This morning’s Bible reading seemed to be talking boldly to me.  I’m now reading in Mark, the 3rd and 4th chapters.  In them Christ is giving the followers much advice through the parables.  In Mark 3:27 Christ tells us we are to bind the strongman if we are to ransack his house.  I’ve always wondered about this verse and its meaning to me?  Joyce Meyer states in a footnote that the strongman is Satan.  This put a whole different meaning to this verse.  Once I caught that significance I reread the verse several times along with the accompanying ones.  In Mark 4:39 Christ rebuked the storm on the Sea of Galilee.  Once again Joyce says in a footnote that we are unable to rebuke storms around us if we have a storm within us.  First we must address the storm within.  When we have found Christ’s peace within us we can use that peace and it’s power to address the storms around us.

Yesterday I wrote about awakening to the truth of temptations.  Satan is forever going to put them in front of us.  The temptation isn’t the sin.  Acting on it is the sin.  This strongman’s grip is only broken when we finally realize it is through accessing the power of Christ Jesus in our lives.  We do this through believing and not through fighting.  Surrendering the temptation to Christ and engaging in something else that is Christ pleasing allows Christ to break the hold the strongman has had on us.  The peace we so desire within can and will be strong in us as we allow Christ to fight this battle.  I write this lecturing myself.  I know all too well this internal, raging storm.  I am learning now just how much Christ loves me and wants to calm this storm and heal the effects of the storm within.  In so doing, I can then complete the ministry work Christ wants done.

As I talked with our Celebrate Recovery leadership team yesterday we addressed the new topics we will be starting in the coming year:  homosexuality and abuse.  If someone would have told me 10 years ago I’d be leading a discussion about these topics and being part of teaching for them I would have fled and never returned.  Now, today, Christ has me doing just this.  I feel honored and humbled to be at such a place with Him.  My learning is to face the strongman with surrender so Christ Jesus removes the temptation instead of me trying over and over to do so and failing again and again.  To God be all Glory!

I was doing my step study lesson for today which is all about being ready to give your inventory to 3 people.  The first two of the three are the same for everyone:  God and yourself.  The third person is the focus and that is the individual each person chooses to share their story with.  A question that accompanies this lesson is:  what fear/s do you face about sharing your inventory?  I’ve given my inventory many times over the past 9 years.  Each time you do a step study you need to do this and I’ve done it at least 7 of the 10 times.  As I was looking at my past responses to this question I noticed that I’d put:  “I’d confess and I’d still struggle with the same problem.”  This has been true for the first few years of my recovery in Celebrate Recovery.  I was trying to deal with a habit in those early times rather than dealing with the intense hurt I was still denying existed.  This denial only fed the habit I was trying to rid myself of.

Today when I addressed the question I realized the healing I’ve always desired is now here.  I’m free to face the hurt and it doesn’t own me.  The one thing that I still struggle with is the temptation to continue the habit.  Addressing the hurts doesn’t remove the human element we all face–temptations.  It seems simple, but it sure isn’t simple. As long as I stayed crippled with the hurt in me I was unable to access the strength God so wanted to provide.  Now that God has healed so much of the hurt I can see the habit/s for what they are and how I can use God’s Strength to address them.  I’m still human in this arena as I suppose we all are, but it is a big boost to know that God has been working throughout these 9 years facing recovery.  He is our Magnificent God.  I will trust Him and I encourage you to do the same.

Today my two brothers who live locally and their wives are joining Kathy and me to drive a hundred miles and have lunch with another brother who is a widower.  As we’ve begun to have our monthly get-to-gethers he has come our way so today we go his way.  These are fun moments and always remind me that family is so important.

My scripture reading this morning was the last 3 chapters of Matthew.  Here Christ is crucified and He rises from the tomb.  I am then reminded that my spiritual family is huge.  This entire world is filled with believers God calls my family.  Someday I’ll meet everyone of them.  More amazing to me is just how huge this family is.  When you think about the generations before us to the beginning of time, we will all be together someday.

