Happy Mother’s Day everyone.  Many of us aren’t moms but we all have one or had one and I do celebrate the wonderful mom I had plus the example she set for me day in and day out.

As I was reading my devotional this morning:  Every Day in His Presence by Charles F. Stanley, I was challenged to ask Jesus why a couple situations of late were so troubling to me.  It said in the devotional to specifically ask Jesus why someone’s name causes you to have ill feelings whatever the “ill” may be.  When this happens it goes on to say, “do not ignore the feeling, but ask Christ what it means.”  I did this actually for three situations involving three different people.  Wouldn’t you know that I not only got a very clear response to it, but I also was given one other name where I have ill feelings.  The disgusting thing for me to hear is that in each case it involved my pride and my judgment.  I needed to confess my pride and judgment as sin.  I asked The Holy Spirit to replace it with His fruit of the Spirit.  These people are dear to me and I’d never want to pass along my judgment instead of the Spirit’s love, joy, peace, etc.

As I was journaling all of this from the above paragraph I recognized a quality within my mom that I truly want to emulate.  She was such a great model of the Holy Spirit’s fruit.  She was always loving and forgiving as well as welcoming and nurturing.  I also recognized just how much I hate seeing sin within me.  It is now confessed and forgiven.  So, I am going to walk into this day as a new creation ready to lift people up that come across the path of the day.  I look forward to what God has in store for this Mother’s Day.

This morning I was awakened to the door bell ringing a little before 6:00 am.  I would typically be getting up about now but not to answering the front door.  I quickly grabbed my bathrobe from the closet and answered it.  There stood one of our Celebrate Recovery guys.  He had had a troubling night and needed to talk about it.  As he talked about his struggle, I was reflecting on my own life.  There is no one, no not one, who doesn’t fall short of the glory of God.  All of us want to “make it up” to God somehow.  Instead, God simply wants us to accept His free gift.  This fellow had done this but he’d lost his way momentarily and needed to refocus.  We talked about how to bring his life into balance feeding his spiritual needs, physical needs and his mental/emotional ones.  He hadn’t been coming to Celebrate Recovery in a while and I hope now to see him back this coming week.

Have you ever wanted God to take away your will so you’d not have the ability to choose the wrong?  This is something my CR guest kept saying.  I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’d asked this of God over the years.  Now I was sharing with this young man that God won’t break His promise for him just as He wouldn’t break it for me.  God doesn’t remove choice so that we always have the chance to choose Him and His ways over our own selfish ones.  We simply have to find the help to choose His ways consistently.  This sounds so easy when I type it here.  Yet, when I reflect on life, oh so recently, I know how perplexing it can be when human desires and evil lies hit us.  This is why we need one another.  The journey to freedom brings us into fellowship with one another where we find genuine support and accountability for our hurts, hang-ups and habits.  This completes the verse  James 5:16 where we are told to confess to God, ourselves and to someone we trust.  The reason we do this is because the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective.  When we are in need, we are the one confessing.  However, the day will come when our faithfulness to this process will lead others to include us with their confessing.  It is when we begin to realize that we have become one of the ones whose prayers are powerful and effective for someone else.  God has used our past to bring glory to Himself and to another who is presently hurting.  God is truly amazing!

Happy birthday to my younger brother Ron.  He and I are the same age now until my birthday on July 1.  I always chuckle to myself when I think of this.  My mom was 41 when I was born and yet, 10 months and 6 days later, Ron was born.  My oh my!

