Yesterday turned out to be one of the more troubling days, yet profitable days I’ve had in a while.  The projects and conference I mentioned were weighing heavily on me.  Also, today I am going to the in-service training beginning the consulting work starting up again.  I had allowed all of this weight on me to the point I was feeling very oppressed.  Yet, each time I took it to God I could not sense He was wanting me to release anyone of the work.

In the middle of yesterday afternoon the young man who is reading my book met with me for a 2nd time.  This time instead of the meeting being one of shame and regret, it was more about stepping out of the shame and regret to letting our past be a tool of God in our present.  This was actually encouraging to him.  It was also encouraging to me to see that he was getting so quickly what it took me years to understand.  After I’d gotten home and was barbecuing  our supper I got a text from him.  He was thanking me for the time spent.  He then said something that truly got to me.  He said how much others respected me both in the church setting as well as those outside the church in the community.  I thanked him for the kind words and finished my barbecuing.

This morning I was journaling yet again about all that I have on my plate and why God isn’t making it clear what I’m to do with it.  It was then that He pointed out that what is on my plate is what is on OUR plate.  He hadn’t placed this there for me to own.  He placed it there for me to do my part with His Work.  I was then set back into reality.  I was able to see that the weight of all this work at church and in the world was only weight because I was owning it instead of seeing clearly that my role is to do my part.  God already owns it–I need to let go.  So, I’m now writing this as a freer man.

The other piece of this for me is the clarity God has provided of late regarding His Work in the church as in the world.  I had on my own made a very wrong mindset thinking I needed to be spending my time with the church for that is truly where God is.  Sometimes He’s in the world but it was harder for me to know when “those” times were.  God has made it abundantly clear that He is in all settings IF I simply awaken to Him there.  The compliment from the young man awoke in me the reality that God is using me wherever I am.  I have always wanted to please Him and be His servant.  Today I will continue this but do so without that “man desire” to own the work.  I’m going to let Him be the Owner.

You know the saying:  “God is working all the time–All the time God is working”.  Well I’m finding that God’s work doesn’t have a pattern that is replicated so one can easily say–that’s God working.  There are times when it is so apparent one can say it, but so many times it is much more buried.  I tend to look for God’s work in the finished product.  However, that end result may be weeks, months and even years away.  So, is God working during these less visible moments?  And, yes, of course, I know the answer is definitely:  God is working all the time–All the time God is working.

The projects I’ve been working on with a couple of our pastors are approaching the visible side where the product of the work can be seen and known.  Hopefully each will be a spirit-filled time.  The conference I’ve also been working with which will take place this October will be another “product” where God’s work can be seen and felt.  At this point in all of this work I’m wanting to have connections made so all three work hand in hand.  This is when Earnie wants to come forth and pull everyone together saying, “Lets unite our efforts and ensure everyone profits from each one’s work.  That’s such an easy statement to say and such a difficult one to facilitate.  You see, I am not the one in charge of the three, I’m advisory with each one.  So, is God working at this point?  If I am deep into the work I’m too caught up to even think about it.  However, when I take a step back, yes, indeed I can see His handiwork all over the place.  God’s timeline for completing His Work is where I need to be.

Yesterday I spent a portion of the later afternoon with a young man who is about to finish reading my book.  It was recommended to him by his father-in-law.  As we met he could hardly talk without breaking down.  He has held so much within for so long he is breaking up inside.  We are meeting again this afternoon.  It is so painful to take these first steps–how well I recall.  Yet, these steps are the ones which start a journey that never ends leading to us learning the beauty of the masterpiece God is wanting each of us to know in Him.  How I love Him for this.

The last three days I’ve awakened unable to sleep beyond 5:00 am.  I have learned that God is wanting me to join Him when this happens so once again this morning I did just that–joined Him.  I haven’t said this, but since the 7-Pillars class last week I’ve been emotionally troubled.  I couldn’t put my finger on the root of it, but I thought it was the sexual/emotional, explicit nature of the lessons we are presently completing.  It is one thing to have to complete the lessons, it’s yet another thing to have to share it with the ones in the group.  I dreaded this.

