Our daily journeys don’t often have a day like today–Easter.  But, when we do, we need to recognize its significance and praise God for it.  Today, like no other, is our reason to celebrate Jesus Christ, God our Father and The Holy Spirit.  Today, I go to our Sunday celebration as a new creation all because of Christ’s work on the Cross.  I’ve always gone to Easter celebrations no less thankful than today, but always covering up something within.  Originally it was my past, then it was my inability to stop addictive patterns, then it was gay thoughts, then it was doubt that I could ever be free, and even more.  But–today Christ is Risen and has taken all of this to the Cross.  Today, as a new creation I am free to go to this Easter Celebration whole.  Yes, these doubts will crop up, but I now believe that what Christ did by Rising Again included me and by my accepting Him into my heart and life, I am FREE, I am redeemed and I am whole in Christ.

How I pray for this deep settled peace to be rich in each of us today and each day forthcoming.  God is Alive and so are His Son and His Spirit.  Embrace Them and let them guide us as individuals, couples, communities, states and nations.  He Is Alive–Praise His Holy Name!

The darkness of Easter weekend is felt today.  Can you imagine the agony of Christ’s believers on this day?  Yesterday they witnessed Christ’s brutal death and today they questioned in silence.  Last night someone very important to me wept on my shoulder about their own questioning.  I didn’t sleep well last night waking to pray again for him and others involved.  This morning as I’ve walked through the event of last night again with God and His word, I recognize the intimate love of our Father pointing everything to Him.  My part is to only ask the questions that would keep one focused on looking to the Cross to see what Christ/God has to say in the matter.  What are you hearing Him say to you?  If you are not, know to be patient, God is not silent when He knows we are ready to hear.

Easter is a glorious day.  It comes however through the battle of the Cross of Christ.  There is much darkness ahead of Christ’s resurrection.  We have all had our days of darkness.  Lets not get lost in it, but know to wait.  In just 24 hours the Light of the Cross will break all shrouds of darkness.  Patience is difficult, but it is critically important for me/us to learn to wait on the Lord.  He is diligently working to abolish the strongholds.  He did it too!  Claim the victory even if the darkness seems to surround you.  I am learning this and learning to claim what we know is true but can’t see its truth at the moment.  God is faithful and true.  Praise His Holy Name!

As much as I love Easter, I have always struggled with Good Friday.  The darkness of today is so penetrating.  My own personal darkness, thinking I could never let light shine on my past, probably has influenced this struggle.  Today is my first Good Friday as a conscious, new creation.  I’m going to keep that in my mind as I walk through the day and go into our Good Friday service at church tonight.  The promise of Christ’s redeeming love and forgiveness penetrates all darkness.  I know it is true for me as well as for everyone who will come to Him as God’s Son.  Let us rejoice today that the price of our sinfulness is paid.  God’s greatest gift to mankind–that, my friend, includes you and me!  Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!

Today is my middle daughter’s birthday.  How fun to watch our kids grow into such beautiful children of God.

I didn’t post yesterday.  I needed to be in town to get 4 of my grandkids to their schools.  Their mom was heading to a training early in the morning so I was the breakfast cook and taxi service.  It was rather cute and fun.

I want to back up to where I was in this blog from two days ago.  God had given me new insights about the lack of freedom I was sensing the previous couple weeks.  The awakening for me was that I had completely forgotten during those couple weeks who I was.  The content of the 7-Pillars class was only reminding me of my abusive past.  The memories were so vivid that I momentarily forgot I was a new creation.  I had become the old self who had lived his life hiding that abused past.  However, in finding the new creation again, the event of these two weeks have helped anchor the truth for me that my old self is dead.  I can be free from it.  It was in abiding in Christ and determining to stay there trusting that He provided the truth once again of who He is and who I am in Him.

In Matthew 11:27-30 Jesus tells the crowd with him, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  That verse was never true for me when I tried to accept this yoke and put it on my old self.  My personal burden was already too heavy and putting a yoke around it was impossible.  However, it is on the new creation God gives once we accept Christ into our lives where we find the truth of these verses.  The weight of the burden Christ carries when we remain in Him as the new creation.  The yoke he gives us guides us in the direction He wants us for the day.  This is the truth I want to keep before each day as I move forward.

The crisis of belief I talked about yesterday has become a time of celebration.  It is amazing to me to see how God takes what has been the most troubling part of our lives and turns it into a praise moment.  All day yesterday and again this morning I have simply felt free of the bondage the triggers in the content of the 7-Pillars material have had on me.  Instead of fleeing this time I did abide in Him.  It did take a few days of this to get to the root, but God is faithful in getting us where He wants us to be in our trust. This in turn strengthens our relationship with Him.  I do feel more confident than ever before that the God within me is bigger than any task He would ask me to complete.

In the last few days I’ve exposed a good deal of my own vulnerability.  I pray that in so doing it will help anyone reading this to do the same with someone they trust.  If God is asking you to take a step of faith that has always paralyzed you in the past, He is doing so with a reason.  He wants you to join Him with it.  I’ve always fled from Him or isolated myself prior to this present time.  God is so much more powerful than we would ever realize.  It is when we take these steps of vulnerability that we learn this about God and ourselves.  I’m praying for you today.

Have you ever had a crisis of belief?  I went through one this weekend.  I will explain.  The Experiencing God study I’m doing talks about a step we must take when God is challenging us to engage with Him in His work.  This step is facing any crisis of belief.  The last couple of weeks in the 7-Pillars class for men with sexual addiction, the readings and activities have thrown the ugliness of the addiction right in my face.  I have dealt with these through the lens of abuse and the impact all of this had on my life.  Now I am attempting to do this through the lens of addiction.  I was truly stuck in this attempt over the weekend.  Yesterday morning I was contemplating dropping out of the 7-Pillars thinking it was wrong for me to reintroduce all of these triggers.

