Today is my daughter Amber’s birthday and we arrive in Oklahoma City at 1:00 pm. I’m sure she knows our arrival we will be her best birthday present! Ha!

The journey of life, when it is no longer ours to plan, but ours to complete with God’s leading, takes a daily/continuous reminding for me. I so often forget in a day that I’m on assignment for God and that He has already orchestrated the steps I’m to take. The details of being gone for a week leave me thinking its easier to stay home, yet as the tasks needing done get addressed, I find they are easily addressed. How human this new creation called “me” is and how much I have to daily surrender and be reminded that I no longer need to take charge.

God is so GOOD!

Yesterday morning I met with a young man for a couple hours. He had contacted me a week ago having been given my book. He had read it and wanted to talk. His story has some parallels to my own. He is already attending Celebrate Recovery in his town and seeing a counselor. He is in a step study and preparing to do his inventory. I write all of this because in doing these things there is the nagging fear that “I am being too exposed” and “what don’t I remember that is going to come up and I’d wished I’d never started this process!” I was pleased to see that he is taking such big steps and he is younger than I was when I started seeking help. These fears are only fears for as he takes the steps he will find new support and continued Light from God for taking the next ones. For me personally it was good to relive in my own mind the anxiousness I lived through only to find love, kindness and support as I finally took each step. This is still true for today.

Kathy and I leave for Oklahoma City tomorrow to be with our daughter’s family there for a week. I’ll be giving my testimony to her church’s recovery group. I’ve given it a couple times when they first started. What I look forward to the most is simply being with the group again. Each year we go to their group while visiting and I find it just doesn’t matter where we are, when you are in a Celebrate Recovery group, you find new “family members”.

God is so good when we finally give Him a chance to prove His Love for us. Taking each day as a day on assignment with Him is amazing. The anxiousness is largely gone when I go into this as God’s new creation, rather than the old self still attempting to prove his worthiness somehow to a God who gave him his worthiness already by adopting him into His Kingdom Family.

It is simply amazing to me how endlessly patient God is with me (us) waiting for us to turn to Him and finally give all to Him. Revelation’s reading this morning talks about the churches becoming lukewarm in their relationship with God and His Kingdom Work. They still supported Christ but their passion was dead. Their lives had once again turned back to themselves. As I read this God began to show me how in living each day there are the moments when we are challenged by whatever does challenge us and immediately our response is to defend, protect, guard ourselves. There are a multitude of ways we do this but none are God’s Ways. He even went so far as to show me that as a child the situations which attacked me were called abuse and I learned several “character traits” to shield me from the pain. Now that I’m an older man these traits are called “defects”. They keep me from being fully open to complete God’s Kingdom Work He has for me. My role is no longer to question, defend, protect, guard myself from these God nudges, but to fulfill them.

Somehow, I think the lukewarm behavior we Christians fall into stem from our eyes turning back to self. The new creation God has made us to be has eyes for Him and Him alone. I’ve asked God to not quit revealing to me these defects I possess until I have them surrendered and buried at the foot of the Cross where Christ did His Work for each one of us–me included.

Today I began the book of Revelation. It is an amazing book with so much depth of understanding needed, one can’t fathom all that is contained in it. Yet, I appreciate what Joyce Meyers says in the preface. “Don’t worry so much about what you don’t understand, trust God to reveal it as time unfolds. Pay attention to what you do understand and live it.”

As Revelation begins John is being informed to write letters to the 7 cities. In the letters he is to commend them for what they’ve done, but to focus on what has become shallow. At first I wasn’t sure how this applied to me but it didn’t take long for God to start connecting some dots which led to me. Way back in the first books of the Bible man was given the 10 Commandments. The first one was “to have no other gods before ‘Me’.” This morning I found God asking me what gods I still have before Him? My initial response was none and then I was nudged to look at myself. God began to clarify that man was a self-centered ego which is innate in him. It is easy for Satan to influence it as we can feel so right about satisfying our ego. For me, satisfying my ego to “do well what I do for God” is still about me if I’m doing it so I feel better rather than doing it for the sole purpose of honoring God’s nudges. When I’m nudged and I don’t want to do it, I pause, procrastinate, question God, and I don’t do it because “I” don’t feel right about it. God seemed to be saying it is time for me to surrender this god call “me”. This is when complete trust in HIM will begin. My first response when I saw this was that I have to do this frequently for my self-centeredness flares each time I think I’m at risk in completing a nudge. However, God continued to clarify that this is what serving Him is all about–continually surrendering.

