A couple months ago our choir director asked if I’d sing a solo portion in the song our choir is doing today in a couple hours. I said yes to her and have been nervous since. I’m told the song has a steady rhythm to it, but my senses don’t seem to pick up on it. I have listened and listened to it and can sing it just fine at home, but when choir time comes, my nerves take over. So, this morning is the time. I know God’s Holy Spirit will do His Work for Jesus is to be mightily Glorified. The song is “Midnight Cry”. I surrender!

Today is also the beginning of the last chapter in Mending the Soul class. The title of the chapter is “Forgiveness”. It is the final test–Are we able now to forgive? No matter what the abuse was, looked like, felt like, damaged our beliefs and so much more; am I able to forgive? We will be stepping into this today. I know God’s Holy Spirit has been at work with each of these men. I place my trust in Him for this is His Work. I know what He has done for me and I praise Him for this. To God be the GLORY!

This morning as I began to pray from my prayer list I circled the names of those who are having physical issues. My oldest sis is in hospice care, my sis just older than me is still in the hospital having had a stroke last weekend, my sis in law has been diagnosed with colon cancer and her surgery will be Dec. 16, my nephew is in Portland, OR having had a stem-cell transplant yesterday for a rare type of bone cancer, and our good friend is in Reno for breast cancer treatments. My heart has been heavy for them even though I know God is with each one of them and their closest family members who wish they could be with them, but in most cases can’t be due to current circumstances.

It was good to take a moment and circle each one of these names on my prayer list. I just wanted to tell God, “for heaven’s sake, just touch them and heal them?” However, God tenderly reminded me that He is in charge of each one and I can trust Him completely with His care for them. My oldest living sis who is in hospice care has said she is ready and wants to go. Her strength is gone and much of the time she isn’t with us anyway due to her dementia. This human side of life isn’t kind, but God has given us a promise I will cling to until I join Him. We have an eternal home with God our Father and I’m so grateful for this promise. It keeps perspective in place when all these physical ailments are tormenting us.

My journey’s message is just a confession today I needed to process here. Thanks for listening.

I wrote yesterday that God’s Word is speaking to me in clarity like I’ve not known before and that is true. Last night in our Celebrate Recovery lesson–TURN, the leader referenced I Corinthians 10:13 as a scripture she had to lean onto of late. It says, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man. And God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” I was a high schooler when this verse struck me and I learned it as a hope. In all honesty, I’ve battled with it all of my life since that time. Last night’s lesson brought it to the forefront again. So, this morning, I told God it was time for Him and me to work this through (as though I’m in control).

One more thing that happened last night was a man in our group had his first professional, Christian counseling session yesterday. He told his counselor about his porn addiction and the counselor told him that other things in his life were likely the driver behind this. He needed to address them at this time. It gave him hope because it exposed what he has been in denial about. Each counselor I’ve used has told me the same thing about the struggle I’ve had with porn. So this morning I decided to go back to I Corinthians 10 and read this chapter to see what God was saying that I was missing. In so doing God pointed out several “ways of escape” He is providing. I just need to choose them. Sounds simple, yet it still takes discipline to do this. My biggest struggle was the lie Satan has had me believing for so long that the water just runs too deep for you. This lie is so contrary to what the verse says. So today, I recognize the lie, reject it in Jesus’ Name and replace it God’s suggestions.

Satan has played this temptation with me all of my life but this morning God asked me to believe this time. I don’t have to fight this on my own. I know this, but I’ve struggled to believe it. Today, I believe!

There is so much in scripture I’ve read over the years that is only now starting to speak to me. When we begin to awaken to the Gift of the Spirit given to us by Jesus Christ when we accept Him into our lives, we can know and discern so much. Today in Ephesians 2 Paul is writing about our created purpose. When I was a child I would have fleeting moments of doing important things for God someday as I would live for Him. But, as life continued through my childhood I grew into only wanting to get through my years at home so I COULD live for God. Life was consumed by living for dad and enduring life with my abusive brother. In all of that I almost lost entirely the trust in living for God. I wanted so much for dad to see me as worthwhile even though I wasn’t good at the things he was. I learned to try and this transferred to trying to earn God’s favor.

