Today I feel like a ton of bricks is sitting within my head.  My quartet was singing for the funeral of our bass’s mom.  She was loved and respected very much like my own mother.  There was a beautiful bouquet of lilies right smack in front of where we stood each time we sang.  That’s all it took.  I am so allergic to those critters!  I use to get sicker than a dog from an exposure like that before I had my sinus surgery and got rid of all the pockets of sinus infection.  Today, an exposure like that still shuts down my sinus passages so all the pressure I feel is the passages which have swollen shut temporarily from the exposure.  However, it will subside within today and I’ll be fine for day 2 of our Christmas production this afternoon.

As I was having my devotions this morning I realized how much an allergy attack is like a temptation.  It seems a temptation is always attractive at least to the one receiving it.  Most people know I love gardening and flowers.  So when I saw the lilies yesterday I knew immediately to ask to have them removed or at least placed farther away from where they were sitting.  I didn’t go smell them but I didn’t say a word and so they had their full effect on me.  In Celebrate Recovery I’ve learned well my need to call for help when I am tempted.  If I do I get help immediately.  If I don’t  and I try to handle it on my own——well, I will end up just like I’m feeling today–a ton of bricks weighing me down.  Then I have to tell a different story.  The first telling would have removed the problem.  The second telling has to confess the consequence of not telling the first one.

God seems to know how to turn every situation into a lesson.  I want to be a good student and learn well from Him.  Today is no exception.  I love my Teacher!

Yesterday was an amazing day.  As I had posted yesterday, it started with anxiety and dread.  However, after renewing my mind with God during devotions I was equipped and ready to head into it.  What is so amazing is that all the things I’d written in my journal I was needing to address were either addressed or will be today, and I got much, much more done than I’d ever anticipated.

Today as I was having my devotional time I found myself rereading in Luke 23:39-43 the part about the one thief on the cross scolding the other thief for criticizing Jesus and challenging him to do something miraculous.  In fact, the one thief recognized the magnificence of Jesus and asked him to remember him when he entered into glory.  Christ’s response was that this thief would be with him in Paradise that day.  What was so amazing to me was that this thief went from a criminal to a believer in that instant.  He saw Jesus for Who He Is.  Jesus then saw the criminal for now believing what he wants all of us to believe–Christ came to be our Savior.  With that, the criminal was saved.  This was just a few hours before death for both of them.

I bring this point out because it just doesn’t matter what our charges are that Satan holds over our heads making us believe we are not acceptable to God.  Christ simply says to see Him as my Savior and receive Him and I will be saved.  It is not about saying the right words, it’s about believing the Truth of Who Christ Is and receiving Him.  We can do this early in life or as life is ending.  Christ just wants us.  He came for this very purpose.  Angels are waiting to rejoice too as each of us takes this step.  It has tremendous eternal value.

I haven’t been what man calls a criminal, but I have been what God calls lost.  I’ve been lost believing lies of value and worth and lies of how I must prove myself worthy of Christ’s Kingdom He invites us to.  Now that I’m much more awake to this I know Christ is wanting me to hold this torch of truth high so others can see and know this Kind and Loving Savior who came who came some 2000 years ago.  If you don’t know Christ as this Savior, take a moment and believe.  He’s right there (here).

Today’s journey started with me awakening at 4:20 am full of dread.  Each evening of this week I’ve been involved in the dress rehearsals for our church’s Christmas production which will take place Friday, Saturday and Sunday this weekend.  Tonight is the last dress rehearsal.  There is a good deal of dance type movement and much to memorize.  Both of these cause anxiety!  Along with them I’ve had contacts from the state dept of ed the past two evenings asking that I help with a couple federal program reviews they conduct annually.  I already do this but in both cases someone has needed to drop out from the review team for emergencies.  This is typically a no-stressor.   Along with this I have meetings set to organize for the new recovery ministries we will be starting after the first of the year, and then I also have the current ministries to keep my part going well.  The anxiety of the production this weekend was spreading quickly into all these other ministry areas.  (This was suppose to be the morning I’d sleep extra since I don’t have to be to the school I’m working with until 9:00 am).  God had a teaching moment for me.

