The Journey Continues but in so doing, the Light gets brighter showing more vividly where the path is leading.  This is the first time I’ve begun to understand and see this.  My human nature had learned fear as my way of dealing with what was ahead of me.  I would be excited in my spirit but coupled right with the excitement has been a tremendous amount of fear.  The fear would be about another failure, another opportunity for being abused by new people I’d be meeting, etc.  A fear that would isolate and paralyze me from taking any step my excitement might want me to take.  God is helping me see that the path for which the journey takes is one of His Making.  The Light He is providing isn’t a Light that shows me down the road several years.  It is a Light for the moment and sometimes for the day.  It is as if it is the confidence to go into the day knowing I’m completing my day’s assignment with God at the helm without seeing anything but God’s opportunity to serve Him.

I sat by my grandson last night watching my granddaughter’s volleyball game.  (They won by the way!)  I was listening to him talk about so many things he’s now doing since he is living on his own in his newly purchased house.  He is not afraid of stepping into many of man’s entertaining opportunities and he even sees them as fun and adventurous.  I listen and quickly see how so many men get caught in their addictions.  Soon these “entertaining things” turn into more than just fun.  “I need them to make me feel better”.  He and I can talk about these things as time moves on but I saw something I FEARED as a youth while he is enticed.  I see for the first time that neither is right or wrong, they are just how man handles man’s ways.  God was helping me see that these ways without God’s Light turn to darkness and sometimes turn to darkness quickly.  I don’t fear this as I once would, but I am much more awake to the need to follow God’s nudges as He gives them.

God’s ways and His nudges do seem at time to be overwhelming and impossible.  Yet, as I am learning just how gentle, kind and long-suffering He is, I want to complete whatever He asks for my confidence is growing tremendously in this arena.  Wow, God is Good!

The word for today–LORD.  There are 4 guys in our recovery class for abuse meeting on Tuesday nights.  (There are 9 in the ladies group but I just know women are far more able to face these demons than we men are.  We have to be strong in and of ourselves, we think.)  As we were talking through the lesson which was all about awakening to the areas of abuse/neglect from our past, I kept hearing others say things like: “I couldn’t do that because I feared”, or “I couldn’t take that step because I knew I’d fail”, etc.  These sounded just like my messages.  However, this time I was hearing it in retrospect to what I was learning from the lesson.  God gave us Jesus Christ to create a pathway to Him.  But, if we never let Christ be Lord of our life, we never allow the pathway to God to be cleared.  We are constantly dealing with the garbage strewn throughout the path.  Boy, can I see this now.

This morning I’m reading in Ezekiel about God’s message to him.  God tells him the children of Israel have been stubborn and unwilling to let Him be their Lord and King.  They wanted to have an earthly king and be lead my man’s wisdom rather than God’s.  Now they were experiencing the consequences of their hard-heartedness but they were still not getting the message.  When God showed me just a few years ago the verse Jeremiah 24:7, “…I will remove the heart of stone…and give you a heart of flesh”,  I knew He was talking about my hardened heart toward sensitivity to man.  What I’m finally awakening to is that God was wanting me to awaken to being sensitive to HIM.  The original heart He gave me (us) was a heart of flesh–sensitivity to Him.  Sin turns this heart toward self–selfishness.  I will never be sensitive to man the way God is until I’m capable and willing to be sensitive to Him.  This looks like obeying His nudges, allowing myself to feel what He has me see and what He has me hear.  I then do not respond out of my willfulness, but out of His nudges.

LORD,  this word means “leader”.  If Jesus Christ are going to be LORD of my life I must not only have Him on the throne of my life, but willingly respond to Him as my Lord.  This isn’t when I feel ok about it, but each time He nudges.  I have so much to learn about this.  A “heart of flesh” is a powerful gift God is wanting me to understand in a richer way.  The garbage strewn in my pathway will be cleared by God as I allow Him to fully heal my heart and respond in trust to His Leading as LORD.

