We are in Yellowstone with our daughters family. This is fun. Yesterday I wrote how much I was stressing over all the work I was leaving undone at home. I said God had reminded me it was His work and not mine. I was to help Him, not to try and take it over. 

Today I see the beauty in serving God and being on His team. He is the One and only True God. He controls His Kingdom work. I don’t want to. I can relax and enjoy our time here. What God wants me doing He will have for me when I return. I do love that.

This is the Lords Day. Let us rejoice and be glad in it! 

Kathy and I will be leaving  in about 1.5 hrs for our Yellowstone trip.  As I was journaling this morning I was going over all the things needing to be addressed with Celebrate Recovery, Aslan project, another ministry work I’m doing with one of our pastors and….  Just like that The Holy Spirit prompted me to “be still”.  As I paused He said, “I asked you to join Me in My Kingdom Work.  That doesn’t mean taking it over.  Go on your trip and let this go because I’m not leaving it.  You can rejoin it when you return.”  Boy, did that jolt me into a reality I needed to hear and hold on to.  For so long I did everything I could to be “good enough” in all my work so I would be pleasing to God.  Now He is rerouting my thinking and actions so I remember always that the work is His and I am assisting Him with it.

As we are approaching the kick-off of a new year with Celebrate Recovery we always take a look at what has worked well, what needs some overhaul and what may need to be added.  It also is a time when many of the workers become tired and hope that there is someone to take their place for the coming year.  I have always become anxious inside with this time approaching.  I think I have to complete all these assignments in order for CR to be a success.  This morning’s message of God truly helped me see the sinfulness in my own thinking.  I don’t want to try and own the work I do for God’s Kingdom.  Now that I am much more awake, I want to be a good assistant and keep myself in that realm of believing.  All of God’s Kingdom Work, in man’s eyes, seems dependent upon man’s volunteers.  Well, I don’t have to be the one generating the volunteers unless God is nudging me to do so with someone.  His Holy Spirit is a far better nudger.    I’ll let Him do His work and I’ll do what He has asked me to do.  That is very freeing.  Now, off we go!

The fishing trip was a big success.  Everyone was catching fish the entire time.  The boys had a blast.  Last night before heading to a meeting for the Aslan project, I fixed the fish and the one grandson said, “This is rated #5.”  I’m hoping that wasn’t on a 1-10 scale–but I didn’t ask.

God is working with me and I see Him working around me.  Today I sense Him wanting me to complete an assignment He gave me a couple days ago.  A gentleman who, with all good intentions, dominates in a ministry area and has run off some people in a “less than godly way”.  I found, it was actually sent to me, an article that clearly states what he needs to hear.  I have a meeting with him this morning and I’m sharing this with him.  I have prayed for God’s Holy Spirit to be honored as I believe he doesn’t want to be responding to people as he does.  I do want to be obedient to God.

Most of today is prepping to go to Yellowstone Park tomorrow.  Kathy and I are meeting up with our Oklahoma City kids there.  As I say this I know I will be out of routine as far as posting here.  I will do the best I can as I know my journey doesn’t end just because I have a moment of fun in it.  However, we are looking forward to the trip.  I had mentioned at Celebrate Recovery last Wed. eve that I hadn’t been to Yellowstone for 49 years.  One man said, “That must have been when they called “Old Faithful”– “Faithful”!  We laughed and then I hit him.

God is so good.  Hearing and obeying is my assignment for today.  Hearing is the key and obeying is all about hearing throughout the day.  To God be all Glory.

Isn’t it fun when the journey pauses at a lake for a time of fishing?  Today is that day.  My brother is taking 3 of my grandsons and me fishing in his boat.  My grandsons had a difficult time getting to sleep last night due to their excitement.  The two younger ones are 6&7.  They haven’t been in a boat before so this adds to their eagerness.

So, even when there is much going on around us, a time out for fishing adds a moment of soul refreshing.  God is always at work–even with a fishing pole in hand!

If you have read about Moses and God meeting with him regarding the Israelites in Egypt, you know that God told Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.  Tell the Israelites, I AM sent you.”  I’ve heard lots of sermons over the years mostly dwelling on the fact that I AM is a present state name.  God is eternal and yet we know Him in the present–today.  We can trust that He is always the same.

I start with this because God is awakening me to my own “I am”.  In II Corinthians 5:17 it says: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new….”  I have had “New Creation” written on the upper part of my prayer list for well over a year now.  Each time I remake the list I always put it there.  I do this to remind myself to pray that I will live like I am suppose to–a new creation.  Yes, I was striving to do this and it was with good intentions.

