The Seed of Hope

The weary, peaceful, Warrior.

The weary, peaceful, Warrior.

This is for all of us who walk with God every day, fighting the never-ending fight, and never giving up.

Earlier this week I received an e-mail from my friend Katie thanking me for The Seed of Hope. I was grateful for her words and humbled by her message. Katie has graciously allowed me to share just a bit of it with you…

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your ever present reminder of how faithful God is. I love reading the blog and the message even more.

It appears as though the past few weeks have been tough. I am sorry for your stress and hurt. But God has a perfect plan for a future that He can only see. I hope you have a great week!”

As I sat there reflecting on what Katie had written I came to realize several things:

·         Much of what I’ve written about the past few weeks has dealt with the trials and tribulations in my life. I believe that some have been tests from God, that many have been the work of Satan, and the rest of them have been, well, they’ve been what life throws at me from time to time.

·         Apparently my writing as of late has failed to reflect the joy that comes with working through the tough spots. Yep, you read it right; I said joy.

·         I am weary of the fight. I am a weary, peaceful, warrior.

August, 2006

Yet again I find myself thinking about that day in August that I got my tattoo. The day that I was born again. The day that I declared myself to be a soldier of Christ. The day that I became a warrior for Jesus, vowing to fight His fights and to take His message wherever I could.

How ironic it was that on the day I vowed to be not just any warrior, but His warrior, I was filled with complete peace. At the very moment that I made my declaration, my mind and mind heart were filled with a calmness that, well, that I had never known. I found peace.

Peaceful people don’t want to fight; it’s not in their nature. Warriors must fight; there’s no choice to be made.

And so it has been since that day in August. Every day I recite Ephesians 6:10-20, and in doing so I put on the Armor of God, asking Him to protect me and my wife Jackie against Satan and his dark forces. And every day I go out with the intention of being a shining light for God, carrying His light to whoever lives in darkness. Every day. And I fight the fight. Because that’s what I choose to do.

Look, you don’t have to write a blog page, or declare yourself to be a soldier of Christ, or be bold in your faith every day to be tested. It’s gonna happen anyway. But you already know that, don’t you?

If you’re a good person, you’re gonna be tested every day. Believe in God? That only makes it worse. Striving to be a good Christian, walking in His way? Then you my friend, are being pounded on all the time!

I believe that what matters most is not what we’re dealt in life, but what we do with what we’re dealt.

James

One of my favorite verses in the NIV Bible is found in James 1:2-4:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Pure joy?

Come on! How are we supposed to accept the crap that we have to deal with as being joy?

A couple of weeks ago, when I was having one of those particularly trying days, my good friend Sharon reminded me of James 1, but with a different perspective. Sharon suggested that I check out The MESSAGE version of the same verse:

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

A sheer gift?

YES! That’s exactly what they are! All of ‘em! Sheer gifts!

Even the ones from Satan. You think I’m kidding? I’ve learned a lot from him, especially the lengths to which he will go to get between me and God! I don’t think that he’ll ever give up…but then neither will I. On those days when I’ve just had enough of him, I just bind him up, in the Name of Jesus, and “kick him to the curb!” Laugh if you want to, but believe me, it works.

I’ve said this before, and it bears repeating:

It’s never fun when we have to go through hardships…as a spouse, a parent, a leader, a follower. Who of us likes to stumble and fall? Who doesn’t grow weary of getting back up, over and over again? Well, no one, of course.

We need to remember that every test, every lesson, and every trial that we receive from God serves to make us what He wants us to be. They get us ever closer to what He has planned for us. In every one of life’s challenges lies another piece to the puzzle, another key to His Kingdom!

And we should always look to Him for strength...

but those who hope in the Lord wil renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:30-31 NIV

Pastor Chris Hodges of Church of the Highlands here in Birmingham once said that “Greatness is born in difficulty.” I don’t know if he coined the phrase or heard it from someone else, but I certainly believe it to be true.

That being the case, I believe that, based on our actions and reactions to what life deals us, we can all be destined for greatness.

Yeah, I’m a peaceful warrior. And at times I grow weary from the fight. But I’m in it for the long haul, and I’m havin’ a ball living my life. Thanks for the reminder, Katie!

See you next week!

Apart from Him too...

I’m not really fond of continuing a message from the previous week, but there are a few “afterthoughts” from last week’s post that I simply can’t ignore. Some of what I want to share with you today came to me in the couple of days that followed my humble offering to you. Call it a “post-post self-discovery”, if you will. The rest of it came from reflecting on a handful of the comments that many of you graciously shared with me.

