Okay, so I’m guessing this is more awkward for me jumping back on the blog but I watched this song probably a good 6-9 months ago and really dug it. If anyone reading this blog knows me on a super-personal level then you’d know Phil Wickham would probably not be an artist you’d find in my MP3… but the Lord works in mysterious ways. Between this, the next song & others, I’ve been blessed.

or if you’re one of those folks that don’t like the acoustic/live gig, try this one

And yes, I’m aware of the other versions. Jeff Buckley rocks & it’s a shame because he went way too soon. If you are a follower of Christ or even pondering that decision, it is easy to see the sincerity in what Phil is singing about.

or enjoy some live flavor – just fast forward a minute or two. Song hits at 3:00 but you want at least a 30 sec lead-in.

At first glance that doesn’t seem like an auspicious beginning to the new year and some would say, “Matt, take it easy on yourself – you just have to be more positive about change.” And that is partly correct because I should. God says that he will continue the good work he began in us until the end of time. However, it is God that will bring this healing and change – not me.

If I could do it, I would. I’ve tried all kinds of self-help books, rigid plans (legalism) to bring about order, kicking my butt, positive thinking, etc. to remove sin/problems resulting from sin from my life and none of it worked. I was still left with the same issues. When I shut one down, my problems worked into another area. It was like one of those stress balls. I would squeeze it but the goo never went anywhere (and it was goo). It just went into another area of the ball.

The first step of real life change

It was when God led me to the ministry of Celebrate Recovery that I read the first step and truly began a journey down the road to healing. I’ve seen more change in the past few years than in my entire life put together and it all started with this one thing.

“Realize I’m not God. I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable” (Principle 1 of ‘The Road to Recovery’)

Isn’t that strange that a ministry such as this wouldn’t put “Stop doing ‘X’” as the first step? If I’m smoking crack, committing adultery, or laying guilt trips on my kids, wouldn’t I want to address this problem first?

How God handles life change in the Bible.

I was reading Jeremiah and saw the following passage that God instructed Jeremiah to tell the people:

Therefore, go and say these words to Israel, ‘This is what the Lord says: O Israel, my faithless people, come home to me again, for I am merciful. I will not be angry with you forever. Only acknowledge your guilt. Admit that you rebelled against the Lord your God and committed adultery against him by worshiping idols under every green tree. Confess that you refused to follow me. I, the Lord, have spoken’ Jeremiah 3:12 (NLT)

Acknowledge, admit, and confess. He doesn’t say “stop.” These three things require a great amount of humility because to do any of those, we must first admit we are wrong, which means we acknowledge that something else is right. This is a huge step in societies with relative morality, but really it is hard in societies with absolute morality as well. People are sinners, and we are proud. I don’t like admitting I’m wrong at all. Other people are good at admitting they are wrong, but that is only because they don’t like conflict. Inwardly they “know they are right.”

Admitting my powerlessness and sin brings healing saves me from wrath and judgment.

And yet you say, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. Surely he isn’t angry with me!’ Now I will punish you severely because you claim you have not sinned. Jeremiah 2:35 (NLT)

Notice how God says he will punish me for my denial / blocking out the light of truth, not that I will be punished because I’m a bad, bad man.

Wrath and judgment is a highly unpopular topic in the Bible and the Christian church today but the fact remains there is judgment spoken about by every person God throws out there as a vessel of his message including Jesus Christ. It has to be addressed, and we all know it, even if it’s just deep, deep (deep) down there in the innermost parts of our heart.

Guys struggle mightily with isolation – there are always those who try to enable us pointing back to hunter gatherer times but let’s look at the fruit before we let genetics and the past before we knew about much of anything before we cast off responsibility to change. Extended isolation when there is a choice does not usually lead to God’s will in our lives primarily because Christ told us what God’s will is for our lives and hanging out by ourselves isn’t it.

Promise Keepers is a men’s organization whose primary goals is to keep guys connected with the Lord and other men in order to fulfill God’s mighty call on their lives. Every year I go and connect with guys. I think, “hey, maybe this isn’t that bad.”   And then I go back to “real life.” Of course the guys who thrive on social interaction and hugs don’t get me but that is perhaps 50% of guys if not less.

If you are a guy who struggles with isolating yourself in either bad times or good, know that you are not alone and that we have been called to something in Christ which extends beyond our capability to achieve – we don’t have to want to be in relationship with others necessarily but he brings people together. Often those people are misfits and the least likely to be able to accomplish his work but it isn’t about us – it is about him.

So you’d think after drinking all that in, I would have taken every precaution to act completely different, right? I’ll share a little nugget here which I wouldn’t normally share.