I finished my devotions this morning, refilled my coffee cup and went right to doing my recovery group lesson for tonight.  I’m not working today so I had planned to use the time after devotions to finish it.  Well, I did do just that.  In so doing I forgot all about doing my blog!  The lesson required each participant to build a timeline of their life from birth to present putting the pro’s of life above the line and the neg’s of life below it.  This was actually last week’s lesson in part but none of the guys had put anything on it except for myself.  I’d done this type of assignment before so it was easier for me to process through it.  Tonight we are completing all that wasn’t done last week.  Everyone agreed to getting theirs done.

In having done 7-Pillars (class for sexually addicted men) a couple years ago and now starting the class for abuse, I can finally see what I’ve never been able to process for myself.  This is all about Christ living on the throne of my life and The Holy Spirit living within me.  In 7-Pillars and in The Conquer DVD’s, the author says Christ’s throne is in the amygdala portion of our brain.  I said at the time I thought “that was stupid”.  Why would Christ want to live in the primal portion of me?  Little did I realize at the time how critical this statement is.  Now that I’m going through the class for abuse do I realize this portion of my brain was damaged severely from the early childhood abuse.  I had so many false beliefs and fears controlling me.  Only now do I see how critical it is to have Christ in this area for me.  This is the area driving all the lies I have believed about myself for as long as I’ve lived.  Even though I might fear something, Christ compels me to not be paralyzed by the fear but to step into it and complete what His Holy Spirit nudges to do and do it from His Strength rather than my own self-will.

Finally, I am awakening more and more to this reality.  In all of this, the fear of telling becomes easier and easier because I do this through God’s nudges within rather than out of sheer self-disciple like when I gave my testimony 9 years ago to our Celebrate Recovery group.  That night I can only remember starting to give it and then talking about it in the share group an hour later.  The rest of the time is blank in my mind.  I have no recall of it.  That’s what my brain did with trauma when I was a child and it still has done this until more recently as I’ve been able to live and do what God wants done and do it from His Spirit’s nudges rather than from my own self-will.  I’m so glad to be taking this class for abuse.  It completes a hole within me that God wants filled with Him.

Yes, 36 years ago today I was a nervous wreck!  What was I doing?  I was marrying someone who had never married and I was giving her this scarred, retched man.  She was innocent of whom I was and someday she’d find out her awful mistake.  Yet, I was going to marry her anyway.  These were the thoughts I had 36 years ago today when Kathy said yes to me and I to her.  God has taken all of those lies and turned them into a life of opportunities for Him to show me what a marriage to someone whom He gave me as His gift, was like.  Instead of living in fear as I did then, I want to live in opportunity to complete all God has in store for us.  He is truly an Amazing Father!

Today I started Lamentations–Jeremiah’s laments of Jerusalem and the mighty kingdom which is now in ruins.  As I finished the book of Jeremiah and now reading Lamentations, I wondered how could Judah not take heed to this doom?  It was as though God pointed out that in reading the condensed version of this time, it is easy to see the errors of their actions.  However, look at myself today.  How many times has God shown me a path and I wouldn’t take it for whatever was holding me back?  Look at all the ones I know and look at the way they choose to live.  Is their choice reflective of what God is saying to them?  It is so easy to read a book that spans a lifetime and more and see what wasn’t seen by them.  However, it is not so easily done when one is looking at oneself.

As I journaled this morning I asked God to keep me on track with Him.  I want to not act out of fear and selfishness any longer.  I want to live life as God has intended for Kathy and me completing His perfect will.  For today, the start was taking the time to be with Him this morning and writing this to you.

The nights are longer as fall progresses into the year.  As I began my prayer time this morning it was pitch black out the den window.  I was praying for the darkness to be lifted for those on my prayer list who are struggling or battling to overcome in areas of their lives.  This included my own.  As I finished and opened my eyes the darkness was beginning to be penetrated by the first light of dawn.  I could start to see the outlines of the trees.  It was as though God was saying He is the Light and He will penetrate the very darkness of the soul Satan wants to keep firmly in place.  God is so faithful and I love Him for this.

