After my devotional time this morning I delved into the first lesson of a book study I am starting with one of our pastors.  I met with him yesterday and we are doing Experiencing God together.  I have done this several times many years ago but haven’t now for well over 10 years.  He has never done it and wanted it to be our study.  I was pleased to oblige the request.  Just completing day 1 of the first lesson was incredible.  I feel like all the years before when I’d done it I was doing it so I could become a worthy being.  This morning confirmed for me that God has been doing some tremendous healing.  This morning I read in John 14:6 that “The Counselor, The Holy Spirit, who the Father will send in my name (Jesus), will teach you all things.”  I’ve always wanted The Holy Spirit to be comfortable with me but I knew I just wasn’t worthy of His presence.  Today, with much gratitude of heart, I know beyond a shadow of doubt, He is within me and I can learn all things from His teaching me.  What a humbling and honoring sensation this is knowing God trusts me (each of us) with His precious Holy Spirit.

One day at a time I will serve Him.  This is what He asks me to do.  I find myself becoming more aware of living in this new creation He gave me.  As I do this, it is so much easier to trust God today and not worry about tomorrow.  This is an amazing awakening for me.  To God be the Glory!

Last night was the weekly 7-Pillars class.  We were to have written out bullets for a rough draft of our story.  I’ve written and revised a dozen times my story as well as written my book.  However, this draft was to include specifically the points that led us into our sexual addiction.  It caused me a good deal of fear.  By the time I had finished sharing (which was the last one for the evening) I left immediately.  I got home feeling raw, exposed, vulnerable, etc.  I felt like I was the young lad all over again.  This morning as I brought all this to God I was awakened to a reality that hadn’t hit me yet.  God said I was faced again last night with the reality of the raw exposure of sin done to me as well as sin I’d committed.  This wasn’t new, but nonetheless, raw.  The new was when God said that I can be assured that no wrong can come my way that will/can overpower me.  When I wrote the word–overpower–I was awakened.  This is what I’d felt all my life.  It is what fed the fears for any situation with men and even with women.  What would happen if….  The beauty of this awakening was that now I know it is a lie.  I have full capability of stopping any potential attack that would have overpowered me in my early years.  This reality just hadn’t hit me yet.  Boy, do I feel better getting this identified!

God is so good and so thorough.  How much I praise Him for this.

As I was starting my devotions this morning I had a couple situations on my mind needing attention and I was unsettled because I knew how I would deal with them would not be as a new creation.  I was delaying until I had insight.  God showed it to me this morning.  In the book The Nature of Freedom it says:  “Grace doesn’t see what is wrong, but sees what is missing.”  That really hit me as truth.  However, I still didn’t know how to see what was missing.  All I could see was what was wrong.  As my devotions continued and I got to journaling, I asked God to help me with this.  He pointed out that throughout my life my problem has been largely with fear.  What was missing for me was trust.  He is now teaching me to replace my fear with trust.  As I applied this to the situations I wanted to address I could easily see the missing elements.  I don’t need to address at all what is wrong.  Addressing what is missing takes care of the wrong.  God is so magnificent!

Today is a beautiful spring morning.  What is even more beautiful is the love and grace of our God, Jesus and Holy Spirit.  Learning to trust them and to actually know how to trust them is simply amazing.  How long I have waited to learn this.

Today started with getting 4 grandkids to their respective schools once they were up and fed.  It has been a while since Kathy and I have done this.  They made it fine and we did too.

God is showing me something that I’ve not ever experienced until now.  I am free and also a new creation.  He is wanting me to know that the chains of my past are not only broken and erased with Him but they are also broken and released from me.  I wish I could put into words what this freedom feels like.  Unless one has been severely bound over a lengthy period of time, it is hard to describe what this is like.

I feel like God and I are a team.  I know He’s my God, but now, after all these years, I no longer have a dread of what may be forthcoming.  I look forward to living the day and being part of whatever God has in store for me.  To God be all Glory!

The road trip yesterday to get my grandson was an adventure.  Most of the traveling was through desolate area in eastern Oregon.  A semi had flipped on its side blocking the entire highway in the middle of the afternoon.  As we came upon it we found it would be at least 2 hours until a wrecker could get to our location from Ontario, OR.  The weather was nice so we hiked the mountain sides.  We were able to have some excellent sharing time.  It is always an awakening for me realizing the changes that take place in our bodies during adolescence.  This time has equal impact on our thinking processes.  I want to be available for our grandkids during this time.  It is not good for us to hold this type of thinking in silence.  Satan has too much manipulative ability during this vulnerable time.

Today’s lesson in our Celebrate Recovery step study addresses journaling and its importance.  The key to it is holding us accountable to taking a look at our day and seeing where we need to make a correction and thank God for the successes.  Men are not good in this area.  Every guy in the group makes excuses as to why journaling hasn’t happened yet for them.  Each one tries it for a time but quickly stops the process before the habit is fully formed.

I began journaling as an assignment from the first counselor I had back in 1989.  I journaled off and on from that time until Celebrate Recovery started.  It gave journaling new meaning for me and the counseling I had from 2009-2012 added even more substance as well as doing it daily.  It has been the means for me to not only hold myself accountable, but it has also provided the means for God to reveal Himself to me much more intimately.  I pray for others to find this tool purposeful for their lives.  No, it isn’t an easy habit to start, but it is one of the good habits we want to develop and keep.

There may be an April Fools for man, but with God, there is no fool.  The beauty of following God removes the old fool we were–how I love that.

Have I told you how much I love spring?!  Today is one of those reasons–two days ago it was raining hard most of the day, yesterday it was windy all day and today it is gloriously calm, clear and sunny.  Nothing in spring is typical except the changes in weather.  Each change is short lived and then it changes again.  The changes always include sunshine.  The need for winter is important, but the assurance of sunshine is always present in spring. (Plus, my daffodils are in abundant bloom all over the yard)!