It is probably no surprise that my devotional  today was all about living in the Spirit of God–The Holy Spirit.  Isn’t that just like Jesus to give this to me when I was needing it from what I’d posted yesterday?  He is so Good.  I have been attending a Sunday School class one of our pastors is teaching.  It is on intercessory prayer.  Last Sunday he gave each of us attending a pamphlet of prayers to combat spiritual warfare.  I’m going to post one of them.  It reads:  “Lord Jesus Christ, my old fleshly nature is tempting me to (name the temptation) and I know that if it’s left to itself, it is wicked enough to cause me to sin against you.  Lord Jesus Christ, I affirm that through the work of Your cross I am dead with you to the rule and control of my flesh and its desire toward (name of fleshly temptation you are experiencing).  Blessed Holy Spirit, I ask you now to replace this fleshly desire that is tempting me toward (state the fleshly temptation) with the fruit of Your control.  Put within my mind, will, and emotions Your love, joy, peace, patience, and all the virtues that my Lord Jesus Christ enables me to live out for His glory.  Amen

I love this prayer.  It puts into perspective exactly what I was needing yesterday and I am sure I will need over and over again in days ahead.  I hope it will be meaningful for you also.  Thank you Jesus.

Yesterday I mentioned the fruit of the Spirit which we produce when we are living by the Spirit’s leadership in our lives.  This is something I know factually but I don’t know it nearly as well spiritually.  Living the journey of yesterday I stepped into several realities of living in the flesh.  The biggest one was spending 5 hours at the hospital where my nephew is.  He has been diagnosed with a debilitating disease–Lewy Body disease which is a form of dementia.  Its uniqueness is about hallucinations, voices, tremors similar to Parkinsons as well as all of the other things we already know about dementia.  This is all about the flesh and its ongoing deterioration.  My nephew’s spirit is being lost in this from a human standpoint and he is scared.  I was asked questions I didn’t know how to answer and I was feeling many more questions that I wanted to humanly respond to out of my own sadness.

In my devotions this morning I read that the assurance of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling is confirmed–Eph. 1: 13-14.  This is exactly what I meant when I said I know this is true, but yesterday I didn’t know how to respond “in the spirit”.  How do we live 24/7 in the spirit?  This ties back to the step study topic of last Tuesday also where we spent the evening addressing Integrity.  I know that living with integrity is the epitome of living spirit-filled.  Somehow, I want the cliches of “living in the spirit” or “spirit-filled living” to become more real for me–more natural.

I know from my past ventures in my journey that these times of frustration/confusion become clearer as I seek God’s wisdom (light) from His word.  If any of you reading this have wisdom to share I would love to hear it.  Yes, you are experiencing my frustrations this morning.  I hope you will forgive me for this.  However, I would surely appreciate any insights you’d have to offer.  God bless.

It is simply amazing how quickly time marches on.  I was having a  conversation with a person recently and they were telling how slowly time moved during their summers while they were growing up.  Now that they are young adults and they can hardly keep up with time.  I find I can hardly count days, I almost now count seasons of time.  Regardless, I want the days to count only for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Last night was our weekly men’s step study for the ones in the current group from Celebrate Recovery.  We are completing the two lessons leading up to writing and giving our inventory.  The questions we answered last night were all about the topic of Integrity.  What a deep topic to address.  Superficially I want to say I am a man of integrity.  I’ve even had people throughout my adult years tell me such.  The questions under the topic align with ways one’s integrity can be damaged with the life we’ve chosen to live or the life given to us as a child when our voice was one without power over the circumstances for which we endured.  The questions primarily center around our honest talk regarding whatever is true about our lives in whatever setting we are in:  home, church, work, leisure, etc.  What are we hiding, when do we hide it, and more.  Boy, have I been caught in this quagmire.  I no longer want to be caught, and now I am conscious to when I do.  However, I am far more open to letting the past simply be a message of God’s work.  This isn’t easy yet, but it is getting better as I step more and more into this.  It is amazing how God patiently brings us through these steps of growth until we have grown into the place where we complete His purposes.  It is then that the fruit of His Spirit’s work happens:  love, joy, peace, patience, self-control and more–Galatians 5:22-23.

I want to be a man of integrity but I know I can’t of my own choosing.  It is when I am surrendered and obedient to Christ’s leadership in all arenas of my life that this will happen.  So, one day at a time–here I come.