As I completed my devotions and Bible reading I was being nudged to go into the 7-Pillars lessons.  We didn’t have class last night due to a special speaker at our church we all wanted to hear.  So, I went ahead and got the workbook out and began to read the preparatory part of the lesson.  It was saying that the lesson I started a week ago is the one which gets to the root of addiction for men.  I had found it very disturbing as I’d done it and hadn’t looked at it since last week.  However, I took last weeks lesson and reread it and reread what I had put down for responses.  I could see something I hadn’t wanted to see.  I needed to be totally honest with God, myself and the men I will be sharing this with.  I added some detail I needed to put and then did the 2nd part which is for next week.  As I finished the detail I was asked to look for patterns that have troubled me for decades.  I could now see them.  There was one I have talked about repeatedly:  my lack of self-worth and value to men.  The one I hadn’t seen before was the one about Earnie and women.  I have always wanted to be valuable.  I hated the early value I thought I had for men so I looked for this with mom.  This I have talked about.  It wasn’t there I thought.  My first wife left me.  My engagement 2 years later ended with her leaving me.  There are some other less important situations going back to high school and college that add to this, but my bottom line was that men abused me and women didn’t want me.

All of that seems so sad.  Yet, the beauty in this for me is that this information is coming at a time when I am ready to call all of it a lie.  The roots of shame and guilt are being disentangled and removed.  As I got to my journaling time I was able to talk to God about His intimacy with me and how much it has been helping me to quit hiding these things I’ve never wanted to address.  Now in addressing them I see the lie about my worth and value from my past thinking.  It takes Ephesians 2:10 and makes it real for me for “I am God’s masterpiece.”  This doesn’t need to any longer be a hope, but it can be a reality.  How good and thorough God is.  Praise His Holy Name!

It seems life is spinning and this morning as I awoke I wasn’t sure there was any control over it.  The wonderment and beauty of yesterday’s eclipse was quickly past, enjoyed, but here and gone.  Everything quickly went back to what’s on the plate to get done.  This morning I awoke extra early and knew I needed to get up and see what God was wanting me to know from Him.  My devotional reading and Bible reading seemed to be giving the same message.  It centered around taking heed to what God is doing and unite with Him in it.  However, when we do attempt to unite with God’s message, don’t go there unprepared and alone.

Since last Spring I’ve been working with one of our pastor’s to prepare a pathway to better connect our ministries in the church purposely to one another–assimilation.  In so doing, we found God leading us to our Core Values.  These are: Worship, Connect, Equip, Serve.  In my secular life working in education I found that the Community Agreements we lived by were the starting point for all the planning we did making sure the work was done thoroughly.  Now I’m finding the same to be true working with our church in this depth of planning.  We tend to burn people out giving lots of opportunity to do things but not attaching the “doing things” to the greater purpose of God’s Kingdom Work.  When we are doing God’s Kingdom Work under His empowerment we ignite rather than burn out.  Burn out is truly a man’s energy/adrenaline drain.

When the pastor gives his message on Sunday morning, what does God want us doing with it?  How does the message tie purposely to Sunday school classes, Bible studies, Life Groups, Celebrate Recovery, Teens, Children?  Is it a message detached in purpose to these?  When a speaker comes in with a pertinent message are we to take it as an informational time unrelated to ministry areas where we serve?  Is there a deeper, united purpose we are missing that would help unite everyone?

As I was journaling and asking God what He wanted me to know from Him today He seemed to shed much Light.  He showed me this area of Core Value is spiritual battleground.  One should not go into it alone or uninformed or he will likely end up feeling very beat up.  Satan wants us detached in spiritual meaning and purpose.  He wants us isolated and feeling that way.  We freeze up when we are–giving Satan just what he was after.  I was seeing each of our ministry areas as troops within God’s Army.  When we are fighting the war of spiritual victory we need to do so with everyone on high alert and fully informed.  So, this would start with Worship–then Connecting–then Equipping–then Serving.  Our communities, countries, world are battling spiritual darkness and attempting to give secular light instead of Spiritual Light.  God is asking us to join Him and shedding His Light.  Lets unite and do this hand in hand.  We will do this best being united in purpose and intent not leaving those attending expected to do it on their own as they see fit.

OK, that’s my sermon.  I’m not even a preacher but this message is pressing in on me today.

Today we get to experience a phenomena of our solar system.  I’ve been looking forward to this every since it was announced almost a year ago.  I love and have always loved science and our universe.  Its immensity and precision is so overwhelming it is hard to put words and perspective to it.  In fact, I can’t.  Today I just want to enjoy and appreciate what God has done and is doing.  I have four of our grandkids with us who spent the night.  We will start with a breakfast of their choice and then go out with the eclipse glasses so we can enjoy the wonderment of God Almighty.

