Sometimes I ponder if I am accomplishing what God has for me to do within a day’s time.  I will briefly ponder it and then the thought is gone because what the day has within it takes over.  Then I get to the next morning and wonder all over again if that is what God wanted done?  That is exactly where I am this morning about yesterday.  I am to be helping/guiding a school district in spending a considerable amount of money to make a significant difference in their children’s learning.  It is also to embed into routine practice what needs to be done so when the project is over the learning will continue at a high rate of success.  So, how does God want this to happen?  How do I know what we are doing is from His leading?  These were only some of my questions for this morning. 

A week ago I was looking forward to yesterday and today as we are wrapping up the budget part of this big needs assessment the district’s two sites have been doing.  I’ve always had a thing about spending money because once one does this it better turn out great or the money was misspent and I sure don’t want to be responsible for that.  Now that we are here and today we are to wrap up the budget for the sites, all these questions come to mind during the night when I was to be sleeping—Ha Ha!

This morning’s message seemed to be what it often is–“Be Still.  Know that I AM GOD.”  There was more to the message but it was all about believing and trusting.  God says He knows and He also knows how to use all of the ones involved to best ensure the work we outline.  So, today I will go trusting what we develop will be what God wants done.  I know we can adjust things as we go and that does help.  I’ve got much to learn about believing and trusting.  I’m glad to be on this road however and on it not alone!

This is my last week of work before the Christmas holiday begins and it is a rather full one.  The first two I’m home at night and then the next two I am away.  The good thing is that I’m able to be back in time for the recovery classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights.  I was amazed yesterday after writing the blog to work on my Tuesday night lesson for tomorrow.  The lesson content was all about what my dream I’d had Saturday night seemed to be addressing.  The lesson centered on how abuse leaves one to deal with life on your own accord and in so doing the adults abusing the child are like lions devouring the child for their selfish reasons with no regard for the effects the child is left to deal with.  I’m sure this will become clearer for me in time, but I was utterly amazed yesterday morning to have these two tie together. 

This morning as I had my devotional time God seemed to take me to a place I needed to know about.  A couple weeks ago I wrote about God removing the mountains of unbelief.  This morning God said that in removing the mountains I needed to know that on the other side of unbelief is more than “flower beds” as I had thought.  There was still man’s selfishness and Satan’s deceptions which I hadn’t wanted to believe existed to the degree they do.  Now that my eyes are opened more I will see more and He wants me to be ready to take all of it to Him rather than steel it away someplace as I’ve always done in the past not wanting to believe it existed. 

God is such an amazing God.  I never want to doubt Him again.  I only want to grow this amazing BELIEF He has graciously offered to each of us. 

Yesterday had a couple of alarming things take place.  It started as noon was approaching and we found out a couple who had been part of our Celebrate Recovery a few years back lost their 21 year old daughter in a car accident early yesterday morning.  After lunch I took time to drive to my grandson’s ballgame so he could leave when the game was done and we could spend a little time together.  All that went nicely.  As I got home and was ready for bed, Kathy came into the bedroom saying her younger brother was being taken to the hospital.  He’d had a heart attack.  It appears he’d had pain all day but didn’t want to say anything.  We still don’t know how severe, but tests were being done last night upon arrival.

During the night I had a perplexing dream.  I was working with a school district and teaching a class modeling for the teacher a couple strategies to use.  It was easy to get attached to the kids in the room while doing the instruction and I did in the dream.  Later in the dream the teacher and one of the students were going to be terminated from the district when I knew there was great hope for them.  The dream ended with me walking away feeling helpless not knowing what I was to do to change the mind of those in charge.  (In reality, I would have stood up to the decision makers telling them they were making a bold mistake but that wasn’t the outcome of the dream.)

In talking to God about all of this during my devotional time I found Him saying to “be still and I will know”.  The next four days have some important decisions being made for three districts I’ll be working with.   It seems I need to keep this message alive in my mind.  God is an amazing God!

This morning’s devotional reading talked about God wanting us to practice justice, mercy and humility as we relate one to another.  It is amazing to read something like this and think, “I can do that.”  Then we get into our day and find out, “No, I can’t!  The circumstances just won’t allow me to be merciful or to apply justice (I want revenge) or to remain humble knowing I don’t need to handle this on my own so I can feel better.”  Releasing whatever the circumstances are to God’s leading will always be a better route. 