I have to tell you that my wife Jackie wasn’t in favor of last week’s message. As a matter of fact, I could sense that she was really opposed to it, but didn’t have the heart to come right out and tell me. You see, I’d wanted to write about my addiction several times before. And each time she had talked me out of it. Putting myself in her position, I could see how having your spouse openly declare a prior addiction to cocaine would be a bit embarrassing. But here’s the thing: Jackie wasn’t being protective of herself or her reputation. Quite the contrary…she was trying to protect my reputation! What would people think of me if they knew that cocaine was my constant companion during an eighteen month period over twenty years ago? Would they understand, or would they condemn me for it? Revealing some of my past might hinder my chances of doing, well, doing whatever it is that God put me here to do!

Tongue in cheek, I told Jackie that I wasn’t planning on running for President, that I certainly wasn’t going to be elected as the Pope, that being fifty-seven entitled me to share what’s on my mind, and in light of the fact that we’re self-employed, there was no chance of me getting fired!

Being the amazingly supportive wife that Jackie is, and knowing what I was thinking, she simply said, “If God put this on your heart to share it, who am I to tell you not to do it?”

I took a deep breath, offered a silent prayer, and then tapped the “Enter” key on my laptop, sending my post into cyberspace, for all to see.

One week later…

All of the comments and e-mails that I’ve received since last week’s post have been very supportive. Before I continue with what’s on my mind, I want to share some of what was on your minds…

“Thank you for sharing that powerful testimony. God is so good…praise Him for freeing you.”              Susie

“I love you Sam, for your willingness to share your vulnerabilities. It makes us willing to do the same because of your example. I know God will use this post in a mighty way!!!!”   Sharon

Wow! He who the Son hath set free is free indeed! Our God is an awesome God!”  Linda

“In the blink of an eye…I fully understand the power of His restoration and liberation. Amazing.”          Melanie

“…God can set us free from the burdens that capture our life. Amazingly, it’s as simple as asking. In the darkest hours, He can provide that flicker of light that we need so desperately. Why not ask?”   Jane

“Why are we amazed when God performs a miracle such as the one He gave to you? Our Creator God has the power to turn this whole world upside down and inside out!”   Donna

As always, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me. Your feedback is the fuel that feeds the fire!

My thoughts…

What pleased me the most was that you recognized not what I did, but what God did for me…I’ve told you many, many times that God has performed miracle upon miracle in my life. This was yet another example of one of those miracles. In the offering of a simple prayer, and in the blink of an eye, God loosened the deadly grip of this powerful addiction on my life. How awesome indeed is our God!

Okay, I’ll admit that my admission of a cocaine addiction to you took a bit of courage…courage that was readily supplied to me by the Holy Spirit. If you will ask to receive the Holy Spirit each day, you will be amazed that the seemingly insurmountable challenges in your life get smaller and smaller.

I’ve shared the story of my addiction with several people before, and almost without fail, the reaction to my revelation has been the same: rather than look down on me, as one might expect, most admire me for overcoming my weakness and my courage for sharing my darkest secrets so openly.

There is a certain strength, or perhaps it’s a sense of relief, to be gained by sharing our problems with others. When we do, we often find that we’re not alone in what we’ve done…everyone has a “past”…has done things that they regret. Did I think that I was the only person in the world who had done cocaine or had been divorced? Of course not! It was just the guilt, or perhaps shame for what I’d done that got me more than anything. Of course, now I don’t have to worry about carrying those secrets around with me. I’ve shared them with you, and the world, so I don’t have to worry about anyone finding out about them! I’ve put that baggage down.

Sadly, I believe that many of us try to forget some of the things that we’ve done in the past, either from the need to hide our actions from others, or perhaps even worse, from ourselves. Here’s the thing: we never forget the bad stuff. Ever. Oh, we may wrap it up in a cocoon and store it away in the darkest corners of our minds, kidding ourselves, convincing ourselves, that whatever it was never happened. But the memory is always there, waiting for the right opportunity to haunt us again. And again. And again.

You know what? Satan loves this! I’m telling you that he does. You see, when we try to hide the past from ourselves, we never reach the point of forgiving ourselves for our mistakes. And that inability to forgive stands between us and God. If we can’t look into our own faces, how could we ever deem ourselves worthy enough to look into the face of God? How could we possibly hope to have a complete relationship with Him?

Jesus carried the cross, put Himself on it, and took those nails so that we would be forgiven for the sin that we come into this world with; the sin of Adam and Eve. He wiped the slate clean for us. Everything else, everything else…every sin, every evil thought, word, and deed, will be forgiven simply for the asking.

