Time and Busy-ness

“Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established.” (Proverbs 16:3, NASB)

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6, NASB)

“The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9, NASB)

Before I got into recovery, I managed to find the time to devote to the sexual addiction and same-sex lust that ruled my life for so long.  It never mattered how busy the other parts of my life were, I was fully devoted to making time for those habits.  My productivity at work suffered greatly.  I rarely had enough energy at the end of a day to spend engaging with my wife or other people who were important to me.  I would often use my lunch hour to pursue my habit—forgoing lunch in favor of getting my sexual high.  I was willing to sacrifice anything and do anything it took to satisfy those inordinate desires.  Looking back on it, I see how truly sick my mind was.

When I got into recovery and fully committed to staying sexual sober, the amount of time in each day seemed to increase dramatically.  I began to realize the inordinate amount of time I had been spending engaging in the addiction. I suddenly had a lot of spare time.  Dealing with that spare time was difficult because I could not fill it with the old habits and all that was left was a “time vacuum”.  I felt as if the walls of the house were closing in on me or that I wanted to climb the walls.  I always had to be doing something, or so I thought.  It was a very scary time for me because I had time to think and I had to face myself and I had to come face to face with God.

As I kept going to recovery meetings the phrase more than any other that I kept hearing from people who shared was “one day at a time”.  For me that phrase helped me to get through some very difficult moments.  In my experience “one day at a time” got shortened to “one hour at a time” and then eventually quite literally to “one moment at a time”.  Another helpful phrase was “do the next right thing” whatever that happened to be in that moment.  After trying to apply those concepts to my everyday life for some time, something remarkable started to happen.  My life started to make sense.  The need for every waking moment of my life to be filled with activity was no longer there.  It was OK to not be busy, to be able to sit in a room alone with just me, my thoughts, and my God.  Spending time with God was no longer an item to be checked off of my “to do list”, but rather something I looked forward to each day.  I am certainly not perfect in that respect.  Sometimes I still talk myself out of getting up that little bit earlier to have time to spend alone with God.  Sometimes I still make excuses about why doing something else is more important than getting face to face with God to gain his wisdom, direction and strength for the day.  Sometimes I just don’t “feel” like it.  However, I am growing to understand more fully that I can do nothing without HIM.  He is the Source of everything in my life.  I want to be able to say like the Apostle Paul, that God is not a part of my life but He is my Life.

Whenever life gets to busy to spend time with my Lord, something is seriously out of whack!  When my life gets to that point, I go before the Lord and I ask Him for three things:

1. I ask Him to take away the things in my life that are not His will for me.

2. I ask Him to help me prioritize the things that remain.

3. I ask Him to help me to do the “next right thing”, whatever that is.

Flesh and Spirit

"For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.  For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.  But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.  So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.  For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.  But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.  For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.  Wretched man that I am!  Who will set me free from the body of this death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7:14-25, NASB)

It is a long passage of Scripture, but one that is extremely powerful and worth writing out.  To me this is one of the most important passages of Scripture for any believer to know and understand, especially for those struggling with an addiction or stronghold in their life as I am.

There is such conflict between my flesh and my spirit.  The reality of the Christian life is that believers have both, flesh and spirit.  It seems most of the time that my flesh (more precisely, sin) is doing everything it can to discourage and dishearten me. It attempts to derail everything the Lord is doing in and through me.  The temptation to return to the life I lived for so many years—leading a double life, pursuing daily the insatiable sexual hunger that completely took over my life—is ever-present and strong.  That, along with erotic dreams and the rampant same-sex lust activated by what I see and hear in this fallen world, all threaten to send me back to that dark, awful place of servitude to my addiction.  I cannot and will not go back there.  My spirit on the other hand rejoices over the intimate relationship I have with the Savior, with the freedom, peace and joy He is in my life.  The two, flesh and spirit, co-exist, but I am called to walk after the spirit and deny the deeds of the flesh.  Therein lies my problem. I can’t but He can in me.  It is only through surrender and trust that I can walk in the Spirit, but this constant battle being waged “...against the law of my mind…” is very real.

I know that all of it is a form of suffering from which I have asked God numerous times in prayer to remove from me, but the answer is always the same: the suffering is for my good and the good of others.  Facing the temptations everyday and the daily victory of them is a reminder to me of my continual need to rely on Jesus Christ and His resurrection power in my life.  But beyond that, they also serve to allow me to empathize with those who are similarly tempted and to be able to minister to them in a way that only someone who deals with the same issues can.

I continue to pray each day that His will be done, knowing that there is a purpose beyond myself that He has for my life.  The hope that I have within my spirit is the knowledge that one day I will be in the presence of Almighty God and this “body of death” will be transformed into an eternal body free from the bondage of sin and death.  As the hymn writer says “Lord hasten the day when my faith will be made sight”.  To God be the glory!

Random Thoughts

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:33-34, NASB)
 

I am writing this post not on the topic of having random thoughts but just as some random thoughts I am currently having—if that makes any sense.  My nature is to try to be organized and orderly in everything I do, so it is a little out of character for me to write something so haphazard and random as what I am about to write (even this introduction shows how uncomfortable I am with just writing whatever comes to mind, I have to preface it with an explanation!)

