In just a few minutes I will leave to take my oldest grandson Dante to the airport. It is always nice to have him with us for a few days. I love watching how God is growing him more and more into the likeness of Jesus Himself. He is patiently/impatiently waiting for God to show him the girl who is to be his future wife. If you want to join grandpa in praying for this right match, please join me!
It has been so amazing to me to experience God’s Holy Presence in a counseling session. Yesterday was one of those days when this took place in very real ways. I had a new young gal come who is experiencing a divorce with two young daughters. She is a believer and is being accused of many false things. She just didn’t know where God is in all of her “mess”. As I walked her through a journaling assignment for the next week, the HEART method from Celebrate Recovery, she took hold. Each letter stands for an area to define while journaling to Jesus. H=hurting, E=exhausted , A=angry, R=resentment, T=tense. She had been afraid to admit all of this to God, but when it became her assignment she seemed to understand that God wanted her to express all of this to Him. He doesn’t want us to bear a burden He wants to carry for us.
Well, I love watching this take place. What took me years and years to learn about our loving Father I now get to share with others. He loves His children deeply!
As I had begun to journal yesterday morning I was telling Jesus about some items for which I had great concern. I was trying not to be anxious about them, but in reality, I was. There were two specific ones which were the drivers of concern. I ended the journaling surrendering them to Jesus and trying not to carry them. I had even written that I know He loves us all, but somehow in these two areas I wasn’t sure if He cared about them–maybe I was just being selfish.
My oldest grandson is here to celebrate his mom’s birthday with her and our family. A friend of our family stopped by mid-afternoon to see him and while she was here she told me what she was doing later in the day. I could hardly believe it–what she was doing was taking care of the first concern I had journaled about. She knew nothing of my concern, but God had put it on her heart and she was taking care of it.
Later in the day yesterday my oldest grandson who is in the Air Force was sharing with me what God had placed on his heart to do. Wouldn’t you know that what he was going to do now took care of concern #2. As I began my journaling this morning I told Jesus how sorry I was for having doubt instead of trust with these two areas. Both were connected to our family and I thought maybe I was being selfish in my wishfulness.
As I finished reading the book of Daniel this morning I couldn’t help but sense an overwhelming doom. “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens….” This is a brief quote from chapter 12. There are so many lost in our world today believing so much that isn’t wise. The very One who created all there is, well, He is just a myth to read about and put the book back on the shelf.
For those of us who know The Living Father who gave us His Son Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we are challenged to never cower to what our society is calling “wisdom”. The wisdom of God our Father is what we must proclaim and let the brightness of the heavens be revealed. Doing this with the humility of Jesus Christ within us is a key factor. This message of Jesus Christ being our Savior and Lord is unwavering. Sharing this message in the humble strength of our Savior and Lord is a task we are all nudged to do. Following this nudge will result in the brightness of the heavens!
Twenty-five years ago today we buried my mom. It was a Thursday and the next day after school, we left to go to see Kathy’s mom who had just had her gall-bladder removed. It was that evening in the hospital we were told the gall-bladder was filled with cancer. They didn’t know ahead of time and in the process of removing it they opened the cancerous tumor which spread throughout her abdomen. She died three years later. So much has transpired since these sad times and in reflecting on them I can’t thank God enough. What a blessing these two moms were to our families.
It is incredible how God over time removes the sadness of loss and replaces it with gratitude. These two ladies were pillars in my life. My mom modeled well living for Jesus. She was a quiet example using few words, but living the life. Kathy’s mom was much more for visiting which I loved. We could talk about most any topic and greatly enjoy the conversation with one another. As I look back on these years, I can’t help but thank God all over again for His kind and loving care. In the midst of life, we often don’t see this mercy of God, but today I see it more clearly and thank God all over again!
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!
Earnie Lewis 