Most recently God has pointed out a simple, yet profound truth.  He says that one of His names is I AM.  He then pointed out to me that when I accepted Christ into my heart He made me a new creation.  So when I say this I say, “I am a new creation.”  Look at the first two words of this sentence–I am.  This is so simple but for me it is so profound.  I don’t need to be striving any longer for this.  Accepting the truth of it is what I do.

In today’s devotional time I’m reading Psalms.  Psalms 40:6 says to hear and obey God.  When I read this God instantly pointed out that He wanted me to hear His message of a few days ago–“I am a new creation”.  He wants me to hear it and obey it.  Obey for me means believe it once and for all.  So, I am now a firm believer that not only is each one of you who has accepted Christ into your heart a new creation–I am too!  I don’t mean to be trite about this.  I am very serious in replacing my old thinking with God’s healing.

Today’s journey is all about family, at least as it begins.  It is 6:00 am and I returned 30 minutes ago from taking my daughter and two grandkids to the airport to return to Oklahoma City after being here a week helping with the newest member of our family.  Little Ivy is very sweet but she is still only one week old today and mom has her hands full.  I want to be helpful, but in a supportive way.

All of our kids and grandkids were together for several hours yesterday.  It was so nice to have this happen.  We even got a picture of the 12 grandkids with us.  That is such a treat.  I pray for each of them during my devotional time.  I have to release what I want to have happen for each of them knowing my role as grandpa is not to be the parent and certainly not to be their god.  I want to model a Godly life for them and leave it there.  I catch myself worrying and then I start all over reminding myself of my role to my kids and to my grandkids.

God has been teaching me a great deal about Himself and myself in my most recent journey days.  Being a good student never goes away.  If I am going to be a good model for God, I need to have been a good student and continue to be one.  That is truly a “one day at a time” item.  To God be the Glory!

Today is a very important anniversary for me personally.  It was a year ago today that I began to journal to God rather than to Jesus.  I’ve told bits and pieces of this over the year, but this being the anniversary, I want to be reminiscent and write it out.  I didn’t know at first why God wanted me journaling to Him.  I thought I was doing the right thing journaling to Jesus–after all, Jesus was the one God sent for us to be our perfect example of living out our lives and He was the One who made it possible to come to our Father for eternity.  However, on July 31, 2016 God asked me to journal to Him rather than to His Son.  So, I did.

In a few days of doing this I started one morning feeling very unworthy of journaling to God Almighty.  I told Him so.  Instead of switching back to journaling to Jesus, God said he wanted me journaling to Him.  He said He’d sent Jesus to be my example and to pave the way for me to eternity, but not to replace Him.  Little did I know down deep within me how much I feared God–not a Godly type fear, but genuine fear as I use to have of my dad when I was young.

In the past year God has demonstrated intimacy to me like I never knew possible.  Most of this has come through the journaling.  I always ask at the end of my journaling time what He wants me to know for the day?  Invariably He tells me how much He loves me and enjoys our time together each morning.  There is usually instruction in it too, but what I enjoy most is the intimacy with Him.

Most recently He gave me a gift of healing I never thought I could have.  This I’ve told also in the past few weeks but it ties in with today’s entry so I want to address it here also.  About 4 weeks ago the lesson in our 7-Pillars class was entitled: My Grievance Story.  From it I had to address a hurt I hadn’t ever wanted to face.  This hurt was from my mom.  The pain of hurt caused by dad’s physical abuse and his emotional abuse along with my brother’s sexual abuse pain was faced in the three years, 2009-2012.  But, the absence of mom’s emotional concern for me was never addressed, talked about but now faced.  In this lesson I came face to face with this beast.  I ended up calling my counselor from the three years I’d spent overcoming dad and Rich’s abuse.  She told me she was glad I was now facing this.  She said if we don’t admit the truth of hurt and pain we can never forgive it.  That wise statement sunk in this time.  I was able to talk with mom–even though she’s been gone for 18 years–and tell her I forgave her.  Since this time God has been filling this hole with His own love and care.  I wish I could put better words to this but all I can say is I don’t feel empty anymore.  The yearning to be worthwhile, meaningful, loved is gone.  I actually feel content inside–complete.  This has been the miraculous healing God has presently given me.

Celebrate Recovery talks about,  “Don’t quit until the miracle happens.”  I can honestly say I’ve had several of these moments over the past 9 years.  However, this particular one ties so directly into my trust and faith in the God who created me to be like him–not to have to earn this nature, but receive it and accept it as a Gift from His Son–Jesus Christ when we ask Him into our hearts.  He gives us His Holy Spirit.  I’ve known this for years, now I believe it and can live it–one day at at time, one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to PEACE.

