This journey of mine is about to be a quarter of a century. Tomorrow I turn 75. It was 9 years ago on March 14th that I wrote the first entry for this blog. I had published the book, The Journey From Error to Heir, the previous year with it coming out in August of 2015. After several months I was prompted to write this blog as I was finding my journey sure didn’t end just because the book was finished. God had much He was still doing to bring me closer to Him, particularly in the area of knowing/trusting Him fully.
The last section of my book was titled, Finding Freedom. Today, if I were to write a new section, it would be called Living in Freedom. I have found that Freedom is never found until one BELIEVES. I have truly found freedom in Christ like I never thought possible as I look back at my first 60 years. Even after starting Celebrate Recovery almost 18 years ago, freedom was still being “found”. Once I learned to believe, there it was, right in front of me, waiting for me to welcome it and embrace it–believing! Today, living in it is such a continuous GIFT.
I will not be continuing this daily blog after today. I’m not sure what I will be doing with it. I may have entries here and there. I just know that the daily ones are no longer a nudge from God for me. I’ve loved writing these. It has done so much more for me personally. Somehow, writing them each morning has helped to solidify for me what scripture has promised over and over! God bless all of you readers. God has purpose and meaning for each one of us! His Works never end in reaching His kids!
As June is wrapping up I have learned to put worship music to play as I have my devotional time with God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit. Right now I am hearing “It Is Finished”. I AM FREE! It is resounding in singing words and music. The battle is over and I am no longer the prisoner who didn’t know the battle had been won for I am well aware of my own battle now being won.
For way too many years I fought this battle on my own not wanting the battle to be known. I thought I had so much to lose if people knew. Oh, but how much this was a lie only Satan believed and planted in me. Once I began to take steps into this lie did I find such glorious freedom from it. I never lost a single friend from this becoming known, but I gained a ministry full of friends I’d never know otherwise. Best of all, I found a Savior and Lord for my time on earth. I only knew Jesus before as my Savior providing a means to heaven upon death. There is a life of beauty right here on earth I have found. It not only includes my Savior and Lord, but His GREAT GIFT–THE HOLY SPIRIT! And then, to find a FATHER who loved me like I never knew possible!
Oh my word, what a life God has for each one of us. All we have to do is take that first step towards Him believing with the faith of a mustard seed.
“Holy Are You Lord” is playing in the background as I begin to write today’s entry. It just makes me joyous all through my system for HOLY is our LORD! What an honor we have to serve Him, obey Him, receive the blessings He bestows. Knowing all of this, after so many years of questioning Him, wanting to trust Him but seemingly being overlooked in so doing, I just cannot find words to tell how much my heart rejoices. I love this HOLY LORD named JESUS! I choose to live fully for HIM!
A young man in his late teens is coming for counsel. He started only a few weeks ago. He made a statement that keeps stirring in my mind. He said that his drive to quit using porn was because his parents had both told him it was wrong to do this. He then said that he wanted to find his own reason/s for quitting. He didn’t want to live his life with boundaries set by his parents. He wanted to have his own that he created for himself. He was struggling to find any good reason to quit other than what his parents told him. When I asked what he knew that God’s Word with this topic, he quoted scripture about lust and sexual purity. I asked if these had any influence on his thinking? Is it possible he is simply trying to justify his own flesh desires? He said he was going to think about all of this.
It was good to hear the voice of a developing mind. One that is growing now into its own. In hearing him, I was reminded so well of those years for myself. This topic for me was so influenced by homosexual use of me that I mostly thought of sex as abuse and what was I suppose to do with it from a “Godly standpoint”? Those years are all behind me now, but this young man is just entering into this time in his life. Learning to listen and respond to that voice of intuition–God’s Holy Spirit was going to be a new discipline to learn and respect. In so doing, this will replace the voice of mom and dad’s voiced boundaries. He can trust this Voice of God within him.
Hearing God’s Voice and knowing it from any other voice is truly a blessing God gives to each one of us.
This morning’s devotional message centered around our need to praise God even in our times of torment. It goes on to talk about the impact or praise has on the “spiritual realm”. I was stricken by this message bringing out the significance of the spiritual realm. I’ve written in several blog entries about my desire to learn and believe a good deal more about the spirit world. The fact that God is Spirit, He gives us the Holy Spirit and Christ lives in this spiritual realm upon His resurrection as Spirit, makes this realm critically important for us. The other critical component to this is that Satan and all his minions are spirit.
Our earthly realm is occupied with this spiritual realm, but heaven is only occupied with the purity of this realm–sin doesn’t exist there as it does here on earth. It is in this spiritual realm that our battles are fought and won. The devotional message said we barely see this realm while on earth, so believing it is so important. I Corinthians 13:12 says, “we see darkly” while here on earth. We are so dominated by our flesh. FAITH enters this realm for us as a critical component.
