Today seems like the calm after the storm.  Yesterday wasn’t a tornado or anything like that, but it was a day which started very early and I didn’t get home until 8 pm last night.  It was long but very productive–at least in man’s world.  This morning as I was journaling I found myself sensing a childhood longing I use to have as a young boy in Southern Calif.  It was there I use to long to be someone important–someone men would turn to for wisdom.  These are adult words to a boy’s dream, but it was something like that.  I reflect back on these moments and wonder if this somehow was what bothered my dad so much?  I don’t ever remember verbalizing this dream to anyone, but I do remember having the dream often.  I can even recall taking what a teacher would say in the classroom and think about how I’d turn that learning into wisdom for someone else.  Of course it never occurred to me that she’d just past wisdom off to me.  I was going to be the one providing the wisdom.

Well, 60+ years later the dream returns.  There are no “mountains of unbelief” blocking the picture as there have been throughout my life.  In reality, God has used this dream He gave me to help motivate the ministries we now have operating: Celebrate Recovery and the Recovery Ministries.  God has used them mightily to bring me back fully to Him in my belief of who He is and who I am to Him.  He is doing the same for so many others too.  He is also using these ministries to help others give back to Him as the leadership in both ministries is almost entirely made up of ones having gone through Celebrate Recovery.  God is such an amazing Father!  How I love Him.  The greatest reward of this is that the giving back today has no ego attached to it as I’m sure it did when I was a boy.  God has brought the power of ego to the cross of humility and thanksgiving.  It is there He transforms the power of sin into the Power of the Cross. 

“Anything can happen on Christmas Eve.  Miracles are yours for the asking.  The unexpected happens when you believe it may  for anything can happen today.”  These are song lyrics from yesterday’s Christmas production we finished.  It wasn’t until this morning’s devotion that God had me taking these lyrics and seeing their truth  as they apply to His current work in my life. 

“BELIEVE” is a powerful word in God’s Spiritual Rhelm.  It is also a simple word in a young child’s rhelm.  Young children have no problem believing what a storybook tells them or what the Bible tells them.  We are all born with the capability of believing.  Sin entering into our humanness so long ago eats away at this belief until it is almost destroyed.  Boy do I know this well.  However, there has always been a seed of belief deep in my soul that rises momentarily when belief is made visible as in yesterday’s production. 

This morning God has shown me how the “mountain of unbelief” He has removed from me these past few weeks now shows what belief looks like.  It does look like miracles happening around you.  These miracles are things man can’t envision on his own, but they happen in little ways and big ways because someone believes.  I have been one who believes for others but has been unable to do so for myself.  God is teaching me that belief is genuine for everyone just as it is for every child born into this sinful world. 

I want to do a much better job allowing belief to show forth in me throughout each and everyday.  I think it looks like letting The Holy Spirit become the very spirit man sees in us as the new creation God has made us to be. 

In the teaching world we are taught about Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of learning.  It starts with learning a lesson for the knowledge of it, builds to comprehension so we can think about how the knowledge can be used and then it grows to application.  Application goes to analysis where we begin to see the worthwhileness of the learning’s application.  It then goes to synthesis where we see how this learning can benefit other learning and fields of learning.  Lastly, we evaluate the effectiveness so we can know if we are to continue as we are, adjust it, etc. 

I start with this educational lesson today because I know this is what God is doing with His scriptural lessons for me.  I’ve known much of God’s Word throughout my life but this has been too much at the knowledge level only.  He is diligently working to bring His lessons in scripture to the higher levels of purpose. 