Today is a new day and when I say new, it has new meaning.  It is cumbersome to try and put words to this morning, but I’m going to attempt to do so.  Yesterday, I talked with a Celebrate Recovery friend I sponsor who is in South Africa at a seminary/school.  We talked for about 30 minutes.  God is revealing Himself to him in magnificent ways and showing him His purpose for life.  He is a young man still in his 20’s.  This morning I felt Christ asking me if I am now ready to accept the freedom He has given me along with the freedom to be used fully by the Holy Spirit?  My answer was yes and He told me to look up and keep looking up until He was done.  In doing so He asked me what I saw.  All I could see was the morning light coming up.  He told me this light is representative of His Light He wants me to share with others who are caught in the chains of abuse.  These individuals have two sets of chains.  One of these sets of chains is binding them from the years of abuse done to them, the other set is the ones from their own sins.  How well I know both sets.  I couldn’t get to the chains of my sins until I finally got to the the chains which ran deeper within me.  They were the ones binding my identity, my self-worth, etc.  As these chains have been disappearing in my life, I’ve been able to see more clearly and hear more accurately the voice of Heaven–The Holy Spirit.

Now maybe all this sounds strange to a non-believer in Jesus, and even to a believer, yet all of this is true of today.  All I know is I want to serve Jesus however He is calling me to do so.  Wherever He takes me on this journey, I want to be a vessel displaying His Light that penetrates all darkness and displays the truth of binding chains so they can be broken once and for all!  To God be all Glory.

Today is a gift for me.  It is one of those rare days when, at least at this time of the day, there are no expectations I know about except the ones I have for it.  And, the only expectations are: to plant.  I have 18 rather large pots on the deck of our home and today I plant all of them.  I spent time last week getting the flats of annuals for them and today is planting day.  I don’t talk about this a lot because most people look at me funny if I do and say something like, “Oh, ugh, that’s nice.”  Enough of that.

I have begun to read through the Old Testament using The Message.  I’m into Leviticus and finding once again how grateful I am to be living after Christ has come to pay the price for sin–once and for all.  The rules and regulations given to man were amazing.  To think that Christ took care of all of them for us (me) is amazing grace.  For Christ to pay the price, for God to sacrifice His Son and on top of all that–to be given His Holy Spirit as a gift if we will only accept Christ as our Savior–well, how can we ever be worthy of such love and generosity?  I know I can’t except through Jesus’ paid sacrifice once and for all.

Looking at this gift Christ has given to each of us has created in me a desire to be worthy of it.  I’ve worked a lot of years on this assignment–yet I was always doing it to cover up the old man (the abused man) I thought I was.  I’m forever grateful to be awakening more and more to living in the new creation Christ gave me so long ago and only of late am I learning to accept this gift without thinking I have to earn it.  Reading Leviticus, as I said, only intensifies just how much God and Christ sacrificed for our eternity with them.  Isn’t it amazing?!

Well, if you want to find me today you won’t have to look far.  I’ll be on my deck.  Most folks look at what I have there for the day and say, “Wow, that looks like a lot of work.”  Well, I guess it would be if they were having to do it.  For me, well, it is one of the best gifts I could ever be given–a day with plants without any interruptions!

Does everyone know today is May Day?  It is one of a gardeners happiest days.  Yesterday I told you just how much I was facing with the old me (old man).  I honestly believe that yesterday was the first time in all my years of living I lived the entire day as a new creation.  I literally got everything done I was wanting to do and had such an enjoyable time doing it.  The frosting on the cake was having our new pastor and family over for homemade ice cream last evening.  They are moving here from St Louis, Missouri.  They had been house hunting and God has led them to the one He’d chosen for them which turned out to be a blessing for both realtors, the sellers and the buyers.  God is just like that.