Celebrate Recovery was having its monthly leadership meeting yesterday following church.  I had a guest join us who is a licensed counselor.  She was talking to us about dealing with mental health issues and their impact on individuals and how we support these folks without enabling them.  A comment she made directly related to my dilemma outlined in the first paragraph.  She said that those who have battled with PTSD will have triggers from environmental factors which stay with them and this will cause reactions in their lives outside of the present environment.  I knew immediately this is what was happening to me from the 7-Pillars class.  These classes are nothing but triggers for me of my years of abuse.  The emotions that I feel inside stay with me for days following these classes.  Over the weekend I was thrown back into dealing with them from my old self–the abused self rather than living in the freedom of my new creation in Christ.

This morning as I was able to see the truth of this problem in the light of Jesus Christ’s redeeming work on the cross.  I was able to let this crisis go.  Yes, the 7-Pillars class is a potential threat to me, but I will never be able to stand up against the voices of evil unless I learn to stand against them within me personally.  God tells me to “abide in Him”–John 15:4.  When I do abide in Him I will bear much fruit.  The ministries of Celebrate Recovery, 7-Pillars and more are setting people free.  Along with this, I am continuing to find more freedom myself.  Yes, it is hard work, but it is the best hard work I’ve ever done.  Praise God.

Today’s journey has me deeply focused on abiding.  When I said yesterday that I am ingrained in the habit of doing, I really meant it.  Even in Celebrate Recovery I have promoted the idea that if we do something different to change our thinking, it will get us away from the triggers of addiction.  This much is true, but I’ve leaned heavily on simply doing to overcome the addiction or to escape from the temptations leading into acting on the temptation.  The idea of abiding in Jesus during temptation is somewhat of a mystery, yet I know there has to be tremendous spiritual substance in this.  I know the battle is already won by Christ so abiding in this is a start.

There was a quote in today’s lesson from Experiencing God that says man will often say, “don’t just stand there, do something!”  God, on the other hand often says, “Don’t just do something, stand there.”  He wants us to know His plan before we act.  This is counter-intuitive to man’s ways.  However, when we look over the period of time to see what is still rock solid, we see what God has put into place.  What man puts into place on his own usually crumbles over time when it is done without God’s leadership.

There are many things being done that man calls important, but I want to spend the rest of my life doing what God calls important.  I’m going to need to “stand here” for a while and learn well this lesson on abiding.

God is so patient and amazing.  We spend a lifetime trying to be the child that would make Him proud and all the time He is simply wanting us to abide in Him.  I am in the midst of learning what this means–abiding in Him.  Thus far I know that the strength of trusting God and having faith in His work is complete when I abide.  Abiding doesn’t include my efforts.  It includes my release of efforts so I relax in the circumstances letting God take charge.  This sounds so easy and simple yet I am breaking habits of effort that have dominated my life for all of my 66 years.  I know I am to relax in this and learn.  This is a lesson unto itself.

I am learning God is not in a hurry about this.  He is much more concerned about the thoroughness of the learning.  So, I will keep relying on Him to help me learn what abiding is and what it looks like in everyday living.

After my devotional time this morning I delved into the first lesson of a book study I am starting with one of our pastors.  I met with him yesterday and we are doing Experiencing God together.  I have done this several times many years ago but haven’t now for well over 10 years.  He has never done it and wanted it to be our study.  I was pleased to oblige the request.  Just completing day 1 of the first lesson was incredible.  I feel like all the years before when I’d done it I was doing it so I could become a worthy being.  This morning confirmed for me that God has been doing some tremendous healing.  This morning I read in John 14:6 that “The Counselor, The Holy Spirit, who the Father will send in my name (Jesus), will teach you all things.”  I’ve always wanted The Holy Spirit to be comfortable with me but I knew I just wasn’t worthy of His presence.  Today, with much gratitude of heart, I know beyond a shadow of doubt, He is within me and I can learn all things from His teaching me.  What a humbling and honoring sensation this is knowing God trusts me (each of us) with His precious Holy Spirit.

One day at a time I will serve Him.  This is what He asks me to do.  I find myself becoming more aware of living in this new creation He gave me.  As I do this, it is so much easier to trust God today and not worry about tomorrow.  This is an amazing awakening for me.  To God be the Glory!

Last night was the weekly 7-Pillars class.  We were to have written out bullets for a rough draft of our story.  I’ve written and revised a dozen times my story as well as written my book.  However, this draft was to include specifically the points that led us into our sexual addiction.  It caused me a good deal of fear.  By the time I had finished sharing (which was the last one for the evening) I left immediately.  I got home feeling raw, exposed, vulnerable, etc.  I felt like I was the young lad all over again.  This morning as I brought all this to God I was awakened to a reality that hadn’t hit me yet.  God said I was faced again last night with the reality of the raw exposure of sin done to me as well as sin I’d committed.  This wasn’t new, but nonetheless, raw.  The new was when God said that I can be assured that no wrong can come my way that will/can overpower me.  When I wrote the word–overpower–I was awakened.  This is what I’d felt all my life.  It is what fed the fears for any situation with men and even with women.  What would happen if….  The beauty of this awakening was that now I know it is a lie.  I have full capability of stopping any potential attack that would have overpowered me in my early years.  This reality just hadn’t hit me yet.  Boy, do I feel better getting this identified!

God is so good and so thorough.  How much I praise Him for this.