Today I rejoice.  At the top of my prayer list I began to write many months back:  New Creation.  It was a reminder to live the life of a new creation as I live each day.  Today as I read it I suddenly awoke to the fact I am a new creation.  I don’t live the life of a new creation by “doing” so I can be one if I do it well.  I live the new creation because I am one.  When God told Moses to tell Pharaoh I AM has sent you, God said this because that is one of His Names.  I am starting to wake up that God wants me to see that being a new creation is something I am.  I can’t be a one by striving, I already am one.  I am one and will live it out when I quit trying and starting responding.

In my devotions this morning reading in Psalms 32:9 we are told to not be like mules or horses which need bridles and bits to follow their master.  The Holy Spirit nudges us with promptings from God.  A new creation responds to the nudge without fighting.  I don’t need to do things I hope please God.  I do the things The Holy Spirit nudges me to do.  This may not seem like much of a message to some, but it is a huge one to me.  I am ingrained to “do” instead of to “be”.  I’m going to dwell on this now and see how it plays out.  Somehow I believe it is just what God has been wanting me to see and respond to.

My journey is approaching an anniversary.  In two days I will have completed a year of journaling to God my Father.  When that happened a year ago I had no idea what that would lead to.  I won’t tell this story until Monday the 31st.  But I will share today what this morning brought to light.

Have you ever had someone you wanted to be friends with but the time to be with them never opened up?  Then, at some point, it happened.  The two of you were together and you realize, this is what I’ve been wanting but what do I say now that I’m here?  You and the other awkwardly stumble through some disjointed statements, slap each other on the backs and move on.  I think, well, that relationship was a flop.  He doesn’t even know how to have a conversation.  However, you still have that sense within drawing you to a friendship.  One more attempt is made and you finally say what seems to make you at risk–“I’d like to have you as a friend.”  In that statement you just opened the door for the other one to say the same to you–“I’ve wanted to have a chance to be your friend too .”

I’ve known God most of my 67 years.  I’ve tried to be a good boy for Him during this much of my life.  This morning He is saying something like–“I want to be your friend who is also your God.  Up until now I could never fathom God being friend–that was why He gave us Jesus.  However, my many years of journaling to Jesus never accomplished a friendship between us either.  When I didn’t really know Jesus’ Father, I couldn’t really trust Him.  And, bigger still, when I didn’t know myself, I couldn’t trust a genuine friendship because I didn’t know such a term as genuine.  Genuine meant “pure” and I wasn’t.  Well, God is taking care of that flawed thinking and on Monday I will go fully into this friendship being built.

This morning’s start for my journey stopped me so I could see something I’ve never seen before.  I am going to try and make this clear.  Yesterday had a couple temptations in it that had a sexual nature.  In times past these temptations typically led to sin or in other words–me acting out.  However, in my recovery of late having recently addressed the issues with my mother I felt empowered to leave them as a temptation.  As my devotion time started I had thoughts of yesterday’s temptation, times when I was told my body was an attraction to someone and things like that.  I always made the statement to quit thinking that way for I am not my body.  I am Earnie the one with good thoughts, good actions, etc.

I’m going to leave this alone for a minute now and shift to the conversation I had with “the one I love” I mentioned yesterday.  We were able to express ourselves lovingly and get our points across.  They were heard but not necessarily understood.  However, it was simply left as that and we would move on.  The one I was talking to said they felt violated.  I asked God this morning to help me understand this meaning for I couldn’t put it into perspective with the event being criticized.

As I got to the point in my devotions where I ask God what He wants me to know for today, He said, “Earnie, you want information for today from Me.  What I want is to fill your body and have you recognize it.  You see your value in what you think and do.  You still see your body as something unloved and used by your past abuse.  It is time to apply all you have learned to this precious gift I gave you at the time of your birth.  It is as valuable to me as you see your new granddaughter’s body being.”

God quickly allowed me to see that the care given to me by mom was always done responsibly and as thoroughly as possible by her.  To Rich I was a physical attraction to be used in secret and to dad I was an entertainment.  (I realize there is much more to this than these words, but this has been my thinking of my body’s purpose in times past).  I would give real value to me by having good thoughts and doing good deeds and this is the way I’ve lived throughout my life.

Today God asked me to see the error of this thinking so I could move into a greater realm with Him and our relationship.  He created me as beautifully as He did Ivy Amber and loved me equally.  His Holy Spirit is waiting to be fully functional in me using my whole body, not just my mind where I could keep the influence of dad and Rich out.  So, using what I learned from “The Grievance Story” in 7-Pillars a couple weeks ago, I forgave mom, I forgave dad, and I forgave Rich.  I told myself I love me–all of me.  Then, God told me He loved all of me and created me to be loved.

I’m not exactly sure how all of this will play out, but I am so much more confident that “He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it” as is said in Philippians 1:6.  This God of ours is so much more than I’ve ever known!  And, back to violated–that is what was done to me by dad and Rich.  The walls of denial are being destroyed.