As I got to my devotions this morning I was emotionally sensing I’m overloaded and cannot do any of this well–old thinking.  God immediately reminded me that my job is to “renew my mind” each morning as He tells us in Romans 12:2.  It says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–His good, pleasing and perfect will.” None of what I’m doing is overtaxing me.  What overtaxes me is the old belief system I’ve had that I’m incapable of doing important work well but I’m driven to try and do it so I can earn my value.

It was good to write down what I’ve got going and in so doing see that these are routine things I’ve done in the past and am now simply doing it with new topics being inserted.  The idea I don’t dance and memorize well is a given.  However, there are a number of the participants who are just like me.  God’s truth expels the fears of darkness which easily overtake us.  God had an important lesson for me today that I’m glad to have taken part in.  He truly is an intimate Father who leads us into His Kingdom Work a step at a time when we remember to “renew our mind” with Him each day.  (I’ll probably take a little nap later this afternoon before tonight’s rehearsal!)

God is really wanting me to understand and believe something I’ve hoped all my life, but not had a tangible belief it was real until now.  What I’m talking about started in yesterday’s post.  Luke 16:13 says “we cannot serve two masters for we will hate the one and love the other….”  Most of my life I’ve been trapped in a repeated pattern of struggling with the temptation to briefly use porn as a sedative distracting  me from the memories of my past or just to get rid of the temptation.  However, when I was in high school I was given the verse I Corinthians 10:13 where God promises to give me the strength to endure a temptation.  It says He won’t allow a temptation bigger than I can handle.  I’ve craved all my life for this to be true for me.  Many times it has been but every once in a while–it is not.  I knew I was the weak one and I used to think I was the “step child who wasn’t cared about”.

Now that I know Christ is in command of my brain and lives there along with The Holy Spirit, I am better understanding that the power to resist comes from this grounding.  I’ve learned my need to tell my temptation at the time it comes–especially the ones which I tend to cave into.  I was journaling about this step and God said something like, “Now that you are better grounded in ‘renewing your mind each day’ go ahead and make the call when temptation arrives.  You know Christ lives in your heart and mind so let Him now enact Our Power as you obey Our command to you.”

I’m going to be taking this step as temptations come.  I’ve already had the conversation with my accountability person.  These times of attack are clever in that Satan doesn’t want me free each day.  However, I now know that God’s promises are as real for me as I’ve known they are for each  of you.  I thank God for His patient endurance with me as I learn to more fully believe in His promises.

Luke 16:13 says we cannot serve two masters for, “we will hate the one and love the other….”  This verse really spoke to me today in my Bible reading, especially in light of fully addressing bad habits, addictions we develop from abuse, neglect, whatever life gives us.  I’ve talked about the fact that I use to make excuses for my “sin” (addiction to running to porn) because it was my release–my escape–my cave.  When I was finally able to see that sin was sin and that there were no excuses for mine, I had to face the truth of this scripture.  Sin is a master when I do any of the above trying to make an excuse for it rather than trusting the God who gave me His Son to take that sin and nail it to the Cross.

As I was journaling about this topic this morning I told God this was why I struggled to give my mind over to Him.  It wasn’t so much that I wanted to keep my “sin”, but the memories of all my sin and the sin done to me as well as the temptations to step into it were there and they were so evil and ugly.  In myself I see me as the 67 year old man I am so why would someone like me still struggle?  Why am I not stronger than this?  God told me that I may be old in years, but to Him I am a young child in this area now learning to obey what this scripture tells me.  Satan would have me believing I’m simply lost due to this sinfulness but God has a very different promise for me (you too!).

There is a simple promise God gives us:  “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Acts 16:31.  This promise is that I am saved because I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.  However, Saved doesn’t remove my humanness.  It gives me a bigger promise and that is that in spite of my humanness, God has saved me.  There is so much freedom in Christ once we step into the Light of His Promises for us.  I choose to stay in the Light of my Lord and Savior–Jesus Christ.