I awoke this morning with anxiousness.  My one daughter is wanting to take some business steps which could be good for her.  Kathy and I both know she needs to take these steps and develop them from her own work and not from ours.  She, as any child does when they are adults, needs to be in charge of what she does.  She is asking for advice which I appreciate, I don’t want her forgetting she is a single mom with 4 kids.  Kathy and I are also looking at a home improvement which we want to do if it is the “right thing to do”.  We need to finish this conversation also.

This morning I asked God what He wants us to do with these.  I was startled and then humbled by His words.  He started by reminding me He is not a consultant.  He is God Almighty.  There is no question to His Rightness.  I was coming to Him as though I were still in charge and wanted to see what He was thinking.  When I turned the stone over I found myself then talking to God from the standpoint, “I am thinking….  Does this coincide with Your Perfect Will for me and us?”  It was amazing to have the calm of removing myself from the front seat to having God where He wants to be.

It is no minor thing allowing God to be Lord of my life.  Little do I realize how often I attempt to take the reins of life. He is awakening me to what I’ve wanted to do for so long–let him reign supreme over all my life.  Day by day he is doing this.  A new creation is awake to this or learning to be awake to this.  I’m right in the mix of it.

Today is a new day.  It is actually a beautiful one too.  The weather right now is wonderful–cool mornings and yet the heat of summer is staying with us but tempered with the coolness of night.

Yesterday was a day of new for me with the healing of belief.  All through the day God reinforced this with me.  I called the prayer warrior I have who gave me the Joyce Meyer Bible and thanked her for it again.  I told her about yesterday’s time with God and His Healing for me.  Instead of me blessing her she said she was working on a new assignment.  She has been finding all the “I am’s” in the Bible.  Usually we see the I AM’s of God since He calls Himself–I AM.  Yet this prayer warrior is finding the I am’s which God has given us.  She said she wanted me to know the I am from Ephesians 2:10:  “I am God’s masterpiece.”  I call to bless her and she continues to add blessing to me.  I love her for this.

Later in the day a friend calls wanting me to stop by if I’m coming in to town.  I was intending to do so to get my grandson and to deliver veggies for my kids from my garden.  The friend had a gift she’d made which is to remind me to see whatever I’m facing as a lesson from God.  If I pause, step back and seek God I will find His purpose for it.  A great reminder this is when we face anything in life.

This morning as I was journaling and wrote: “Father, what do you want me to know from you today?”  He said He wanted me to stay with the work of yesterday.  I have a strong tendency to finish something and then immediately go to the next assignment.  God however, wants me to stay with the healing of belief from yesterday.  He reminded me that the roots of unbelief for me have been deep within my being.  I need to stay with belief so its roots can now go deep.  Little did I know that the concrete side of this was started yesterday by two friends giving me the start.  One having me write down I am God’s masterpiece so I can reference it and the other one a painted stone with Turn It Over on it so I can turn over the situation I’m facing to see God’s purpose in it.

I write my blog as a personal journey.  My prayer is that this is also helpful for you if you are taking steps to strengthen your personal walk with God.  He is a God of miracles as well as One of Love and Mercy.

This morning God solidified something for me I have wished, hoped, dreamed of for my entire life.  In the past several days I’ve dealt with a number of individuals who have been struggling with their sin, relapsed into their sin or simply struggled with the temptations.  I too have my own moments with this struggle as I’m sure every reader of this blog does.

As I was reading in Psalms this morning I came upon 116:10.  It states:  “I believed, and therefore have I spoken.  I am greatly afflicted.”  In the Joyce Meyer’s bible I’m reading she has rewritten this verse to say: “I believed (trusted in, relied on, and clung to my God), and therefore have I spoken (even when I said), I am greatly afflicted.”  She later writes a paragraph regarding the impact of this verse on her life.  She says she was a negative thinker and often stated her negativity.  She confessed that and began to change that behavior.  It wasn’t however, until she began to replace it with positivity that her life firmly changed.  She began to confess biblical truths stated in God’s word each day which she personally struggled to believe for herself.  The first one she states is; “I am dead to sin but alive to God (Romans 6:11).

I was so struck by this one that I stopped, reread it and then God began to speak to me, not about all the ones I’d talked to this week, but about me.  He told me He knew this was my own struggle–I didn’t believe this truth for me.  I then confessed I felt like the father in Mark 9:24 who says, “I believe, help thou my unbelief.”  I have so wanted to believe that I am worthy of the grace of Christ’s work dying on the cross for me and my sin and the sin done to me, but the roots of it still show up at times.  Today I stood before God my Father in my own den and accepted Christ’s healing.  This morning I BELIEVE for me–Christ’s healing GRACE is for me too.  I humbly accept it and I mightily believe it is real.  I had always hoped this would someday come to be real but never truly believed it would happen.  God in His faithfulness did His work today through His Son Christ Jesus, my Savior, my Lord and now my Healer–I Believe!

