I have been neglecting this blog for a couple days–not on purpose, but because Kathy and I have flown to Oklahoma City visiting our daughter and her family.  We left very early Saturday morning for the airport and so my routine has not been the same and won’t be for a week.  I will try to be consistent now as this week continues.

My daughter Amber had asked a few weeks ago if I’d give my testimony to their church’s Celebrate Recovery group when I came.  Last night was the opportunity to do this.  I had given it a year ago while here also.  All of that was months before I’d started this blog and only about 6 weeks after my book had been published.  Their group has grown considerably and my surrender has increased in this past year.  It was telling for me to be able to stand before people I mostly don’t know and give a second testimony.  I found myself less nervous than normal and able to give the testimony of God’s work in me with the assurance that I’m doing so on assignment for God rather than just exposing myself to these folks.

It is difficult for me to write while here.  I find myself in a different mode.  Yet, in this mode the more difficult thing is hearing God’s tender voice.  At home it seems easier as I’m comfortable and the surroundings are very familiar.  Here, their computer sits openly in the family room and I feel “watched”.

The one thing I’d like to share however this morning is the part last night in the small group with the men after my testimony.  I told how I have recently begun to journal to God and how that has strengthened my confidence and surrender to Him.  Almost all of the guys seemed to relate to this.  One of them even said he journals daily and he was going to start doing so to God.  I didn’t realize how many of us men struggle with a similar esteem issue with our God.  He has certainly been breaking the chains of belief I’ve had all these years.  For this I am most grateful.

I have a list of things to do while here with my daughter.  The big one is to disassemble much of their deck.  They are going to be redoing some landscaping which requires a retaining wall being redone.  It ties to their deck which has to go.  I don’t think I can damage something that will be taken out anyway so this projects seems like a fun one for me.  I’ll give you an update later!

Well, I wrote yesterday I was eager to step into the Celebrate Recovery leadership meeting last night.  I was sensing a tremendous surge of God’s anointing in the leadership as we organize for this coming year.  It came to fruition last night.  We had 23 people present.  I had a huge agenda which addressed continuing the present work of Celebrate Recovery, but also adding the potential new areas if there were leadership to lead each of them.  Amazingly, each new area had leadership willing and ready to step into them.  No coercion, no begging, only doors of opportunity opened and God had prepared each of them to say yes to the area of need they were led to assume.  The meeting was to end at 8:30 pm and at 8:24 the agenda was completed with all areas of old and new assigned.  Celebrate Recovery has a leadership covenant volunteers are to sign pledging their support for the coming year.  I gave these out last night for ones to pray over after the meeting.  Those ready to sign could do so and the rest could take them home for God to speak to them about signing or not.  20 of the 23 present returned theirs last night.  I am humbly amazed this morning reflecting on all of this from last night.

I am presently reading in my Bible the book of Jeremiah.  Jeremiah often uses the term–God of the Angel Armies–in reference to God and His leadership.  This same God is the Father God I began to journal to just a few weeks ago wondering why He had prompted me to change my journaling to Him.  He had told me it was now time for me to begin to learn to trust Him as I’d learned to trust His Son Jesus.  Little did I understand just how much I needed to be awakened to the immensity of our Almighty God and just how intimate He wants to be with me and each one of us.

Yesterday morning I had gone to the church to make copies for last night’s meeting.  I was asked by the pastor of adult ministries to speak to him if I had a minute.  So, when finished I stepped into his office.  He and I had talked earlier in the summer about rethinking the churches’ organization for teaching/discipling it’s flock.  In the educational world we call it the learning continuum.  It looks at what do we want all children to know as tier 1, what support is needed to ensure the ones who need additional help have it as tier 2, and what intervention is needed for those who just won’t get it otherwise as tier 3.  Celebrate Recovery is a perfect example of a church’s work with tier 3 but what do we do ahead of this for tier 1 and tier 2 in a church and what is it called?  He has begun a thorough analysis of this and begun to create a structure for implementing it.  He also asked if I’d be willing to lead all the intervention work for the church.  Celebrate Recovery is one of these, but there are many more needed and I was honored to be asked.  I did say yes to it.