Tomorrow is Kathy and my 36th wedding anniversary.  However, Monday’s are filled from early morning until choir ends at night.  So, we are taking today to celebrate.  I honestly didn’t know love when Kathy and I first met and even when we had married.  I knew what love wasn’t and shouldn’t be, but to know love and know how to give love–I was groping.  I’m far from good at it today but I sure am not where I was all those years ago.  For one thing, love doesn’t scare me anymore.  It use to mean being touched and hurt with the manipulation from it or the memories which haunted me of this time in my life.  This is what I knew love wasn’t, but how did one get all of this out of your mind and emotions?  This is what God has done and has been doing for me these past 10 years.  Guess who has never wavered in her support during all this time?  You are right–my wife, Kathy.  How I love her for this and thank her for her steadfast love.

God doesn’t get in a hurry as He leads us through life.  Instead, He helps us use what we experience from life to help others as He leads them through their own healing.  Somehow, this is one of God’s finest demonstrations of love.  This support that doesn’t condemn, but supports when one would fall again without it.  How good our God is!

God did some great work yesterday with the recovery ministries we are working with.  We have been needing leadership for our children while their parents are in the recovery programs whether on Tuesday night or Celebrate Recovery on Thursday.  A month ago a lady new to our area volunteered to help.  She is not only help, she is a whirlwind of God’s wisdom and delivery of service.  The kids love her and what she has them doing.  She has taken the curriculum other adults have struggled to use with the kids and made it come to life.  The lessons for the kids are to aligned with the parent’s lessons so kids and parents can have common discussions during the week.  I can finally see this happening–Praise God!

This morning we have over 100 men coming together for a men’s breakfast and speaker.  I’m asking that the pastor in charge announce one last time that the recovery classes on Tuesday will close after this week.  I’m praying for those who want to come but are afraid to address the darkness in their lives for whatever is keeping them in bondage.  The grip of Satan’s lies is powerful until we put it into the Power of God’s Presence–His Light.  How I pray for this to happen for anyone this morning who is still caught.

I often ask myself if I would step forth and ask for help by attending a class like we are offering?  My fears and bondage were not different than what grips anyone today who is caught.  Yet, how I found my freedom from this bondage is through the same Jesus Christ.  I thought I could finish my bondage breaking by getting a program started called Celebrate Recovery.  That was 10 years ago.  Little did I know how God would little by little show me the huge amount of work which was still unaddressed in my life.  All I know is that the same freedom God has given me is there for the asking.  Taking that first step is always the hardest.  Pray for those who still need to take theirs.  It is the start to FREEDOM like one never knew possible!

God’s heart–As we learn to live our life as a new creation, the life given to us when we accept Christ’s work on the Cross, we receive the Holy Spirit.  Only as we allow ourselves to listen and respond to the Holy Spirit do we begin to know the Heart of God and respond to life with it.  There is so much turmoil in our country it is hard to see the Heart of God.  What we see are the actions and turmoil of man.  I know I can get lost in each day’s turmoil and strife, but God is asking each of us to choose His Heart by responding to His Spirit.  In so doing we place His Spirit in the lead of our life.  All of this comes down to each man’s decision.  I want to have God’s Holy Spirit leading me each and every day.  I blow it often, but each morning I come back to this same decision–will I commit this day to God and His Spirit’s work in my life?  My answer is, “Yes.”

As I read in Jeremiah again this morning I am baffled by man.  Jeremiah literally is telling the few remaining Jews to come back to God’s Ways.  Yet, they turn his message into a simple one as only coming from the man Jeremiah instead of him being God’s messenger.  Unfortunately, I sense us doing this today.  All the warning signs given to us don’t seem to make any difference.  However, the differences we can make as individuals for God’s Kingdom will be made by each of us.  I choose today to follow God’s leading in my life.

The anxiety of the previous days was gone as I wrote yesterday’s blog.  What wasn’t gone was the spent person.  By the time I got home last night I could hardly stay awake following supper.  All I wanted to do was close my eyes and go to bed (or in reverse order).  I finally did that at 9.  The last thing I wanted was to awake at 3 or 4 am and be wide awake.  Anyway, enough of that.