This time of year is always a challenge for me in my Christian walk.  It is the end of the school year (at least for us college types) and instead of winding down, activity is picking up.  End of the year meetings and paperwork and student projects just to name a few, are going full force and I am expected to be everything to everybody.  Grading papers and projects, and the daily routine of checking scads of emails from students and colleagues all seem to escalate in April more so than at any other time of the year.  Maybe it is the anticipation of the summer when things really wind down and I get a chance to focus much more on “Home”.  But even at home, the activity is building.  With springtime comes yard work—mowing the lawn, edging, trimming, pulling weeds, and of course cleaning out the garage which never gets fully done. 

Then, there is my tax return!  Yes, I waited until the last minute to do this (insert lame and ridiculous excuses here).  No excuses!  I am a procrastinator.  I will say, that if I don’t have all the documentation I need it is impossible to complete my taxes, but I certainly could have at least input the information I did have.  So honestly, no excuses!

The demands of job, home, and ministry all take their toll on my serenity and I find myself running to God in the middle of the day out of sheer desperation.  There I find comfort and peace, but in the back of my mind all of the looming tasks are still there waiting to consume me like a wide open gaping maw!  There just aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything.

Today I heard the still, small voice of God say to me “You can’t do it all, be still and know that I am God”.  He told me to simply trust Him and live one day and one moment at a time.  I wish the term “multi-tasking” had never been coined so I would not feel like that is something I have to do.  God created me to do one thing at a time.  Anyone who tells you they can truly multi-task (doing two or more things simultaneously) is deluded.  The mind can only truly focus on one thing at a time.  Now I agree that the mind can very quickly move from one task to another and back again, but never truly at the same time.  With that realization, I will focus on one project at a time and one thing at a time, and endeavor to do those things in the priority order established by the will of God for my life and do them wholeheartedly and well.  I will not try to do 163 (random number) things at once!  Why?  Because I can’t!  How simple is that!  I will also not try to control my circumstances.  Why?  Because I can’t!!  I will not try to understand or control other people.  Why?  Because I can’t!!!  How long will it take me to learn these simple life lessons!

So I will be content in the Lord to do what He has for me to do today and not worry about what I may or may not do tomorrow.  Nor will I be disappointed in myself for what I did not do yesterday.  All God has promised me is the present.  If I am still alive and kickin’ right now, then that is what I should concern myself with.  How often I miss God’s blessing in the present because I was somewhere else. 

I found out this past week that my mom has cancer. It has been a roller coaster of emotions for me and all of my family ever since. I have been praying a lot for her and all of us since I found out and would ask if you are reading this to pray also. I will probably write something soon about my mother as my next post, but I don't know when that will be. Thanks to all of you who read my blog and thanks for praying. God bless!

Strongholds

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the defense (stronghold) of my life; Whom shall I dread? ” (Psalm 27:1, NASB)

Maybe it is because I am stubborn, or just resistant to change, but I spent a lot of time looking up the word “stronghold” in several different resources simply because each definition I saw did not fit with what I thought the definition was!  I am glad I stuck with that process because it made me realize, and in a sense meditate on the word and what it truly means.  I had always thought that a stronghold was some mysterious force that had an overpowering grip on me.  I used the word loosely to label some struggle or difficulty I was experiencing in my life.  As I kept reading various definitions, I had enlightenment.  As part of the definition, a stronghold is a “place”, or a “location”.  The Free Dictionary online (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/) defines stronghold as “a fortified place or a fortress” The second definition is stated as “a place of survival or refuge”.

When I finally accepted that basic definition, I begin to realize how important having that perspective was to my understanding of the true nature of a stronghold.  I was inspired by reading a simple verse from God’s Word (Psalm 27:1, see above). The New American Standard Bible (NASB) translation uses the word “defense” but the English Standard Version (ESV) translation uses the word “stronghold”.  Reading the word stronghold as a place makes God the place where I go for refuge or protection.  In war terminology a stronghold is “a defensible place or a fortress”.  The Psalms (especially those written by David) use this type of war imagery and analogy quite often when speaking about spiritual things.

At many times in my life there have been several places of refuge that I would resort to in an effort to protect myself or hide: lust in all its variations, sexual gratification, isolation, anger, lying,—the list goes on and on.  In the midst of my sexual addiction, these places were my strongholds.  Essentially my stronghold was the World and the beliefs, philosophies, and powers contained therein.  I would go there very often in a vain attempt to find solace, comfort, or refuge.

However, there is so much hope found in Psalm 27:1 as well as many other places in God’s Word.  The Lord God Almighty is my place of refuge, my stronghold!  I have this vision of God as a fortified, invincible castle in which I reside.  When I am there, there is no reason for fear.  There may be an onslaught of turmoil (adversaries, enemies, temptations, etc.) waiting outside for me seeking to destroy me, but as long as I am in the protection of the Stronghold, I am safe.  The Lord is my “Light”.  The Lord is my “Salvation”.  The Lord is my “Stronghold”!  May I reside there forever!