When I started this book, FREEDOM STARTS TODAY, I’ve wondered why the author had never addressed the topic of shame. It had been HUGE in my past and in my need for recovery. Well, today was the day for hitting this topic. I’m always drawn in like a magnet when this topic surfaces in a book I’m reading or in a conversation I’m engaging.

Shame takes root when the sins of our life begin to shape our identity. It overpowers any truth scripture would give us. For me, I believed all that scripture said for all others. However, I knew that what the scriptures said would only come true for me upon death. When I crossed over into heaven I would be all that scripture said. That was one of the reasons I lived to die. I so desperately wanted to be free of the shame within me.

When I was in therapy for the 3 years after the first year of our Celebrate Recovery start, the most powerful, intense session was the one addressing shame. There have been two times in my life when Jesus literally showed up. It was in this session on shame when God and Jesus came. At the end of each session I would be asked to put all that had surfaced in “the safe place” where it could never haunt me again. In this particular session I was so laden with the weight of the shame I couldn’t move any part of my body. I could barely whisper let alone lift this weight. When the counselor heard me whisper this, she asked me to seek help from God by His sending angels. In my mind I asked him but none came. I whispered to the counselor that no one had ever come to help. She told me to not believe this lie and to keep asking. It was then that two beings arrived–God and Jesus. How I knew who it was? I don’t have a clue other than I just knew. They lifted the weight of the shame from me! As I was leaving the session I was reminded to thank God and Jesus for coming and taking this weight from me.

As I was driving back to the school I was working with I remembered what the counselor had said, so I said out loud in my pickup, “Thank You God and Jesus for coming today. Why didn’t you send the angels?” I instantly heard in my spirit–“We came because we wanted you to know we cared.” I had to pull off the street, I was weeping.

LET FREEDOM RING!

Even though today is Independence Day, my post is centered around my own personal journey. A couple of weeks ago my prayer warrior was stricken with a stroke in her left eye leaving her blind in it. It not only took the vision in the eye but also blurs the vision in her right eye and makes it extremely light sensitive. Yesterday, I talked with my brother-in-law who is the one who introduced me to Celebrate Recovery many years ago and much more recently, encouraged me to pursue the counseling work I now do and he also does where he lives. He has been stricken with an auto-immune disease which makes talking, breathing, eating, and more very difficult.

As I was having my devotional time this morning I was asking God why these two very influential saints in my life were being physically attacked? Both are continuing with their Godly service but with much more difficulty. As I read my 90 day book’s entry, it said in part, “…In Christ, you have nothing and no one left to fear. Fear no physical evil; no evil man or woman; not Satan, or his demons, not physical affliction, nor years of addiction or struggle. God is over all and dwells within you by the Holy Spirit. and in that, His perfect love drives out fear.”

Our country’s freedom is celebrated today. Included in this celebration is our freedom from any bondage life may give us which is very much influenced by Satan’s deceptions. I give these two loved ones to God’s protection and purpose. Evil has no control over them! It has no control over you and me if we remember to fear only God.

I John 4:4 tells us, “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

The veil has been rend in two. When I think of this statement I first think about when Christ died on the Cross, the thick veil in the temple was rend in two for Christ had paved the way for us to come to God ourselves through the work of Jesus. Well, this morning I feel as though my personal veil has been rend in two.

I wrote yesterday about God being I AM and we find Him in today, each and every day. Today it sinks in that when God is in today and I stay in today, He navigates us through the day when we keep Him on the throne of our day. All of this is what I’ve been taught since I was a child. I’ve seemingly known it for my lifetime. Putting in into daily practice has been a very different story. As a child I learned to not live in today. I lived in the future in my mind when I would be free of dad’s cruelty and my brother’s sexual use and the struggles of being “who I am”. I have never broken completely away from this practice either. However, this very morning I have seen clearly my need to let this go. When I let it go I do it for today. Everything about life is about today if I want God in it. Of course, I will plan. I am a planner for days ahead. However, I will not live in that day I’m planning. I’ll stay home in today.

It is so true that we are never done learning from God’s leading in our life. It is utterly amazing!

I’ve written several times about the 90 day book/journal I’ve been using. Today is day 78. It makes me smile in a way for after all of these days I finally catch onto the main message of this book which was clearly given on day 1. This message is that when anyone is wanting to break a habit, start a new healthy habit, change a belief system or address a character defect, it has to be done each and every day. One cannot change anything for a lifetime, but they can change it for today. The reason for this? God is in today–One of His many names is “I AM”. His name has never been I WAS or I WILL BE.

I write all of this because this morning as I was reading this devotional and making my daily commitment to sobriety for this day, I was lamenting that it is day 78 and I only have 12 more days to do this. It was then that I realized I can continue this process each and every day for the rest of my life. Along with this, I realized I’ve known this truth for a long time but never saw its application to me the way it hit me today. The serenity prayer says, “…one day at a time, one moment at a time….” Yet, I’ve not put this to real life until today. I’ve just wanted porn to be gone for the rest of my life! Well, today I accept the truth that it will be gone for this day–that I can do this today with God’s Strength. Tomorrow I will address it for that day for God will be present in it tomorrow. I will for today stay focused on today.

Now I realize why God had this author choose 90 days! Some of us need extra time for His Truth to sink in!

