Day Thirty Seven

Day 37

Sharing my Life Message

Romans 12:11 “Never let my Zeal Lag”

It’s one of my favorite things to do. Talking about my life. It is one thing I know best in life. It is a miracle I can still remember it all too. Not because it was so long ago, but the fact of all the so called damage that has been done, the drugs that I have done, the damage to my brain they say comes with the brain cells they say I have killed every time I have shot up, the metal disease they have diagnosed me with, the many trips to the psychiatric hospitals and the amount of medications I have taken over the years must have had some effect on my memory you would think. But it is amazing the amount of information in detail I can recall at any given moment when a situation presents itself. Especially from childhood everything I can recall when my parents say “I don’t remember that.” Why is it that parents conveniently forget the most painful parts of their children’s lives when we remember them like they were just yesterday? I never understood that.

But one thing I do understand is, listening to a testimony that comes from the heart of someone that has experienced the touch of God in their life is so moving to me. It is all I ever wanted to be able to do. I have mentioned before about a man that gave his testimony to a group of Jr. High school kids when I was twenty years old I was teaching that moved me in such a way that I prayed to God that I wanted a testimony just like his so I could someday do what he was doing. That is all I ever wanted to do with my life, move people in such a way that my life made a difference in them to feel the power of God with the words that were coming out of my mouth. As I grew up I found that I did have the ability to move people with the words I spoke with. Even when I wasn’t speaking about God, no matter what I was trying to say, I was always convincing. I was always able to get people to listen to me, to get what I wanted just from speaking to them. My manipulating skills took me far in life. Some for the good of me and some for the not so good for me. Either way my words and speaking ability always seem to get me through in life.

Now that I have a subject that I am proud of, a testimony that I am comfortable with, a character I am no longer ashamed of, I am ready to let God use me to share the Power of His saving grace known to the world around me just how He has transformed me from the man I used to be to the man I have become. For me it isn’t difficult to get a conversation started. I am in a very unique situation where ever I go. And if I take along my pets with me that makes it all the more easier. You see due to my medical situation I have been left to depend on a wheelchair and usually if I am out alone, I am carrying a 9 year old Iguana with me. So she gets the attention first, then somehow after the conversation get comfortable and more on a friendly basis, I usually will get asked why I am in or need a wheelchair. That is the only question I wait for. That is my open door. If I was just another man with a Lizard, we would talk about them. If I was just a 47 year old man in a wheelchair, who would come up and just start a conversation with me just for the heck of it? But given my personality and my gift for conversation, my young spirit, my love for people and a conversation piece on my lap, one that is gentle enough to attract the smallest of visitors, I can enjoy a day out and have a chance to share with almost everyone I meet. It was the streets where I used to use and look for things that got me into trouble. So it is no wonder that is where God has me back at sharing my testimony. The same places where the enemy used me to fail at so many things is where I am being used by God to bring him the Glory he deserves.

The bible says we are all supposed to be actively sharing our faith with those around us. But I wonder if we all are taking this task He has given us as seriously as He has commanded us to. How many people do we see every day that we just walk or pass by and have never even mentioned to them we are a Christian? How many even know that we go to church? Or that we believe in a God at all? A lot of people like to keep their lives so private but being a Christian should be the least private part of our lives. We in America don’t have to worry about persecution for what we believe. We can shout it from the roof if we want to. People stand in the middle of the street and do it all the time. But we don’t have to go to that extreme. All we need to do is be ready when an opportunity presents itself. If God knows our hearts and knows that we want to do this, He will bring the opportunities to us. God loves a willing spirit and an obedient soul. This He can use all the time no matter where we are in our walk with Him.

Remember we all have a story to tell, we all came from somewhere before we knew God. Something happened to allow us to get to know and chose Him. We all had and still have a growth process that is full of ups and downs and experiences that have tried our faith and have taught us lessons that will strengthen and encourage someone else. Whether you have almost lost your life and been saved from losing it or whether God has kept you safe your whole life, you have a testimony that is all yours. And God will bring just the right kind of people that need to hear YOUR TESTIMONY so that your life will have a purpose to it and a meaning that will be worth something to someone else. So always be ready to give an account as to what God as done in your life. Someone NEEDS to know what He has done for YOU.

Day Thirty Six

Day 36

Made for a Mission

“The best use of your Life is to spend it on something that outlasts it”

One day a young boy set out for school but never arrived. The school called to see where he was and why he wasn’t in school that day; His father said he had left at his regular time as he did every day. Worried what happened to his son, he got in his car and began to drive the route his son walked to see if he could find him but he wasn’t anywhere to be found? He called the police and they set up a search party and soon the whole town was looking for his son. They would not stop until the lost boy was found again. The father never gave up hope that his son would soon be with him again. He knew that his neighbors would not stop until his son was found because they also loved him and his son.

So it is the same with God and us. Unbelievers are like the lost son in the story above. And all our neighbors are all the Christians in the world who God has called to help Him find all the sons that are lost in the world because God is frantically looking to get them back to Him. God needs our help in finding them. This is all God is concerned about as He sits up in heaven, working in our lives to get us to a place where we can be instruments of His purpose to fulfill His purpose in us, to make us more like His son Jesus so we can do what His son Jesus did while He was here on earth. Each one of us individually He is shaping and molding to become more and more into the character of His son, one day at a time, one feeling at a time, restoring us from one hurt at a time, one broken relationship at a time, so we can be used in one ministry at a time. He has given us each talents and abilities to be used in specific ways, placed us in specific locations and places that are needed so we can be near the right individuals He wants us to reach because it is only us that can that reach these individuals. When God brings certain people into our lives, it is for a reason and for His purpose. There is always a reason why they are there. They just didn’t show up out of the blue. God brought them there. You are not in line behind them by accident. They are not your neighbors because the manager rented them the apartment next to you. They are not your co-workers because someone else hired them. When we understand this, that God has the control and does the behind the scenes work for us, we realize that half the work is already done for us, and we just need to finish what He has already started for us. It is like a salesman walking in a place that has already been primed ready to buy something; they are just waiting for the guy to come in with the product. They may not say YES right away, but eventually they will bite. You may just need to sharpen you salesmanship skills a little, find what works for you.

How do you develop this desire to reach those around you? Pray, always pray first. Second you need to have a love for people. A strong desire to care about the people that God puts in your life daily. To be able to have genuine concern for those around you and see them not only as just people in your life but as people that you want to spend eternity with. I heard a saying once that I think really applies well to the motivation and desire in people to be able to share their lives with others. “Those who have been forgiven little love little, and those who have been forgiven much, love much”. Now this isn’t always true is all circumstances because I know many people who have lived wonderful lives that have great big hearts for people. But I have also seen people who have lived very hard lives, that have gone through very many difficult times, have had many things to overcome, me included, that because of these hurdles to overcome have developed a greater love for mankind than the one they started out life with in the first place. God through their experiences has taught them how to love the unlovable whereas a lot of people just don’t know how to approach or reach them. We, I were these people at one time in our lives.

It takes a long time, and sometimes people never get to a place in their lives where they realize that reaching the world around them up and above and beyond their everyday jobs and responsibilities is what they were created to do. Between taking care of their families, going to work, paying the bills, spending a few hours in church on Sunday, who has time for much anything else? Maybe we should leave it all up to the single people. They must have more time on their hands right? Jesus was single anyway. Be more like Jesus the bible says. And go out and get twelve good friends to follow you around to lend you a hand with what ever you need done. Run your errands and wash your feet and hair. Fix your meals for you then you will have time. Ok maybe this is the wrong way to go about it, it would be nice but it isn’t reality. God gave all of us a personality to use in someway that will and can affect others in a different way so that we can be used to share our own lives and experiences with others. God has given us all experiences to be used that will reach others in some way. It is up to us to share them. To stay silent is the crime. To not tell others what God did in our lives is hiding His truths.

