Last night I went out to get our mail to find several birthday cards. Most of them are the goofy kind which I most often give to others also. In fact I get a big kick out of card shopping for them. Back on track now–one card was from my prayer warrior/mentor–Lois. This card she handmade and the message in it was so tender and touching. As I read it I smiled and thought–wow, I’m so lucky to have Lois in my life.
This morning as I was completing my journaling, I asked my daily question of Jesus–“What do You want me to know from you for today?” His response was amazing. He asked if I recalled what Lois had written to me? He said that this message was from Lois and Him. He had inspired Lois to write this to me. There was more to this message, but what struck me was that I always take a message like this and quickly diminish its meaning to fit my thinking of me. I know what scripture says about loving self, but even after living 74 years and spending so much time in counseling as well as now giving counsel, I receive compliments with a “grain of salt”.
I am not sure how to end this message today. What I know for sure is that God makes each one of us “fearfully and wonderfully”. Satan wants to destroy the truth of this for each one of us and he almost did for me. But, Christ’s redemption restored God’s first intent and today all I have to do is BELIEVE it is true for me just as it is for you! So today–I BELIEVE!
Seventy four years ago I was brought into this world by the doctor in little Homedale, Idaho. Dad was fishing for the day with my older brothers so my older sis had to run down the country road to a neighbor who had a car so they could take mom into town where I was delivered with my own sis assisting the doc. I was baby #10.
When I was in the midst of my counseling/therapy 15 years ago I was told by the counselor that men in prison have my kind of past. They are in prison and I wasn’t. She was trying to get me to see that the prison I was in was only in my mind/emotions for God had given me great freedom–I just wasn’t able at that time to allow myself to see it.
Today I write this because I just can’t thank God enough for the beautiful freedom He has given me. Not only has He given me this wonderful freedom, but in addition He has given me the most loving wife and a family of children and grandchildren for which any grandpa would be most proud!
There is an old hymn that says, “I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how He could love me–a sinner condemned, set free. Oh how wonderful, oh how marvelous and my song will ever be, oh how wonderful, oh how marvelous is my Savior’s love for me! These words tell my gratitude today!
There is a message no one disputes regarding building a relationship with Jesus and that is the importance of daily spending time with Him. As I have sponsored men and counseled men and women, this message is always one of critical importance. What I find however, in living out each day, is starting the day with Jesus makes the rest of the day more anchored.
I am fortunate that I am a morning person so starting the day early is no problem. However, it doesn’t matter when one gets up, it is what I do once I’m up. Do I start my day with Jesus or simply start my day? Some people say they end the day and some simply say that they try but there are just so many interruptions. There is no way man can answer man with ways to address all that does and can block the routine of spending time with Jesus. Each one of us has to take this assignment on and put our disciple to it. The benefits of the growing relationship are beyond words and description. The security that the Power of God is within us and He wants to be our Armour, our defense is priceless. He just waits for us to understand we cannot fight our battles on our own strength.
When I was younger I started this disciple out of responsibility. Over the years it has grown into my most intimate time and I look forward to it. There are always things I want to process with Him, but the simple truth that He loves me is just so rewarding and having this anchored each morning is–well, beautiful! This process might be difficult to start and build into a habit, but no amount of effort is too much for the value far outweighs our efforts. God’s Love and Grace always shows up!
There is nothing like a cool morning in the midst of hot summer days. This is one thing this part of the country usually offers and I do enjoy it. With windows open I hear the songs of birds and see wildlife in action as the sun makes his way into the morning.
I took three gallons of raspberries to friends last night I had just finished picking. She had just lost her father a couple weeks ago and there has been a great deal of strife within the family every since his passing. The question was asked wondering why families often spilt in crisis times like this when one would think they’d pull together? All I could say is that emotions are extremely high during these times and often emotions show our worst side rather than our best side. The selfishness of flesh rears its ugly head. It is such a sad reality of our human nature.
I had only intended to deliver the berries and head home as I got to these friends home, but they asked if I’d sit on the patio with them for a while. Well, the while turned into almost two hours and I hadn’t even eaten dinner yet. I said I’d best be heading home and they thanked me over and over for spending the time with them. They needed to express the hurt and frustrations so they could process them with someone. I had no idea this was going to be the case, but I was so glad God nudged me to sit a while. These are wonderful christian friends but we all have our moments when we just need to say it so we can release it. God is SO GOOD!
A Spiritual Transformation–Last night was testimony night at Celebrate Recovery. The person who gave their story was from a neighboring CR. She introduced herself as one who struggled with three different areas all of which were fairly unrelated to my own story. Yet, when she began her story I all of a sudden began to hear fragments of my own childhood. I kept wondering why her childhood abuse wasn’t mentioned in her introduction of self at the beginning? As she got towards the end of the story she used the phrase–Spiritual Transformation as what God has provided for her. So, her introduction outlined her adult battles dealing with the bitterness, anger, frustration one encounters when a childhood was like her own.
I have been searching in my own life regarding this topic of spiritual transformation. I’ve written about this a few times in the past weeks. Hearing someone put it into their testimony last night was so good to experience. I don’t think there is anyone who comes to CR, counseling or any other “help programs” who hasn’t battled fighting their struggles from the strength of their flesh. We think that is why God gives us self-will so we can be strong for Him only to find our strength doesn’t sustain us long term. It isn’t until we learn to surrender this “self” part that we can begin to hear the Voice of God’s Spirit within wanting to guide our every step.
