Unshackled Moments ~ November 16 ~ Not The Man I Used To Be; Just The Same Old Kid

In some ways I am a lot like my mother. A lot of people tell me I'm like my father, but not those who really know both of us well. My brother Jonathan, he's the one of us who is really like Dad. I think I get told I'm like Dad for three reasons. Firstly, sometimes I think people are just talking. They are trying to give me a compliment and be nice, and the words are flattery rather than truth of observation. Secondly, I have grown less outgoing and more quiet, I tend to socialize as little as possible, to be honest. But that's a lot less about being like Dad and more about spending seven and a half years in a place where it was always too loud, where loud could be dangerous, where drawing attention to yourself was stupid and where crowds acting rowdy meant someone was about to get hurt....or the game was on. Or both.

I used to be someone few would call anything other than extroverted, and now I score pretty equally extrovert and introvert on those silly tests. But I'm probably still more extroverted than my father. The third reason I get told I'm like my Dad is less about who either of us are and instead is about what we do. Since we both are in ministry and preach, it seems logical that it means we're a lot alike. But Nope. Just because we both preach doesn't mean that I am like Dad. If you ask him, he'll tell you that I am like Mom, that I always have been.

Last night Leah mentioned that I get my affinity for and connection with music from Mom. Without a doubt. Now don't get me wrong, my father loves music, but Mom and I were going to concerts together when I was in grade school. Mom still jams, and both of us really like a wide, eclectic variety of styles. Now I don't do the concerts thing anymore, the whole crowds, loud noise and adding darkness and people bumping into me thing is not a good idea. But music is still a big part of my life. Sometimes I think I drive Leah a little crazy as I try to fine tune my Pandora stations, get her to listen to something she doesn't like and attempt to get her to let me organize her library, etc. I rarely drive without music playing. I listen to music as I do my morning meditation and reading and as I write.

Sometimes it will be a song that comes across the shuffle that inspires the day's Unshackled Moment more than anything I read or that just pops into my head. I don't always feel like God reaches down into the Pandora programming and manipulates it to inspire me, but then again, Einstein said coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous and sometimes it just seems like song to song is speaking straight to me. Sometimes the radio just happens to play just what you need to hear. God can definitely use it, regardless of if He causes it or not.

I thought this morning was going to be one of those mornings. I got up and got dressed, loaded up the Pandora on shuffle, prayed and began preparing to write today's Moment. The first song that came on was an instrumental jazz tune called Devotion. I thought, hmm that seems appropriate. That was followed by Rascal Flatts singing Changed as the shuffle kicked over to my Christian/inspirational country station. I love that song, and I can so relate to it, having played the Prodigal and the fact that no longer going to concerts is not even on the Top 10 list of ways I'm not the man I used to be. It blessed me to hear it this morning before I start working on the message I will be preaching tonight. I decided to share it, hoping it would bless someone else, and truthfully to crow a bit. Hey, cut me a break, can't you see I've changed and I'm not who I used to be?! That probably came out of a little hurt and feelings of rejection I had a little before I got started. Some wounds take a long time to heal, and some scars really never fade.

So I was feeling a little like what do I have to do to rebuild this relationship already? I tried to push that self pity and impatience and expectation from my mind and sit down to the morning. That's when  I started the Pandora and the rundown I've already shared. So there was a bit of the so there in my sharing the song Changed on Facebook this morning. I clicked over to my page and shared the link to a Youtube version that was made by someone associating the song with Celebrate Recovery. It's a video version that I love.

All the so there wind went out of my sails though as I shared the link and got an important reminder from something posted last night. I normally stay off Facebook until after I pray and write the UM. God gets the first fruits of my time, and I don't want to get distracted. So seeing the things on my page from last night wouldn't have happened had I not heard and decided to share the Rascal Flatts song. But there it was. Me getting called out like a little kid.

Sunday during the sharing before communion I picked up my tablet and finished the game of Blossom Blast Saga I had been playing before worship began. My mother saw me and told me to put the game up, to which I responded that I was listening. Last night I wrote my entry for the 100 Word Challenge about getting hooked on that stupid game and how it was Leah's fault (she denies this by the way and says I should take responsibility as I'm a grown man). My mother decided to comment on the post, "Just no more playing while church is going on!!! I don't care if you are 'listening'!"

Of course my cousin laughed at and teased me and correctly surmised that it took me back to when I was a kid getting busted in church for misbehaving. But I am grateful, because it surely took the pride and all the can't you see how far I've come baloney out of my attitude. You see, it's true that I am not the man I used to be. I am not the drunk and the addict and the all the rest. I am the minister and not just the convict. But I haven't changed at all. I am incapable of it. I have been changed quite a bit. But I didn't do it. It isn't me.

What change has taken place is the grace and power of God at work in my life. Wow, look at what God has done! I haven't done anything but surrender and try to finally get out His way and let Him do it. In truth, if I step outside of grace, even a little and try to coast or run on my own power and rely on who I am, the old me begins to shine through. I get selfish and disrespectful to others (as someone who preaches regularly I am fully aware of how hard it can be to share when it feels like people aren't listening, they're talking, texting, etc. I shouldn't have been on my tablet while someone else was sharing), I still try to justify doing the things I know I shouldn't be doing (I'm listening), and I remain a man at 45 that sometimes needs correction. It's crazy, but when I do things my way I get off track and need my course adjusted.

Things haven't changed all that much. If I keep going off in my own direction, even if I'm off course by only one degree things will get much worse than playing a game on my tablet during church. Just because I've been called to minister doesn't mean I have it all together, and no one, not Paul, not Peter, not any of the "Heroes of the Bible," apart from Christ, could get it right either. Without the Spirit of grace, Paul is just plain old Saul, and I'm just the same old Davy I used to be instead of Dalyn, the man I can be now when I walk in truth. One degree off of true north doesn't make much difference if you go ten feet before you correct the problem. But that same one degree off after sixty miles is about a mile off course.

I read that if someone got in a plane to fly once around the equator and flew only one degree off course, they would be 500 miles off course by the time they made it around to the start. That's huge. Pretty good is still dangerous. We need constant course correction to get back onto the true course of walking unselfishly and in the will of God. That correction could come from the Holy Spirit whispering softly to our heart. It could be a series of coincidences that make us think, it could be a song, a friend, or even your momma correcting your grown butt in public. Because we all need regular course correction. Our computer is off and incapable of staying on target. If we want to be successful we have to remember that however much we may be changed it isn't us. We have to turn that guidance computer off and use the Force to stay on course and make the shots we need to make.

No, this isn't Star Wars, and God isn't some vague universal power to channel to accomplish what we want to. But He is the Power outside of us that will live within us to give us the power to do what we should do. He is the great God that transforms us from the caterpillar to the butterfly, from what we were to what we can be, a unique reflection of the purity and perfection of Love without flaw. I've changed, you can too, but only by surrendering to the One who can make us clean and new. Otherwise it's just the same old you and the same old me fighting against who we've always been and will be again, because true change takes a true God.

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