Today I’ve needed to address something that has troubled me for many, many years. It is something which I’d given up ever seeing it come to fruition. What I hadn’t realized is what the effects of burying this within me has done. It has been brought to my attention by a few important people in my life in the past months, but I had felt helpless in how to address it. This morning I bought it to God while I was journaling. I asked for His wisdom and He reminded me that this struggle needed to include Him. Many years ago I had tried to do this but I hadn’t thought it worked so I quit trying. Today, I confessed this “giving up” to God and recommitted to not quitting this time.

I’m purposely not giving any more detail, for the detail is just between God and me and the one I share it with as James 5:16 tells us to do so we can find healing. I would wager that all of us have these areas in our lives. It is simply amazing to me how God patiently waits for us to awaken to them and give them over to His Love and Power to overcome. He never gives up on us and I don’t ever want to quit living as fully as possible for Him!

Have you ever considered doing a T-chart regarding what you know about God in the left column and what you believe about God as it pertains to you in the right column? I wasn’t given this assignment, but it came to mind this morning as I was going through my devotional time.

Going to church all of my life I’ve learned a good deal about God from scripture I read and the voice of man. For much of my life I took what I knew and believed God to be much like the Old Testament described Him. He judged and punished and I feared it immensely. It wasn’t fear that built trust, it was fear as in “keep your distance”.

As I began my involvement with Celebrate Recovery exactly 16 years ago in June of 2007, I began to see some huge differences in God’s behaviors. When I started to simply be open about my past and my struggles of present with it, I received NO JUDGEMENT. I received NO PUNISHMENT. What I received instead was LOVE and GRACE. At first I thought this was only because the few people who found out were simply nice. That wasn’t really the case, Yes, they were nice, but they saw all of this through the lens of love and grace which God is and God gives.

Today, my right column about what I believe about God as it pertains to me is amazingly and humbly thankful and growing. How I love HIM!

Today’s message for me from God is centering around fear. An acronym for fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. I had never seen myself as one who feared until the summer I had retired from my school district after 35 years of service there. I had retired not to quit but to step into consulting with schools who were struggling. Its too long of a story to write it out there, but a month after retiring I found out that the plan another friend and I had made (which seemed solid) had lost its financial support. I had told this to a good friend and said something about fearing what I was now to do? This friend had been a “best friend” since college days. When I said this to him, he grabbed my shoulders and said, “Earnie, when are you ever going to quit fearing and start trusting?”

As I began to process this truth spoken to me I started realizing just how much I did fear. I truly feared heights, deep water, unexpected touch, prolonged hugs, proximity when someone is talking to me, close relationships with men and much more. I’m well aware of the roots to these fears today, but at that time I had no clue–they just existed. I don’t let these fears dominate my life today even though they want to pop up in unexpected times. Today I know to put my HOPE in God for fearing God is what we are told to do. He is the very ONE who will take care of all our fears if we will simply TRUST Him to do so. He has been so Kind and Thorough in helping me address all of mine. (I am glad though that when He takes us to heaven I’ll not be in my flesh. That height might be a little much!)

Today, in my devotional time, I was taken back to the point in time when I chose to look at porn rather than to confess the desire and seek help. The devotional message had the reader going back to their decisions to choose sinfulness. In so doing, take that/those decision/s and give them to God. Then, following this step, ask God to give His Strength for the next 24 hours to keep you sober from taking that step today. Each and every day we can make this same decision seeking God’s Strength. One of God’s Powerful Names is I AM as He told Moses.

I have grown to love this name–I AM. I’ve also grown to much better understand its significance. God has never said His name is I WAS or I WILL BE. Thus, we find God in His Name–today. When we find God today we also can find His Strength/Power–His Holy Spirit. In so doing we have the opportunity to choose God’s tremendous TEAM (God, Jesus Christ, The Holy Spirit) over any sinful desire. We can easily apply the three R’s. We can Recognize the temptation, we can Reject it and then Replace it with our surrender of it to God. His Power will take it from there. When the temptation is overly strong, confessing it to my accountability also factors in. I not only surrender the temptation to God but text or call my accountability. Saying the temptation out loud is a really good way to get it outside of you so you can see it and the ugliness of it rather than just feel it inside of you.

Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow….” Taking these simple steps outlined above is genuine reasoning with God. He wants to make our sin/s as white as snow if we will only let Him and I want to let HIM!

Have you ever prayed for God to take away the desires of your heart and replace them with the desires of His heart? This is my devotional’s message for me this morning. It has caused me to do some reflecting. I often ask God to help me serve Him fully surrendered to His Will in my life. However, along with this prayer then comes “my desires”.

It is not uncommon for me to pray at the end of the day to not let anyone call that needs to vent, ask for help, etc. Have them do this in the morning when I am rested, I selfishly want. My eyes have quickly turned to me rather than keeping them on God. I know in my head that God promises His rest for the weary soul, but my selfishness supersedes what I know and replaces it with what I want. Once I reflect on this and write it out as I am doing right now I am ashamed of my selfishness. I don’t get many calls in the after hours of the day anyway, but if I do they are almost always for good reasons and I’m grateful afterwards the person did call.

Learning to trust God with my entire day and stay surrendered to what I trust is something I need to do each day. I can do this when I keep focused on the truth that I only need to do it for today. Tomorrow will be a new day and I can make the same commitment to God for that day. Today’s focus is God’s purposes for today and my surrender to them all day long. God takes care of me along with His taking care of everyone else as I keep my TRUST in HIM.