I think all of us know we are a carnal, human person with a spiritual presence within us.  If we are Christian we also know this spiritual presence connects directly to God’s Holy Spirit when we give our lives to Jesus Christ as the only true way to God our Father.  The Sunday School class I’ve begun to attend a few weeks back is fascinating.  The sole purpose for it is to help us connect the stories of the Bible to us today.  It is done by taking the scriptures back to their language roots so the translations don’t adjust their meanings.  The Hebrew language is one of pictures so every letter has a personal meaning for life.  Our teacher is gifted at bringing these pictures into focus as she teaches. 

It is amazing to me that I want to understand scripture in my human mind as I understand math or science.  However, there are things God wants us taking by faith which always make me wonder where that came from or why am I to do that?  An example is living as a new creation.  How does this happen and what does it really look like in this human world?  How do I rely on the Holy Spirit in day to day activities?  What does faith and trust look like at these times?  I asked yesterday why God revealed to Mary about Jesus being born and then simply told Joseph to trust her.  Also, God showed Rebecca she was having twins and the second one would rule over the first one.  Why didn’t He tell this to Isaac?  The teacher said that in the Jewish language woman are known to be more spiritual and able to believe God’s messages.  Men question while women believe. 

Today I want to start believing far more than I question.  Maybe I’ll still question but I don’t want that to replace believing even when I don’t understand.  God is wanting to strengthen my belief and I want to give Him permission to do all He needs to help me be a strong believer using trust and faith always rather than doubt and speculation.  God–be free to do all You need to do.

Yesterday was a remarkably good day in many ways.  I got the gals off to the airport and they are now into their buying week.  That could be frightening for me, but….

One of our Celebrate Recovery men came over yesterday afternoon and did his inventory with me.  He had started this a couple years ago and had not finished it until yesterday.  In the couple of years he has experienced some life changing ordeals like two heart attacks.  He is 10 years younger than me.  God is working in his life.  He also shared a huge amends he wanted to do but needed to express it ahead of time.  In all of this I kept sensing God’s work in this man’s life.  I’ve known this guy and his wife for almost 10 years now and it was the first time I could see life-changing differences.  There was a genuine sense of HOPE as we met.  I thank God for this!

A couple of other areas in our family have me on the verge of worry.  As I’d written yesterday, God reminds me to praise Him rather than live in fear.  I’m so glad He pointed this out yesterday.  I am needing it again today and I need a consistent reminder for each day.  Today I praise God for all I know He is doing whether I can see it, hear it or experience it.  I know that God is Working.  I trust Him and praise Him this day!

As today begins I’m faced with an opportunity to praise God.  I didn’t get up feeling this way however.  Kathy is leaving for a week with her sister to assist with her sis on a buying trip for her store in Joseph, OR.  They enjoy this time and I’ve always thought it was a good time for Kathy to get away from Winter in Idaho.  For me, this time, I’ve feared the days alone.  I’ve been under more attach of late with the class I’m taking on abuse as well as the one we just started. 

This morning as I was reading in Acts Joyce Meyer adds a piece of her own testimony in connection with Paul’s writing of Acts.  She says there was a point in her ministry where she was being very fearful.  One evening she was feeling quite despondent and asked God to help her understand.  In so doing the Lord pointed her to Romans 15:13 which says in part:  “May the God of your hope fill you with joy and peace in believing through the experience of your faith….”  Just like Joyce had been, I’ve been looking at the problem I face rather than looking at the God of my HOPE.  Instantly, as I took hold of this truth my peace returned. 

God is such a tremendously loving God of grace and mercy.  I do have complete hope in Him.  I needed this morning to get focused.  Now my week will be one where I can rejoice in all God has in store for it. 

