These past few days God has been focusing me on matters of intimacy.  I mentioned this a few days ago. As I am now reading Ephesians and in chapter 3 today I find Paul telling them to open themselves to the fullness of Jesus’ gift of healing. In my Freedom book it is asking about where I don’t fully trust?  Good grief–I’m feeling anxious for I know this next step is intimacy. 

This morning the Freedom book asked me to outline what God is placing on my heart and what it would look like as a miracle. It’s too private to write out here but it is all about sexual intimacy. Jesus assures me His healing touch is already at work or I’d not be writing this much. My mind races to all kinds of fearful places but Jesus assures me that staying in the present and taking one day at a time and one moment at a time–He will take the hardship and turn it into a pathway of peace. I’m going to trust this and not flee. 

I hope you don’t struggle with this too. If you do however, I know God’s promise isn’t just true for me. Let’s pray for one another as we step into genuine faith in this arena. 

It has been wonderful spending this week with my family here in California. I can see why reflection is so important in recovery. It’s so important to see where you are in retrospect to where you’ve been. God makes Himself very clear in reflection. He sees the future knowing He wants us to trust Him with ours as we walk into each day. As I reflect and see all He’s done in my life I more easily trust this continued walk into the future of each day. 

God unearths everything I need to address to have freedom. Yet He reminds me to step into the day knowing He is not the God I thought I knew but the God He has shown Himself to be these past several months. I love Him and His Team: Christ and The Holy Spirit. 

Today God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit are more complete than I’ve ever known. I journaled to Jesus today for the first time since last July. As I talked to him through my journaling I was meeting someone much richer and qualified to be my God than ever before. God had me journaling to Him these past 6 months so I could now see more clearly the vastness of His Team. Jesus had been as limited as I saw God limited. I didn’t trust God to be all that others including the Bible said. I was wrong. God is not only all His Word describes, but He’s patiently waiting to be what the Bible says for you and me. It starts with trusting. 

My father had unintentionally taught me not to trust the word father. God has replaced that fear with grateful trust. As I was journaling to Jesus I knew this Savior was the Son of The One True God. I look forward to learning so much more in the days ahead about the meaning of all this. 

If you struggle to know and trust God, take the one step to ask Him to reveal Himself to you. You will be amazed at the loving, kind God He is. I truly know this now. 

There’s something peaceful here in California where my two sisters live. It’s quiet and beautiful. My older sis is a widow. Kathy sleeps with her at my sis’s request. She is lonely and that means I’m alone in the other bedroom. I have all the time in the world each morning to do my devotions and reflect with God. 

Today God seemed to be telling me He wanted me to return to journaling to Jesus Christ. Last July He told me to write to Him in my journaling which I started doing. Little did I know at the time how foreign our relationship was. God knew this and I didn’t. Today I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is the Almighty Loving God I’d heard about but didn’t know it personally for me. The intimacy of yesterday’s post is true for God and me.

I also now know that going to God in prayer and meditation I do so with God seeing Christ in me. It isn’t the abused old self that comes to Him. It is the new self in Christ that goes before God. I can’t begin to tell you how meaningful all this is to me. The beginning of learning intimacy is knowing it with my Father, Jesus and The Holy Spirit. Knowing this I no longer stand in fear but I stand in expectation and deep appreciation. Our God is so Good!

We made it to S. California and I’m attempting to write this with my iPhone. An amazing thing Happened this am during my devotions. Galatians 5 says in order to find fullness in our life we must live completely committed to living life with The Holy Spirit being the lead. As I got to my journaling in the Freedom book it asked me to write down what the new man in me is being challenged to do by God. I knew it was time to write down relationships and intimacy. 

This morning I saw intimacy as the taproot of relationships. Intimacy looks like trust in a relationship. I’ve always needed to control a relationship by the amount of trust I had in the person. Intimacy was mostly about how much I’d let them touch me–physically and emotionally. God said we are going to tackle this now that I am learning to trust His Team. I’m a little nervous about this but I’m going to walk by faith trusting Him as we do this one day at a time and one moment at a time. 

Living by FAITH–what is this?  Yesterday I wrote that God is wanting me to stop some old man practices so I can step into living by faith.  This morning’s devotional pieces were all about living in the new life–new creation and that is living by faith.  Paul talks about learning to walk and for the first time I saw myself actually learning to “walk by faith”.  The analogy of a baby first learning to walk is very clear now.  Walking by faith is a skill that isn’t given to us with full operational practice established when the gift is given.