The last piece of this for me is found in the word “realm”. The first four letters spell REAL. I struggled for most of my life wanting to believe all of this was real for me. These past 10+ years of my life have proven over and over for me the REAL in spiritual realm and how God through Jesus has fought these battles for me and WON! How much I love Him for all of this and His patience in helping me come to this point of believing in my life today.
I don’t know, well I do know, that when we get to the age I am things we don’t like to admit begin to happen (quite frequently). Things like, “where did I put that?’, “I said what?”, “you gave that to me?”, “I don’t recall saying that.” This list could go on for a long time but I’m finding that I spend time almost daily addressing one or more of these. God assures me that He is with me just as He has always been. I guess He just smiles as I address these!
It doesn’t matter how much I flounder at times, God still seems to work through them to get done what He wants each day to contain. I love living for Him. I think this must be why He created humor so we can laugh about all of this rather than cry! GOD IS GOOD!
For most of my life I’ve heard about being a new creation when one asks Christ into their life. I must say however, that the knowing of this is completely different thaN the believing it for oneself. Even more mysterious has been how one lives as this new creation way.
This morning, after having reread what I had journaled yesterday and had written in the blog, I stopped. In my journal I had written that my own pride often interfered with living in total commitment to God. One wants a “little selfishness” once in a while. Well, this morning as I read this in my journal, I instantly was stricken that a new creation has given this selfish act up. I always had seen my father as a man of wicked pride. I’ve never wanted this to be me. Yet, this morning as I journaled I had to admit my own pride was selfish just as dad’s was. A new creation has pride, but it looks much more like the Godly pride scripture talks about–“God was pleased”. God saw all that He had created in ch. 1 of Genesis and He was pleased. His pride is GOOD.
A new creation not only is one who believes, but also knows how to walk in the freedom God gives us. When temptation comes to be selfish I can resist because I am more anchored in my newness than I am in my old selfishness. Living this out is “one day at a time, one moment at a time” as is so nicely put in The Serenity Prayer. HOW GOOD OUR GOD IS!
This post may seem odd to anyone who has never had any therapy for PTSD. I had 3+ years of it and this mornings devotional time had a moment of it reoccuring. I was journaling about some changes I’d like to have made in our counseling ministry I work with. I presently do the scheduling for all four of us who counsel and it has become more than I’m good at handling. I’ve never been a good secretary for myself as well as for anyone else. The burden of this has been a playground for Satan to try and use.
When I was in therapy I learned to use my non-dominate hand to give my young self voice. I’d put my pen in my right hand (I’m left-handed) and give him a chance to speak his questions and then I’d respond to them writing with my left hand. I did this exercise faithfully for well over a year. This allowed my young self to emotionally mature into myself of today.
As I journaled earlier I was prompted to put my pen in my right hand for there was another voice wanting to speak to me. It turned out to be the voice of my spirit. He was telling me that I didn’t need to listen to my mind ruled by my flesh. That mind had lots of conflicting voices. I needed to listen to my spirit. This is where God’s Spirit resides and He wants me free of my old voices so learn to listen first and foremost to my spirit where God’s Voice speaks. God wants our counseling ministry to complete His purpose for it. I just need to talk to the right people at church.
I know this likely sounds odd, but I needed to hear this today. God’s work is so AMAZING!
As I have been experiencing worship this morning during my devotional time, I have over and over been deeply touched by God’s Spirit’s presence. Then, when I asked Jesus what He wanted me to know from Him for today, He tied His message to the worship song playing at the moment. The song was “There Is a River”. Our quartet has sung this many times over the years. The lyrics say, There is river that flows from deep within…. I heard the Spirit’s voice speak saying this river flows not from deep within me, but from deep within God Himself to me. He went on to say that the emptiness within me left from sin’s destruction is waiting to be filled with the healing beauty of God’s Spirit, God’s purpose, God’s Love, His Forgiveness and Grace. This is God’s Mercy at work in you.
Well, I had to quit writing for a minute as all of this has welled up once again within me. God’s Spirit’s Voice went onto say that I needed to let this truth be known to the scores of folks coming for help each week. This River of God’s Deep Love flows directly from Him to us. He so wants us to receive it and let it cleanse us from the lies sin’s deceiver has attempted to have us believe about ourselves and about others. This River flows directly to us from God’s own PURITY. Nothing can stand in its way if we will simply allow the walls we have built to crumble and let this PURITY cleanse and replace all of sin’s damage with this MERCY, LOVE and PURPOSE from GOD HIMSELF!
I’m at my daughter’s place waiting for my two youngest granddaughters to awaken so I can take them to our home. Parents are gone for the morning and I’m the substitute. Grandma gets them as I do a couple of sessions and then I return to help out. They are fun to have.
God has a kind way of bringing this added joy to grandma and grandpa’s lives!
Earnie Lewis 