My journey completed itself yesterday amazing me how thorough God is and how thoughtful His thoroughness is.  His Holy Spirit does complete His work with one message and it is beautiful to watch it work itself out when I don’t interfere with the process.  The meeting early yesterday morning ended itself with everything that needs to happen taking place without even suggesting the steps.  God had already orchestrated the steps without me saying anything.  The meeting for the troubled teen ended the same way.  I do know that many times outcomes are not so crystal clear, but I am learning that outcomes are always clear to God.  Running ahead of Him adds so much drama and anxiety.  I do want to be a good student and learn from this reality.

Kathy is gone to the hills with friends for a 3 day get away.  She enjoys this and I always use the time to to simply enjoy home and what goes on here.  However, I do find myself vulnerable to temptations at this time.  This morning in my scripture reading it seemed the message of every Psalms I read was about the result of honest worship with God.  Worshiping God, asking God to heal the areas of hurt and need in our lives, and obeying what He directs us to do through His Holy Spirit are steps He made clear.  These are the steps I always want to take.  In so doing I need to remember the words of the Serenity Prayer–“taking one day at a time, one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.”  I use to tell myself at times like this that I’d need to be strong for this amount of time while I was alone.  It often didn’t happen either.  However, God is reminding me to keep my eyes on what He tells.  One day at a time and one moment at a time is always doable with Him.  Panic and fear are tools of Satan.  Confident assurance taking the steps God outlines are His tools.  I will choose His.

Today started early with the meeting regarding my co-leader for the step study.  It was changed from last night to 6:00 am this morning.  I was a little concerned because the man I wanted to replace him as co-leader is the share group leader for his accountability group last night.  However, last night they were able to talk about it on their own.  God used His ways to have the communication take place which I had felt I needed to do.  I love how intimate and tender God is at handling these issues which man stresses over.  The young man is staying in the step study as a participant now knowing this is the path He needs to take to address his own recovery.

Later this morning I meet with another one of our pastors regarding a troubled teen in our youth program for Celebrate Recovery.  God was reminding me this morning in my devotional time that I need to not prepare my message–He wants me only giving His.  I knew exactly what He was talking about.  I have had more than one conversation with this pastor and they don’t always go as I would wish.  So, my mind has been working overtime prepping the right message.  God was reminding me that it isn’t my prepped message He wants given.  I simply need to state what the issue is and let Him take it from there.  I hate the fact that I have to have these constant reminders.  As human as I am, I hate being so.  Stepping out of humanness is stepping into eternity.  God hasn’t wanted me out of humanness yet so I will continue on this path of needing my constant reminders.

God is so good!  I love serving Him and am so glad to be called a child of the King.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

My journey today continues from yesterday.  Everything I was anxious about yesterday is now addressed for the present.  The work with our pastor for this Fall is on target, the man for which I have co-led the step study is meeting with me today, the meeting this morning for the upcoming Fall conference has even more good news developing and–I resigned my position on the Aslan Christian Academy board.

This morning as I was journaling this situation with God I had a lesson come about.  My book had just come off the press the Fall of 2015 when I was told about Aslan.  I was so eager to have my story be worthwhile for God.  I know I was running ahead of His timing now.  I was asked at the time to work with the project putting together the educational plan.  I did that easily as the connections for doing so were already in place for me.  However, Aslan was stuck with leadership issues at the board level and so I was asked to help them with their leadership and join the board.  I knew there was reluctance among the members but I went ahead anyway.  This is the step I took on my own.  The “chasing tail” which was in place at the time is still in place.  I could see this and anything I would do to make it visible for others only insult others.  Stepping away yesterday helped me see that God intends to do His work in this–He didn’t ask me to do this, man did.  I do want to be a good student and learn this lesson well.  My eagerness to help needs firm confirmation from God’s Spirit within before I say YES.

This blog for me has been something I’ve felt God wanted me to do to help others who are on this journey of living a life fully committed to God.  As I began it I hoped others would learn from my personal walk, little did I know how many times I’d have to describe my stumbling efforts staying on the path of the journey.  Nonetheless, the purpose is still the same, I want to honor God with my living for Him and learn from each lesson to be a stronger, more faithful servant.  I pray my mistakes help others to not have to stumble so much.