It was an interesting thing for me to read this passage this morning following the past few days where I’ve wanted to not show justice and be merciful–thus not showing humility.  The situation that had taken place last Tuesday is attached to a lot of history for me and, “I was done being merciful with this person.”  However, just as God is, He wasn’t done.  Today there is a meeting to work things through which God has orchestrated.  I have no idea what the outcome will be but I do know now that God is in control, it will be of His doing and not man’s. 

Yesterday I also attended the funeral of a friend’s mom.  This friend and spouse had been close friends several years ago.  During that time some things happened which caused me to pull away from them.  A breach of confidentiality and no ownership of it had me draw a line in the sand.  Connecting yesterday was a humble and merciful thing just as today’s devotional read.  I found myself yesterday wanting to give mercy and not judgment.  I hate to even admit these things are a part of my own humanness, yet they exist in me and likely in each one of us. 

Reading this message today was another great reminder or God’s patient endurance with me and us.  He is continuing to take this new creation and build it into His likeness.  I do have a long way to go and I can easily see the denial I have had in this area.  Thank you God for your love and patience. 

As I was having my devotional time this morning I reread specifically what I had heard God speaking to me regarding the present turmoil.  I am not the only one involved in this.  A couple of our pastors are too.  God seemed to say to me I should follow the lead set by our senior pastor.  As he and I spoke yesterday he had a suggestion I quickly rerouted telling him I knew it would not work.  He then chose to follow my lead.  This morning God reminded me of my intent to “follow His lead”.  How quickly I forgot His message to me yesterday morning and responded from my own emotional being.  So, I’ve already told our senior pastor I will follow God and his lead. 

Last night was such a touching moment.  We had about 50 adults present for our Celebrate Recovery Christmas blessings.  It is a sacred moment to have a scripture read over you which has your name right in it.  The one read to me said: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that when Earnie believes in Him, he should not perish but have eternal life.”  What a blessing it is to have what has been the most gripping and ugly part of your life now being the very thing that brings a promise to you.  In the promise is the reminder that “believe” is the key.  How much of late God has been showing me how my “unbelief” has blocked my view of Him and all He wants me to know from Him.  What a loving and personal God we get to serve.   

Well, the drama of the incident continues.  The unrest stirs within me but God is continuing to say the same thing,  “Be still and let Him do His work.”  I am not one who works well with identified strife left unattended but for some reason I am to leave this alone at the present. 

If I’m to set this incident aside and address what else is happening in life I’d say–All is well.  The work with the schools is making great progress now.  The things with family are going nicely.  Christmas is coming and our kids from Oklahoma will be here in less than 2 weeks–even Kathy comes home today!  Tonight is our Celebrate Recovery’s Christmas blessing night.  Each year at this time instead of a testimony or a lesson we use the large group time to read a scripture blessing over each attendee.  It has been something the leadership has wanted to continue each year.  I look forward to it.  Tonight is the first time I will be a participant in it and not leading the activity.  That’s a nice feeling.

God really is an amazing God.  His Words to Be Still are just what I need to be reminded.  As soon as I write them, say them in my head or say them out loud I sense a peace.  Only God can give this to us.  How I thank Him. 

Yesterday I mentioned the calm before the storm.  Today I’m needing to use that statement again.  Yesterday started out to be a nice quiet morning for which I got caught up with several detail items I wanted to finish.  By noontime I was home and done.  I then got a call from one of our group leaders regarding a sudden death in their family so she would be unable to lead her group last night.  I got the group covered and then went to my grandson’s ballgame.  At the conclusion of it and while I was driving to church to unlock for our groups I got a call from another group leader’s spouse.  She wanted action taken against her husband I couldn’t support.  There were some small drama items at the beginning of group time which were quickly settled.  When I finally got home I received a text from the spouse greatly disturbed with my “lack of support” for her. 

This morning I needed to journal all of this and hear what God wanted me to know from Him.  In so doing I reread what He’d told me yesterday.  I had written, “…I know Satan’s ploys and ways.  His evil is riveting.  I will give Light which is to guide you in this present darkness.  Never lose sight of My Light.” 

The specifics of what drove yesterday’s drama I won’t share.  God knows it and today I sensed Him saying to now  let Him do His part.  I did mine.  I had called the pastor who oversees these ministries and He had already been informed of what I was addressing.  He concurred with the steps I took.  Now I need to let the rest go.  I find myself sensing emotions I haven’t felt in a long time.  God reminded me this morning that these emotions I have for being sensitive to people.  They are not to necessarily guide the steps but to motivate the need to take one.  Emotions and right choices are not necessarily from the same source. 

