I missed out in writing yesterday’s blog.  I had to leave early to take some grandkids to their schools so their mom could go to any early doctor’s appointment.  By the time I got home I needed to get ready for the school district I was working with for the day.  Anyway, what I want to write this morning is directly connected to Wednesday’s entry.

Last night we had a couple new guys join our small, share group.  Most of us in the group are 50 or above in age.  These two men are both in their 20’s.  I was needing to share about what I’d written in Wed.’s blog.  It is not an easy thing to share but I needed to do this for my own sake if for no other reason.  Remember–confession is good for the soul!  After I had shared this and one of the young men did his own sharing, he said he appreciated my honest confession.  He could sense the Holy Spirit in the room.  I am always amazed how God uses the most shameful things in our lives to inspire others.  I know this and have seen it over and over but when it is about our own story and the toxic shame of it, I still am always amazed.

Today the quartet I’m in is singing for a funeral of one of our Celebrate Recovery men.  I wrote about his dying a couple weeks ago.  This week another one of our men was in the hospital for the third time in a year with heart issues.  He has had two heart attacks but this last time was some other organ acting out and causing similar pain.  He, like the one who passed, is an alcoholic.  He has 4 children all married and 3 grandkids with another on the way.  Everyone is concerned.  He had found 45 days of sobriety but this recent visit was due to a relapse the night before.  Everyone who knows all of this is deeply concerned but the statistics say only 10% of those who get treatment from an intervention pushed upon them will benefit.  95% of those who want to quit and have an intervention profit.  We are in prayer about what to do as he won’t return calls.  Enough on this but I’d sure appreciate your prayers. 

God is so GOOD.  This journey of life I am on and each of us are on, is so much richer and promising when God is at the helm.  I so want to keep Him there too.

The lesson last night in our recovery class was one that hit me in the bullseye.  The unit we are into addresses shame and its grip on us.  While doing the exercises which the lesson requires, one cannot help but see the lingering issues the past still has on you.  It is quite amazing to take a big picture of sin and shame, nail it to the cross and it is another one to take all of the defects one is left with and nail each of them to the cross.  Let me be more specific.

For a number of years now I’ve been addressing the sin of my brother’s homosexual use/abuse of me.  I’ve nailed the sin to the cross many years ago.  In fact it was at the Celebrate Recovery annual conference when I did this in 2015.  This lesson on shame however, breaks the shame into all the different ways it grips us.  If someone who has been abused gets completely honest with you, there will be some pieces of the abuse they actually desire.  This was a huge awakening for me when many years ago my counselor pointed out that the sexual abuse turns desirous because it gratifies a natural body function.  Even though the means of the gratification are abusive, the result for the abused is a “good feeling”.  This very item brings about intense shame.  Why would one desire something they know is abuse?  Yet, it happens.  This lesson addresses it and requires the participant to write about it which I’ve done. The next step last night was telling the group what these are.  Confessing is said to be good for the soul no matter how tough it is.  Once this is all done one can nail this to the Cross of Christ also.

During the night I had a dream which was haunting.  I saw myself in the dream wanting to be gratified.  I felt sick in the dream for it, but it was nonetheless true (in the dream).  I didn’t give in to it in the dream but the desire was there.  In my devotions this morning, only as God orchestrates, I found Him and His guidance.  Sin is an awful, awful thing.  But, God’s Grace is abundantly greater and more gratifying once we believe and take the steps to find it. 

Today’s journal entry is tough for me to write but it is an important one.  I don’t ever know who the readers are, but I will tell you that you are not alone if you identify with any or all of what I’ve written.  Allow yourself the time to address whatever comes to mind rather than stuff it away as I’ve always done.  God is patiently waiting to help each of us take the steps to find His Strength and Grace along with freedom from all shame. 

Yesterday I was able to have a conversation with one of the young administrators I’ve needed/wanted to have for several weeks.  Last week he shared some critical information with me which told me a great deal about his reservations to move forward with the work needing to be done even though what he told me didn’t connect directly to this year’s work.  It was about his past experiences.  So, yesterday I thanked him for sharing with me last week.  I made the connection about what he shared to his reticence in moving forward with this new district’s work.  The look on his face was all I needed to see.  The connection was real for him.  I was able to say to him that it was ok to let the past remain in the past.  What he needed to learn from the past could be part of this present and future work but it didn’t need to control the healthy steps everyone should be taking.  It seemed to make perfect sense to him which was truly a God thing.  I used those words too.

In the time of the conversation this young man connected our relationship as moving forward also.  He had felt like I was “telling him things he wasn’t ready to hear” and this time I was telling him things he could hear.  God is all about timing, but it is His timing and certainly not man’s that makes the difference.  I so often want to push through things God hasn’t finished His work in.  I am better at sensing this with His Holy Spirit, but not all the time.  I have my own learning from this experience.  God is such an intimate, loving God always working in us to complete what His Kingdom Work desires us to be part of. 