When I was a principal in the school district where I worked I involved our staff in a reading research project that turned our old instructional practices upside down.  We had to totally abandon the schedules we had used, the practices we had used and the materials we used.  We learned different ways to communicate the teaching of reading and what we did to measure the growth of the child’s learning to read and much more.  It was exhaustive and yet, so rewarding.  After several months of this the teachers were saying they never knew they could teach reading so well.  Students and parents were beginning to say they didn’t know reading could be this much fun in these early years.  I write all of this because this is what came to mind this morning when I was picturing learning to walk in faith.  I have walked with some faith for most of my life.  It was all about what I couldn’t control and I’d surrender it to faith believing someday I could do it.

Today God is helping me see that walking by faith is never about my taking control.  It is definitely about my completing work at times but I don’t own that work–God does.  I’m in His ball field now.  When a baby falls, learning to walk, they get right up and go again.  When man falls we beat ourselves up and try not to let others know we did.  I’ve done this all my life.  God is showing me that not only His Team–God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit are here to teach me how to live by Faith, but so are the other believers who want to learn this too.  Just like when my staff was learning to teach differently to get kids to read better and to help all kids read successfully, God is showing me that we learn this together.  Don’t hide mistakes–falls–talk about them so we can build support.  I want to do this and not let pride or shame stop me.  Those two items are part of the old me I don’t want anymore.  Lets be a team.

PS–My wife and I are leaving today to visit two sisters living in S. California.  There is little cell service where they live and I only have internet service at one’s home.  My ability to blog during the next week will be dependent on where I am so if there are absent days, please forgive me.

Today is a day when God stopped me and said, “It is time.  Are you going to trust me fully and live by faith or are you going to keep your hands on the control switch of your life?” The struggles in my life of late have been entirely centered around what frustrates me and the fact I can’t change it.  Even though every day I surrender these frustrations to God and then move on through the day, I still keep myself directly connected to the problems so I can “do something” the moment I can.  Yes, I am a doer.  The problem with this is that I often do ahead of acting on faith so that God leads me into the doing He wants done rather than the doing I see needed.  This character defect of mine runs deep within me.

In Galatians: 3 Paul is writing to the people about total faith.  This was my scripture reading today.  Because of my present circumstance of this winter and the helplessness I feel not being able to assist like I wish I could, I feel anxious, troubled and at times tempted to relapse.  This morning my devotional reading was about living totally in faith, my scripture reading was about this and the book, The Nature of Freedom, was all about FAITH.  It seems God is saying, “Earnie, do you get it now?”  The sad thing is that I suddenly had this strong feeling–I don’t want to give this up because I get a sense of pride from it.  When I’m strong I’m not like dad or Rich.  Yet, the reality is that when pride is interfering with acting on faith in God I am acting just like my dad did.

As I was journaling through this awakening just an hour ago God said, “Let me grow the seed of FAITH in you replacing this sense of pride.  The taproot for FAITH is a healthy one where this other one is not.  In order to do this I told God to have at it.  Now that I see this I never want to continue in it.  He reminded me that I will face this crossroad many times in days ahead, but I have this moment to anchor in how I respond to it.  To God be the Glory!

I’ve always said that winter was the season that helps the other three be successful.  My rationale is entirely centered around the world of gardening and farming–of course.  The water is piled up as snow in the mountains so it can fill the reservoirs so the farming and my gardening have a plentiful source of water for the later seasons.  The cold days give the ground a chance to restore itself and it also kills unwanted pests.  It also deteriorates the plant growth into nutrients that restore the strength of the soil.

There is a winter also for the spiritual side and it is harder to live with than the earthly winter.  The spiritual winter is dark, cloudy, heavy with cold and emotional reservation making it hard to venture anywhere without getting “stuck”.   My present winter, both earthly and spiritually, has been this.  I was processing with God about it this morning as it would apply to to my Bible reading in Galatians 1 & 2.  These two chapters make it clear we are not to live by the old laws but by the Grace God gave us through His Son Jesus Christ.  What man use to do to earn freedom we now do out of love and gratitude for Christ paying the price of sin once and for all and carrying the weight of the sin to the cross.  God was making clear to me that I still often try to carry the weight of the work I participate in whether secular or ministry.  I don’t intend to do the work I do out of legalistic thinking. Yet, I often carry the emotional weight of the work.  My first nature is to carry it.