The voice of self and the deceptive voice of Satan always encourages us to think we can do this on our own. Separating this evil message from God’s Spiritual message to us is a key point to beginning the journey of God’s Spiritual Transformation for us. It is also important to know this is a daily and sometimes many times a day surrender.
It is so good to see God at work in the lives of those around us. All of this helps us to stay the course letting our own story be used for God’s Glory in the lives of others.
My wife’s younger brother had a pretty major surgery yesterday. I had a message forwarded to me last night that his son had written. It only let folks know the surgery was over and things were good. With that, I had gone to bed. This morning as I got up and sat down to start my devotions I saw I had a text on my phone. It was from my brother-in-law. It just gave a brief message that all is good. When I read it I couldn’t help but thank God for His kind thoroughness.
I had a young couple come to see me a week ago yesterday. They were distraught with one another. They have three children and are very dedicated christians, but their differences were screaming at one another. It was easy for me to see that what had originally attracted them to one another had now turned into resentment. As they came yesterday they were smiling so I asked what had taken place since last week? They had done their homework and had been focusing their attention to one another keeping “respect” as their focus. In session yesterday we did a personality profile I wanted them to complete so they could see why their differences could be God’s way for completing them, not annoying them. This proved to be very insightful for them. As they walked out of the session they expressed great thanks for God helping them to see Him again in their marriage. It makes me smile too.
God is incredibly amazing. The immensity of His being and yet the intricacies of His tender mercies never cease to humble me to tears. How fortunate we are to be able to call Him our Savior, Lord and even call Him our Friend!
Do you know that God is even interested in getting the raspberries picked? With the present schedule of counseling appointments I am pretty full Tuesday-Thursday. Raspberries don’t care about one’s schedule. They ripen when their ready not when you’re ready. Well, today is a picking day and when I get this post written, I’ll be in the patch picking away. I awoke an hour earlier than normal and now I’m about ready to begin. It makes me smile how intimate God’s care for us is–even picking raspberries!
There’s a ministry behind everything God is interested in having us do. Giving away the abundance of the harvest is always fun. It is fun to hear a receivers thanks when the berries are given to them and then later, one gets to hear the thanks again for the jam, pies, cobblers, etc. one gets to enjoy because of the earlier gift of harvest. All of this is the benefit of gardening and it brings joy to my heart and a smile to my face.
It is funny how we can be doing several different things, but only one thing is on one’s mind regardless of the activities. This was the case yesterday. I had my devotional time and quickly went out and picked 2 gallons of raspberries before heading to Boise for my dental cleaning. Following that I had the lunch meeting with our senior pastor. (This meeting is what I’d written about yesterday). It went very well. Following that meeting I came home and picked the last gallon of berries and then made 5 more batches of jam. This is quite a bit of activity but during all this time the only prominent thing on my mind was learning to rely on God’s Power within me (us). How do we fully surrender to God’s Holy Spirit which is represented so well by ones like Paul, Peter, John, James and so many more?
It is incredible to me that God made the way for us to come to Him so simple. The more intimate however, that I know God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit, the more I recognize my own flesh and the ugliness of its selfishness. All of this is why I (we) need a Savior first and foremost, but then we also need the Lord. Only Jesus can keep us on the path of obedience with God’s Holy Spirit. All of this is just so AMAZING!
Our senior pastor has been leading us through a walk into Romans 8. This is a challenging chapter written by Paul who had a transformation in his life when he encountered Jesus Christ. I love how Paul describes in the chapter the battle we have between living in our flesh vs living in our surrendered life. The advantages of the surrendered life have eternal value so it far outweighs any momentary advantage of the flesh. What has been hugely on my mind and heart is the fact that in this chapter, The Holy Spirit is referenced 18 times but we don’t dwell on the value of The Holy Spirit’s purpose in this transformation of living out the surrendered life as Paul had learned.
In my lifetime I’ve sought to find out more about living life fully led by The Holy Spirit. There are denominations that seem to push this to the extreme and those who seem to avoid the topic almost completely. I just want to find what Christ Himself had in mind for each one of us as He gave The Holy Spirit to live in us while we are here on earth in the flesh.
Today I’m meeting with our senior pastor to discuss this topic and how I can be a better learner in this. As I asked Jesus this morning while journaling what He wanted me to know from Him for today, He simply said, “Don’t try and determine what the outcome of the meeting today will be. The nudge you received to have this meeting was all I gave you, so be obedient to the nudge and go to the meeting. The outcome will then take place in the meeting. This is called TRUSTING THE HOLY SPIRIT.” It seems like such a simple thing to do, but boy do I always want to take it further. So, today at this moment–I TRUST!
Well, yesterday’s day of grace produced 8 batches of raspberry jam. It also gave Kathy and me a chance to go out to dinner last night which turned out to be a nice date. Thank You Jesus!
This morning’s bible reading was only one chapter in Proverbs. It is chapter 4. I read it and was going to keep reading but I just couldn’t get past the wealth of daily living wisdom it contained. If one could just put each of the steps into their choices each day, we would certainly have a different world to live in. Since this isn’t going to happen, it doesn’t mean it can’t happen for each one who takes it seriously and does put it into their practice as best as possible.
God is very faithful to put someone in our lives who will be an example for us even when our childhood may have been less than as this chapter describes. Yet, even though I didn’t have this type of earthly father, God did have others who filled a needed gap for me. How grateful I am for our God! He is there for each one of us if we will turn our heart and mind over to Him.
Earnie Lewis 