Living the life of a new creation seems at first somewhat like a panacea of endless love and kindness. How quickly I forget I live in a broken world and the grip of human nature will not be broken until death and I am no exception. I so want to serve God well and learn to quickly obey Him removing me from the equation.

It was odd yesterday morning as I had my devotional time. It was good but my spirit was troubled. I couldn’t connect it to anything tangible. I simply went into the day just wondering? As I left last night to go to choir I had chalked it up to just being me. Half way through choir I received two phone calls from the same person. My phone was turned off but with my hearing aids I still hear the phone ring because the aids are bluetooth and pick up the phone. After the 2nd call I stepped out to see if there were a problem. I found that it was a good thing I had. I left and went to address it. Today we are dealing with the fallout of it. I’m praying for God’s leadership in it and also praying I only step into what is mine to do as God would lead. It is so easy to overstep bounds at times like this.

I’ve been praying for a while that God would do whatever needs to be done in the case of above. I’m still doing just that and praising Him for what I do not see or know. Living as a new creation helps me to believe God is doing what He does best and I can trust that rather than fear it. How I love HIM!

Yesterday was a good but troubling day. Church was great as usual. I came home after first service and quickly ate. Another man from our Celebrate Recovery was coming after 2nd service to share his inventory with me. This is a tough step and I knew we’d need time and I wanted to be ready. It is always amazing to see just what God has done in a person’s life and is continuing to do. This man’s story proved this once again. He will be co-leading a new step study starting in a few weeks. He has done a couple step studies already but had not completed sharing his inventory until now. It is so good to see and know how faithful our God is.

As he was leaving my oldest grandson drove in. I’d invited him to come for supper and he came a couple hours early which was nice so we could have time to visit. He is doing well after having had knee surgery a couple weeks ago. The physical therapist says he’s healing well ahead of schedule. Even though our time was great, my spirit has been troubled since. I know this has to do with unfinished business. I’ve always been one to have things in life squared away by the time you leave a situation. However, I certainly know this can’t be the case when there are other people involved. You can only take care of your part. I realize God is teaching me to live by His Spirit within me and not my own. His Spirit is patient and kind as the fruit of the Spirit are outlined. I need to surrender my spirit and will to Him in all things.

God is always working I know. Intentionally living as a new creation for God is requiring me to identify God’s Spirit within me and my own will. Separating this out is like a whole new assignment in living. I can’t be good at something until I face it and this I’m starting to do. God is faithful and true just as His Word says. I’m very grateful for this.

If you really want to see the ugliness of flesh, start working on your spiritual side. For months I’ve wanted to be more awake to the spiritual being God created in me. I know God is Spirit and He gives me The Holy Spirit to live within me. Being awake and fully awake to this truth is what I’ve desired. Our flesh, selfish being, is so dominant it is hard to separate this out. This book I’m reading: The Spiritual Man is like a paradox. Man is flesh while God is Spirit. Sin awoke flesh and it remains awake until death to flesh. What is being brought to the forefront of my awakening is this intense battle between flesh (will) and spirit–The being of God. Our flesh doesn’t want to be in second place to spirit so the battle is always present within. This is what I am awakening to as I consciously focus on growing my intent on being a spiritually focused person.

Being a new creation is all about living spiritually focused. I know I want this to be the driver in me. There is a song I heard Friday night on The Gaither Gospel Hour. It is sung by 7 men and is entitled, I Then Shall Live. The tune is from the old hymn, Be Still My Soul. The words are written by Gloria Gaither. My spirit cries out as I listen to it. I’d like our quartet to sing it but I think I’d just blubber through it each time. You can hear it on YouTube.