As my family gets together it is nice to relate but it is also nice to share God’s love and mercy towards everyone of us.  I want Him to be glorified this day.  For so long I enjoyed these times but always felt inferior in them thinking I was the weak one.  However, God has totally replaced those old lies.  None of us see one another with an eye of judgment.  Those were Satan’s attempts to keep me in bondage.  Thank God for His faithfulness in replacing Satan’s damage with His love and mercy.  How much I love Him!

This journey never ends.  When I started this blog I was going to do so to help readers of my book know that the journey to freedom I wrote about didn’t end with the last chapter.  Little did I know that the on-going journey would have so much teaching in it.  I had thought I was finding freedom as the last section of the book says.  However, I’m finding now a much deeper, broader picture of freedom in Christ.  When I had finished the book, fear was still gripping me to the point of paralysis at times.  A perfect example of this was when the publishing company called me a couple days after I’d received a shipment of books.  The rep wanted to know how I was promoting the new book.  I thought, “What!  I’ve got to promote this story?  I’VE got to do this?”  I wanted God or some man to do this, not me.  I told the rep I’d need to talk to him in a couple days.  His question simply froze me in place.  I was unable to think and all I wanted to do at that point  was pull the book from society.  If I had to do this, writing the book wasn’t worth the cost.

I’ve learned a lot about Earnie and fear as I’ve journeyed beyond publishing the book.  There has been a great deal of darkness:  fear to face.  The book became the reason to face it.  In so doing I’ve found God to be the Almighty God He is said to be in His Word.  I’ve found Christ to be the One True God and Friend the scripture says He is.  Now I’m finding The Holy Spirit to be the fulfillment of God’s Promise of His Gift to us when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior.  I’m not very far in this present piece of learning.  However, the crippling belief I’ve always had that I’m unworthy of God’s Spirit living in me is pretty much gone.  In spite of unworthiness, I can now accept this Gift with great thanksgiving.  And, in replacing it I now have a yearning desire to know Him well, to hear Him and to respond to Him fully.  I don’t any longer need to fear for He is always present and within me.

God is so amazing, kind, gentle and patient.  Look at all the years He spent waiting for me to come to this place.  Each of us has to come to this reality on our own with Him.  I hope my writing is helping any reader take the risk, stepping out in spite of fear.  God is truly there and His Spirit is as He promises–within us.  Praise His Holy Name!

Last night I taught the Celebrate Recovery lesson on Sanity for our group.  It was an insightful opportunity to watch and experience God at work.  The lesson Sanity is #4 of the 25 lessons to be taught throughout the year.  It is built around Principle 2 of the 8 and Step 2 of the 12.  Principle 2 reads:  “Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him and that He has the power to help me recover.”  After 9 years in Celebrate Recovery I’m finally awake to what this principle says.  First, I am to believe and I’m to do that earnestly (sincerely and honestly).  What do I believe– three things:  God exists, I matter to Him and He has the power to help me recover.  I have struggled all my life believing I matter to God.  I know this is a direct result of years of childhood abuse.  I’m not a child anymore and I am experiencing just how much I mean to God.  As this grows I realize just how powerful God is–taking away my darkness and turning it into glorious Light.

The accompanying verse for Principle 2 is Matthew 5:4.  It reads:  “Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  I’ve always thought this verse is thoughtful, but I’ve never until now been able to make it relevant to me.  Notice it says that those who mourn are happy.  My whole life I’ve kept myself in denial that the abuse of my past actually hurt me.  I thought if I admitted it I’d be the sissy, baby, dad labeled me.  Now that I have been very intentional addressing the hurt of my past I have finally mourned the abuse.  In so doing, I am finding a happiness I’ve never known before.  This happiness is part of the miracle God’s healing power provides us.  This completes the portion of the scripture which says: “for they shall be comforted”.  If we don’t allow ourselves to mourn we cannot find comfort nor can we find the happiness promised.  Denial keeps us from mourning and Satan never wants us stepping out into the Truth of God’s Light provided in His Word.  Now that I’ve found the Light of this verse’s truth I never want to re-enter that dark state.  Praise God!

