Today is the birthday of my oldest daughter. I so well remember this exciting day. 49 years ago today was a Sunday and my wife went into labor while we were on our way to church. We were advised to go home and begin to count the minutes between contractions. By early afternoon we were in the hospital and Amy was born that night at 7:58 pm. The rest–well it is her story. I just know what a gift from God she is and always has been!

Early last evening I went to see the movie The Forge with a couple of friends. My goodness, if you haven’t seen it, please make time to go. It is one of the finest discipleship movies ever made if not the best. Don’t let the opportunity to see it slip by.

This morning I will be meeting with the small group of men doing the curriculum Every Man a Warrior. Today’s lesson is all about sexual purity. The young man leading today has had his own struggle and the struggle has its own story in his life. I’m praying that the Grace and Mercy of God will show forth in abundant ways as we go into it in just one more hour. God is always amazing in the way He makes our mess into His message. I have a sense this morning’s lesson will be one of those steps. How I love and trust our Father!

We are about to complete our 16th year of Celebrate Recovery mid-September. Last night was the 24th lesson for the year with only one more lesson and testimony to go. The lesson 24 is entitled–YES. It’s message is our learning to say YES to God in regards to serving Him when we are nudged to do so. Any important yes for CR is the yes to giving one’s testimony for the work God has done to bring you out of the darkness you hide into the Light of Jesus. The simple meaning of saying YES to Jesus is important and I’ve always agreed to it.

Last night something else stood out to me about the YES message. What hit me was what I said yes to before CR and what I now say yes to subsequent to CR. I’ve always been a person who would most often agree to do what I was asked to do in serving God. BUT, if I were to have been asked to share my story I was hiding prior to CR, I would have said NO loudly. There was no way I was going to let that part of me be known to the world around me. The message last night was an important one for me to realize what saying YES to God is like when I take myself out of the control seat.

I use to say yes to God when it felt good to me. I thought that was right and what I should do. Today I realize God is asking/nudging because it will complete a work He wants done by me. It may not “feel good” at the moment, but in saying yes and doing it, I then realize how important it truly is. It is then the “good feeling” comes. It is so much richer to know one is completing God’s purpose rather than one’s own purpose.

I’m getting a very slow start this morning. But, this doesn’t mean anything except it’s slow. It is actually nice that I can focus on things I want to get done at home and in the afternoon I shift to counseling and then Celebrate Recovery. It is nice to have the time to just do what I like when I’m home–yard and garden!

Yesterday was an amazing day with some eye-opening experiences with the counseling sessions. I love how God helps those who need to see His Light shining through their darkness. These were the exact words of one who has only been coming for three sessions. It is such a privilege to get to take part in this Kingdom work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Each Saturday morning I have a small group of men who meet going through the curriculum, Every Man a Warrior. We are just two lessons from finishing the three workbook series. The intent of the curriculum is equipping men to be warriors able to fight any battle man’s selfishness faces and those Satan puts before us. Along with this, one is able to help others do the same taking them through the curriculum. The lesson for this Saturday I did earlier this week and it addresses sexual purity. It has a statement in the reading portion that I haven’t been able to shake. It reads, “Trust is a major building block for any good marriage. At some level, having sex before marriage erodes that sense of trust. Here’s why: Sex always gets stuck in the place where it was first started.”

I have struggled most of my life with that italicized statement. I have always loved my marital intimacy. But only in more recent years have I been free from the tormenting shame that would follow connecting directly to that statement. The roots of where sex first started for me were deeply rooted. Only a Savior and Lord could remove those roots and cleanse the place from its evil. Even then The Holy Spirit stands guard over it so the demons cannot return and re-inhabit it.

I’ve written so many times of my gratitude for just how amazingly loving and kind our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ is. He just never gives up on helping us become more and more like Him. Trusting Him, Believing Him, and keeping Faith alive in HIm. Wow! How fortunate we are!

Yesterday I wrote about the struggle I had been keeping within me. I had been nudged for a few months to tell my Celebrate Recovery sponsor, but I just wanted to keep it between Jesus and me. I think we call that man’s pride. I finally relented and told my sponsor what the battle is, as I blogged yesterday. Well, what was so amazing, but just as God always is, I had this wonderful devotional message that was telling how much God cares, but it requires us to be obedient to Him following His Holy Spirit nudges. James 5:16 addresses this in its message: “Confess your sins (struggles) to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

A few hours into the morning yesterday I received two text messages. I had been working in my yard pruning a couple of trees and shrubs so I could take the trimmings to our local landfill. When I had finished this and sat down to eat I saw the messages. One was from my prayer warrior and the other was from a teacher who worked for me for many years. Both messages were reinforcing what my own had been that morning in my devotional. God uses all of our trials to grow us into the likeness of His Son Jesus. These ladies knew nothing of this current struggle. They were just obeying what God had laid on their hearts that morning.

I will never cease to be amazed with just how faithful, loving and kind our Heavenly Father is!