I am both a planner and somewhat of a “driver”. I think more of the former but my wife swears the latter . I would have a disagreement with “X” person. If I didn’t blow up right then an make a fool of myself, I would then stew over it, rehearsing to plan the perfect response. If you’re nodding your head, then you know what comes next, right? Yeah. It never works out the way it did in my head, so basically I’ve wasted 30 second snippets of my life for how long?

The problem is like any method of coping with sin, there is no end unless it is taken to the Lord.

My little “strategy session” would leak over into other moments of my life. When I turned my life over to Christ, he pointed out that I mulled over potential or former arguments more than I did anything else. I was shocked & even a bit defensive

Then God started pointing it out every time I started doing it. I was amazed at how this habit had actually broken through to my subconscious. I was totally in denial about something almost comically tragic. I could walk into a 12 step group and say, “hey guys, I can’t stop drinking.” I’d probably get a high five in even a baptist church but revealing that I can’t stop replaying or rehearsing arguments in my head gets me a nice soft cell in a quiet place.

What’s even funnier is how long that habit took to break. Only with a steady stream of the word of the Lord to renew my mind and innermost thoughts along with exercising those spiritual truths did it lift. When I would start going through the motions of my relationship with God, I would regain many of the same habits.

Only reason I share this is not so I look like a moron, but because a couple guys nodded, smiled, and then shook their heads when I admitted it. There were probably less than 15 guys in the room that night so this is probably not that unique. I want you to know that you are not “crazy” (just sinful, like me) no matter what people have conditioned you to think, and that the Lord is waiting for you to turn to him and rely on him to not just save you from this struggle but the deeper struggle of life that caused this and any other issue which is on your mind today.

If you are someone that struggles with holding onto anger, I want to not just pray for you (which I will, leave a prayer in the comment section below and be as anonymous as yo want), but I’d like to help you get plugged into a recovery group. Anger is just as curable as alcoholism, eating disorders, or any other issue which we’ve come to realize is sinful either by direct command of the Lord or simply because we know it keeps us from him.

1. Those that do what we think of when we think of worrying. They look scared & timid. They do the cartoon bit of chewing off fingernails like they’re a typewriter. They can’t make a decision and bungle situations they would normally nail. I have been this person.
2. The others are those that seem quite confident as they blaze through situations. Doesn’t work out like they wanted it to? They start barking orders and “make it happen.” I have also been this person

The American culture values #2. The only problem is that #2 is handled just as wrong as #1 is in most situations. I never realized I was a worrier because I didn’t act fearful when things weren’t working out as I wanted. I got angry.

What I didn’t realize is that most anger is just another expression of fear. Yeah, yeah, Jesus got angry, but I’d better man up if I’m going to pull the JC comparison.

So, what leads you to worry? Go ahead and share in the comments because it will make you feel better – c’mon, there are about 500 people a day that read this blog and less than 1% share. Step over the line. Be anonymous, even.

I’ll go first

• Will I be able to raise my daughter in a way where she is given the best opportunity to live a live that honors the Lord and is a blessing to others? Since I rarely do either, I’m not sure how this is going to be passed on
• Career – My wife is feeling a very strong calling to reduce her hours at work as we enter this new phase of parenting. She is an important contribution to the family financially in such a way that I have no idea how this is going to work out. Of course I only have to search my own blog to find situations where the Lord has done far more than I could imagine in the financial realms, so why am I worrying?
• Will I ever beat these addictions? – I’ll blog more on this later but I have had the wrong mindset about my struggles. I look at it like “let’s fix this and that and that and then things will be okay and I’ll be a better person.” After 2+ years in 12-step, I’m thinking something different. Not saying Paul’s thorn in his side was anything more than a physical pain, but let me take a little liberty here. Could I be okay with struggling with X and Y the rest of my life? I’m not saying giving in, but just being tempted. Paul talked about doing what he didn’t want to do and he was pretty much the “superman” of the New Testament. His major downfall came before his ministry unlike almost every other person of the OT and NT. Even if I was never able to say, “I struggled with this 10 years but I’ve been clean for 30″, would God still be glorified if I could say, “I struggled with this 40 years but God still forgave me and I’m here today in such gratitude?” Check the scriptures for what is said about the person to whom much is forgiven.
• Being a “success” – I am incredibly competitive. Unfortunately I went after the world definition of success and I see it reinforced every time I watch a golf tournament or even get online w/ friends. My life will not be a success when I have enough so that I don’t have to worry or even have enough to cover worst-case situations. My success does not lie in the state of my marriage, the wellness of my kids, the status of my employment or even how many times I went on mission trips. My good works are filthy rags to the Lord. That is sometimes hard to understand but it is a heart issue. If I am glorifying the Lord in what I do, it doesn’t matter if I am preaching a sermon, picking up trash in the park, or sitting on a park bench. If I am not glorifying the Lord in what I do, it does not matter if I am preaching a sermon, picking up trash…