These past 4 days of Thanksgiving weekend, in spite of the whirlwind of activity had an intense amount of reflecting.  Maybe this is partly because of my age, but I also know I have learned the importance of doing my own reflection and helping others to do so.  As I go into this week I almost feel a sense of loss in that the busyness of day to day activity will replace the reflecting time.  This isn’t as true for me since I’m semi-retired.  I find it true for those around me where life has them caught.  I know this life all too well.  Taking a daily moment however to reflect on the new day and getting God positioned into it as our Lord and Savior + Our Guide and Friend is so important.  His guiding voice will help us with the planned and unplanned events of the day.  I want to be good at this but I have a “lot of Earnie” to deal with in order to hear and act on God’s nudges as He wants me doing.

Starting tonight we have a week of dress rehearsals for our choir production this weekend.  It is magnificent.  I have all the fears wanting to spring up inside of me saying:  “I can’t do this”, “Why did I ever get myself involved in something requiring dancing and memorizing?,” “You’re too old to be doing something important like this!,” and more.  However, right under each of these striking fears is God’s still small voice telling me He put me here and to trust Him to do His Work.  Keep Him in mind that this is all for Him while I do my part for He will help me with mine as the times come.  I love Him for this.  It is this quiet, reassuring message that helps keep me focused on what is most important and why it is so important.  To God be all Glory!

Yesterday was a remarkable day.  One of our Celebrate Recovery men had scheduled to share his inventory with me.  I knew to prepare for it as he’d told me he needed to share some things which were similar to my own past abuse.  As he began to share I was stricken by so many similarities to my own story.  I kept reminding myself to listen and not let his story become my own bringing forth of fears and anxieties.  I kept letting go so I could let God guide his speaking and my responses.  After about 20 minutes of this I was able to relax and truly engage.  The warfare was in the right hands–God’s.

This had reminded me of a few years back when I was younger in Celebrate Recovery.  A young man had asked me to be his sponsor and he scheduled a time to share his inventory with me.  I knew nothing about his story–or little about it.  As we met the first time and he began to share a past of abuse so much like my own I could hardly stand it.  I had steeled myself to simply sit there and endure it as though it were happening to me all over again.  After that session I called my own sponsor and broke down and bawled.  I then went to my counselor and asked what I could do about this?  I was young in meeting with my own counselor/therapist at this time.  She taught me about preparing for warfare ahead of these times of sharing.  Satan is wanting to use them to get the sponsor too.  His manipulative ways when roots of a story are within you too can be easily used to get you back into the bondage of sin.

Yesterday wasn’t this way.  The three hours we met were remarkably in God’s hands.  I know God has intentions for this man who shared his story.  I was so glad I got to be a tool of God for him.  Later in the day I had a call from a lady I’ve known many years.  She’s read my book and wanted to tell me about her friend who had looked her up and told her about her son.  He’s newly married but had confessed his own sexual abuse in childhood he’d never told his mom about.  He’s filled with fear and shame because of it.  My book is being given to him so hopefully God can loosen Satan’s grip of bondage by showing that other men have a past too which God has restored.  The grip of bondage starts to be broken when we can tell someone.  This morning I’ve prayed for the one who shared with me yesterday and this young man I’ve never met.  God uses every hurt and replaces it with His genuine Love and Mercy as we are able to surrender and tell.  He is so remarkable in how He does this.

My journey had me up @ 4:15 am yesterday so one of my grandsons and I could do our annual black Friday shopping.  He is my best helper getting gifts for all the other grandsons.  Kathy takes care of the 6 granddaughters and I do the 6 grandsons.  We had a good time together.  It never occurred to me until this morning that I’d not taken the time to sit down with God for my daily devotions yesterday.  There were a number of times during the day I felt His guidance.  He reminded me this morning that our daily time is not our only time.  He is my God and He is with me with our without the hour start in the morning.  I sort of knew that, but it was good to hear Him confirm it.

Yesterday while early morning shopping, we had completed the first two hours and were ready to hit IHOP for breakfast.  I didn’t know where any were in Boise by the mall.  I knew there was one in Meridian where we were headed so I thought I’d try and find it.  It was still dark and as I pulled out of the mall parking lot I could not believe my eyes to find an IHOP sign shining in my face!  We celebrated.  I asked our waitress how long they’d been there and she said, “Ten years.”  I laughed and she also said, “We have miracles even in the start of a day.”  I don’t know if she knew how firmly that hit me.