Someone in my life right now grew up with someone putting a lot of bad feelings and bad teachings towards the bible in his mind. He really doesn’t trust the bible as having any truths in it for the moment. How to get him to a place to trust in anything it says is going to be a challenge for me. So what I have asked him to do for the moment is just rely on what he sees in me. (this really puts a pressure on me doesn’t it?) Let me be the example of what you believe someone that believes in Christ is. Instead of me showing you what it means to be a Christian is by showing it to you in the bible, watch my life everyday, you are living with me. See how I treat you. See how I have treated you. See how I treat those around me. Watch how I live my life and compare it to how you know others that you have seen live theirs. Then every once in a while I will open up the bible and show you something that goes along with what I am doing or saying and see if it doesn’t match up with something you are seeing me doing or living. Maybe this will be a way to reach him and get him to understand that what he has heard or read or been taught in the past maybe wasn’t the right thing in the first place. Before we can preach the word of God we have to live the word of God. And we can’t live the word of God if the word of God isn’t in us.

Day Thirty Five

Day 35

God’s Power in my Weakness

The Four “F” Words in my Life

Failures, Feelings, Frustrations and Fears, we all have them but nobody is talking about them. I wonder why not? That would just be too much to bear. If people knew what was inside of us, how could we walk out the front door of our homes and face the world in public? Who we are to others instead is just someone that everyone thinks we are. If they really knew what was inside of us, if they really knew who we were, what make us tick, would they still accept us? Would they still sit beside us in church and say they were our friends? So to be sure, we keep quiet about our true selves and go on pretending without ever telling anyone those little secrets we have grown up with all our lives. Mostly because we don’t want to look at them ourselves, they even scare us sometimes. We don’t want to admit we have feelings like that. How could we, we are Christian’s and God didn’t make people with stuff like that in them. Didn’t Jesus die on the cross to take all that stuff away and redeem us, to heal us and restore us? Wasn’t all the bad stuff in us supposed to go away when we accepted Him? When we prayed to Him to remove something wasn’t He supposed to answer us and give us the desires of our hearts like the bible says? Please Lord remove in me anything that doesn’t line up with your will in my life. That sounds like that right thing to pray for doesn’t it, but what about when it doesn’t seem to go away? What if it just continues to linger for the rest of you life? Is this what Paul was talking about when he said he had a THORN in his side? Something that reminded him that he always had a reason to have a need for the Lord in his life? Something that made him always realize that he was human and that he always needed to constantly rely on the Lord every minute of his life.

Well the same is true for this servant of God. Nine months before I was even born my mother began taking me to church. She was the spiritual leader in the home I was raised in. Everything I learned about what it meant to be a Christian I learned from my mother and my grandmother. At the age of nine I went forward willingly on my own with excitement down that long isle in church to secure my salvation for eternity. The enemy must have known soon after that what a man of God I would become some day as much as my Father in heaven did because it wasn’t long after that long run down the isle that he started messing with my mind and my head in so many ways. Nightmares and dreams and hallucinations after I woke up from those nightmares began to torment me every night. I was afraid to go to sleep at night. Monsters in my dreams with devils in them that were always just one step behind me coming after me. Fear of my dreams, fear of my father, and fear of my classmates at school. Fear seemed to run my life as a child. No place in my life seemed safe. Puberty came at an early age for me in a way that I didn’t understand and I became confused about who I was and what to do with those feelings. I was again fearful to speak up to anyone for the simple reason that I would be punished for doing something bad again. So I just kept quite about what was going on inside of me. So now instead of being afraid of everything outside of myself, I was now afraid of myself and the things that were inside of myself, something that I didn’t understand about myself. I thought that something inside of me was broken. Something in my head, something in my body, and something in the things I was thinking doing with both. I was too young to even know what the word gay or homosexuality was at that time. But I knew something wasn’t right at the same time. And I also knew that I couldn’t talk about it to anyone. Especially my father or my mother because she would talk to my father, she told him everything. I was left all alone with all this stuff. Already I was asking questions to God like “Why me Lord, what did I do to deserve this? Am I going to have to live with these feelings all my life? Why can’t I just be normal like everyone else?” These were difficult questions for a twelve year old to have to deal with and to suffer with at that age. While every other twelve year old is just concerned about playing with his friends, I was worried about hiding and keeping secrets about myself and feeling depressed over things I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand why God wasn’t answering my prayers or even if He was listening to me. I prayed everyday for an answer but none ever came. I couldn’t see why He was being so silent. I begged and pleaded every night, I prayed for forgiveness for my thoughts and feelings, I asked God to take away the evil that must be inside me, and at times I just wanted to die to make the madness go away. Imagine a twelve or thirteen year old boy wishing he were dead because he didn’t want to live with the feelings in his own mind. I remember how weak and insecure these feelings made me feel all the time. As my teen years went on, these feeling seemed to consume me more and more. My high school years seemed to become one lie after another. My grades suffered, my attendance suffered, I learned how to forge my counselors signature on re-admits very well after every time I ditched classes. The only distraction I found was my involvement with the children’s department at my church. Actually I think it was a way for me to re-live my own childhood again in a safe environment. It was the first time in my life I was receiving recognition for a job well done for doing something right and good for someone else. I enjoyed seeing the happiness on the faces of the kids that I never felt as a child growing up, and knowing that I was a part of that happiness for them made me feel proud that I could be a part of it. Also the praise I received from their parents was something I never seemed to get in my own home growing up. I had found a place to get what I had never gotten before. This helped in so many ways to subdue the thoughts that haunted me so strongly through those teenage years.

Remember I said I hadn’t even seen the word gay written anywhere before? Or even seen it mentioned other than used in a joke on the playground? Coincidently shortly after I heard a guest speaker give his testimony one day in the Jr. Hi department, and I prayed a prayer that I wanted a testimony like that man where I wanted the same testimony as he had that God would give me one where HE would save my life over and over again, I saw that word printed in a newspaper that read GAY HOTLINE and a phone number. At first, to me a hotline meant trouble, and why would someone that was gay be in trouble? I could think of many reasons. It took a couple of weeks for me to get up the courage to call the hotline to see what it was all about. When I did, this was the beginning of the end, so to speak. It was the beginning of a change in the direction of my life in a drastic way. It was as if as soon as I prayed that prayer for God to give me a testimony, the course of my life completely changed all of a sudden. Soon after I was leaving church, my family and friends for a future of confusion, mystery, and unknown experiences that would leave me in a world that I never knew existed. My testimony soon began to take shape, from one life threatening experience after another, from one mishap to another. Was this what God had planned for my life after all? Why would he allow all this to happen to me I wondered. Did He think I was some kind of super hero that could withstand so much pain and agony to come out on top like I have now? And not just me but especially people like my mom and the rest of my family that had to watch and go through so much with me over the past twenty some years. How strong did He think they were to suffer right along with me? It was bad enough being labeled the BAD KID growing up as a child, but now I was really living up to that label as an adult with my addictions, my arrests, my trips to the many rehabs, and psychiatric hospitals for the paranoid delusions I would inflict on myself from my drug use. Over and over again I would ask WHY? Why was all of this happening to me? I had forgot about that prayer I prayed for a testimony where I wanted to be able to sit in front of a large crowd of kids and or people and tell them the story of how GOD saved my life over and over again. Well in order to do that He had to actually save my life over and over again didn’t He? Through all my fears, through all my failures, and through all my frustrations, God has never been out of the picture. I never understood all those stories in the bible growing up and how they could possibly have any meaning for me but now I see they are as relevant today as they were when they were written and lived back then. The Egyptians wandered aimlessly for forty years, so did I. The enemy messed with JOB trying to discourage him, he did also with me. Job prayed for death to befall him. I did too. He also cursed the day he was given life, so did I at times. Paul had his thorn. So will I for the rest of my life. It keeps me dependant on Christ every day of my life. It lets me know I need Him every day of my life. What once was a weakness that I always gave into is now a reminder that I need Him more and more every minute of every day. Through all my pain and suffering has come strength and courage that I never knew I had before. He has led me to a place in life where I can develop my faith and strengthen my soul with a body of believers that I can share with intimately. The wilderness I wandered in was not in vein by no means, the experiences I have had and come through are now my purpose He has developed in me to be able to give back to others. It has taught me the true meaning of the word LOVE and COMPASSION in a way few ever get to experience.