This morning in reading Luke’s chapter 6 Jesus is talking about forgiveness.  He says we are to love our enemies and to then bless them.  We bless them by praying for them.  This is all in Luke 6: 27-28.  I liked what Joyce Meyer added in a footnote.  She said if we forgive our enemy it is not enough to stop there.  To bless our enemy we are not only to pray for them but to stop talking badly about them.  In talking badly about them we too often migrate right back to the unforgiveness platform God has been wanting us to leave.  The Holy Spirit was nudging me this morning to put this into my own practice with my dad.  In the first paragraph this morning I state that evaluation is the last step in the learning continuum.  However, it is not about evaluating the one delivering the lesson.  It is about how well the learning was able to be applied, analyzed, etc.  God’s job is to evaluate the one delivering the lesson.  This is my personal lesson of today.  It is time for me to bless my dad.  He has been gone for quite some time now, but in his life, he did do some things well.  I’m going to dwell far more on these starting today. 

Happy Birthday Polly!  My youngest sis, who will always be the baby to this family, turns 65 today.  I’d say that’s a good indication this generation is at the expiring end when the youngest one has reached this milestone.  I am very grateful for her.  God uses her to inspire many people including her own children and grandchildren.  We love her.

Last night was our church’s first production of “The Christmas Post”.  This morning I have the words, “Start at the manager, then go to the cross,” going over and over in my mind.  These words are the key message of the program given in song from my good friend Mike to the young man playing the key role of store manager.  We give this production today @ 2:00 pm and then tomorrow at 10:00 am.  This will wrap it up and life will go back to a more normal pace.  I’ll be glad for that.   But, having this simple but critical message being given to all the ones attending and watching on-line is worth every ounce of preparation! 

As I begin the book in the Bible of Luke I come across the word “ponder” several times.  It is what Mary does with all that is being revealed to her from the angel sent to her, what she hears as she visits Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mom; what the shepherds tell and the wise men from the East and so much more. 

I like the word ponder and I enjoy the experience of pondering.  It is much the same as reflecting.  When I reflect on the work I do in education I have a starting place:  it is usually the same one–“is the work impacting students’ learning?”  If it is, how effective is the learning?  If it isn’t, then we go deeper into the analysis to see where the gaps are which need to be addressed.

This morning there seemed to be a continual focus on children in my devotional reading and then again in my bible reading.  Jesus wasn’t always an adult.  He had to grow into adulthood.  I’m convinced that Mary’s pondering from the first revelation of her becoming pregnant to his going into the wilderness to be tempted helped her to know how to come along side of him as a parent. 

Now that I’m a grandparent I often ponder the ways to best come along side of my grandkids.  As I was journaling about this earlier I sensed God’s Spirit saying to keep the foundation clear.  There is so much garbage in today’s world which Satan would use and does use to confuse children.  He is a master of deception.  As grandpa I can watch and listen for this deception and help my grandkids see confusion for what it is and the Light of Jesus for what it is.  It is fun to buy things for the kids and see that momentary excitement, but it is so much more rewarding to see them following Jesus in their lives and wanting to do so. 

Today’s devotional started with the verse Hosea 6:6.  It reads, “For I desire loyalty and not sacrifice; the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”  I have read this before and thought I knew what it meant.  God wanted me to be loyal to him and know Him so all I did for Him would please Him because I was being obedient to Him. 

Today, having experienced the past couple weeks of genuine awakening, I read this and know now what I’ve always missed.  God wants loyalty to Him meaning commitment to Him.  He wants knowledge of Him and not burnt offerings which we call “service or obligations, etc.  In the past couple of weeks I’ve begun to realize that knowing God is all about the fulfillment of relationship with Him.  I never realized until now how much bondage I was still in due to trying to find acceptance from my mom and dad; acceptance from God.  The clarity I now see about my fighting to be accepted and have been able to  finally release has given me abundant freedom to understand how I’ve transferred all of this about mom and dad to my relationship with God.  Now that I KNOW this for my mom and dad, I KNOW this for my relationship with God.  Loyalty to God doesn’t mean “earning the right to His Love”. 