Last night’s 7-Pillars’ class brought out not only my fears but I heard so many from the other men in the group.  Fears that “I can never change”, I am unlovable”, “God has given up on me” and so many more.  These all come from the lesson where we finally face the blunt lies we’ve kept in denial and in the closet all our lives.  They have also been the same lies that feed the need to flee to the addictive pattern of behavior we struggle with.  For me personally, these beliefs have fed my fears–“What if these are all true?”

As I stated about the Holy Spirit in my life yesterday, God is truly nudging me to turn and face this darkness in my life with the help of His Holy Spirit.  This morning I asked God to help me see why and when the fears became so dominate for me?  I could hear Him telling me how accumulative these have been.  There is no one event when I became fearful.  In fact the fear came as I continued to be in denial and in hiding.  So, I asked myself what it would be like to turn the coin over and I’d say I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength?  (Philippians 4:13).  I would say something like, “Thanks for the chance to do this and to find Your Glory in completing what You have given me to do.”

In the past couple weeks I’ve had more fear-filled dreams than I’ve had in quite a while.  I’m realizing these dreams are not from God, but God is using them to help me see the lies I’ve been believing about myself for so long.  I’ve always thought others were giving up on me.  This morning I’ve seen the truth in that I have been the one giving up on myself thinking I can’t any longer memorize songs, do a dance step and so much more.  These are things needing to happen for the upcoming Christmas production we are doing.  It sounds so silly as I write this, but inside myself I’ve been a wreck knowing I’m going to blow this royally.  Today, I’ve decided I’m going to glorify God in doing my part.  I’m not going to believe this lie and when it comes I’m going to act on the nudge of The Holy Spirit reminding the lie that that it is no longer my truth.  God’s scriptural promises are my truth.  God loves me and has given me His Holy Spirit as evidence of His love.  This is a step into greater freedom than I’ve ever known.

If you struggle with this same belief system, I pray you will not give up.  Believe the truth of God’s word about you.  Satan wants his crippling lies to dominate our belief system.  We don’t have to stay in that belief any longer.  Praise God!

God’s Gift to each of us who asks Christ to be our Savior and Lord is The Holy Spirit living within us.  This has the been the most precious gift I’ve ever received and I’m finding it to be the one gift I’ve needed to pay a lot more attention to.  As we grow into our adult years our humanness takes control.  We have full capability to operate on our own thinking.  Often times I’ve not even considered what my spirit may be telling me–it was all about emotions.  I’ve written much about this in times past.  I didn’t trust them.

God today is driving home for me a criticalness I’ve needed to awaken to regarding the need to realize how important His Gift of The Holy Spirit is.  The Holy Spirit is God’s very presence within me (us).  He nudges me and I so often don’t pay attention to this until later.  This morning God is letting me know that these nudges are intended to be acted on when they happen.  I really want to spend time growing this sensitivity in me.  If God is going to transform the desert of my soul into a garden of His making I need to be truly sensitive to following His lead as He nudges me.  If I’m going to be a good gardener I need to be a fertile garden within.

Yesterday certainly reminded me just how much being away for a week can do to one’s system.  I had relaxed like I didn’t realize.  But, yesterday reawakened me to a day at home:  worship team, choir, step study, two quartet/group productions and finally home at 9:00pm.  Not all days are like this but this one happened to be the one following our return home.  What I noticed most is just how much my voice wasn’t up to that much singing.  Just like my body muscles get sore when I’m out working in my yard, my voice muscles were very sore last night by the time I’d finished.

Yesterday, I felt really good about God’s enlightenment with the mental picture He gave me of Christ standing in my broken boundary gap.  However, when I was in step study I was reticent to share it thinking the guys would think I’m going nuts.  However, I just felt too many nudges to share so I finally did.  I found it amazing to hear a couple of the guys say they had not ever taken journaling seriously until I shared this.  They want God to speak to them more clearly and hearing how journaling promotes this, they want to be more disciplined with it.  They also said they appreciated very much that I would share something like this with them.