Well, if it’s as simple as asking, what stands in our way?

We do.

We are our own worst enemy. We trick ourselves into believing that we can never be forgiven for what we’ve done in the past, so we just try to forget that it ever happened.

Don’t try to forget what you’ve done in the past. Accept it! Lay claim to it. Own it. And then?

If you haven’t done so, ask God to forgive you. Then forgive yourself. Put it down, that “junk” that you’ve been carrying around for months, perhaps years. You were younger, more foolish, and not so wise. That was then…this is now…let go of the past.

Then run to God with the exuberance of a child rushing into his Daddy’s arms. Do you remember what that felt like? You can have that feeling again, if you can get past yourself.

God is waiting for you. What are you waiting for?

See you next week.

Make it Count.

Okay, I’m not trying to start 2010 on a somber note, but what if I told you that today was going to be your last one; as in being alive. What would your reaction be? You might give me an incredulous look, chuckle a bit, and then go on about your business, never giving my statement another thought.

But what if GOD told you that this day was gonna be your last one?

Would your plans for the day change? Would His statement change not just what you were going to do, but how you were going to do it? Would you try to make your last day “count” more than all the days that came before it? I wonder…

Every time.

If you been around myself and my wife Jackie for any appreciable amount of time, you know that every time I walk out the door to run an errand…every time I say goodbye…every time I’m going to be apart from her, I give her a kiss. EVERY time. If we’re in the salon, it may not be anything more than a peck on the cheek, but I always kiss her goodbye. And each night before we go to sleep? You guessed it; a goodnight kiss.

You may be laughing at the notion of what I just told you, and that’s okay; most people do. Until I explain why…

The world is full of eternal optimists (the glass is half full) and eternal pessimists (the glass is half empty). Somewhere in the middle of these two groups are the eternal realists (just look at the amount of water in the glass).

Most people consider me to be the eternal optimist, but I think of myself as a bit if an anomaly; a freak, if you will. I expect to be awesome every day, and I can count the days that I wasn’t awesome in 2009 on one hand. But I also know that striving for awesome each day comes with a price. Oh, there are days when I’d just as soon settle for having a bad day, which would require a lot less effort, but “I” won’t let “me” settle for that. I know that the good stuff doesn’t always come easy.

And I realize that while I’m enjoying my life, enjoying being me, more than I ever have before, it could be over in the blink of an eye. You see, we’re not promised that we’ll have a tomorrow. For that matter, we’re not promised that we’ll have the next five minutes…

So, the optimist in me looks for the good in every situation, and finds something to be grateful for every day, and loves being alive, and always tries to find a reason to smile, and knows that God is gonna give me everything that I need in life…

While the realist in me knows that life is a precious gift that cannot be taken for granted, and that this day may be the last one that God has planned for me.

So…

I give Jackie a kiss before I walk out the door, knowing that it may be the last one. And I try to live each day to the fullest. And I look for the best, even on the worst days. And I try to make every day count; for myself, for Jackie and our family, for our salon, and most importantly, for God.

There’s a piece of paper taped to the inside of the front counter in our hair salon that reads:

CELEBRATE TODAY!

I don’t know how many members of our team take notice of the message on the paper; it’s been there for a couple of years now. Quite honestly, the primary reason that I put it there originally was for me, more so than for any other member of our team. I found that I was focusing more on the annoyances and “irritants” in our salon than on all the other good things that were happening around us, and in me. Consequently, my life, and everything in it had started “going South.”

From that point forward, I made a commitment to appreciate each day, and everything that I had, and to give not 75, or 85, or even 95% of what I had in me, but 100%. Every day. The results have been…well, they’ve been humbling.

And you?

Okay, back to my original questions: What if God told you that today was going to be your last day? Would you do things differently? Would you try to make it count?

For many of us, with the new year comes a new set of “resolutions”; ways to make ourselves better, or to look better, or to feel better. Many of us attack these resolutions with fierce determination and make them a permanent part of our lives. Others start out the year with good intentions, but for one or more reasons abandon our quests at some point down the road.

If you’re wanting to make a resolution for this year, but are undecided, may I suggest one for you?

Pretend that this is your last day. NO, not with a sense of impending doom or urgency! Just appreciate it for what it is, and make it, whatever it is, count! Go for it! Reach for it! Believe it! Savor it! Have fun with it! Relish it.

You see, when you give every day your best, you feel better about yourself. And you feel better about the world around you, and the people in it. And you feel better about life. And life becomes, well, it becomes fun, even when it’s hard.

Just make it count. For God. For those you love. For yourself.

See you next week.