God was showing me this morning that His Grace wants me doing the work He shows me to do, but the weight of the work is to be carried by His Team:  God Himself, Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit.  This is their Grace in action.  Carrying the weight of a problem is like owning it rather than helping it.  God wants me helping not owning.  The emotional weight of spiritual work is heavy.  Only God can carry it and not collapse.  Jesus even said in Matthew 11:28:  “Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

So what does all this have to do with winter?  Well, let me try to explain.  My present work has some heavy emotional connections to it which seem to only have sadness and little hope attached to it.  The work itself is good and needs done so it can spring into life in a month or two when it is used with student learning.  If I try to carry the emotional baggage of the one I’m replacing, I’ll get myself depressed.  God wants me helping, not carrying this weight.  Darkness is only to be entered when God sheds a light into it.  I will not step into this winter time unless the light is shining.  I surrendered this weight to God’s Team this morning.  I will go and do my work with rejoicing rather than with heaviness.  My work has light shining in it.  Praise God.

Yesterday was a day of testing for me.  This weather we’ve had has created some major obstacles which are causing high levels of stress among most everyone.  People are getting edgy and I am one of them.  Going in yesterday to the school dist. to work with them had its own layers of issues to address.  Within an hour I’d had no less than 10 calls or texts about crises others were dealing with and could I help.  By late afternoon I had done what I could and then got myself stuck in my own driveway.  I was able to dig myself out once I took a 30 min. break to simply calm down.

This morning God has been showing me the depth of learning He wants me to do using the strategy of yesterday:  examination vs condemnation.  By the end of yesterday I was condemning myself for being insufficient/incompetent etc.  I was even passing along some of this condemnation onto others, in my mind.  During my devotional time God was having me take a fresh look with examination in mind.  Did I do my part and did I do it with the Grace He wants to give me to pass along?  For the most part that had been true.  In one other case it wasn’t so I’ve taken time to address that this morning.  He is teaching me that His peace doesn’t come for me when the problems of life are all gone.  It will only come for me when I’ve responsibly done my part as prodded by His Holy Spirit and then I let the problem go so He can then do His part with the others involved. It is when I try to do more than my part that condemnation sets in.

In the book I’m working through: The Nature of Freedom, it is pointed out that because of Christ living in us, this is what God sees when He looks at us.  He doesn’t necessarily see perfection, but He sees His Son working on Christlikeness in us.  This is God’s Grace at work.  So when we examine a day like yesterday He can work on the areas yet to be as Christlike as they ought.  When I condemn I build a wall which I need to first address before anything else can be done.  II Corinthians 13:5 tells us to “examine our ways”.  We are not to condemn our ways.  When we allow ourselves the chance to examine and go from there, the door is wide open for learning and growing.  This is where I want to spend my time with God.  The verse mentioned above goes on to say that when we examine and take proper steps, this is when the proper fruit is yielded.  This is the fruit of the Spirit.  Now that is what I want to be for God.  I do hope this is helpful for others.  It is sure helping me take important steps.  Thank You Father.

Today is another snow day in SW Idaho.  I was going back to work today for the district I was working with prior to Christmas.  The lady I was replacing short-term is still unable to return.  I got word of the snow day but then I got word that the district office administrators are coming to work and would I join them, so off I go.  It looks like I’ll be spending a couple days a week there for a while yet.

This morning’s devotional time had some critical revelations for me.  The first one was about simplicity.  II Corinthians 11:3 tells us to not let our hearts be corrupted by Satan as Eve’s was.  Instead we are to have sincere devotion to Christ.  The King James Version says to have devotion to the simplicity of Christ.  Christ really did live a simple life but he delivered a continuously powerful message.  I read this, this morning, and saw how I’ve struggled with this message.  Simple had meant “not much meaning” in my old self.  I needed to do powerful things so I could find relevance and be relevant.  How frustrating that was.  Today the message of simplicity resonates.  In simplicity is freedom from bondage.  The new life given to us seeks simplicity so that the powerful message of Jesus Christ can be clearly seen through us (me).

The second piece that really stood out to me was examination vs condemnation.  Paul was writing in II Corinthians 12 about his “thorn in the flesh”.  It is not given definition except that it was used to humble him so that Christ was seen in him and not the Paul he had been.  I’ve often wondered if my own personal past is like a thorn for me.  This morning when I read the difference between examination vs condemnation I realized God was now using  my past as a point of examination so I can grow from it.  I then realized that was the way I was seeing my character defects and learning from them instead of condemning myself because of them.  My past does humble me but it does not need to condemn me any longer.  I praise God for that.

The last piece of this morning ties to the above message.  In my past when I was tempted to sin I would condemn myself severely and think I was like my dad or brother–abusing someone.  If there was a temptation I couldn’t be trusted with people thinking the temptation made my untrustworthy like my dad or brother.  I would immediately condemn myself and live in that shame and guilt.  This morning God was showing me how my new created Earnie can examine temptation, confess it and move on.  This ties to simplicity, examination and freedom.

I love what God is teaching me.  It makes living one day at a time a joy and not a threat.  To God be the Glory!