Today, in reading Ephesians 1 & 2, I see again how God’s Spirit is opening the “eyes of my heart”. Chapter 1 vs 18 says, “By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints.” I know I can’t go back in time to shift my efforts then into my surrender so I could live with a greater assurance, but I am so grateful to be at a place today where I no longer crave to know God loves me and that what I do is completing His purpose for me being created. The “eyes of my heart” see God in His splendor and receive the GIFT of LOVE and ACCEPTANCE He offers.

The awakenings continue as I begin today with the book of Ephesians. I’ve always loved reading these books of insight Paul wrote to believers so long ago and yet, still are equally as meaningful for us today. However, there is a huge difference as I read them this time. I feel as though I’m reading them for the first time with eyes and ears hearing differently. I’ve always wanted these messages to be for me instead of hoping someday they would be. Then, this morning as I read Ephesians 1:17-18, it says, “I always pray the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints.”

Today, I read this scripture and know (rather than hope) that my heart does have eyes and ears to hear God’s wisdom. To know, no longer hope, that He loves me. I’ve always known this was true for you, I just hoped it would someday be true for me. Now, my heart’s eyes and ears are open and I no longer hope, I know by believing God’s Word this is true! What a wonderful, humbling message!

There are only 6 chapters in the little book of Galatians, but it is packed with spiritual substance I’ve known is important, but didn’t realize how deeply it needed to sink into me. A couple weeks ago I wrote a few entries into this blog regarding the song: The Refiner’s Fire. When the refiner is holding the silver to the fire he knows when it is finally refined. It is when he, the refiner, can see his image clearly in the silver. It is then he removes the heat. That is a gripping reality and one that Galatians leads us to.

In the 5th chapter Paul talks about the fruits of the Spirit. God is working to refine each of us so He can harvest these fruits from His Work being done in our lives. It is then that people see Christ in us–the genuine proof that The Holy Spirit does live within us–He is now seen through these fruits.

As Paul concludes the book with chapter 6, he addresses keeping our eyes on Jesus rather than on man. In so doing, we listen and respond to the nudges The Holy Spirit provides rather than what we might do in order to “be seen or noticed by man”. Right in the first verse of chapter 6 we are told to come along side of one who is stepping into sin–stumbling with their walk with God. In so doing we must be very careful, the verse says, so we don’t fall into the same trap. Satan is always alive and well in attempting to divert our attention to selfishness even for a moment.

This journey of life walking with God is not done without God’s Gift of His Son living in us and The Gift of His Holy Spirit infilling us so we can live this life bearing the Fruit of God’s Spirit. Wow! This is powerful!

Today, this very morning, The Holy Spirit is awakening an understanding about Him and me which I have never seen with such clarity until now. In the 5th chapter of Galatians Paul is writing to clarify the difference between living in the Spirit vs living in the law. I have literally read this hundreds of times and I have no less than 6-8 bibles highlighted, underlined and starred with my notes. Yet, all of this time I’ve read what this has said and turned it into a “law”.

I am naturally a person needing to develop a habit in order to keep order in my life. Getting up early each day in order to start my day with God is a habit, getting to work on time or before time is a habit, the routine of getting prepped for work or simply the day is a habit, prepping for a singing event is a habit, etc. What I’d never awakened to is that a habit can easily be a law rather than a gift from the Spirit. The steps we learn to take in Celebrate Recovery can easily be translated into laws if one is not careful. We can take each and every step and still be as lost as we were before. In my case, I was even more lost after my first year of CR. I was not only still as much in bondage after “completing the steps”, but I felt as though now everyone knows it so I must quit–I’m just a “failure”. I have no freedom–just more bondage.