I have been facing a battle for a few months now which I won’t give details to, but I have been needing to face it and not run from it. Yesterday I was journaling about it and I felt the nudge to tell my Celebrate Recovery sponsor. He doesn’t live locally any longer so we text a couple times a day in order to stay in touch with one another. Last night I did let him know of this. He actually didn’t see my message until early this morning when he responded with encouragement and prayer.

As I was journaling this morning and asked Jesus what He wanted me to know from HIm for today, His response was something I should have already known, but I hadn’t. He reminded me that I am no longer the old self He had already redeemed. I didn’t need to run to old habits/escape routes I’ve learned to use in my old self. He is always the answer and always will be.

Struggles always have a lesson right behind them which God wants to use for growing us. This morning I have had the lesson made very clear and I thank God once again for His loving kindness and clarity. God’s Freedom He gives is not for most things, it is for all things as we are reminded to give them to Him. What a wonderful Father our God is!

I don’t know how many times I have to read something before it finally sinks in. This morning while reading in Ezekiel I came upon the writing about Gog and Magog. I’ve read about these names scores of times and heard sermons on them for a lifetime. I knew that Russia was connected to the names, but for the first time today I find that Gog is referencing a leader of Magog. Gog is not a region, but the leader of the region Magog. Even in today’s reading it says in Ezekiel 39:1, “…I am against you oh Gog, chief prince of Meshach….” That should have been enough for me to know Gog is not a region but a man. Oh, well!

I’ve spent a lifetime learning to understand our God and all He is and is doing. From the most intricate parts of our lives to the magnitude of our universe, God is at the center of it all. How amazingly loving and caring our Father God is.

I don’t ever want to stop learning all that He wants me (us) to know regarding the immensity of His Love for His children. He wants us all with Him someday and this can start today. All we need to do to start this journey is ask His Son Jesus into our life. The journey then begins!

This morning’s scripture reading was in Ezekiel. I had stopped at the end of chapter 35 only to notice in the next chapter I had underlined a couple of verses from years back. As I read them they were the verses 26 & 27, ch. 36. It says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” I know in my autobiography I wrote about this message and its direct connection to the therapy I was getting at that time. It would have been in 2010 or 2011. I had always pictured my “clean heart” as the glistening, stainless steel milking bucket we had when I was growing up on the farm and we used it for milking the cows. This scripture pointed out that I was given a heart of flesh, not glistening steel which would be rigid. The footnote in my bible says a heart of flesh is pliable and teachable.

It has been more than a decade since I was give the promise of a heart of flesh. During this time I’ve learned that a heart of flesh feels like it never had before. It sees hurt and hurts with it. It feels pain but doesn’t have to own it. It discloses its own past pain to assure one in pain that it can be healed and used to help others. It senses God’s Spirit and desires to obey His nudges (selfishness does hinder at times and must daily be surrendered).

God is so AMAZING, LOVING and KIND as well as a multitude of other characteristics we would all benefit from not only receiving, but embracing. I never want a rigid heart as I found I had. I want to forever be pliable and teachable in this life of flesh. How I love our Father!

In Celebrate Recovery last night our two men’s groups met as one group. The leader of the other was gone which allowed ones like me to get better acquainted with these other men. I was broken hearted to hear them talk about their week. Three men are struggling to keep their marriages in tack. Actually, two of the three are in the process of divorce. As I heard this I couldn’t help but recall my own anguish when this time had occurred in my life many years ago.

My devotional message was centering on the devoted love God has for each of us and the enduring love He gives during our lifetime. When I was where these three men are in my first marriage, I thought I was getting what I deserved from God. I felt He wasn’t pleased with me and my “efforts” to serve Him. I just wasn’t worthy of His love. I know the lies I’ve needed to address in order to know God as described in today’s message. These men are lost in their beliefs about God and themselves and I pray they don’t have to live as long as I did to better understand this magnificent God Who created us.

Yes, these men have their past and they are seeking help to find the release from it’s bondage. God is faithful and they will make it through these times just as I did. God doesn’t abandon us in spite of what our “emotions” tell us. I pray these men can know this even today for God is Faithful and True!

This morning as I had finished my devotional time I was looking out the window of my den/study. Right outside of this window is a large flower bed where I’d planted a rosebush given to me when my dad had passed. I have to admit that I was bothered when this was given to me because the rose was white and I’d never thought of my dad as white (pure as the driven snow). So, I’ve always made somewhat of a joke out of this little fact–dad is now represented as a white rose? That’s funny!!

Truth be known, as I was looking out at it this morning I was hit with the truth only Jesus all of these years has been trying to get me to see. That truth–Dad was as white as the driven snow as God saw him. Dad had Jesus living in him and we know that when God sees us, He sees Jesus in us if we have asked Jesus into our lives.

I’ve judged my dad harshly over the years for all of the abuse his kids endured. Half of these kids are no longer on earth and they are with dad. As I was looking at 10+ rose buds emerging on dad’s rosebush, I for the first time saw dad as God saw him. I had forgiven dad years ago, but now I can actually see him as the redeemed man he was. It is amazing how gentle, but relentless Jesus is helping us to overcome all the hurdles in our lives we need to get over. Well, I’ve now jumped an important one for me. How good GOD is!