Yesterday afternoon I took time to do most of the assignment we will cover in the recovery class tomorrow night.  One piece of the assignment has still not left me alone.  Backing up to yesterday morning, after the church service, Kathy and I have started a Sunday School class our pastor’s wife is teaching on Old Testament characters.  The reality of the class is more about Who God is and why He brought all of these characters about and how He used them in spite of sin entering into the picture.  The hugest piece of learning for me is the part about God’s relationship with them/us.  He desires so much to deeply be connected to each of us. 

Yesterday, the assignment I was baffled in doing was writing a love letter to myself from God.  It was a blank page which ended, “Love, God”  I had to fill in the page (letter).  Having gone so far on the journey of recovery I’ve found the truth in so many lies I’ve believed all of my life.  I’ve also found some parts of the lies I still have harboring pieces I needed to surrender and finally fully forgive.  These pieces have tied more to my dad than to any other part.  I’ve always known I’m a man but I’ve always known (or thought I did) that dad was ashamed of this body/person who had the body of a man but didn’t know how to do what men are so often capable of doing.  This mindset my dad had truly went deep into the person of me.  Now that I’ve been living more and more in the new creation mindset, I find myself able to let these old lies fully go. 

Writing the letter yesterday also brought about for me the chance to see how deeply God loves and cares for this person he created 68.5 years ago.  Have you thought about the fact God created each of us on purpose just like he did Abraham, David, John, Paul and all the other biblical characters of old?  The relationship He had with them He deeply desires with us.  The truth of this is going deeply within.  Even writing about it in this blog is helping clarify the immense importance of His Love for each of us.  I’m going to stay in this reflective mindset for a while.  I need to.  God told me this morning He wants me here as He isn’t done.  Relationships which are rich and deep take a lifetime so I’m going to stay here for the rest of my days.

Living the new creation life is its own journey.  One of the things I’ve recently heard, and maybe even put it into the blog at some recent point, is that Satan’s attacks on man are not so much to cripple us with guilt and shame.  It is far more about his being able to throw mud into God’s face (or attempt to do so).  God’s forgiveness sets us free but if Satan can get us to wallow in the shame of our actions he takes great pride in it.  I find that so often when I make a commitment to God I will struggle to do it or follow through with it.  Not only do I struggle to do it but I will find myself butting up against walls, etc. which often cause stumbling blocks. 

In my devotions of today I read Joyce Meyer saying that when we don’t find an answer from God we far too often jump to our own conclusion and “do it ourselves” thinking this is the best I can do.  This is the second thing I’m learning about living in the new creation.  God is often asking us to pause and be still during these times of “no answer” as the circumstances aren’t ready for us to move forward. When the disciples were told to pray and wait for the infilling of The Holy Spirit they weren’t given a timeframe.  They were given an assignment.  Waiting for the assignment to take place required them to stay on task of the assignment (pray) until God was ready.  These two items are very important as we step into living the new creation life given to us.  Understanding how much Satan will attempt to roadblock us and then to pause until the doors are opening to complete assignments in God’s way, not ours.  God’s timing is everything and I need to be reminded of this very often. 

Do you know what it is like to live as the new creation we are?  To be in full access to the Holy Spirit who lives within us?  To live with Christ Jesus fully on the throne of our life and keeping Him there throughout the living of each day?  I am becoming more and more aware that being a new creation and living the new creation life is its own journey which I am becoming quite conscious of. 

Yesterday was an intense day meeting with the ones in our state working with the under-performing schools/districts.  There is a good deal of need for these sites to do some dramatic work so that students don’t leave these districts having been poorly educated due to a lack of focus on them.  By the time the day was done I was back into my mode of thinking that I lived and worked under all of my career.  I was going to make this happen with the ones I’m assigned to assist.  However, as I reflect this morning I know perfectly well that this is not going to happen well if the Earnie of yesterday is the one going into the sites.  It is the Earnie committed to being the new creation and keeping Christ in the center of the work leading all of it which will make the ultimate difference.  I do know the operational practice of my old self.  God is wanting me to wait on Him and work under His leading as the steps are taken.  I know this way as my day begins with Him.  It is keeping myself surrendered during the day where I want and need to grow. 

Living the new creation is the goal of this year.  I know I will need to be brought back to this place several times and today was one of them. 