Do you know what the little book of Jude, which is right before the last book of the Bible–Revelation, says?  In verse 24 it says, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless….”  I read this in my devotional this morning as I began my time of devotions.  I quickly looked for the reference to these words thinking some man had written them.  Sure enough, a man did write them but the man wasn’t one of us, he was a writer of scripture placed in the Bible.  The first part of this scripture says he is able to “keep me from stumbling”.  If you are like me you’ve thought stumbling was just a part of living in this human form.  It is in reality, too.  However, Jude states a promise from Jesus Christ I needed to read this morning. 

Jesus Christ gave each of us The Holy Spirit as our gift when each one of us asks Him into our heart–lives.  Over the past few years I’ve learned that the throne on which Christ sits in our lives is housed in our mind–brain.  This organ does control every aspect of our human body’s function.  As we surrender every aspect of ourselves to Christ and surrender our will to take charge to Christ, The Holy Spirit is empowered to do just what this scripture says–“keep me from stumbling”.  I was ready to read this and today–believe it, rather than tremble in fear of it. 

I’ve not been able to say until now that entering into this open dialogue of homosexuality is fearful in many aspects.  However, I know I’m doing it from obedience and for all the right reasons.  God is definitely opening these doors and I’m to step into them.  The class I’m presently taking, the new class we’ve just started, all of this is on purpose and God is showing me my part in this Work of His.  Instead of fear, He is wanting for me to know today that His Son and His Son’s Gift–The Holy Spirit, will keep me from stumbling.  I can believe this and be confident that I’m doing just what God has intended.  How grateful I am. 

Isn’t God amazing!  Yesterday at this time I was in a confusing place in my personal recovery journey.  The lesson we’d done and talked through last Tuesday had left me undone.  The topic of homosexuality was gripping me because the shame I feel from it was right in the front of my face. I didn’t even want to write the word out yesterday because I wanted to still put it away someplace where I couldn’t see it.  This morning as I’m reading in Romans I find Paul writing to the people of Rome that God wants all of us.  He wants our minds, emotions, wants, body and all its parts.  He doesn’t want any of these things kept separate.  He won’t use us fully if we are holding back. 

As I got to my journaling this morning I found myself being reminded that last summer I was prepping to lead the class for men who struggle with homosexuality.  I knew in my heart I desperately needed the class on Abuse, but someone needed to lead this other class and I had the background so I’d do it.  Well, as I’ve told more than once, God had no one coming for the men’s group on homosexuality so I was relieved and happy to join the men’s class for abuse.  I quickly stepped into its leadership as the gentleman who was to lead it didn’t want the assignment.  He wanted the class.  All these months later I am facing the bleak shame within myself brought out from the abuse of a homosexual brother, but even more, the shame for this temptation I carry.  This is where I was yesterday. 

Today God has shown me that it is recovered alcoholics who help alcoholics.  It is recovered sex addicts who help sex addicts.  It is recovered homosexuals who help those wanting out of it.  Of course the list goes on but this message was what I needed to hear.  God has been bringing the last of the bondage of sin, my sin done to me and my temptations, so I can see them for what they are–sin.  He is preparing me to lead the class next year if there are those who come.  I wasn’t ready this year and any who should come weren’t ready either.  The 28 who came to last Tuesday’s class to know how to support someone with this struggle tells this.  God want’s His people supported.  He’s preparing this first. 

I feel as though as huge burden has been lifted from me.  I was putting the weight of sin back on me as I looked it in the face.  God only wanted me to see it, not wear it.  This morning I let Him bury it as the Cross where He did just that with all our sin through His Son–Jesus Christ.  Once again I’m ready to be prepared for God’s next step.  If this is it, I’ll be ready and willing because today I surrendered all of me.  This is why for today I say–God is AMAZING!

Well, the class I wrote about yesterday was a genuine hit.  It seemed to be the starting place God wanted us to see and know.  There were 28 people who came last night for the class.  I was hoping for half that amount but God knew who He wanted there and they came.  I was thanked for putting this together even though all I did was find someone to teach it and arrange a place for this to start.  There were so many who have been wishing for a place that was allowing this topic of LBGT to be discussed without the venom of judgment and opinion always being present and spoken.  God was glorified. 

