is not so easy.  Today I have a lunch meeting with a gentleman stuck in a tough situation.  He is seeking advice.  God has already told me to trust His Spirit at the time of the meeting.  I have to discipline myself to not go into plotting the speech right now.  I do have a conference call at 8:00 am and some work to do following it ahead of the lunch so this will occupy my mind.  Being human and living in this broken world is its own temptation.  Someday we will all be free from this.  But, until that time comes, I want to be faithful to God and His Spirit’s nudges getting to know them and obeying them.  This is all a big lesson in TRUST.

Today my brother who has been in the hospital and then rehab for the past 4 weeks and 2 days is coming home.  He is doing GREAT.  Of course he has to remain in a wheelchair for the next 6 weeks allowing his pelvic bone to completely heal, but all is coming nicely and he can continue the healing at home now.  Thank you God.

My meeting yesterday with the school district was nothing short of amazing.  I had no idea how it would go.  This particular district has only known failure for the past 10-15 years as far as their student learning has gone.  I just wasn’t sure what to expect and I knew none of them.  Statistics only tell numbers.  As it turned out the superintendent is the grandson of someone I knew back in college.  The elementary principal is someone I worked with briefly in a neighboring district I had been with a couple years ago.  In each case, all of the leaders were eager and ready to tackle the work to find success in their student learning and how learn more about how this is accomplished.  I was asked by one of them how I saw myself helping them do this?  I told them to ask me this question in a month and I could better answer it.  For now I said I would want to build relationships with them to find out where our starting places should be so we could get focused right off the bat.  There was more said, but that’s enough for now.

Most importantly for today, as I was having my devotions, I was reading how Isaiah was telling the Israelites their failure to turn to God for their battles.  They were tearing down their own homes to patch the walls around Jerusalem, trying to reroute water from within the city, etc.  Not once did they pray for God to intervene on their behalf.  They were trying to take care of their problems themselves.  This message brought me to my anxiousness of yesterday.  I know God has brought me to the recovery ministries, to this school district, gave me the family I have, and more, but He didn’t do this for me to be their healer or savior.  He did all of this so I could do my part showing others the Light of God’s leading and healing in whatever the circumstances.  He reminded me that in spirit I do want to be His warrior, torch carrier, servant.  However, in mind and ego, I want to find sufficiency, be important to men and now that I see this I can let it go.  I will battle that at times, but I can use these times as lessons to focus back on who God is and who I am to God.

Today I feel better grounded as I go into it.  God is amazing and He wants each day to be His and mine working together.  I don’t want my ego getting in the way.  I repent and then I move forward when this happens.  God is so loving and I cherish each day with Him!

Spirit-living.  I have a lot of adjusting and just plain changing to do in order for me to be fully awake and living each day in spirit rather than in flesh.  Today I am replacing the oven door on my daughter’s oven.  We won’t go into how it broke.  The part was delivered yesterday as I was leaving for a meeting so I went from the meeting to do it.  Well, I forgot to bring the old one which had one of the screws I needed.  So, I’ll go this morning and finish.  I also got a call yesterday that my meeting with the school district is set for today.  This will be the district I consult with for the next 3 years.  I was awake for a couple hours in the middle of the night anguishing all of this.

This morning I brought all of these fears to God and He seemed to tell me to write down the triggers for these fears which were keeping me awake last night.  I wrote “incapable” of doing the simplest tasks, “incapable” of making strong decisions for myself or others as I work with this new district, “fears” I’ll destroy something from the decisions I do make, “fears” that in the recovery groups people will come and see their problems and walk away feeling even worse because nothing changed.  As I wrote them out the word insufficient was screaming at me.  I told God I was insufficient.  He instantly reminded me that He is the Sufficient One.  My role is to carry the Torch of Light for others to see Him so they can know His Sufficiency.  This is not a new revelation but it being tied directly to a very anxious night helped me realize that even though I’ve grown a great deal in my relationship with God, I still desire to feel important–to be sufficient.  The word insufficient brings with it all the messages of dad’s harsh words when I was growing up and longing to just once be important to him.  Insufficient became my belief.  So, I then try to not only carry the torch of Light for God but I then want to be given credit for the help the Light gives.  My human ego wants to be fed calling me sufficient.  My heart longs however to be pleasing to God so my heart is happy but my ego is waiting.