It was fun to experience my journey connecting with someone else’s journey last night at Celebrate Recovery.  One of the guys I presently sponsor was telling me about his recent dream.  It was Wed. night that he’d had it.  It seemed, as I was listening to it, to be directly from God’s Holy Spirit.  I asked him if it had relevant meaning for him?  He instantly said it was connected to his recent relapse.  All of a sudden his eyes lit up and he said, “God is wanting me to know I cannot open the door to temptation like I recently did.  He is showing me how to walk away and Satan will flee.”  This took place during the dinner hour and he then shared this in share group.  His relapse had haunted him making him think there was no use in continuing with CR.  Now he sees the truth in this.  He has been sober for almost 10 months and he had one fall.  Prior to this he’d not been sober from his addiction for more than a day or so.  His journey is just like so many others and now he could see this.  We praised God together.  Our God is so GOOD!

All of my life I’ve wanted to find the time and place where temptation is never going to haunt you and we will be strong enough to walk away from it no matter what it is.  I’ve realized this place is not going to be a place here on earth.  It is a place called heaven and our entrance there is death from here.  With this being known, I still find myself wishing it could be some other way.  Somehow I seem to have this strong desire to abandon humanness so I can live in the panacea of life without any sin or temptation.

Yesterday was a day back with the school district.  It was a very healthy day getting the administration together and finishing the work of the grant’s budget.  One of the admin had arrived early to the meeting giving him and me some time together.  It was a God moment for me.  He began to open up about his past employment and what had brought him to this present job.  Today I thank God for this time.  It opened the door for a much deeper conversation I’ve felt I needed to have with him but I had no tangible way of getting there.  Now I do.  He’s a bright, energetic young man with a great skill set for his job.  However, life has burned him and I had been noticing some characteristics in his day to day operational practices which told me he was “scared”.  Now I understand and can come along side of this.  God is really good–isn’t He! 

I’m headed back to the district today so we can finish the grant’s entirety.  Next week we will go through it with the community members and then it will be submitted.  Hallelujah!

Last night was the restart of our recovery classes.  Christmas and New Years were both on Tuesdays this past season so we cancelled for the two weeks.  It was so good to be back into the classes and addressing once again the content of them.  In my own class on abuse we are into the damage of abuse separating out shame as guilt from toxic shame which is shame from thinking you are valueless.  It was a heavy conversation last night.  Each man present including myself knows the sense of valuelessness and the abuse which brought this belief about. 

This morning I happened to be reading again in Acts.  Paul is busy taking the message of Jesus Christ to the many territories the book mentions.  Joyce inserts a message which was very pertinent for me.  She talks about her 4 kids coming from “in me”.  They carry characteristics of her because they started “in me” meaning her own body.  She compares this to our “being born again” when we accept Christ into our life.  In so doing, we have Christ “in me”.  We have the characteristics of Christ now in us and we also have the Holy Spirit to make these characteristics more a part of our daily living.  As I was journaling about all of this I could suddenly realize a dramatic point.  The sin which was done to me by my brother and the beliefs I’ve had stemming from dad’s critical spirit were generating a toxic shame which had me believing I was valueless.  However, all this time, Christ has been helping me to replace what I thought was “in me”  with His Life now “in me”.  This new life (new creation) is full of value because it is the very Son of God and He is “in me” along with The Holy Spirit!  Talk about value!

Well, this is a lot to take in but it is so critical.  I truly am a new creation and this morning I have a much richer understanding of it.  How I thank God for His faithfulness to me and to each of us.  He is far from done too–He says so. 

Last Sunday Kathy and I attended a new Sunday School class at our church.  It is being taught by our senior pastor’s wife.  She is an outstanding teacher so I wanted to attend it just because she was doing the teaching.  The class is all about the Old Testament characters and their relationship with God.  I’m always intrigued by man’s relationship with God, including my own. The incredible thing I heard which won’t leave me alone is that God’s intent in creating us is to have a relationship with us–it is as simple as that.  Throughout the Bible and throughout time He continues to open doors for this relationship with Him to happen.

This morning as I was having my devotions I was journaling about the things which God has me doing and hoping I’m doing them well for Him.  In so doing, I asked the question I always conclude with:  “Father, what do you want me to know from You for today?”  His response took me for surprise.  He made it very clear that my relationship with Him will never be built from what I do for Him.  He created me to BE in relationship with Him and that didn’t have anything to do with DOING.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this, but this morning, it went right to my heart.  He went onto say that I’ve tried to hide my (supposed) incompetence all my life thinking what I heard when I was growing up from dad made me less than competent.  This person God created is just how He wanted me.  As I go to complete any work He has me do I am going as the person He created to go do this work.  I don’t need to hide anything.  If there were something I was unable to address/do He who is in me (The Holy Spirit) will take care of it. 

I know I have struggled with the insecurities of relationships forever.  However, it is time to let God help me see this as a character flaw He wants to address.  I am ready to face it too.  So, thank you Father!  I love You for loving me and seeking this relationship with me.