I’ve served God in man’s eyes (my eyes) all my life.  I have loved God but I’ve never truly known (believed) He loves me until I’ve now been able to quit fighting the inner battle of being accepted by Him.  I can now receive God without expecting to “earn the right for His Love”.  This is foundational truth about God our Father and now I finally see it, believe it and know it.  No more sacrifices for God trying to earn anything.  What I do for Him is out of sheer love and deep loyalty for His abundant GRACE and MERCY.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a “new creation”?  I’ve spent an entire 68.5 years wondering this.  Today is the first day I’ve set down to have my devotions knowing I’m a new creation rather than wondering when it would finally arrive.  When someone asks me the retorical question–“How are you?”  I tell them I’m old and special.  I say the old is the description of my age and the special is the description of the “short bus” I rode.  In reality I’ve always thought I was on the “short bus” of living life.  This line I’ve used has been a way of bring laughter into the saddness of my heart. That is no longer true for me.

For so long Kathy and I have tried to help our kids live their lives successfully and to know God well, seeing how He fits into the daily living of their lives.  This morning I am seeing how much we have interferred rather than helped them find God.  Our “doing” too often only helps them see us rather than helps them see God.  God is waiting to “use all things” to bring them to Him and we are trying to do the same thing but when we do it of our motivation rather than God’s, we interfere.  We can only know this interference when we ourselves take a step back and take a look at the present through the lense of God’s Holy Spirit.  Our human eyes want to see what we want to have happen.  God is saying to step back and take a look through His lense so we can better see what He wants to have happen.  It is then we can know His nudge to join HIm if He is asking us to do so.

Our Christmas program we are doing this weekend has a wonderful message of God’s Holy Spirit working and the key people He has asked to join Him.  If you are close by, come see this first hand.  It will be a good time to let God embrace you with His loving arms.  Friday night @ 7:00; Saturday afternoon @ 2:00 or Sunday morning @ 10:00.   

Well, the journey sure does continue.  This morning God is still showing me what I’ve not been seeing due to this mountain range called Unbelief being removed.  In my Bible reading I read Mark 14.  In this chapter Christ is betrayed by Judas with his kiss; he was betrayed by Peter with his denial, and he was betrayed by all the other disciples by their absence when Christ needed them most.  Christ had told them they do this, they denied they would and then they did just what Christ told them they would and they said they wouldn’t.  In spite of all of this, Christ died for us anyway to once and for all destroy the fatal grip of sin.

This morning as I was reading all of this I couldn’t help but sense just how much we betray or deny Christ in our daily living.  Each and every time we avoid the nudging of The Holy Spirit within we deny an opportunity.  We make all kinds of excuses why we would not act on a nudge, but no matter what they are, when The Holy Spirit nudges and we don’t act, we betray and deny.  Boy, I don’t want to be in this arena any longer.

As I began my journaling this morning I was compelled to write about grieving.  Christ grieved in the garden while his disciples slept and the one was arousing the arresting troops. I grew up a grieving child wishing I could live in another family where I would be loved and understood.  This morning however, my grieving was done.  Today I saw a different side of mom.  I saw what I had seen as a child and this time I saw it with belief and meaning.  Mom use to go into her bedroom after lunch and close the door.  She’d be alone for quite some time.  I remember asking her more than once what she did?  She just would say she was praying.  This morning God helped me to see that today’s victories and freedom from the bondage of sin are a direct result of mom’s praying.  Mom did what she knew she could do.  Now that my view only seeing unbelief is gone, I see what I now can believe.  I see a praying mom whose prayers are being answered. 

All this time my fighting to be good enough, to be valuable, to be affirmed was simply waiting for me to awaken to the fact that I was the one who didn’t think I could be loved, valuable, affirmed.  God, making me a new creation and I finally believing it, has totally changed what I can see and believe. 

I just want to end today’s blog with:  “Thank you Father God, thank you Jesus Christ, thank you Holy Spirit, and thank you mom!”