Day Thirty Four

Day 34

Thinking like a Servant

Is this too much to do?

A life of service to others, why would anyone want to do that? Everything our society tells us is to have the things we want for ourselves. Fast cars, big houses, fine women, the hottest men, get rich quick schemes, almost everything the world has to offer us is obtainable if we just set our minds to it. All we have to do is work hard, put all our effort into it, and strive for the best in life. You can even hear some preachers preach this from the pulpit. Twist and turn the scripture enough times and you can get almost anything out of it you want. The FLDS are very good at this. What can be done to lose this mindset and develop a mindset of Christ that puts people first and ourselves second? How do we get to a point in life where others are more important than ourselves? It doesn’t just happen one day all at once. You don’t just wake up with the desire to go out and give it all away. I do believe that God’s plan for a persons life starts very early in life, obviously. Where he allows us to go, what he allows us to experience, the time it takes us to make the mistakes and learn the lessons He teaches us.

Today I had the opportunity to speak with an eighteen year old that was very mature for his age, It was a meeting set up by God I have no doubt. I once asked God to give me a testimony like a man I was listening to that had a very hard life of crime and punishment. I wanted a testimony like this man, not so much the crime and punishment part but the idea of being saved by God for the purposes of being able to testify to God’s saving power in my own life to a large crowd of people, in this case a large crown of teenagers. Today I realized something. Whether it is a large crowd or one at a time, my testimony is one that God has given me to share with who ever asks the questioned, WHAT HAPPENED TO ME? I used to be so embarrassed to even leave my home in a wheelchair. I didn’t want to be seen as a crippled. I don’t see that anymore. I don’t see myself as someone who is DISABLED anymore, but someone who is ENABLED to do everything the Lord wants of me to do. I am not the shy guy, afraid of my own skin, afraid of what others will think of me when they see me. What is it I am doing when I share with someone my life and my story? I am serving God and giving them a message that can show them that God has so much power to do exactly what He as always said He could do, take a life and change it into something great. Heal and restore the broken hearted. The ability to describe what it was like that brings young men to tears, and then calm them with words that softens their heart to be receptive to Gods love. I never mean to bring them to tears but it just happens more times than not. I don’t even think it is me as much as it is the Holy Spirit reaching deep down into their soul and grabbing a hold of them.

Having a ministry of a servant, doing the work of a servant where ever it is needed just because something needs to be done probably doesn’t come naturally to most people. I am sure most women will tell you this when I comes to the housework and trying to get their husbands to lend a hand with it. How can a man be such a great servant at church but such a lousy help around the house? I am sure many women would love an answer to this question. Some people have more time than others this is true. I on the hand, have lots of time being single, not having a regular job to go to, my time is pretty much my own and can give a lot of it when ever it is needed or called upon. Sometimes I want to take on too much because I think that if there is a need before me it must be mine to fill or take care of. As in the case this week of the two young homeless men I took in. I just couldn’t see letting two young men that are perfectly able but just in a situation at the moment where they were sleeping on the beach. Most people would just say “I’m sorry to hear that, I’ll pray for you that you find a place” but yet I take it as God brought them to because I have a place and they are not taking anything out of the way from me. I have a roof over my head, they do not. I have food in my fridge, they do not. They need help finding work, this was my profession. And now one of them has work and the other one is getting work. What if I would have said what everyone else probably would have said and probably not even done to begin with? They would have missed out on the blessing I have been receiving over and over again all this past week.

God never called anyone to be saved and go on their merry way. Imagine if those 120 didn’t go into that upper room and begin to pray. Where would we all be now? No one would have been spreading the GOOD NEWS to no one. Christianity would have just died out like another “HERE TODAY GONE TOMORROW FAD” of the 6th century. Even today we see the Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormon missionaries walking and pedaling the streets in service to their religion. Whether out of duty or out of true service to their beliefs, they are out there serving diligently while Christians are sitting back saying things like “I don’t have to go to church to be saved” or “I read my bible, sometimes” or “I do what I can when I have the time”. Gee, you go, I bet God can’t wait to get you into Heaven. He will be so happy to get you there after all you have done for him. At least He will be saving a lot on the rewards He will have to be giving out when it comes to your name. So what is it, what does it mean to truly give back to God with our time and our lives to others, to put people first, to put our church’s needs ahead of our own? The body of Christ is a living breathing entity that must be kept alive if it is going to survive and grow and maintain a life of its own in the world today and it takes not a few but all of us together to keep it that way. One of the biggest hearts I have seen is in the janitor in my church. One of the most spiritual men I have seen is the same man. He serves and he is the most unseen and the person I most get excited to see when I do see him. I always wait to hear what he has to say, I sit and listen to every word that comes out of his mouth. His ministry is to have the church prepared for service but his gifts far out weigh his ministry. If everyone served Christ and the body thereof in this manner, there is no telling to what would happen to the church today. But it is as it as always been, only a select few seem to be able to accomplish this level of service of servant hood.

Falling in Love with Jesus Christ, falling in Love with the body of Christ, falling in Love with the idea of serving others means letting go completely of ones self, letting God in to places that we are afraid to to go ourselves. Taking a chance that our own needs will be met only after will begin to look after the needs of others. I am finding through all of this, especially even the past weeks that when I take on the needs of others, when I listen to the voice of God and seeing the needs of others He places before me, my needs are not as important when I am only focusing on myself, and second the needs I do have seem to always be taken care of by the time the needs of others have been met and taken care of. I don’t understand always how it works but it just happens. Some how, some way, all of a sudden the needs I had yesterday or the day before have been taken care of all by themselves while I was doing something for some one else. Or a desire of my heart comes to pass that I just couldn’t ever do on my own but some how it gets met or someone blesses me with something that meets the desire I had in the first place. I think it is because God sees the work we do for others and sees that we have sacrifices ourselves for others and gives back to us because we have sacrificed so much for Him without even putting ourselves first. It is like sowing a seed, do unto others or for others and the same will be done or given unto you or me. This is what GOD wants to do in our lives, bless us for what we do, when we do it with a clean heart and pure motives. Remember, God sees it all, hears it all, and watches over us all. He would never let anything go unseen, Good or Bad.

What can one do to develop this thing called a servants heart? Seek and ye shall find, Ask and it shall be given. Knock and the door shall be open. In other words, PRAY. Ask God to change your spirit. Change your thinking, How can I explain the JOY it brings to see the faces of the people that I minister to every day and what it does to me knowing that I have done something for somebody else? How do I put a feeling into words? Let’s try it this way. How do you feel when you have a need and you know that someone else has gone out of their way to help you meet that need in your life? Grateful they were there and took the time to spend with you. Relieved that the problem you had is now gone. How would you feel knowing that you were someone that was able to do something that helped out another person that was in the same situation you were in once? Do you remember what it was like when you were going through the same thing, now you have an opportunity to return the favor to someone else. God allows us to go through things in our lives not just for our own sake but for the sake of others some day. Every thing we go through is a preparation to be able to understand someone else’s situation later on in life. When we overcome something in our lives, this is how we can know that we are going to be used by GOD to give back to someone else, it is all preparation for our purpose in life, to prepare us to give back what we have learned and grown through. God never wastes a lesson He tried to teach us. It was meant to be passed on to others. It is like the man who hordes money and wealth, You can only obtain so much but people are never satisfied, I love what I obtain every day inside knowing that I am serving a living Savior that blesses me when I put myself last and others first. For so many years I spent my life seeking after everything and anything that I thought would make ME HAPPY. I had no regard for the welfare or the feelings of others. As long as my needs and my happiness were met, that was enough. If you were the object of my desires or the substance of my needs, when I was finished with you, and I had no more need for you, I discarded you. It was a horrible way to treat any human being. But now with my eyes wide open, and looking at other the way Jesus sees all people, knowing that I fit into many of the categories that most people in society shuns every day, I have a better and deeper understanding and more willing desire to be of service to anyone I meet. Most of the time it is just communication and a conversation they desire with another human being, someone to listen to them and take an interest in what they have to say as you pass them by or sit next to them on a bus ride. People need to be noticed and feel like someone sees them. Acknowledge their presence in the world. Is this too much to do?