Today I make a 6 hour road trip to get one of my grandsons.  He has been spending the spring break week with his other grandparents and his dad’s family.  I enjoy the time we have to ride together.  Even though he sleeps some of the way, we always have good connecting time during the drive.  He’s in his early teens where long periods of silence are building.  There is so much happening in our bodies and lives during our teen years.  I want him to know I’m there for him and God is too.

I remember a few times when I was a teenager and my dad and I were in the pickup traveling to a rented field or to a place where dad was doing custom work and I was silent.  Not often, but a few times, he asked me why I was so silent?  I never did respond to the question.  Even then I knew I didn’t respond because I didn’t trust him and I always feared any response I’d get from him. I don’t want that kind of relationship with my kids or grandkids.  I pray for that relationship door to always be open between us.  We really do set an example for the trust our kids develop or lose during these years.

The assignment I said I needed to do yesterday was done and it was simple and easy.  I started to write that I don’t know why it was being faced with fear, but I know exactly why.  These situations in life, though not too often faced anymore, are always emotionally seen by me as a threat.  My reactions are as though I’m needed to challenge my dad with his actions and then face the consequences of that.  God showed me again yesterday that this situation was not with dad and it was so easily accomplished.

I love spring.  I think I’ve told this many times.  Today my little grandsons are with me again.  I have some plants to get in the ground which I know they will love to help with.  It is fun to do these things with them.  The one approaches these times like a science lesson and the other ones see them as an adventure of life.  Either way, it is a joy to experience life with them.

Yesterday I happened to see the name of someone on social media that I hadn’t been in contact with for well over 10 years.  We had gotten acquainted while Kathy and I lived our year in Turkmenistan.  We had begun to meet weekly while we were there for spiritual accountability.  He was a single guy wanting companionship and I was wanting accountability.  God used us to give help to each other and the friendship developed.  I’m sending him a book today.  It will be fun to connect to him afterwards.  He hasn’t been in touch since all of these current years have brought about significant changes for me.  God is so rich in His love and kindness.  I look forward to seeing Him work.

I am always amazed at God’s thoroughness and patience–He waits for us to be thorough in completing what He wants us to do.  A couple things happened yesterday I knew I was to do.  One had to do with a meeting for the Aslan ministry which went very well.  The other one was about helping my daughter take their bigger dog to a new home.  They were fearful of doing this.  However, she witnessed their dog falling in love with the new home.  I won’t go into all of this but it just made you smile.  There was one more thing I knew God wanted me to do yesterday that I didn’t do.  I didn’t do it strictly out of fear.  This morning God reminded me who He is and who He is not.  He is God my Father–intimate and the giver of Grace.  He is not the man I feared so much.  I will complete the unfinished assignment today.  I truly appreciate God’s loving patience with me. He is so faithful in helping me destroy the defects of character I still possess.

God is good all the time–all the time, God is Good.

If you read yesterday’s post, you will know that I had the conversation with my grandsons about pruning.  Well, the 7 year old didn’t bring his ipad with him yesterday.  He spent the entire day with me outside and we had a tremendous time.  I’m always amazed at the minds of little ones and how simple life’s decisions are for them.  How much we adults could learn by this.

The lesson last night with our 7-Pillars class for men with sexual addiction had us putting down facts which led us into an addiction.  We were then to tell specifically what the addiction was.  I have spent all these years overcoming the hurt of my past and coming out of the denial for the amount of it.  It is another thing I’m finding to come out of my denial in the addictive side of this.  It is painful to admit, but it is always freeing just as God promises.  I got home last night feeling raw but free.  During the night I kept having repeated dreams of my bother trying to abuse me.  He was being assisted by two people who were important to me during the times of my abuse and hurt, yet in this dream they were assisting his desire to abuse me.  I would wake up and question this but go back to sleep and it would happen again.  As I got up I knew I needed to take this to God and ask for clarity.  I’m always amazed by God’s help.  He told me the mind is a powerful tool.  Satan likes to manipulate it for which he can do with dreams.  He didn’t want the freedom I’m finding to be genuine so he was trying to confuse it by inserting two powerful people God gave me to help during the times when I was so vulnerable.  I didn’t need to believe what this dream was telling.  I could let it go as an attempt by Satan.  It was very freeing to do so.

God’s grace is abundant.  How much I am learning about it.  God Himself loves us intimately and He wants to free us of all our past bondage.  He then wants to give us a purpose for living each and every day without the bondage.   I want to stay right here with Him in this.

Yesterday I had my two youngest grandsons for the day and will again today.  They are on Spring Break.  We got our leather gloves on, grabbed the pruning tools, got the garden cart and proceeded to go to work trimming a row of plants called Russian Sage.  The boys are 5 and 7.  They were a great deal of help mainly putting what I was cutting into the cart so I could haul it to the burn pile.  While we were working I told them I’d pay them $5 each for their help.  They said, “Grandpa, you don’t need to pay us–this is FUN!”

In the midst of the pruning I was asked by the older one what pruning meant?  He hadn’t heard that word before and he is a lover of learning.  I told him we were cutting away the dead part of these plants and that was pruning.  I asked him if he had any habits that he needed to do away with?  He said he spent too much time on his ipad and he wanted to reduce the time.  I told him that would be pruning a habit.  I told him I was pruning a habit too.  We should always look at our lives and see what isn’t good so we can prune it.  That made perfect sense to him.

Today we are going to start gardening.  We will rototil a part of the garden and plant what can be planted this early in the spring.  I’m sure we will have just as much fun as yesterday.  God is Good!