How much God has wanted me to learn about the impact of my dear mother on my life!  Yesterday we had a couple over after church.  This couple is dear to both Kathy and me.  As the day moved on I began to share with them about our recovery classes and the impact they are having on the ones attending.  In so doing I shared about my current awakening to my need for addressing the depth of hurt I’ve buried for so long within me regarding mom.  I didn’t read my journal entry from yesterday, but I was able to communicate it.  Even Kathy was unaware as we hadn’t had the time to talk and she hadn’t read my blog from yesterday.  It was good for me to verbalize what at that point had only been written.

I keep wanting what I’ve done to be the end of the journey’s work.  Spending so much time on “self” seems so selfish!  But I’ve sure learned that outwardly we look selfish if we don’t inwardly address the needs we house.  This morning I found myself awake at 4:00 am knowing it’s time to get up and address more that God had for me to understand.  I actually reread Mark 11:22-26.  It is all about addressing the mountains blocking us.  God has known all along I would someday need to address this mountain of unbelief He’d removed from me.  Now it was time for me to finally see and address what He wanted.  The amazing discovery this morning was seeing myself. 

In the process of addressing my brother and the impact of his sin/abuse to me; addressing my dad and the impact of his abuse; now addressing the absence/neglect/silence of my mom, I finally see me.  The person God created me to be is what is left.  All the characteristics He gave me are still within me.  The personality He gave me is still in tact.  The gifts/talents He gave me are still present.  God is showing me that when all the past is removed (this mountain of deception Satan has wanted to desperately keep in place) I am a creation of God.  I’m not some ego-driven snob as dad would have had me believe I was becoming.  I’m not a “girl” because I have some feminine strengths like sensitivity, enjoys some crafts, liking to cook, etc.  I am what God made me.  I am not what dad was trying to make me not to be.

I believe my most striking revelation this morning when I’d finally finished journaling was what I saw with this mountain removed.  I saw my Creator.  I don’t mean I saw this distinct figure.  But I saw a presence which had nothing blocking us.  I could spiritually embrace Him and let Him embrace me.  I didn’t need to hide anything I am because He was the One who created me with all of this.  He just wanted me to know I was good in letting man see all of me too.  The stuff of my past need not make me hide anything any longer!  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Boy, this journey is not letting up one iota.  This present issue regarding my mom and me has finally come to a head.  The last couple mornings I’ve awoke at 5:00 am and there was to be no more sleep.  In getting up I found God ready to awaken me to a good deal of recovery I hadn’t wanted to face.  Of course, this has been all about my wonderful mother. 

As I was having my devotional reading the Blackaby’s were talking about every word of the Bible as being alive so don’t miss out on a single word of it!  As I began my Bible reading in Mark 11 I could see why.  The 23rd verse has Christ saying: “Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea!’ and does not doubt at all in his heart but believes that what he says will take place, it will be done for him.”  At this point I knew God was telling me I had to have a conversation with mom that I figured could wait until I was in heaven with her.  I learned how to have these conversations like this while in counseling/therapy and did this with dad more than once, but mom???

I got my journal and began to write out everything I needed to have this little boy in me tell his mom.  I had thought this little guy was all grown up having worked through so much with dad and my brother Rich along with God.  However, what I had never done and never wanted to do was have this talk with her letting her know how this little boy Earnie needed his mother’s touch and words of affirmation.  It has helped me tremendously to know that mom’s neglect did not categorize her as an abuser like dad.  It was that her silence did its damage to me similarly to dad and Rich’s abuse. 

I’m not going to go into all that I needed to write to mom and all that I heard her say in return, but I will say that we had a wonderful conversation which helped me release a ton.  This faith of a mustard seed removing mountains has been moving spiritual mountains like I’ve never known.  How little I’ve understood that spiritual mountains were blocking my view of God’s complete healing.  Of course now that I’m where I am I can easily see Satan’s deception throughout this. 

God is so faithful and I want to be faithful in return through obedience to His Holy Spirit’s leading in my life!