Day Thirty Three

Day 33

How Real Servants Act

When you first hear the word servant, you usually think of someone that works for a master as someone in a position of service. Someone who attends to the needs of his masters needs and wishes on a daily basis, or maybe a driver or a house servant. Maybe a gardener or grounds keeper. But a Christian servant is much more than any of these. Whether you are a Pastor, a Sunday school teacher, a choir member, a church office worker, or just a pew sitter, we were all called to serve one another. First each other within the body of Christ, then those that are in the world outside of church, those we live with in the world. Our neighbors, those we meet everyday, even those we don’t know but those God brings into our paths that need a helping hand. It takes a certain mindset to put others first and yourself second. To see the needs of others and act without thinking, this doesn’t come naturally for some. It must be developed. Human beings have a natural instinct to take care of themselves first. To meet their own needs and then think of the needs of others, it is sort of how we are raised. “I’ve got mine and I will pray you get yours too” I can hear all the time in the isle ways and the lobbies of the churches I have been in all my life. This is what I mean by a servants heart must be developed. It doesn’t just come with the prayer of salvation. Rick spoke of God giving us special abilities that we can use to either bless other with or if used incorrectly used to even sin with. Or in my case, I used to try to buy the affections of others with. I tried to do for others to get attention from them. I thought that if I did for them they would just automatically return the favors and do right by me back. But not everyone was as nice as I was. So when I came upon others that were let’s say TAKERS and not GIVERS, I learned real quick what resentments were and how to let them grow and how to let my anger get the best of me as I held onto it. As a teenage I enjoy seeing the joy in the faces of the kids I worked with. Being able to be responsible for their happiness brought so much happiness to me. I enjoyed doing for others from an early age. It was something that was a part of me from the beginning. It was later that I learned to be a little more selfish as I grew up, but somewhere deep down I always had the ability to do for others that made me feel better about myself. Even the job that I did so well at was a job of service to others. Finding and place others in work daily so they could have a living was something I was very proud of and very good at. I felt bad the days I had men sitting in the office that I couldn’t get out to work, it was those faces that made me work harder and harder at my sales in the afternoons or on the phones looking for and finding more companies to use them everyday. It wasn’t the money for the owner that I was concerned about, it was the fact that they were in need of money for their families or their rent or their food that day. This was sort of my responsibility I thought. I actually felt bad when I couldn’t get all of them out to work each day. I did everything I could to make sure they would work the next day somewhere. Even though I was the man in charge, the boss of the office and they were my employees, I took it as I was serving them. I was doing them the service of looking for work for them, making sure they all had somewhere to go to work everyday to feed theirs selves and their families. They looked to me to be able to do that everyday. I was serving them not the other way around. This was why I was able to get up and be in the office every morning at five without any problems every day. When you have something you enjoy and even love to do, you don’t think about it being a burden but a joy to be doing. Only God can put this kind of love in your heart. The act of serving others no matter what it is. It is a wonderful gift to have once you have it if you don’t pray to receive it. I think God is willing to hand this one out to everyone since He calls us all to do this. Where ever we go, what ever we do everyday, there are always people to lend a hand to, whether we ask “what can I do for you?” or whether someone asks for a favor, or whether we just see a need that someone has, they are always opportunities to be of service somewhere. Volunteering is an excellent way to be of service when you find you have extra time on your hands. Your church, my church is a great place to volunteer at. They always have a place that has a need. Even keeping the Pastor’s snack closet is a need that must be met. I know, I do it all the time.

Having a servants heart is a quality of Christ that shows others what is truly in your heart. It isn’t something that has to be talked about or publicized, it is just something that can be seen by all and it let’s others know without saying anything that you are someone that has the mind and attitude that Christ is and has made a change in. If others have known you in the past and know you now, they will probably see a great difference in your personality. A difference in who you once were and who you are now, without even saying anything, your acts of service can be your unspoken testimony of the change that Christ has made in your life. This alone will bring others to you and make them ask what is different and what has changed in your life? You never use to be like this. What a compliment this will be. So Stand up for Christ, look for ways to show others who HE is in your life without even saying a word. Lend a hand, be of service to others. Do a favor without expecting anything in return.

Day Thirty Two

DAY 32

Using What God Gave Me

Where do I start? God has given me so much. He has given me talents. He has given me intelligence. He has given me a heart of compassion above many. He has made me sensitive to the needs of others. And a mind that still functions even after the destructiveness of living a life of addictions and craziness. I am surprised that I can still put all my life together down on paper or on a computer the way I can after all the things I have done to my body and mind over forty seven years. That God has really blessed with the ability to still have the capacity to think and to create and to put together everything in a way to get a message across so that His Glory can be seen and be understood by others. I didn’t use this gift in school, in fact when it came to anything like writing or speaking in public, I made sure I was absent that day, or that the dog ate my homework just to get out of having to turn anything in. Who knew that when I copied the back cover of a book but change the words around a little just to make it sound a little different and got a “C” for the effort, the teacher was really trying to tell me something, I had talent for something she saw in me. An ability that was hidden deep down, too bad she never encouraged it past that point from there on out. I was always the last one to recognize something good in myself. No one ever told me much growing up that I was good at anything except my piano playing. Then when I was in my middle teens I began for the first time getting praise for my ability to care for the kids I taught. I found that was something that I really cared about, caring for others that I could relate to. A group of people that allowed me to be myself with the stigma of having to worry about someone over me telling me to behave or stay out of trouble or always correcting me for bad behavior. Instead I was getting positive reinforcement for the things I was doing and the effort I made. This brought joy into my life. As an adult I found that I was able to manage people well, that I took very little effort to be in charge without sounding like I was lording it over them. I worked well by doing things that I expected of others first. No one ever was asked to do anything they hadn’t already seen me do a number of times before I ever asked them to do something. It was only in my personal life I had problems. It was only in my personal life I was selfish. But that was then and this is where we are now.

I hope soon and very soon the talents I have been given can be used to bring glory to God. He didn’t bless me not to use me. That would waste both our times. I thank God for the things He has blessed me with, and kept a part of me over the years, although sometimes they can also work against me I always have to be on my toes to recognize the difference. Having a good strong voice it great for some things, but it can also be an annoyance in others. A quick wit is also good, but it also needs to be tempered with love and the right place to be used. I enjoy very much the ability to interact with many people. People are why Christ came. Not the rich and famous but the down and out, the weak and the meek. And I have been both at times in my life so I understand them both. God sees past the outer and so can I. Seeing through the eyes of Jesus takes a real heart and mine is developing into it more and more every day. Sure there are still some people I have a hard time with but that just still tells me that Jesus is still in the process of working on me too. When I arrive, it will only be because HE has arrived to take us all home. Until then, be patient with me.