My devotional this morning reminded me that one cannot be pessimistic in the face of God.  God is the One of Promise, Hope, Salvation, Light and so much more.  Take a step away from all of this and one can be quite pessimistic.  However, turn and see the Light and the pessimism flees.  I loved this message for today.

As I’ve been reading Jeremiah and the Jewish people being taken to Babylon, it makes me see very similar deterioration in our own country’s walk with God.  No longer do we hold the Word of God as our moral compass. No longer do we call on God as our strength.  However, I sense God asking each of us who will to be a Light carrier for Him to the world we face each day.  Even in our great country there is heartache all around us.  Sin is abundant and the effects of it are why I love our recovery programs.  I know the sins of our society from the abuse of them and the ones of my own living.  All of these are buried at the Cross of Christ, but Satan has so many believing otherwise.  So, lets be a Light bearer for Christ our King in this world for which we live.

Today is a new day.  The past couple days have started with a sense of anxiety that has been overwhelming each morning.  I’ve lived with this long enough to know I will move through the day in spite of it but I couldn’t put my finger on the “why” of it. Now I know.  Last night’s class was my first time to be able to simply work through the lesson on abuse with the men coming.  We started getting into the “why” we were in the class.  I found it amazing that two of us talked about the anxiety of doing this and the other two talked about their excitement to delve into it.  The emotions of man!

This morning the anxiety of the past couple days is gone.  Getting started last night exposing what is inside was simply freeing–hard at the time, but the after effect is freeing and this morning I feel calm and at ease.  Wow, God is so Amazing!

Yesterday, along with the class last night, I met with a man who wanted to talk through his present battle.  God was very present and I think he was able to get God’s Light in moving ahead.  I then stopped by my brother’s place to check in with him.  A week from today I will take him to this final doctor’s appointment so he can be released from the wheelchair (or I hope that is the outcome of the appointment).  It was so good to see him in good spirits and he demonstrated his ability to walk without any help–at least for a short distance.

Today I head to the high school of the district I’m assisting.  I’m needing to breathe deep and see what is needed as a 3-year assignment rather than a quick fix.  I’ve known it is a 3-year one, but my actions/thoughts have been to act quickly and get things moving.  I do know that there’s much to do in order to move.  I need to remember that starting slow and doing this thoroughly will lead to the ability to move quickly once we get our work well defined.

God is so good and I am learning to complete His assignments as such.  The idea I need to take the ropes from Him and do all the work is a new concept yet it is one I want to get much better at.  God will put these 3-years together and I need to do my work one day at a time with Him staying at the helm.

Yesterday’s work with the school was more perplexing than fun as I’d said in yesterday’s blog.  Yes, I do enjoy classroom observations, but it reminded me to pause on doing too much analysis from one visit.  There are so many elements which come into play in putting a lesson together and then teaching it.  I’ll want to spend more time before I should jump into any analysis.  Plus, all of this needs to directly involve the teachers and their new admin.  Just like the principal, only one of the teachers has been there for any length of time.  Everyone else acquired the learning gap the district has.  I know God has a plan for this and right now I strongly sense Him saying to get better acquainted before jumping into too much “telling”.

The uneasiness of having things to do but not being sure how to address them was hitting me hard last night.  The Christmas program rehearsals have begun.  Even though I don’t have a major role, there are still several songs to memorize.  I’m also asked to sing a solo with our choir in a few weeks which also requires memorization.  These added to yesterdays complexity and then today meeting with a Celebrate Recovery man who is troubled and wants to talk, I woke in the middle of the night unable to sleep.  I felt anxious and unable to handle what is on the plate.  Even though I attempted to “let them go” I kept hanging onto them.  This morning as I journaled about all of this God simply reminded me these are His items and my assignments for doing my part.  He never gives us more than we can handle.  He is always with us.  Satan does have a hay day at moments like last night.  However, this morning I am reminded of who is ultimately in control.  It isn’t as though I don’t have 68 years of experiencing God win out.  Satan wants me to believe all the lies he plants in my mind or that my “old-self mind” wants to conger up.

Today I’m a new creation and going to live in this belief I know is true.  In this there is great freedom.  I choose to be free as Christ has set me free!