Archive for freedom

Resources contined

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Hopefully you sensed my passion for recovery in the first post.  This will be a short one because I want to share with you how God works in my life.

I have been forming this series of posts for about a month now and God has been bringing new insights and confirmations every day (even on bad days).

Today I received my Daily Eldredge email and it gave insight into addiction:

Whatever the object of our addiction is, it attaches itself to our intense desire for eternal and intimate communion with God and each other in the midst of Paradise—the desire that Jesus himself placed in us before the beginning of the world. Nothing less than this kind of unfallen communion will ever satisfy our desire or allow it to drink freely without imprisoning it and us. Once we allow our heart to drink water from these less-than-eternal wells with the goal of finding the life we were made for, it overpowers our will, and becomes, as Jonathan Edwards said, “like a viper, hissing and spitting at God” and us if we try to restrain it. . . “Addiction is the most powerful psychic enemy of humanity’s desire for God,” says Gerald May in Addiction and Grace, which is no doubt why it is one of our adversary’s favorite ways to imprison us. Once taken captive, trying to free ourselves through willpower is futile. Only God’s Spirit himself can free us or even bring us to our senses.  (The Sacred Romance , 133–34.  John Eldredge)

This is where we will be going in our path to freedom . . . God.

If you want to include this resource in your daily walk just go to RansomedHeart.com, make a profile and sign up for the Daily Readings.

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Resources for recovery

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

trail to recoveryIt seems everywhere I look and listen lately I hear stories of men and women living in painful addictions to lust. Be it porn, infidelity, sexual abuse, anger, same sex attractions, fantasies or even seeking to up their value as a person through non-sexual intimate relationships.  Be there, done that, still dealing with on some levels and definitely dealing with the consequences of my choices.  Just a few examples:

  • The Daily Audio Bible plays phone calls of people asking for prayer requests from the community.  At least 3 different men have called in over the past few weeks to share of their struggles with pornography & masturbation (see #lust).
  • This article in Today’s Christian Woman on women sharing their stories of internet porn addiction (#lust)
  • I could go on and on, but I’m sure you’ve heard them too.

I’m sorry to say that there is not a magical set of principals that you can follow that will fix this addiction. Sure you can put an internet filter and accountability software on all the computers you use (I definitely recommend this. You can find more information on the “Content Filters” section of this site), you can meet regularly with an accountability partner (assuming you’re gonna drop your pride, take a real risk and be really honest with what’s going on in you), read a book, go to sites like xxxChurch, read blogs and promise yourself you will never do it again.  These are all really good things!   You will most likely have some success, even “sobriety” for a time.  But it will not last.

Why?   Why don’t these strategies work long term?  Everything mentioned to this point are behavioral, they don’t attack the real problem in our hearts in our wounds.  We all have issues (problems, ways of looking at the world, etc) that have brought us to this point and have led us to be a lustful person rather than a loving person.  You must have been wondering earlier why the “#lust” tag on the end of statements.  Because lust isn’t just a thing that we do, it’s a way we begin to see our world, that leads us to our choices.

I want real freedom, if you are reading this, I assume you are looking for a way out . . . a way to freedom.  To find that way we need to take off the glasses we have used to perceive the world (#lust, #wounds, #issues), so we can begin to see what the Creator really meant when He created us and, in that, begin to see the path to freedom.

“Where are the resources?” you may ask and you are correct to do so – but it isn’t as simple as a few (or even a hundred) things you can read, listen to or meditate on.   In my next installment I will begin to share some of the resources that have helped me in my struggles to take off the glasses I’ve built and some of the pitfalls I’ve experienced along the way.

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My Turn to Jump on the ‘Green’ Bandwagon

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Being “green’ ain’t easy. You have to think about the products you buy and the trash you make, and take an inventory of the resources you consume. Then go a step further and consider the products, trash, and resources used by the manufacturers of your products and resources. It can get to be very time consuming.

On the Debate:

(This is not the point of this post, this paragraph is to give my perspective, hopefully it will make the point a little more pointed.) I’ve read the end of the story and I don’t see world ending because of too much of the wrong gas in the air. And, I know it won’t end because of flooding (caused by the melting of the ice caps). I know this because the world has been flooded before and there was a promise made to us by God that he wouldn’t destroy the earth again by flood. rb.jpgGenesis 9:13 “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” I personally don’t think man has the ability to destroy this ear th. As for research in the area of climate change, their are as many “experts” on both sides of the issue. Some say the ice caps are melting, others say they are growing. Some say the temperature of the earth is rising and just as many say it is falling. And, I seriously doubt that Al Gore has some inside track on the subject, just a lot of free time and a need to be relevant in some way. Regardless of the side of the debate on which you fall, the story ends the same. Rev. 21:1 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth had passed away.”

Its a Matter of Resources:

(Here’s the point) I’m no tree hugger that’s for dang sure. For me, environmentalism is another matter altogether, a more tangible, less debatable matter of stewardship. Simply put, if I reduce the money I spend on my utilities then I can use that money in more productive areas.

I want to be off the grid. I want one of those houses that is heated and cooled passively but the sun and earth where rain is collected and used for watering the garden and grey water for the house. I’d love to go solar but that is way to expensive and building a wind generator is a close second in cost. We have an old drafty house. We spend a ton of money heating and cooling it. Before you think we go overboard the heat gets set on 62 and the air gets set around 78. I would love to seal the place up and we are trying. We both drive a lot, I traded my V8 for a V6 and we have no car payments. Other options may be an old diesel or a scooter but you can’t put a scooter on the highway. Maybe later when we’re in a better money position doing some of those things might be possible but for now we cut as many corners as we can and try to reduce what we use and reward manufactures that do the same.

Does anyone know of a practical DIY solar project or wind project or good ways to reduce dependence on the utilities or oil companies? I’ve searched online but a lot of the solutions are jankey at best. Maybe we can get together as a group and help each other find ways to lower our utility bills and reclaim some hard earned bucks.

As always, for freedom!

Categories : Life and Story, Reviews
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