Day Thirty One

Day 31

Understanding My Shape

Abilities, personality and experiences, how do they shape who I have become? Where do I begin? My first God given ability or talent I can remember was at the age of five on my grandmother’s piano. I started playing it on my own with no one in the room all by myself. Simple songs like Mary had a little lamb and Twinkle Twinkle little star all by ear. My parents leased a piano when I was six years old and I began to take lessons to see if it was something I was interested in and I kept on playing for the rest of my life. By high school I had stopped the lessons and all I needed was an audience. It came naturally to me this gift of music. If only I could sing I might have gone on to do more with it. Up until high school, school was pretty easy for me, my grades were mostly all A’s and I never seemed to struggle at my school work. God did not fail at blessing me with an intelligent mind either. To be able to pick up music like I did there had to be something upstairs that worked I guess. It wasn’t for a lack of knowledge in high school that my grades became less than average, but it was my emotional state of being and my depression that got the best of me where as my attention to my school work and my motivation to succeed failed me. But at the same time my school work lagged, I found a new passion to replace it. A new part of my personality emerged. I replaced my depression with giving and helping others. I knew that my childhood was not a peaceful or pleasant one, but by serving and working with the children’s department at my church, I found a way to replace my brokenness and at the same time forget about my emptiness by making others happy and seeing the joy that I could bring to others by just being myself without the pressure of what I was going through trying to be someone everyone expected me to be everywhere else. This was the first time in my life I felt truly happy in life. I felt loved, accepted, appreciated, needed, all the things a human being was created to be but never seemed to get anywhere else except when I was at church teaching or spending time with the kids and the parents of those kids. It was safe and secure. What could ever possibly make me want to leave all that? But yet I did. While I was involved with the children’s department I found that I had a great personality that the kids seemed to gravitate towards. I was someone that they all wanted to be around. Their parents couldn’t stop praising me for what ever it was I had their kids couldn’t stop talking about MIKE and their child’s desire to spend more time with me. Even after the year that they would spend in my class they never stopped coming by and visiting. There were always the kids of the families that were the regular church goes that would always be there, but I always seemed to gravitate toward the one kid or the many kids that were not there with any family or parent, the ones that had no parent connection. The one that maybe came just for the girls, the one that came because of a special event and I saw as an opportunity to get to know that may struggle with a drug problem or a law enforcement problem, the kid that didn’t go to regular school but to a continuation school. You know, the kid that was DIFFERENT! All ready even as a teenager God was putting it in my heart to reach out to the people, the others in this world that were different and not like all the others, because even as a teenager I was already feeling different and not like all the others. The ME I am now is the same ME I have always been. It doesn’t matter today if the different people are still teenagers or if they are adults, they are all the same. I see them all every day I am on the street and I am glad I have the personality to still be able to mix and interact with them all just as well. The only thing I think that has changed is the date on my ID. It says I am another year older, but as long as I don’t feel it and as long as people still say I look and act many years less than it says I am, I feel great.

It wasn’t until after I left this safe and secure environment that the experiences became my training ground for my life lessons. And like high school, I wasn’t a very good student. I had to take the same classes over and over again, some for almost twenty years. Again it was my personality that was my biggest selling point. Once I was over the hurdle of my awkwardness and my newness to a world I didn’t understand, my ability to talk my way into situations that would get me what I wanted was easy. I didn’t have to try very hard to get what I wanted out of this new life. Things, this or that seemed to come very easy to me. In fact everything I desired was mine for the taking. This is why I became so hooked if you could use that word, to this new lifestyle. Was it all my and my wonderful personality that got me the desires of my heart, or was it the enemy that gave them all to me? Either way I was like a kid in a candy store and all the sample were free and never ending. I could talk my way into anything, or out of anything if I found myself in a situation I didn’t want to be in. Very rarely did I suffer at anyone’s hand. I should have gotten into a lot more trouble at times than I did, but somehow I always managed to talk my way out of them.

Working was always something I was good at. My work history while I could change jobs early in life they were not menial jobs, they were very good high paying one. From building airplanes for McDonald Douglas at age eighteen, to driving eighteen wheelers at twenty, to managing a business from twenty three to age thirty, I knew how to make money, keep a job in the mist of my addiction and disease, and perform it well. When I have something I am responsible for, I can get the job done. I know how to put more than one hundred percent into what ever it is I am doing. That has always been something I do well. I take pride in what I am given to do. I think this comes from my father always telling me I was no good and couldn’t do anything right growing up so I became someone that overachieved at what ever it was I did. THANKS DAD! You taught me something even if it wasn’t in a positive way.

Everything in my life as it’s meaning and it’s purpose as I just found out in that last couple of sentences. How God can use circumstances is very unique. I never would have thought that all those years of my father being the man he was would have ever taught me anything positive in my life or that it would have ever done me any good in life, but as I can see now, it did have an affect on me that was used for my good. It made me want to strive even harder at what ever it was I was asked to do because I didn’t want to hear anything like what I heard all my life from him. WOW, I can’t believe I am just now realizing all this for the very first time. This must be why I am sitting here this morning writing all this down. Thank you FATHER in Heaven. Thank You Rick for writing this book, I have really found much more healing here than I ever imagined. And Pastor Mike for listening to God and suggesting this book for me, it is exactly what God wanted me to do instead of finding a counselor this year to start off with. I am shaking right now feeling the touch of God all over me imaging and hoping for what is next in my life.

What is God going to do with all the abilities and experiences I have had I can only imagine. If you can compare the hurt and harm to others in my life and turn the tables on the enemy, WATCH OUT WORLD, there’s gonna be an explosion. When the Lord finally releases me on it, there is not telling what we will do together.

Day Thirty

Day 30

Shaped for Serving God

NEVER LET YOUR ZEAL LAG

Can I see God planning each day of my life ahead of time? Or do I just see Him knowing it ahead of time? I can’t see Him planning my sinful life for me because that would just be wrong. But I can see Him planning what He would use it for. I am sure He didn’t say ahead of time “I am going to make Michael a Junkie and have him shoot speed for most of his life just to make him able to speak to other junkies for the rest of his life. Or I am going to give him a father that hurts him and leaves him so he can minister to other boys in similar situations that he will meet along the way as he grows up. But I will use those experiences he is going to have and give him a heart that feels passionately for others that feel the way he did. I am going to save his life time and time again just like he is going to ask me to one day to prove to him that no matter where he is I was and am always listening to him and to give him every desire of his heart because I know that at the end of the tunnel that will seem so dark to him at times, at the end of it he is going to feel and experience so much joy and happiness that I know he will praise and thank me and serve me with his whole heart. Just like a diamond cutter has to apply a lot of pressure to make that diamond faceted and beautiful, so was the pressure that God put me under to take me from a diamond in the rough that I was to the jewel that I am becoming. He knew it wouldn’t be easy on me, or Him having to watch, but He knew the end of the story, where as I didn’t, He knew the joy that was coming, He saw the end result before the story ever began. So when I begin to develop this same kind of faith, even though I don’t know the future of everything that is happening in my life, it is because of the past experiences of my life that I can trust in Him and know that the end result of everything is going to be for His glory and be just what He has planned for my life. IE: no worries about the ending.