With all of this I just say, I am so grateful God is at the helm!  He is truly The Almighty God!

Today seems like the calm after the storm.  Yesterday wasn’t a tornado or anything like that, but it was a day which started very early and I didn’t get home until 8 pm last night.  It was long but very productive–at least in man’s world.  This morning as I was journaling I found myself sensing a childhood longing I use to have as a young boy in Southern Calif.  It was there I use to long to be someone important–someone men would turn to for wisdom.  These are adult words to a boy’s dream, but it was something like that.  I reflect back on these moments and wonder if this somehow was what bothered my dad so much?  I don’t ever remember verbalizing this dream to anyone, but I do remember having the dream often.  I can even recall taking what a teacher would say in the classroom and think about how I’d turn that learning into wisdom for someone else.  Of course it never occurred to me that she’d just past wisdom off to me.  I was going to be the one providing the wisdom.

Well, 60+ years later the dream returns.  There are no “mountains of unbelief” blocking the picture as there have been throughout my life.  In reality, God has used this dream He gave me to help motivate the ministries we now have operating: Celebrate Recovery and the Recovery Ministries.  God has used them mightily to bring me back fully to Him in my belief of who He is and who I am to Him.  He is doing the same for so many others too.  He is also using these ministries to help others give back to Him as the leadership in both ministries is almost entirely made up of ones having gone through Celebrate Recovery.  God is such an amazing Father!  How I love Him.  The greatest reward of this is that the giving back today has no ego attached to it as I’m sure it did when I was a boy.  God has brought the power of ego to the cross of humility and thanksgiving.  It is there He transforms the power of sin into the Power of the Cross. 

“Anything can happen on Christmas Eve.  Miracles are yours for the asking.  The unexpected happens when you believe it may  for anything can happen today.”  These are song lyrics from yesterday’s Christmas production we finished.  It wasn’t until this morning’s devotion that God had me taking these lyrics and seeing their truth  as they apply to His current work in my life. 

“BELIEVE” is a powerful word in God’s Spiritual Rhelm.  It is also a simple word in a young child’s rhelm.  Young children have no problem believing what a storybook tells them or what the Bible tells them.  We are all born with the capability of believing.  Sin entering into our humanness so long ago eats away at this belief until it is almost destroyed.  Boy do I know this well.  However, there has always been a seed of belief deep in my soul that rises momentarily when belief is made visible as in yesterday’s production. 

This morning God has shown me how the “mountain of unbelief” He has removed from me these past few weeks now shows what belief looks like.  It does look like miracles happening around you.  These miracles are things man can’t envision on his own, but they happen in little ways and big ways because someone believes.  I have been one who believes for others but has been unable to do so for myself.  God is teaching me that belief is genuine for everyone just as it is for every child born into this sinful world. 

I want to do a much better job allowing belief to show forth in me throughout each and everyday.  I think it looks like letting The Holy Spirit become the very spirit man sees in us as the new creation God has made us to be. 

In the teaching world we are taught about Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of learning.  It starts with learning a lesson for the knowledge of it, builds to comprehension so we can think about how the knowledge can be used and then it grows to application.  Application goes to analysis where we begin to see the worthwhileness of the learning’s application.  It then goes to synthesis where we see how this learning can benefit other learning and fields of learning.  Lastly, we evaluate the effectiveness so we can know if we are to continue as we are, adjust it, etc. 

I start with this educational lesson today because I know this is what God is doing with His scriptural lessons for me.  I’ve known much of God’s Word throughout my life but this has been too much at the knowledge level only.  He is diligently working to bring His lessons in scripture to the higher levels of purpose. 

This morning in reading Luke’s chapter 6 Jesus is talking about forgiveness.  He says we are to love our enemies and to then bless them.  We bless them by praying for them.  This is all in Luke 6: 27-28.  I liked what Joyce Meyer added in a footnote.  She said if we forgive our enemy it is not enough to stop there.  To bless our enemy we are not only to pray for them but to stop talking badly about them.  In talking badly about them we too often migrate right back to the unforgiveness platform God has been wanting us to leave.  The Holy Spirit was nudging me this morning to put this into my own practice with my dad.  In the first paragraph this morning I state that evaluation is the last step in the learning continuum.  However, it is not about evaluating the one delivering the lesson.  It is about how well the learning was able to be applied, analyzed, etc.  God’s job is to evaluate the one delivering the lesson.  This is my personal lesson of today.  It is time for me to bless my dad.  He has been gone for quite some time now, but in his life, he did do some things well.  I’m going to dwell far more on these starting today.