All of this I know ties directly into my learning about Spirit-filled living.  I truly need to get myself out of the way so God will be in full control.  It’s a little like Kathy and I working together in the kitchen.  Both of us “attempt to control” so working together has to have an agreement first of who is taking charge otherwise we simply are in each other’s way.  God is truly teaching me how to work with Him, letting Him be in control, I do my part and His Light will show what problems are there and when they are surrendered, His Healing Touch does its work.  The gratification of being God’s servant is then more than sufficient to fill that longing to be worthwhile.

Yesterday I wrote about our pastor’s sermon series on Compassion.  Little did I know just how much God was going to have me wrestle with this term.  This morning in my scripture reading in Isaiah 14:12-15, Isaiah is writing about Satan.  In these few verses Satan says, “I will” five times.  I found myself realizing this is exactly what Satan tries to get us to do.  He wants us to think–“I will” is the right way to do things.  For a man it is exactly what our society teaches.  A man is to be strong so he can do whatever needs done.  If we are incapable of this we think we are a failure.  (I am truly expressing myself right now).  I know these are lies from Satan which I’ve believed all my life, but of late I am learning to reverse this thinking.

The word Compassion is a spiritual term.  Only in our heart (spirit) do we first know and experience compassion.  Living out compassion needs for us to stay in touch with our spirit and the spirit of those around us throughout each day.  Compassion is a power word because it comes directly from God’s nature.  When we allow ourselves to address the compassion our spirit senses from the motivation of The Holy Spirit it will be accompanied with power.  The power will not be enacted unless we act on whatever the compassion is compelling us to do.  Let me give a concrete example now.

The recovery ministries we do were first and foremost inspired from compassion.  In acting on them last winter we did a 6 week class for those interested to heighten the awareness of our sensitivity to the raw needs which we will be addressing.  The people who come will need compassion.  This summer in prepping myself with the curriculums we will be using I’ve allowed myself to become increasing fearful that I am inadequate–which in man’s terms–I am.  Man has layered the skillfulness of one another by the degrees we carry.  I’ve fed into man’s thinking.  In the past couple weeks God has been reawakening in me my need to stay in spirit and truth.  His truth is that He is the answer to these needs.  He is the Healer, not man’s counselors, etc.  Yes, they can be helpful but even my counselors weren’t my healers.  God multiplies the spiritual food we offer to these ones who will come and they are satisfied.  (Here I’m referencing to what I wrote yesterday).

There is so much God is helping me see about living in spirit and truth.  I can’t do this living as I’ve always done.  Staying sensitive to the spirit of the environment with those around me is critical.  I cannot expect what I see and hear to be my motivation.  Compassion is known from what our spirit senses.  Our spirit senses compassion need and then God gives us power to address the needs if we rely on The Holy Spirit’s prodding.  It is here we find what God desires us to address and then the power to address it.  I believe I will be here in this lesson for quite some time and it will be worth it all!

As I wrote yesterday’s blog I knew in my heart I was looking too much at man as I’ve been approaching the upcoming kick off of our Celebrate Recovery and especially the recovery groups.  My inadequacies have been screaming at me (fed by Satan’s deceptions I now know).  It was amazing to go to church and hear a sermon that did nothing but directly reinforce this.

Our pastor is focusing the sermon series for September around compassion.  It is a perfect theme for the month with us kicking off both of these recovery programs.  His sermon focus came from Mark 6:30-44—Feeding the 5000.  I’m going to hugely paraphrase but try to get the meaning across.  In this passage Christ asks the disciples about the amount of food within this huge group of followers who came to hear his teaching?  The disciples wanted Christ to send them away to get fed in the neighboring villages but Christ said he wanted them to feed the crowd.  When they reported to Christ there were 5 loaves and 2 fish, Christ had them bring the food to him and he broke the bread and divided the fish.  In so doing he fed everyone with 12 basketfuls left over.  The scripture says the people were satisfied.