So what are some of the things that I know that I am passionate about? You might ask, what are some of the things in life that I love and care about, passionately? People! People that are hurting, or those that are different. Different than what? We are all different this is true. But as the world sees things, there are those that are acceptable and there are those that are less than acceptable. It isn’t right to put people on a scale like that but it is done every day. It goes by weight, looks, color of your skin. Where you live, what you drive or don’t drive. How you dress, whether or not if you work or if you work, if you have all your mental faculties or if you don’t. Let’s face it, people that are different that you don’t usually get attention from you. Most people don’t think to put out their hand to someone that looks talks or walks to a different beat. But in my case, I know I am that person that doesn’t look talk walk or move to the same beat as others, so it’s up to me to speak up. I am glad God has given me the ability to be able to do so without being too intrusive and to be able to have a sense of humor to get the party started as they say. Conversation comes easy for me. A quick wit and a smart come back used in the right way can be very useful to me. I enjoy people, I enjoy making them laugh. I have been called many times “A HAPPY PILL” for others when they are feeling down and depressed. I have had friends cry to doctors when I was being moved from one floor to another in a psychiatric hospital because they didn’t want me to leave. I have had friend on the phone from other states tell me how important my friendship was to them because of the way I made them laugh and how I made them feel just because I was able to life their spirits in a phone conversation we had. The gift of encouragement is definitely one I know God has blessed me with. Hospitality is another one I know He has given me. I love taking care of my friends and serving them when they visit. Serving them when I visit them it doesn’t matter. Making people happy was a way I made friends in the past and making people happy just because it makes me happy that they are happy now is a blessing to me. To be able to know that they are happy because of something I said or did is a wonderful feeling. To know that I was responsible for making their life a little better today and that I was able to do something to put a smile on their face is a great feeling. I thank God that He made me so sensitive also. I can hear things is peoples voices and in the words that they use or the word they are not using to express themselves that allows me to understand what life has done to them. Especially to the young men and women I meet everyday. And example of this would be a boy named Alex a month ago telling me he never knew his real mom but that it didn’t matter any more. Why would he tell me that and at the same time say it didn’t matter any more. IT DOES MATTER OR HE WOULDN’T HAVE SAID IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. I can put myself into the story of a 13 or 14 year old boy in a split second when they tell me their dad is gone or their family is in jail or they don’t even live with their parents. Instantly my heart begins to ache and cry on the inside because I hear God saying to me “Mike here is another one that I have placed in your life for a reason” And it makes everything that ever happened to me as a child have meaning. Better than that is when one of those kids or even an adult says to me “Mike why are you in that wheel chair?” Now every moment in my adult life begins to have meaning. It was my whole adult life that put me in this wheelchair. If I wasn’t in it, who would ever think or have a reason to ask me anything? No one ever walks up to someone and says “tell me about your life twenty five years ago.” And they never think they are going to get a Novel when they ask me that question either. But I am really good at deciding just how much they can handle and what they will be ready to hear and not hear. I think the best story I ever told and the best reaction was about 10 years ago sitting with another kid named Alex, it was about forty five minutes to an hour into the story, and he was wiping his tears off with the sleeve of my t-shirt. Not just a drop or two, but a river of them while his arm was around my shoulder holding on for dear life. When he left my home he was still in these tears all the way to his house and when he walked in to his house his mom was on the couch watching television and she told me a few days later he came in crying and just fell into her lap and cried for over fifteen minutes without saying a word. Later after I met his friend Oscar, he told him “be careful, Mike will make you cry when he tells you his story” and when I told Oscar the same story, He cried too. It was never my goal or my intentions to make teenage boys cry, but I do want to make them think. Both Alex and Oscar were no strangers to the drug and sex life already as fifteen and sixteen year olds. I at least waited until I was twenty one. Oscar said the one thing I did after telling him my story was I ruined his MACING skills. MACing is his Flirting and his ability to pick up girls for sex skills. Well every time he had the opportunity he thought about my story and my life and my unfortunate circumstances and thought twice about what he was about to do and changed his mind for the moment. I had left an impression on him. How long that lasted I will never know but it sunk in for the time being and that was what mattered. The seed was planted. So I guess you can say that any of us is like a farmer planting seeds of our lives into the lives of others every day. Our, my experiences are all like little seeds that God uses to plant later on into the lives of people we meet to share with them what we have learned and what we have gone through. I have never met so many young men that are fatherless or motherless as I have in the past two months. I have never met so many that have so many drug addicted parents as I have theses past few months. I see it in their eyes, I hear it in their words and in their stories about their lives, they are missing so much. Very few of them ever mention the word GOD. Today is the first time I heard that one of them say he has a grandfather that is a preacher. His dad is not in his life and his mom has had three different men father her five children but this is his life. He is fourteen years old.

All in all, whether or not it is a teenager that has a history like mine, an adult that suffers with a mental condition, or anyone with a drug problem, my life has meaning every time I meet them. Where ever I go, no matter who it is, I am comfortable in my own skin because I know who it is I belong to and that is all that matters to me. I am not out to impress anyone, live up to anyone’s standards, or try out for the next audition. But I am out there to just to be out there because that is where THEY ARE, that is where Jesus was, OUT THERE ON THE STREETS with THEM, the public, who ever they were. Not the rich or the pretty or the famous, just the ones that would listen or speak with him. He had a gimmick, it was called Miracles. I have one too, they are called SERVICE ANIMALS on a WHEEL CHAIR. We each drew a crowd in our own way. But either way, the message was delivered.

Everyone, every Christian’s job is to get the message of Christ out to the world. How you do it is up to you. You were made in a special way to reach people in a special way. If you are not, find it. Don’t let your light grow dim. NEVER LET YOUR ZEAL LAG.

Day Twenty Nine

Day 29

Accepting your Assignment

An assignment, serving your Master, doing your job, all sound like something like hard work, something like slavery, something like you have to do so many hours of the day just to pay your bills and get by financially. NO ONE wants to do that so it is a hard thing to have to accept doing. Finding a job that you enjoy getting up and out of bed for in the morning is a rare thing to find. I don’t know many people that pop out of bed in the morning because they can’t wait to get to work. I was probably one of the lucky ones. I not only enjoyed the job I had, I couldn’t wait to get there. I started work at five in the morning, was on call twenty four hours a day and night after hours, it was a normal thing to be out on a Friday or Saturday night and have my pager go off and a company need employees to be on a job site at four the next morning and I would have to stop what I was doing and find them at that hour no matter what time of night it was. But that is what made my job interesting and I was always prepared for it so it really didn’t take more than just a few phone calls and then I could go back to what I was doing. I didn’t know anyone my age or any age for that matter that said they couldn’t wait to get to work every day, or enjoyed the fact that when I told them I started at five o’clock in the morning they said I was crazy. But I was also off at two thirty usually. But if I had to work until closing at six, it wasn’t a big deal, it was my office, and it was my responsibility. They were my employees and my vendors that needed servicing. I was committed to seeing that every one was happy. I truly loved what I did.

When God created me, He had a special plan in mind. He made me with a special personality, a plan that including my likes and dislikes. He knew the way I would be raised and the kind of people that I would work well with. He wouldn’t ask me to minister to a group of people I had nothing in common with. What would be the point? It would do Him no good and me no good. I would lose interest and my motivation would suffer before I even got started. But hand me a handful of people that I can relate to and that I am comfortable with and that I know before I even meet them and we’re set! I could minister to them in my sleep if I had to. Sometimes I feel like I am too. God would never give me a job to do that I wasn’t suited for. He would never give me a job to do that I wasn’t inspired to do. He wouldn’t assign me a job that He knew that I wasn’t excited doing for Him. No one likes a complainer, even God, even though I am sure He listens to them a lot. But what is better than having someone wake up in the morning with an attitude of “Where do we go today Father? Who is on the list of people to meet today?” Someone that is willing to say I will go where ever it is you need me to go. And just be a good listener to His Spirit and respond to it. To be ready to be able to speak at any given moment a situation presents itself, without worrying about what others will think. The army had it right when they advertised “IT’S NOT JUST A JOB, IT’S AN ADVENTURE!” Everyday in His service should be an adventure, because you never know where God can lead you, to whom He can lead you too. Christians talk about being Happy Joyous and Free. But a lot of the time it seems like they are living their Christian lives like they are Happy Joyous Free and Selfish because they are KEEPING all that Happy Joyous and Free stuff to themselves. Like on a Sunday morning you can hear them saying “Good Morning, How are you, Praise the Lord, I got Mine, Hope you get yours too” and then they walk away. If that is how they are at church, imagine how they are any where else during the week. If they can’t even be caring, honestly with the body of Christ on HOLY GROUND, imagine their testimony anywhere else in the world. I don’t even want to think about it. My mother is sixty seven years old and she says she is still waiting to see what God wants to do with her life. MOM look around, please! You are not here just to keep the house clean.

I am so happy that God has created a FIRE in me, a passion in me. Energy in me to be able to use in what ever it is I do. That I am the type of person that can’t just do something half heartedly, that no matter what I ever did in life I always put more than a hundred percent into it. I know this was why when I quit my job that I loved so much just to get high for a few months, that when I went back after I sobered up, this was why I was hired back, that I was convincing enough and serious enough with my life that my boss and the owner knew that if he hired me back, I would do nothing but make money and do right by them, and they were right. I increased the business of two of their offices by five hundred percent within just thirty days. I was the right man for the job for them, and I know God sees me as the right man for the job for what ever assignment He gives me.