My own class last night was all about the topic of shame.  The activities we were to do and the questions we are to answer truly uncovered the depth of this toxic shame in me.  How much I long to have this gone but hiding it is not the way to dispel its bondage.  I hate, but love the means used by the authors to help the participant, like myself, uncover it.  Then we are able to address what the next step is to be.  One example of this was answering the question about what am I most ashamed of when I look into myself?  After answering it I was to write out what I am as a new creation in Christ countering this lie Satan has wanted me to believe all of my life.  I’ve not done this before.  In fact the other men in the group hadn’t answered this question.  It seemed too obscure to them.  We spent much time working this topic.  The counselor working with our groups is going to spend some time with us next week to help us see this more clearly.  The outcome of these classes is to be freedom, not knowledge which goes nowhere in helping us release these lies of our past.

Eleven years ago when I first retired from the school district after 35 years, I wanted to live the rest of my life helping others find freedom.  Little did I know how much Freedom God was wanting me to also find.  I realize now that I knew freedom as something to obtain by hard work which was never going to be obtained that way.  God is so faithful in helping me let go and allowing Him to one day at a time, break all of this bondage so freedom is found once and for all through HIM!

The journey does continue.  Tonight we start a class lasting five weeks for anyone: family member, friend, neighbor who doesn’t know how to relate to someone choosing to live in the LBGT world.  Last fall we were ready to have a men’s class and a lady’s class supporting those wishing to step out of this lifestyle.  No men came and only one woman came.  The lady’s class is taking place but that’s all.  I knew God was wanting this to happen but I was puzzled by man’s response to this.  When we had begun to advertise the recovery offerings in classes there were scores of people inquiring about the one for LBGT.  I knew we’d have several come.  In reflection God began to point out to me who was inquiring about the class.  In every case it was those wanting to know how to support someone in this lifestyle. So, tonight this class begins.  I know several who have said they are coming.  I pray that this beginning will be the place God wanted us to start.  He is truly an amazing God.

In Romans Paul is writing that God is not interested in our works.  In fact when we do work of our own strength hoping it brings us closer to Him, it sickens Him.  I was reading about this realizing once again how long I’ve lived this way.  Only in the present am I awakening to the depth of this on my part.  I’d be bringing to God our Celebrate Recovery, our Recovery Classes, my singing and hoping they were good enough for God to find me worthy for Him.  In my own recovery class:  Mending the Soul, I’m becoming fully awake to the roots of unbelief which have kept me in this mindset.  Little by little God is helping me to let them go and replace them with TRUST and FAITH.  Moses was 80 years old when he was finally ready to follow God’s lead in faith.  Abraham was 99 when he was ready for God to give him Isaac out of sheer faith.  I’m 68 and just realizing what God was showing them about works vs faith.  Obedience to God’s leading is what this is all about.  The obedience is not about the work entailed in it but it is the act of obedience which is what God is wanting.  He takes care of the work portion. 

The class tonight is one of obedience.  Let God be glorified and may man find God’s insights as he comes.  To God be all Glory!

I can hardly fathom sometimes the depth of God’s love for us (me).  He cares so much that we be whole in Him.  He never wastes one moment in bringing all things in our lives to have meaning about Him and me or Him and each one of us.  I write this because yesterday morning in the Sunday School class Kathy and I are attending, the teacher (our pastor’s wife) said some remarkable things which resonated to the depths of my soul. 

First of all, ahead of class I asked her about last week’s statement that the sins done to us when we are children are not ours.  I knew this in my mind but my belief system hadn’t dispelled them.  It was as though that statement last week was giving me permission to do the dispelling.  I asked her about this feeling and what do I do with it?  She simply said that The Holy Spirit was affirming Himself in me.  When He does this there are no real words to say, however, the depth of affirmation for HIM is what you know. 