What I didn’t say yesterday about God’s message to me was that I wouldn’t always see Christ standing in the gap each time I’m tempted.  However, The Holy Spirit is always with me and I would know His voice at these times of temptation.  Last night I was exhausted when I got home and was glad  I could sit and relax with the newspaper getting caught up on the week’s happenings.  I found myself suddenly being tempted.   This morning as I was journaling I asked God to speak to me about this because I did not see Christ standing in the gap just as He’d said.  I also wasn’t sure I heard anything from The Holy Spirit.  He reminded me that I heard clearly the message:  “I don’t have to do this.”  I knew instantly this was The Holy Spirit’s message.  I told God it would be nice if He’d scream this rather than whisper it.  However, God reminded me that this is now my choice.  God never removes our chance to choose. His Spirit’s voice simply reminds me I have that chance to choose Him.  So the question is–will I choose to follow “the still small voice of God’s Holy Spirit?”  My answer is, “Yes, Father, I want to obey each and every time.”  I know I will have to take this one day at a time and one moment at a time, and discipline will come greatly into play with this but I want to obey more than anything else!  To God be All Glory!

We are home! The trip going to Charleston had many stumbling blocks but the one coming home was as smooth as silk.  I’m sure glad the time changed last night since we didn’t actually get to our house until a little after midnight.  This made getting up this morning at 6 a little easier even though I’d begun to wake up at 5.  There is much going on today so my mind was whirling.  I forget how much I do relax while gone.

As I was having my devotions and the fears of all that’s in store for today was attacking my mind I felt God saying to journal about them.  As I got to my journal I wrote down just that–“I’m sensing so many fears for today–don’t know the worship songs for this morning, choir number hasn’t been rehearsed for 2 weeks, the songs our group is doing twice today haven’t been rehearsed and I have a solo in one of them.  I’ll be letting everyone down including You–God.”

As I wrote this down an amazing mind picture came to me.  I saw Christ standing in the gap of my mind’s boundary.  He was telling me to give these old fears to Him.  He wasn’t going to let them own me any longer.  Satan can attack all he wants, but today I’m awake to the work of Christ in this area–His standing in the gap.  God really is doing amazing work.  Today’s lesson for the step study is exactly about all of this too.  As I went to prepare it I could hardly believe the parallel.  The guys are getting ready to face the fears of sharing their inventories.  God (Christ) is there for them just as He has shown Himself there for me.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Well, the saga of the flat tire ended just as God was trying to show me.  I called the rental car company.  They had me drive the car to their nearest rental office which is at the local airport.  There they kept the car saying they take care of their own tires and gave me a new car.  It was that simple–no charge, no hassle, just kindness as though I’d done nothing wrong.  I think there’s a huge lesson here for many of us self-condemning souls.  I’m not useful to God when I’m condemning myself–I now see that this is a trick of Satan himself.  He’s the devious one who wants me making a mountain out of this molehill.  God doesn’t want me listening to the lies that scream in my head.  He wants me to call them what they are–lies.

Today ends a week of leisure.  Kathy and I have kept ourselves rather busy just doing a lot of sightseeing, driving through the country taking many back roads so we see just what the country off the freeways look like.  It really is a beautiful land.  It is so much different than the desert of home where plant life is scarce unless we plant and water it.  Here the plant life strangles one another there is so much of it and so much water.

Tomorrow I reenter life in its reality:  worship team in the morning, step study, quartet singing twice (once in the afternoon and then in the evening) then home.  Monday starts the work with the schools.  I didn’t come here thinking I was worn out and needing a break, but after the week is over, I do see things more clearly–steps to take at home I didn’t see before.  God has a way of using everyday as a focusing agent helping us see Him more clearly.  How much I love Him.