What The Holy Spirit is teaching me today is the need to awaken in me the part I’ve never known to do–trust– trust my own spirit with Him. I’ve wanted confidence within me, not TRUST with Him–that was too risky. In trying to have this confidence in me, I was relying on the laws of man–prep, prep and prep. Then, I’d ask God to use me well. Today I realize that prep is good, but TRUST is the final piece of obedience I often left out. Living by the Spirit of God rather than the steps of man is something I want to get better at doing. Today will be a good time to start.

Between yesterday and today I have had such a heaviness for family. My sis Bonnie in California is back in the hospital. They don’t know if she had a seizure, stroke or something else, but she had been down for many hours before she was found by her older son. I talked to all of them last night a couple of times and it is yet to be determined. One of my nephews is headed to Portland today for his stem-cell transplant this coming Friday. He is admitted into the hospital tomorrow for the preparations. My sister in law is going into the hospital tomorrow here locally for a growth in her upper colon/lower intestines. A friend’s dad died over the weekend and another friend is in Reno having breast cancer treatment. All of these very close to me are needing assurance that God is their Comforter and Healer.

For a moment this morning I needed God to remind me He Is GOD. He did just that! He is not only God, but He is also my dearest Friend who lives within me and around me. This isn’t just true for me but it is true for everyone of my family members, friends and all others who have invited Him into their lives. What a wonderful assurance and comfort this is. Today, I TRUST in our ALMIGHTY GOD!

The trip is done and I got home last night a little before 1:00 am. It was a whirlwind, but very profitable. All day long yesterday I kept thinking about what God has been revealing about flesh-living vs spirit-living as Paul talks about in Galatians. The superintendent and secondary principal are both Christians desiring to live fully devoted to God’s leadership in their lives. As I was modeling how to conduct a difficult conversation with a teacher who doesn’t want to change how they teach to better reach their students, I simply let go of my old need to have a list of questions I’d created ahead of time to ask. I simply relied on the questions that came to me as the teacher and I conversed. The principal and vice principal took notes while this happened. I knew when I was finished because I felt my mind and spirit relax. The seeds for the need of change had been planted and now it is time for them to be given opportunity to grow.

As I reflected with the principal about the process of confrontational conversations, she asked where my questions and responses originated? She went on to say she needed a list to work from. She had taken notes on what had been said, but where is my list? I assured her I use to work from a list, but I am learning to trust God’s Spirit to provide His questions I should be asking and the responses He wants given. My biggest step has been learning to trust God’s Spirit and to surrender my need to have my “flesh ready”–my mind.

There is one more discovery I’m finding about this surrender of flesh. God is in all aspects of our living. I use to do my church work to please God hoping He would also help me in my secular work and would find me worthy of His help because I’d done this and that for Him at church. This wouldn’t necessarily be in the forefront of my mind, but when I came upon difficult situations at work, I’d remind God I’d tried to be faithful to Him so would He help me out. Only now am I becoming much more awake to God’s Spirit working wherever He places me. It is humbling and so gratifying to begin to understand this.

It has been quite a while since I’ve needed to improvise on my day-to-day living preparations. But, now having my luggage delivered yesterday so I could change my clothes and actually prepare with the things I’m used to having, makes me realize how good we have it here in America. The messed-up day I had Wednesday can be let go.

I’m reading in Galatians now for my Bible reading. Today has been chapters 2 & 3. In it, Paul is teaching them that to live for God we must learn to let go of living in the flesh and making decisions in the flesh thinking we are doing God’s will in this fashion. It struck me just how often I do this. I may think I’m living for God, but every time I get frustrated with the way something is going it is then that I can realize the frustration is about my doing the work in my own thinking rather than relying on The Holy Spirit’s nudges and obeying them. The frustrations of Wednesday were only frustrations because of my own flesh. God knew I was going to still be doing the work He had laid out for this trip. I still needed to simply rely on my faith in Him. It has been exactly that too as I spent my time here. Today I will finish with the last school and close the day with the superintendent before heading back to the airport. I’m going to purposefully do it in more faith than I have before. Spirit-filled living is truly all about living by faith and learning to let go of flesh is the huge step I’m still learning.