Now that I’ve written all of this I can tell what happened at the end of last night’s meeting.  A mom of an elementary age child told of the immense amount of pornography children are being exposed to on the school buses, playgrounds, etc. by children and their smartphones.  This is happening as early as first grade.  She wondered how our Celebrate Recovery could help.  She had thought this had just happened to her child but in sharing it with a few other moms she found it was happening to most kids.  Parents and kids were stymied as to addressing this.  I told them I would take this problem to our pastors as this is a perfect example of the tiered approach to our teaching at church.  All adults and children need to be taught how to address this temptation when it comes to them and then for those who need support and intervention, we stand ready to give the right Godly help.

God is showing me that He is the God of the Angel Armies and He is ready to fight this and all spiritual battle/s.  These battles have already been won and we need to help others know this is so they do not cave into the human temptations being so easily accessed around us. How wonderful it is to see God using my past as a springboard for me working with today’s needs.  Only this Almighty God we call our Heavenly Father can and will do this.  I’m so grateful to be on His team.

The message God gave me yesterday regarding gratitude is continuing/lingering.  After writing the blog entry yesterday I went into our bedroom to talk with my wife Kathy.  I thought rather than try to tell her what happened I’d simply read her the entry from my phone.  Little did I know the emotional release it would cause.  It was like a dam broke loose–one that wasn’t ever suppose to be built.  I wept in her arms.  I was able to share most of this with my accountability group last night at Celebrate Recovery.  This seems really intimate to me.  I think praise must have a direct link to the gratitude capacity God built in us originally.  Now that the dam has been broken, I hope to be able to trust intimacy more.  I’m going to need to linger in this territory for a while longer.  There is something about pride built into this area I need to ponder and uncover with God’s help.  I want my pride to be an inner, emotional energy used to God’s glory and not to be used as a protective device.  This too needs some time working it through for better clarity.

Tonight we have our Celebrate Recovery’s leadership meeting to organize our moving into the new year–kickoff happens on September 21st.  I attend a lot of meetings and even organize many of them, but I have a tremendous sense of joy building about tonight’s time.  There seems to be a level of commitment from others (new ones) being expressed.  I’m looking forward to watching God work tonight as we walk through new areas of ministry within CR and and enlarging our present areas too.

This Saturday Kathy and I fly to Oklahoma to spend a week with our daughter and her family.  I love this week with her and her husband and their two kids.  Even though they are 1500 miles away, somehow spending an uninterrupted week makes the distance more tolerable.  Their church has a new Celebrate Recovery going and I’m giving my testimony to them on Sunday evening when they meet.  I gave it a year ago while there.  The group was brand new at that time.  It will be good to see the ones attending and listen to their stories of God working through their hurts, hangups and habits.

It is Wednesday morning and I need to write about last night’s step study again.  The lesson was Gratitude.  It takes one through all the reasons to be grateful to God for His healing work in your life from the almost year of processing in this study.  There are only two lessons left so the time is right for this.  I was totally caught off-guard hearing my name from several of the other guys as part of their gratitude.  By the end of the 90 min. study I was ready to flee.  I could not handle any more!  In my therapy just a few years past I learned how to take a time like this and find God’s voice/message, but I could not do that in the moment last night.  Of course, the closing question in the lesson is:  “You have just completed your first gratitude list.  How does it make you feel?”  I had to confess to the guys that all this made me feel confused and raw.  One of the guys had said he felt well loved.  I wanted to feel that way but it was truly the opposite.  I felt exposed.

This morning as I took this to God my Father, He led me through some remarkable awakenings.  I was journaling that I knew this connected to dad’s belittling continuously when I was young.  He could never let me have any moment of praise without removing it and beating it up as though the praise were intended to be a punishment or doom.  Any good I might do would only be temporary because I’d soon blow it–would be the message.  God reminded me that my dad had already told me how sorry he was for leaving me with this message or belief about myself.  However, I told God I knew this but the wound was buried deeply within me and I couldn’t get to the source.  I told Him I felt like a liar because their praise last night only reminded me of the things I’d done they didn’t know or they wouldn’t be praising me.  That is when God said, “You feel like a liar because you’re not ‘perfect in all ways’ like me.”  I said–YES!  I had to be this perfect kid so I could prove to dad I wasn’t his mistake–error (as my book is entitled).  This truth right here was the wound that needed to be opened.  God even said, “Lets open it and clean it out so it will heal.  Your dad is sorry and you know this.  You are human-you know this.  You aren’t me-you know this. Be real, Earnie.  These men talked about the real person last night and thanked him.  Accept their praise–they meant it.”