God’s assignments are never ones that require a resume that are unreachable. You are the resume He is looking for. There are no requirements needed. Well except that you are willing to accept the work He has for you. That is all. I guarantee it will be a job you are probably already in the middle of doing somehow. The people involved will already be there in your life. And if they aren’t yet, don’t worry you will get along with them just fine. God will only bring you someone that wants to know you. Think of the happiest day you could have. Then think of God giving you an even better day and that will be your best day of work. And then you would say, “If I could do that every day I wouldn’t even worry about the pay” because at the end of the day the satisfaction of knowing that your day just meant more than any paycheck could ever give you, would be enough to carry you though until tomorrow or even the next week. Yesterday is gone for me, but today, was even better, and yesterday was the BOMB!

Day by Day

Each day of my life is a new adventure

For what it holds is store for me I do not know

But one thing is for sure, my Lord will be there

To keep me and guide me, and with Him I will share

As each day goes by I see more and more

Just what it means to walk with the Lord

To ask seek and knock, on Him I will call

For Jesus is with me when I stumble and fall

Each morning I pray that my spirit He’ll renew

It’s a cleansing I need, by His blood thru and thru

Fill me O Lord with your spirit today

That others might ask if I know the way

As day passes on and trials they come

I count it all joy cause I know whom they’re from

In Him I will trust, endure ‘till the end

Cause Jesus you know is my strength and my friend

Today I believe that He’ll show me some more

And give my the hope that my heart He’ll restore

It’s my life he is changing, for a price I could never afford

Hallelujah to Jesus, and Praise to my LORD.

Day Twenty Eight

Day 28

It Takes Time

“I want it NOW” or “I want it MY WAY” are common catch phrases we hear every day when it comes to many things in life. The worst is standing in front of the microwave and saying HURRY UP! You can’t cook or heat up something any faster but still people get impatient and say hurry up in front of the microwave. If the microwave isn’t fast enough for some people, imagine their impatience with God when it comes to their prayer life. They probably get real frustrated if what they prayed for last night didn’t happen by the time they woke up in the morning. And when they realize that it didn’t happen just the way they prayed, I bet they have a lousy day all day wondering why God didn’t answer their prayer just the way they prayed the night before. Then there are people like me who started praying for things at the age of eleven and prayed every day every minute of the day it seemed like and nothing ever seemed to happen but still I just kept on praying believing that someday God would answer me just the way I was praying but HE never did, and still hasn’t to this day. At least now I know what Paul meant by living with a thorn in his side. So I guess I do have something in common with someone in the bible. Just because we pray for something doesn’t mean we are always going to get the answer we want. And when we don’t it doesn’t mean He didn’t hear us either. It just has taken a lot of time for me to understand this lesson or this part of my life and to be willing to accept this part of my life and learn to let God use this part of my life as He sees fit. It sure as given me opportunities that no one else could ever understand or areas of ministry that no one else could ever reach into. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. If this is true I should be the HULK of the Christian world then with all the things that have tried to take my life and all the time I have tried to take my own life, and all that God has seen me through and brought me though, God’s faith in me has been much stronger than mine has ever been. But has time as gone by, He has helped me to realize that I can accomplish much more than I ever thought I could, that He has kept me around for much more than I ever thought I was created for, and that from the very beginning His plan for my life has always been much greater than I could have ever seen. Why else would I have made it this far after so much despair and so many traumas in my life, just to sit back and watch life pass me by day after day? But because there have been so many and so much that has happened over the years, it will naturally take a great amount of time to reshape and refocus my life in a direction that would be positive and stable enough to have meaning and a solid foothold. Trying to walk on water with a head full of doubts would be foolish. But a mind that is clean and free from worry and free from guilt and free from shame is a mind that can do great and mighty things and this takes time, time that comes from spending it with God and with others daily that are of the same mind, time daily of replacing old ways with new ways, time daily of spending it in prayer and studying His word. Learning to rely on Him for every area of my life, not just the ones that I am comfortable with but also the ones that I have trouble trusting in. Being willing to face issues that I can see and also being willing to face issues that other point out to me that I can’t see in myself.

But it won’t happen over night, or the next night. As long as I am alive there will always be things to change in me, lessons to learn, wounds to heal, and areas of my life that will need growth. Just when I think I have learned to be patient in one area of my life, there will always be another area that comes up that I have trouble with that is there to humble me. To keep me looking to Jesus for help and guidance, and of course there is always going to be that THORN in my side. It like a line in a movie I once saw, people were at a home after a Jewish funeral and someone said “Why are the mirrors covered up?” So we don’t see the pain in our faces. “Why are we sitting on boxes?” To make sure there is Pain in our faces! There is always going to be something in our, my life that is going to be there to remind us to lean on God because when there isn’t I begin to feel comfortable and feel a little bit like a God in my own life and think I have control of everything. This is where I start forgetting that God is in control, that God wants to be number one in my life. That He wants to be the center of my life. I need things in my life to have a reason to depend on Him for. Then as I conquer them one at a time, I can feel a sense of accomplishment in my life. I can see the growth in my life. I can see that we are in this life together and that I am not in it all alone. That God is on my side. This is a great feeling to have and to walk in everyday. It builds confidence and self esteem. It builds character and self worth knowing that the God and creator of the universe is deeply concerned for me and my daily comings and goings, even the little things in my life, the struggles and the triumphs. When people realize that God is on their side day after day after day, the possibilities are endless. You begin to trust in yourself for things that you never thought possible before. The light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter and brighter. It may not be quick, it may not be fast. It may not be the Burger King “have it your way”, but it will be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, right on time, the way God intended it to be, if you will only be patient, willing to be honest, and willing to let God do for you what you can not do for yourself, then you will become just what He wants you to be. I will become just what He wants me to be. A mirror image of His son Jesus Christ.

Day Twenty Seven

Day 27

Defeating Temptation

Defeating temptation after so many years of enjoying it was no easy task. Recognizing it as a temptation and not just a way of life was the first step for me. When you have become so a custom to doing things as a normal part of life and then all of a sudden making changes in your life and deciding that there are things in your life that you don’t want in it any more, all of a sudden, you are faced with decisions that you hadn’t had to deal with in the past. Should I or shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I? Is this really not ok anymore? Will this be ok or will this lead me into something that will take me down a path that will lead me into something else I don’t want to get involved in anymore? What about these friends? Do I have to give them up too? Soon I have found myself having to make a whole lot of choices that were very difficult to decide on. Decisions that left me in situations that left me feeling very uncomfortable. Usually situations that left me all alone because it was usually a decision that meant letting go of friends that were not good for me. I was never a person that dealt well with loneliness. A low self image and low self esteem I needed others around me to feel good about myself. Surrounding myself with people and doing things to please them was one way I got the attention I needed and doing things for others whether it was the right things or the things that made them happy right or wrong didn’t matter as long as everyone got what they wanted or needed, I always looked like the GOOD GUY and therefore got the attention I wanted and needed to feel good about myself. So what if I let my morals or my character fall by the wayside in the meantime. This was the first step I had to take when I came to the point in my life that I wanted to serve God instead of my own self and my own needs. Letting go of others and saying yes to God’s ways for my life was the hardest part of defeating the temptations in my life. Removing the reasons that made me fall into sin was one of the hardest things for me to get used to doing. What did this accomplish in the mean time? It gave me “alone time with God”. The more the PEOPLE were out of my life, the more time I had to rely on God to fill in the missing pieces I was lacking in my life. The emptiness in my home, the quietness in my home, the lack of the constant telephone ringing and late night visitors. But also the less I was putting myself at risk. The more I was focusing on what God wanted, the less I was putting myself in harms way with everyone, with every strange I was meeting. And possibly allowing myself to be taken advantaged of. So there were benefits in listening to God and resisting the temptations that I so often would give into.