As I was listening to this message I kept seeing myself wanting to gather more men around me to feed those coming for our recovery programs.  God has been telling me to “be still” which He did again this morning.  But, in my day I continue to try to appease my sense of inadequacies by trying to gather more expertise.  God is now saying to bring to Him what I have to feed the ones who come.  He will bless it and the ones who come will be satisfied.  This is not at all about me, it is all about me being willing to do what God asks and then let Him bless and feed–they will be satisfied.

I had thought God was likely done needing to teach me more before we started our new recovery classes.  However, this morning in my devotional time I knew there was more I was to learn.  It started when I was reading my devotional.  The message in it was being reliant on God and not on man.  We use others to support us.  However, we need to stay focused on the fact that support is not to be the core reason for what we do.  Following God’s leadership is why we do what we do.  The activities God has us do can become what we worship and idolize rather than God Himself.  My Bible reading today was starting the book of Isaiah.  Right off the bat Isaiah is telling the Israelites that God is not happy with their sacrifices.  The sacrifices have become simply a ritual with no heart in them.  They had become self-reliant on one another rather than helping one another see God in all they did.  Their purposes in living were driven by what man saw rather than what God saw.

As I was reading all of this I could hear God telling me that my eyes and my heart are to be solely on Him as we are to start these new recovery groups.  I tend to look ahead and see ones coming with problems bigger than the group leaders can handle since we are not professionals so we need that professional involvement with us.  God was pointing out that He wants me knowing these folks are coming with problems alright, but He is the One who prodded them to be there and He is their answer.  He will also prod the professional involvement as needed.  I don’t need to recruit them, He is already doing that.  I need only to welcome them and guide them to the right places and stop thinking it is my job to have all of this in place ahead of time.

My Bible reading ended with a reflection written by Joyce Meyers.  She was stating how God pulls away props in our own lives so we can become more reliant on Him only.  He wants us to become strong in this reliance on Him.  He calls this TRUST.  It is then we can be a good prop for a young one learning their walk with God.  I feel God has been pruning me to better understand and know this.  God is never done with us.  I can honestly say I am so glad too!

I awoke anxious again today.  It is Labor Day weekend but that didn’t matter.  I have things I want to do and things I want to enjoy and all of them were looking like “must do’s”.  As I started my devotions God simply said, “Why not turn this scene into a pristine one where each of these things to do get to be done out of pleasure rather than out of “must”?  Well, that’s all it took.  I get to enjoy this day.  I reread yesterday’s post and saw what I’d put from Joyce Meyer’s writing regarding the little foxes.  I was about to let those dang foxes win but God stepped in and gave perspective.  Boy is He a Good Dad!

Nineteen years ago today we buried my mom’s body and then had a celebration of her life.  This day it is as vivid in my mind as it was those 19 years ago.  Even though mom was 89 years old, none of us were ready for her departure.  It happened so suddenly.  All of us kids were looking forward to sharing her.  Dad had already been in the hospital for a couple weeks and we had been called to the hospital 3 or 4 times to give our good-byes.  However, it was not to be dad’s time.  Each one of them were ones where he rallied.  He ended living 3 years beyond mom before God took him home.

As I look back on these days I wouldn’t be as free today if God had arranged it differently with dad going first.  It was during dad’s days in the nursing home that I was able to finally confront him as my counselor had tried diligently to have me do.  I heard a line from dad I needed to hear directly from his voice.  He said, “I had told everyone I knew how proud I am of you, I guess I just forgot to tell you.”  Here I am 68 years old needing to know my dad was proud of me.  Well, it just doesn’t matter our age, we need to know we are loved and supported.  I got to hear that just a couple months before dad’s passing.  I will always be thankful for God’s timing.  He knew this for me and He knows this for each of us.  He is like that–A VERY GOOD DAD!