This happened again yesterday in class.  The lesson was primarily focusing on Abraham and Sarah with the key focus on Abraham.  God told Abraham to ask Him to forgive the different ones in his life who had sinned against him.  This happened more than once.  A couple of them were when two different kings took Sarah as their wife not knowing she was already married.  Jerri, the teacher, said that God wants us to ask God to forgive the ones who have sinned against us just as He’d told Abraham to do.  We cannot receive the full blessings God has for us until we ask for the sin/s to be removed by His Forgiveness.  Once again, the depth of this message stirred my inner soul.  I had forgiven my dad, my brother, and any other, but I’d not asked God to forgive them.  I had thought that was their job.  However, there in scripture God tells Abraham to do this.  He also told Job to pray for the 3 friends who were misinforming him so He could forgive them, and then it says, Job was blessed.  This morning I asked God to forgive. 

God is so AMAZING!

As I got into yesterday I couldn’t shake the truth of yesterday’s blog.  How much of the time I question any nudge I get.  Boy, I don’t want to do this any longer.  Later in the afternoon I received a call.  The caller was the spouse of a group leader in our Tuesday night classes.  I can’t and won’t go into the details of the call but it was very troubling.  She had eluded our senior pastor was to call me but hadn’t.  I was driving home at the time of the call so when I got home I called our pastor.  We talked and both agreed on what our next step should be. 

When I got the call and saw the name of the caller on my phone I froze.  It hit me just like a message from my dad would have hit me when I was a kid.  I operate in a listening mode when this happens.  I have difficulty thinking freely when there is intense anger and resistance to any other thoughts than their own.  It is at a time like this I question what I am to do if other than what I did. 

This morning as I was having my devotions I asked God about this.  He reminded me that His strength isn’t often like what man calls muscle strength.  That strength often gets man in trouble for with it someone must win and someone must lose.  God wants His Kids to always win in His Ways.  He told me that restraint is one of His Strengths and it is a Gift I can use.  Using restraint allows the person to be heard regardless of their message and purpose of it.  There really wasn’t anything I could do at the moment but listen.  God’s timing is always right and God reminded me of this too.  Restraint keeps man from acting in man’s ways rather than God’s until God’s timing is present and then the action will be known.  I’ve got to keep this in the forefront of my mind as I go into each day. 

This morning God had a message for me I sure wasn’t anticipating.  I wrote yesterday about the man who has had 3 ER visits.  He and his wife were at the funeral yesterday.  During the lunch following the service the wife asked about when we’d meet to talk about an intervention.  Her husband wasn’t present at the time.  Three of us set a date for next Tuesday to do this.  Another friend at the service was talking about his son who just got out of jail and is living with them.  The son is not looking for work saying he needs to talk to his probation officer to see when he can work.  It has been two weeks and the probation officer hasn’t contacted them so he’s saying he can’t get a job until he knows these facts. I know this situation well and I know a probation officer will work with a work schedule when healthy work is being done. 

This morning as I was journaling I asked God to help me know what I ought to do about the Tuesday meeting (it seemed too far away when the problem is right now), and what to say to the dad about his son (I thought I should call and give some insights).  God’s response was amazing.  He said, “When you are journaling each morning and ask me something, I tell you.  The means of this is you are journaling your question/s and then you journal my response.  You never doubt what I tell you here and you act on it as I direct.  During the remainder of the day when I nudge you, you question.  It is My Holy Spirit Who is talking to you no matter what time of the day, when you journal and when you get a nudge.  The difference is in your belief.  You believe when you are writing, you question when I nudge and you haven’t asked and aren’t writing.”

I was truly awakened to a connection of living as a new creation.  The new creation trusts throughout the day, not just when he is more assured as I am in the early morning.  I really want to grow my trust and response to it during the rest of the day.  Wow, God is so GOOD!