When I ended yesterday’s posting I said the day would end with a peace that passeth understanding.  Well, it not only did, but along with it there was this wonderful contentment that I am humbled by even as I write this now.  It hasn’t been until now that I realize how much I’ve taken charge of everyone of my days instead of allowing God to orchestrate it and I complete my assignments in it.  It is just amazing to have this happen as it did.  I hope this will encourage any reader who identifies with yesterday and today’s writing to give it a try.  Let God be the Master Designer of each day.  I’ve already surrendered to this day.  The anxiety is hushed and the anticipation for a day of completing God’s assignments has begun.

The journey this particular week has been nothing but hectic.  I write this with gritted teeth.  I love this time of year.  If it were possible that I could be outside working in yards, mine along with everyone else who’d like to have some help, I’d be there.  Well, along with working the earth, my nephew is in the hospital, a funeral takes place, my wife plans an outing for us, my daughter needs to have her irrigation started, a new schools wants help with their instructional practices, a new pastor is coming and I want to be able to spend time with him and his family.  Well, that’s a start for today–just today.  I want to literally do each of these things as a first priority because I love each one involved in them, yet, there is only so much time in a day and I know I’ve got to prioritize.

I asked God this morning how a “new creation” handles this list.  I’ve always faced days like this with anxiety simply doing all of them I possibly can and shutting out any feelings about not getting to the others.  I’d tell myself–“I did the best I could.”  It was interesting this morning as I started my devotions.  I was truly in my old self filled with anxiety and not knowing how to prioritize the day.  I don’t want to handle any of these with that sense of “duty”, I want to embrace the opportunity and do it with friendship and love.  God seemed to be saying to look at this list as an opportunity to serve Him rather than serving man.  All of a sudden I realize where my eyes were and what I was listening to.  I was hearing man and my responses to man rather than hearing man and listening to how God wanted me to respond.  My first priority is serving God, not man.  There is a huge difference at the end of a day when you know you’ve done all you can for the Lord.  The peace that passeth all understanding sets in. In my past when a day like today would end I’d want to hide in a corner and say, “God, I did the best I could.  I hope that it’s been OK.  The old self would only feel the disappointment of not completing all he should have.  Today, I’m going into this as a new creation doing all I can for the God I serve.  At the end of it—well I’ll wait and see what God has for the end of it.  I think it will be something like a deep-settled peace.

(Boy, did I need to write this.  It has helped me already!)

This journey of living “one day at a time, one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace” is a superb piece of wisdom.  Living it however is a challenge most days for me.  I know that I need to surrender all my worries to Jesus each morning in order to find victory and that sense of peace–the sense that I don’t need to be in control–God already is.  I can join His work as I surrender my need to control.  I hate seeing these needs in me, but they are very real and I do need to take these steps of surrender frequently.

The drive to do things for God use to be so I could find value.  I can more fully see that the value I sought was within my own eyes.  I’ve learned I didn’t need to prove anything to anyone else, it was me.  I was judging my own self.  This is a rude awakening.  I tend to take on most any assignment offered to me thinking God wouldn’t have it said to me if He weren’t wanting me doing it.  However, I’m now learning much more about discernment.  Taking all things to Him to find His will.  What sounds like God working initially isn’t always where God wants me.  I was called earlier this week by a school system that asked me to work with them evaluating their teachers.  I was glad they called and met briefly with them.  I’m going back later this am to continue this conversation.  God has been pointing out to me that just because they are asking for help doesn’t mean it is with His intent.  I need to probe to find whose interest they are wanting to fulfill.  Is it the administration’s selfish wishes or does it actually grow the profession I love–teaching?  I’ll be more discerning as I meet with them today.

The other thing I’m learning of late is about priorities.  Our step study group is in the midst of this topic right now.  I know to rate family at the top, however, I still impulsively put other assignments above them if I don’t pause, take a deep breath or two giving the Holy Spirit time to speak to me.  Once I do that I know to put my family there at the top.  Well, there are many things I am needing to learn and to have many reminders during these days.  But for now, I go into this day surrendered and taking “one moment at a time”.