This is another one of those reasons God wanted me to start journaling to Him a few weeks ago.  He knew we were coming to this lesson.  I would need Him this time to process the outcome of it to this level of healing.  I could write more about how this lesson has haunted me in years past as we came to it.  None of those times did I find any healing.  I just buried it and moved on.  I am so grateful to my God.  As the one gentleman said last night–“I feel loved.”  This is my feeling this morning.

I suppose no one should be surprised to hear that last night’s meeting went overwhelmingly good.  God’s Spirit was rich in presence.  Before the time was done the initial anxiety within the group seemed gone.  It was replaced with thanksgiving. The agenda God had given me was followed even though I’d thought I should abandon it even while we were meeting.  Yet, somehow, even the comments of the group kept us on the agenda and God’s message seemed to come through loud and clear.  I’m reading Jeremiah presently and in this book God is often called:  God of the Angel Armies.  Well, His Mighty Army was fighting last night to overcome and He won–Praise be to God our Father.

Trust and Obey–those words were the closing ones on the little agenda for last night.  I wasn’t sure why I felt nudged to place them there but as we got to the close of the time together I knew.  There has been anxiety and anger expressed over this ministry starting and how it “should” move forward.  The goal of last night was to unite the four working together in this as a team under God’s leadership.  That part seemed to solidify within the first hour.  As we got to the end one individual wanted to step into the “but what about ….” part down the road.  This was the time to remind us that God’s leading is for today.  This is where we surrender our anxiety and with the surrender, step into trusting the God we want honored.  We obey what we know to do today and wait for His timing and direction.  This message was heard and even acknowledged as what each one wanted to do.  I thank God for this simple message, but one so difficult and impossible at the human level.

Surrendering, trusting, obeying are terms used in heart/spirit living.  This is living in the new creation Jesus gave when we invited Him to live in our hearts.  I love His patience with me as I work through this for me in day to day living.  Surrendering is one big one for me right now.  It needs to happen several times a day now that I’m more awake to myself.

“I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene.”  This is what comes to mind when I think of God my Father this morning.  Truly HE is The Amazing God.  Yesterday started with God’s direction to trust and obey.  As yesterday moved into late afternoon I got a phone call from one of our CR guys I sponsor.  He was very troubled about some items that were making him most angry.  This is one of the two things that brought him to Celebrate Recovery–anger.  He needed to vent and find direction.  When I asked him what he wanted people to see from his anger, he said he wanted them to see his point.  I asked what people did see when he got angry?  He said–my anger.  At that point we were able to talk through an approach he could and would take.  He was able to surrender the anger to God and trust that God would use His Ways so that “his point” would be heard rather than his angry voice.  About 30 minutes after this call another one came.  This one lasted almost 2 hours.  I don’t sponsor this one, but he does call or come by now and then as I had been his step study leader a year ago.  He too eventually got to the point of seeing his anger and his selfishness as his stumbling blocks.  This man is young and shy, but he is also bright and prideful.  It was amazing to hear God’s message for me yesterday morning–trust and obey–being said from my mouth to a couple others needing to hear and process it.  In both cases, they felt righteous about their situations but no one was seeing their righteousness.  When they took a step back and looked at what they wanted the outcome to be, they could see the stumbling block–themselves.

God’s ways are surely not our ways.  Humanness is so selfish and ugly when it rears its head.  We all know this from personal experience.  Surrendering so we can trust is a paradox to man–yet God’s ways are often a paradox to man’s ways.  It is the difference between Spirit and humanness.  We trust God’s Spirit, but to do so needs us to surrender our human desire to control and have our way.

Tonight’s meeting will need me doing this several times today.  I do have an agenda for the meeting that could easily look just like me.  I know the meeting is to happen and I know what God wants from it, I have surrendered myself already this morning and I will do so each time I begin to sense that moment of willfulness or anxiousness.  Neither of them are signs of trusting.  I want to trust and obey.

If a fishing trip is measured by time with your grandson, yesterday’s trip was 5 stars;  if it is measured by the amount of hiking done, it was again 5 stars; if measured by fish caught, well–1- 12″ star is it.  I have several muscles aching this morning, but my heart is happy and his seems to be too.