As we got home later morning and my grandson went back to bed I began to do Christmas lights on the front of our home.  Our neighbors came over with their son and daughter in law to say hi.  They were going across the road to an open house a winery was hosting which had purchased the 40 acres across from me.  I had been concerned because they were doing a great deal of excavating and I’d feared they were putting up a building across the road from my spectacular view of the valley and mountains.  They asked if I’d like to go so I went with the desire to find if my fears were going to be real.  As I met the neighbors and asked, I was told, “Oh, we would never put up a building there.  We are adding a drain field.  We will be planting berries and flowers in this area.”

Later in the afternoon I went to my hearing aid appointment.  Once the testing was complete they fitted me with aids they thought would be best suited.  I could not believe the acuity of hearing.  It was spectacular.  I could not remember when I’d heard so well.

As I began my journaling time this morning I was thanking God for yesterday.  I was asking Him to show me what would be the perfect gifts for each grandson–a gift they’d treasure and want to hang on to knowing it was better than even they’d imagined.  He seemed to ask, “You mean like what I gave you yesterday with the news about your new neighbors and the field of berries and flowers across from you and your new ability to hear along with showing you an IHOP right when you and Hayden were ready to eat?”  I thought, yes, Father,  “that’s exactly the kind of gift I want my grandsons to receive.  The ones they know are a gift–and one which is inspired by God Himself.

Our God is an amazing, intimate Father & Friend!

Today is truly a day of Thanksgiving.  However, if we only look around us at our country’s turmoil and discontent one would wonder where any Thanksgiving is.  The state of Thanksgiving is within us and within each of us if it is to be found.  The Pilgrims had much to be grateful with the shared help of the native Americans giving them physical needs–food and shelter.

Our gratefulness is likely more about God’s redeeming work within us.  That is what’s true for me.  Kathy and I are fortunate in that our material needs are few.  However, my life has been filled with a desire to be free within of torment I could do nothing about I thought except steel it off.  That worked for many years.  Today, however, God has shown me the “peace that passes all understanding.” Philippians 4:7.  This peace (freedom) is not of this world but it is a peace that only comes when we truly give God full access to our heart, mind and soul.  I cannot encourage you enough to take this risk.  God has proven over and over to me His genuine love and compassion.  He has taken my life which I thought could only be cleansed upon death of this earthly body and made it into a living testimony for Him.  This is God’s Miracle for each of us if we will trust and obey Him.

This is the story of my present Thanksgiving.  Yes, my kids and grandkids are coming and yes, I’m most grateful for each of them.  There are friends coming too for which I’m grateful.  But, what I’m most grateful about is what I stated above.  I pray this peace and freedom is yours.  If it is not, I challenge you to take the step of faith asking God to show Himself to you.  Invite Him to live within you.  He will do it for His heart’s desire is to be in your heart.

The journey is about to face Thanksgiving.  Boy, will I have new topics of thanks this year.  I just barely can fathom Christ cleansing this mind of mine from all the lies I’ve believed about me, the sins I’ve done and had done to me.  Just as I was typing this I got a text sent from the pastor I met with yesterday morning.  In part it reads:

“The first recorded miracle of Messiah was the changing of water into wine.  But wine is only wine if it’s aged.  But the wine of the miracle had no past to be aged.  Thus, in a sense, it had to be given a new past.  If God can give a past where there was no past, then He can remove a past where there once was one.”

This is exactly what I now see God has done for me.  He has backed up my past to the very point where He created me.  All the memories of abuse He has now changed to lessons to be shared in helping others unravel their bondage.  How does a Savior do this?  Well, He is Almighty and full of Compassion.  He does not want any of His Kingdom creations to be lost as I’ve been for so long.  He does this as we are ready for these steps to take place.  His miracles are truly Miracles!

Yes, I have much to be thankful for and this year I will praise and glorify my God as I worship Him!