God is so, so Good. How I want to serve Him well.

GOD IS LOVE! What is love? What/Who is God? LOVE & GOD are ONE. I’m reading I John right now. The book of John is known to be the book which describes Jesus as Love. Well, the three small books of John also dwell much on the topic of LOVE. In my person I’ve always thought of love more as doing loving things. However, in John he tells: GOD IS LOVE. The very character of God is what Love is. Yes, God does loving things, but whatever God does is love. The discipline of God is love just as the kindness of God is love.

This really hits home for me because in man’s interpretation, if one does something which seems confrontational, it isn’t considered love. It might be delivered in love, but the receiver didn’t like it. However, if truth is behind it and it awakens one to a Godliness absent before it and God has nudged you to confront, then we wait to let God do His loving part. We are simply to do our part.

I have so much I need to learn about the balance of love as God is Love. Since God is Love, every aspect of our behaviors should demonstrate this love. In so doing, one either knows the love right off the bat, or it brings one to a better balance of thinking–eventually. This might not make any sense to you the reader, but it is big on my mind right now as I learn what being a new creation is all about. God is talking a lot in the books John wrote about His Love. I want to live this out as God’s new creation.

God has been abundantly working of late. It seems wrong to write this because I know God is always at work. A better way of putting this is that I’m much more awake to God’s working in some specific areas. As I last wrote, our group finished the Mending the Soul class and will meet one more time to do a reflection survey and read the letters we wrote last Fall when we started the journey of the class.

Last night was chip night for our Celebrate Recovery group. We do this the first Thursday night of each month. We end each one with the opportunity for people to take a first day chip if they are launching a new recovery step. For months I’ve been wanting to go forward and take a “day one” chip for “living as a new creation”. I’ve not done it because I just couldn’t develop in my mind what the tangible pieces of this would look like. Yes, there would be things like no fleeing to porn when tempted (the addictions of life), but I knew that wasn’t the root for me. In completing Mending the Soul, it all came together. The tangible items are more about replacing the lies about who I am and who dad was, mom was, my brother was. Each one of them were humans who struggled with their own lives. I was a product of mom and dad, and a brother to the one. Their struggles for me were in the realms of abuse. My struggle was what I’d grown to believe about myself due to the abuse. Today, I am equipped to deal with these struggles and call them as such. They are no longer my identity. So, these tangible items are: 1. I am a man created in God’s image; 2. I am the home for The Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ is on the throne of my life; 3. I am on purpose (not a mistake); 4. Each day I’m on assignment for God the Father and His Kingdom work. There are more but these are a healthy start for the list.

These are all beliefs which have been huge character defects in my thinking and believing. So, last night I took a chip for living each day believing and knowing these are no longer a hope, but living truths for me. Praise God!

PS–I had a doctor’s appt. yesterday early in Boise so I missed getting this written.

It is no surprise that this morning’s devotion was centered around God’s timing–his “due season” as scripture often defines it. In Galatians 6:9 it tells us to not get weary in waiting, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. My role is to pray and to trust. This is what I will do and then take action if God provides Light on a place where I sense His Spirit’s nudge.

Last night the group I’m leading, Mending the Soul, finished chapter 10. This is a celebration! We will meet one last time next week to do a reflection piece and then read the letters we wrote to ourselves last fall when we were starting. These letters were written by each of us to ourselves telling what we hoped we glean, learn, discover, as we walked through the class. It will be most interesting to reread this and see just what God has done. I do know that for myself at this point I’m far more able to see myself as “the new creation” God promised when we accepted His Son Jesus into our lives. This concept was just too much until I had to face some things the class brought out I had still been in denial to. I’ve always wanted whatever I did to annihilate the past from me and give me an entirely different mind picture of who I am, etc. God, on the other hand, has wanted me to see my past in the mind picture I have but without the grips of shame. This is a huge miracle for me from the class for now this is true.

Today I see God so much differently than I ever have before. He truly is the loving God I could see Him being for others. However, now I know Him as this loving God for me too. How grateful I am for Him, His Son Jesus and the tremendous Gift–The Holy Spirit!