God is seemingly teaching me about trusting and obeying.  The meeting coming up tomorrow evening and some other things of current have me on edge.  In times past I would be quiet, anxious and withdrawn.  Again, God’s message this morning was to trust and obey.  This isn’t a big message in words, but it is huge in assignment.  I sit here knowing the moment I quit this message I will need to have multiple reminders to stay surrendered.  Each anxious moment can be the reminder–God is telling me.  It is funny to think how long I’ve lived hiding the anxiety rather than using it as a tool of God.  I’m going to give it a try.  I’ll have to give you a report on its success.  For today–trust and obey.

I’ll bet everyone of us in our journey has had a day when God said to halt the forward motion and take a side trip to the lake so you and your grandson can go fishing!  Well, today is the day.  I’ll be back tomorrow with the story of our catch.  God’s blessings to each one of you and us.

Journey’s are not always clearly laid out for us–agree?  However, God my Father is telling me to trust and obey.  I actually love it when I hear His voice saying it to me.  For those that know that old hymn, I simply start running the words through my mind.  It assures me of my need to trust and obey and the outcome of doing that.  I also notice which word is placed first–Trust.  This morning I was asking God to help me with this major character defect I possess–anxiety over things where “I” feel I need to control the outcome.  God reminded me I am to trust and obey.  Along with this I sense this lesson on why Trust is placed first.  If we obey a command first and trust second, I would be obeying under my own strength and trusting I did the right thing.  I lived much of my life under that way of operating.  God is wanting me to know that Trust precedes obey.  Trust is only fully found when I surrender that sense of control to Him.  After doing that I obey the assignment I have knowing the outcome of my obedience is now in His power and control.  I know I’m not alone in this.  I think it is the human nature of man to sense this need to control.  However, my job is not to ensure all mankind trusts and obeys, but that I do it.  I can write about it and talk about it but the assignment of completing this is a one to one with God Himself.

I have set a meeting for Monday evening with one of the ministries I’m helping.  There is much struggle that is taking place with those involved.  It is easy to see man’s nature battling when one takes a step away from the battle and simply look upon it.  Satan is actually having a hay day.  God had nudged me to bring us together and place this on the table so we can actually see it as it is.  This morning He tells me to Trust Him and obey my assignment.  He assures me He is already working and the outcome of this meeting is in His hands.  My role is to bring us together.  This is why I must trust first and obey what I’ve been entrusted to do.  He didn’t tell me to control the outcome–He is doing that.

What an amazing God we serve.  Learning to serve Him well is truly a life-long journey.  I want to be a good and faithful servant.

I’m very glad to welcome September into my life.  It is one of those months I love.  It is still summer like but the nights are always cooler and that I really appreciate.  The one thing I will begin to miss is the corn on the cob.  I’m on the last row in my garden.  Now that is a sad moment!

Yesterday was a day of learning for me.  I went to a day long conference on Sex Trafficking.  The two speakers for the main part were from Portland, OR and their job assignment is only working in this arena.  They gave very specific information about our valley and how rampant this issue is right here.  One example of its presence here is that the two officers had placed a false ad in a black market website for a hotel in Boise where sex trafficking is most common.  They placed it last Sunday and by yesterday, 4 days, it had over 200 hits.  About 45 of those hits came yesterday while we were in the conference.  They actually had the cell phone that received the calls with them so we could experience the reality of this truth as we sat in the training.  The first two hours was about background of these minors who are called prostitutes by our society. Almost none of them has a background exempt of sexual abuse.  I found myself towards the end of the two hours letting the pain of my own abuse start to penetrate the wall of protection I had steeled around me.  I happened to be sitting next to the counselor I’d had during the 3 years of counseling/therapy not so long ago.  She and I are on the same board for Aslan Christian Academy.  I told her I was needing to better prepare myself for this topic.  She asked how I’d prepared myself before coming?  Had I prayed?  I had looked forward to attending this for learning but hadn’t even thought about its connection to my own past–even though I did know the statistics about the topic and sexual abuse.  So, at that moment I prayed for The Holy Spirit to be my shield of protection letting me learn what I should and not open old wounds that were being healed.  Amazingly, it happened just like that.  I had no more moments of anxiety.  I had fallen into my old pattern of trying steel myself from emotions rather than surrender them.

Our academy we are supporting needs a place to build.  Please pray for this to materialize.  We have a meeting tonight with the board.  God’s timing is what we are after and where He wants this placed.  Thank you and God’s blessings to you.