But what would I do when I just couldn’t take the loneliness that I was left with? Who could I talk to when I was depressed and or lonely? Over the years of making few friends that I could trust, there were very few friends that I could go to. But with less than fingers on one hand, I do have a few that no matter what it is I am feeling, I do have some that I can go to that do know all there is to know about me inside and out. Friends that know all there is to know about me and still love me. Friends that no matter what I say, when I say it, how I say it, will always be there for me. I couldn’t trade these people in for all the money in the world. If you don’t have someone like this in your life, I bet your life might be rather hard for you at times. Someone in your life needs to know everything about you. Because although God know all, you can’t see or hear Him, and there has to be someone whom you can sit down with and verbalize your feelings to and get understanding from. Who will listen to you when you are going thru a struggle, when you are at your wits end with a problem, and when you just need someone to be there for you.

Defeating your temptations in your life also requires that you have ammunition, God’s word hidden in your heart and mind, something to say back to those voices in your head that are telling you to do things at a moments notice. If you have nothing to fight with, how can you win? You have to be able to recognize a lie when you hear it other wise you won’t know you are being misled down the wrong path or that you are being led to do something that goes against God’s word. The enemy is far too sneaky to just come right out and lie completely to you. It will always sound true up until the very last word. And if you are not on your complete guard, you will miss that very last word and be thrown for a loop before you even realize you are in a spin that you can’t get out of because by the time you realize it, you are probably feeling to good. And once the pleasure of the sin takes over, you’re gone. Once the pleasure of the sin is in your mind, you are more than half way gone. The moment the sin is introduced you need God’s word to defeat that lie right from the start. Knowing all this is one thing, having the willingness to act on it is another. Anyone can say they want to be sin free. Anyone can say they want the defeat temptation in their lives. But where and how much are you willing depends on you everyday. It is always a choice, not a right. A choice to say I have hidden His word in my heart Just in Case. I will stay away from here, just in case. I will remember to reach out to my friends when this happens, just in case. No one can do it all alone. But just in case you are all alone, God is always there when you are, and He promised that HE would always plan a way out, just in case. It’s up to you, to me, to believe that there is always a way out. That we are never alone in our temptations, they are just Gods way of saying I am trusting in you today one more time to show me how much you love me. Will you love me today one more time?

Day Twenty Six

DAY 26

Growing through Temptation

Until I read this chapter, for the third and forth time, I was having a difficult time finding a place to start. It has taken days to get my thoughts together. My views on temptation and Rick’s views on the subject have been far apart from each other my whole life. Some of it came from my upbringing in the church I grew up in and the way things were explained at an early age and the way my young mind understood things to be. I grew up thinking that if I just thought the wrong things over and over again, that it MUST BE SIN because if that was what was on my mind it must also be what was in my heart. And because of the nature of the things that were on my mind I most definitely wasn’t going to talk about them just to see if I was right or if I was wrong about them. So I suffered with my feelings and my thoughts from a very early age. It just wasn’t about homosexual issues, but much more than just that. Today compared to the seventies, the homosexual issue is a much more talked about, accepted in the public eye as we have celebrities and television shows centered around this subject with every turn of the dial. As a young boy, temptation, a thought, a feeling, a desire, it made no difference to me, in fact I didn’t know the difference between them. to me they were all the same. To me just having an immoral thought race through my head made me feel sick, evil, sinful, shameful, ashamed, like I should have never been born to begin with, and like it would be better if I could just die. This started at the age of eleven and continued throughout most of my life. Trying to find anything to occupy my mind to rid myself of these never ending negative feelings about myself was the hardest and most demanding exercise of determination a boy could endure. How to escape my own mind, my own head, my own way of thinking was a never ending task. The best way I found to escape was as a teenager in church. At the age of fifteen when I began helping out in the children’s department, was the first time in my life I had ever received positive reinforcement for anything I did in my life, both from the kids I worked with, the adults in charge of me and the parents of the kids. To hear them say ‘MIKE, my son or my daughter has said such wonderful things about church and the way you encouraged them to want to return, I just want to thank you for what you have been doing.” Some one thanking me for something good I did, this was exactly the opposite of what I can remember growing up hearing at home my whole life. It was praises like this that helped to keep those evil, sinful etc. thoughts somewhere deep down inside of me. But never GONE, just buried.

As a young adult, after leaving my so called SAFE ZONE, and finally giving into the war within my head, my heart, and my mind, I couldn’t take the pressure anymore. Temptation had risen from a feeling to a curiosity to an exploration than began a quest that seemed to have taken on a life of its own. I had to see how things would play out. What was all this inside me? Where would it lead me? What would I find within its calling? Temptation, a world all unto itself, and in order to grow up, I had to go down as far as it would lead me. Once there at the bottom, the struggle to get back up, through all the hills and valleys that I had been lead down was now the growth process of my life. How do I get back to where God was once the center of my life? How do I get back to Him though all the things that had clouded my mind and changed my ways of thinking? How do I begin to release all the things that had their hooks in me so deep that it would seem like their hold was set in me for a lifetime? Was it even possible to find my way back again after over half my lifetime had been spent giving into all the temptation the world and the enemy had offered me and that I had accepted so freely with no questions asked?

The Word of God said that it was. It didn’t say that it was going to be easy. It didn’t say that it was going to be instant. It just said that it was possible. It was grace and mercy that saw me through those years of temptation, now it would be faith and prayer that would see me through to the other side. With these four elements of God, everything in the world under heaven is possible. There are times when I think that there are parts of me that are never going to be able to be forgiven or removed or changed or taken away, but this is just what the enemy would have me to think just before I am ready to move on to the next phase of my recovery, onto the next step in the process of restoring my mind to the mind God gave me in the first place. Another lie born of satan that tried to steal my joy and my happiness that God gave His son for in my place.

It is one step at a time, one though process at a time, One diversion at a time, One addiction at a time, One habit at a time, One lie at a time, and one thing after another until I start over and do it all over again. Rome wasn’t built in a day, putting down my needle starting six months after I started and took twenty years to finally let go of. Saying good-bye to nicotine was another twenty year habit that was an on again of again I’ll try it again one more time until it finally was gone. Thinking that every Friday night was meant for Speed and Sex that would last until Monday took years to change, even though while I was in the middle of it, I knew it wasn’t what God wanted for me. And that it wasn’t what I was looking for or that I was going to find what I was looking for while I was participating in it. But there I was, believing the lies the enemy had so carefully laid out in front of me. The enemy was good at giving me just enough to entice my mind while leaving me without enough to satisfy it at the same time. Giving me enough to get me high but not enough to make it work or last the way it had in the past. But the promise that it would the next time. And I like a fool, a sucker would believe it every time. How many times does a person get lied to before he stops believing them? I am embarrassed to say. How many years did I spend trusting the enemy to again give me what the temptations promised to do for me? Again, more than half my lifetime. How many mistakes did Thomas Edison make when he invented the light bulb? But then how many things did he know NOT TO DO the next time? Well same here. I know many things not to do, many things that don’t work anymore. MORE THAN MOST and have lived to tell about it, that is the real miracle, Surviving all of it at the Will and Grace of God for His Purpose. God purpose is to bring every man unto Himself. And it is up to God to use us to accomplish that task. If it is His will to use me to do that by seeing me through all my temptations and allow me to get though them just so other men women and children can see the power of God, then that is all by Gods doing, nothing I have ever done has gotten me here to this point except one thing, making a choice to follow Him, surrender to Him, say yes to His will for my life. I have given in to every thing that world had to offer. I have fallen into temptation, given into it, ran with it, and failed at resisting it over and over again. If it were up to me, without God temptation would be a losing battle, but because I Love God, I have made up my mind to decide that I would rather say TODAY I thought about serving God and serving others to keep my mind off the temptation, rather than to sit and dwell on the things of the past, the feelings my flesh would love for me to enjoy, the places my head would love to take me. I have twenty some years of memories, but I also have those same twenty some years of remembering who lied to me, who deceived me, and where all those phony promises got me. If a can throw all that back in the face of the enemy, he shouldn’t stand to much of a chance in the future.