Unshackled Moments ~ November 30 ~ Uncle Johnny's Matches

When I was younger one of my favorite things to do was to go coon hunting with my Dad and my Uncle Johnny. My brother is a natural born hunter. I never was. I didn't enjoy it much. I didn't have the patience to sit still and quietly, I hated being cold (still do), and I just didn't really care. Coon hunting was the first exception to that.

First, I got to be with my Dad and my Uncle Johnny. I would've put up with having to drink buttermilk for that. As I said above, I was younger, long before my teen years and the distance that grew between my father and me. When I was little, my hero was my Dad, he could fix anything, and only two men could come close to him in my estimation. Uncle Johnny was one of them, and so to get to spend time with both of them with no one else around was awesome.

Coon hunting was the best because you got to use hound dogs, and I loved the sound of hound dogs. You didn't have to be still or quiet from more than a minute or so at a time. You got to stay up late instead of having to get up early, and even by the age 4 or 5 I knew that was the better deal.

There was something about being out in the woods at night, with so many stars visible through the trees. The sky looked so big and there was something that was beautiful and strange and mysterious about the darkness and the night that I loved. Now, I knew that if I were out there all alone I would have been terrified, but that didn't matter. I wasn't alone. And when I got too tired to keep up or it was time to move fast, Dad would  carry me.

One winter night when I was 7 or 8, with the days of being carried through the woods long over but the love of the hunt still in full bloom, misery found its way into my special time. First, the dogs ran off. Now, when coon hunting, the dogs always run off, but there is running off the way they are supposed to and running off in the wrong way. This was the wrong way. They went too far, too fast, and we couldn't  hear them. Uncle Johnny said that they were probably chasing a deer, which they weren't supposed to do, because a raccoon would have run up a tree, causing the dogs to stop, while a deer would go and go, perhaps into the next county.

So we were rushing through the woods in the dark, trying to stay within ear shot of the hounds. Uncle Johnny took the lead with Dad right behind him and me trailing them both, trying to keep up without running into tree limbs and the thorn bushes that reached out and grabbed me as I went by. I saw Dad move a little differently, but didn't have time to register what, why or anything else before the ground disappeared. I had stepped into a huge hole left in the ground when a tree fell, and it was full of ice cold water. I was soaked to my waist.

Oh, it was miserable. I'm pretty sure I mentioned not liking being cold. The night was barely above freezing and I was wet. In seconds I couldn't stop shaking. It didn't help that Uncle Johnny actually seemed worried about me. That must've meant that I was in danger of dying or something to my little mind. Dad scooped me up and carried me, and he and Uncle Johnny tore through the woods until we came out on some dirt road in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea where we were, but I knew that we were a long way from the roads I recognized.

Dad set me down and Uncle Johnny pulled the coolest thing from his pocket. It was two used shotgun shells, one pushed into the other so that it looked like one shell with two brass ends. I'd never seen anything like that. He pulled them apart, and inside there were matches. He and Dad built a fire in the middle of the road to warm me and dry me a little. Their conversation revealed that they both felt that we needed to leave and that they wanted to get me out of the cold night and my wet clothes, but we couldn't leave. We didn't have the dogs.

Dad stayed with me and fed the fire as I tried to get warm. Uncle Johnny went on to find the dogs. I couldn't figure out how we were ever going to find the truck, and I wasn't looking forward to leaving the slight comfort of the fire to trudge once more through the woods. A while later I saw headlights. Uncle Johnny pulled up in the truck and stopped beside the fire. I climbed into the warm cab, the heater was cranked, and he and Dad made sure that the fire was out before also getting in. The dogs were barking in their carriers in the bed of the truck. We were on our way home.

The thing is I couldn't see when we were in the woods. I didn't have a light, only Uncle Johnny did/ So while I could see Dad enough to follow him between the trees, I didn't see the hole I fell into. We had gone much further and faster than usual, and I didn't know where I was and had no idea how to get back. I couldn't have started that fire, but Uncle Johnny had matches. I didn't know how he would ever find the dogs, but he knew he would. I was cold, wet, miserable and my leg hurt from stepping into the hole. But I wasn't afraid. I don't remember being afraid. I remember wondering why Dad and Uncle Johnny seemed worried, but Dad was carrying me, so I was OK. Then once the fire was going, they didn't seem worried any more, so I knew I didn't have to be afraid.

I didn't know how to take care of me, but they did. They had been prepared for what might happen. Uncle Johnny had his matches. I didn't know how to find the dogs or the truck or how to get home, but they did. I still felt miserable, but I wasn't afraid. I had hope. I didn't realize it as hope at the time, and I don't think I ever called it that before this morning, but hope is what kept me from being afraid.

I didn't have the answers, knowledge, or ability to do any of the things that needed to be done. But I knew I would be OK, because they did. We forget that hope isn't about knowing the answers and being able to care for ourselves. We are going through the darkness, dodging the obstacles as best we can and trying to keep our eyes on Jesus enough to make through the night. Sometimes the going is more difficult. Sometimes things scratch us and we walk into obstacles. Sometimes the ground disappears and we tumble, ending up cold, hurt and miserable. Having hope won't make us comfortable. It's not about believing the misery is going to instantly disappear. It's not about believing we'll figure out what needs to be done and be able to do it. Hope is remembering that we are not alone. All those things we don't know and can't do, He does and can.

Hope has come. Jesus came into the darkness to shine a light and lead us home to Daddy. There may still be times of misery. There will definitely still be times when we are hurting and uncomfortable, when we have to simply endure and press on, when we don't get what we want when we want it. There will be times when we don't know what needs to be done and couldn't do it if we did. We can feel overwhelmed and helpless. But we don't have to feel afraid. Because it's OK to be helpless when you're with Daddy. Even if you feel you're too big now, He can carry you. He knows how to care for you as well. He's got it. That's hope.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 29 O Hope, Where Art Thou?

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

- Romans 15:13

We spend a lot of time trying to find hope. We look for it in people, in security, in many places and philosophies. We seek it out like a lost treasure, and when we can not find it, we try to manufacture it. We attempt to wrestle it into existence and to build it ourselves in our minds. If we can convince ourselves of this or that, and if we can do such and such we may just find hope, some sense that we just might survive and find what we need.

But hope is not a treasure to be found, a seed to be planted and later harvested or a structure to be built by our great powers of imagination or self delusion. Hope is a precious gift of God. We do not have hope because we determine  to believe God will take care of us. We have a God of hope, and just as He is a supplier of the power we need to be free and walk within His will when we could never do so on our own, He is our source of hope.  When we surrender our will and life into His care, we are given a life worth living and the power to walk free from the things in this world that kept us prisoner. We can't live as we should or manage our lives, so we allow the One who can to do so. Life gets better. We find freedom, purpose and satisfaction in His will. And somewhere along the way, we realize that we also have hope. We have it in great amounts, we abound in it. We have so much we can't lose it, we can give it away all day and still have plenty. But we don't have to hold onto it, or earn it, work for it or anything. We have it because of the Spirit, just as we have our freedom and the ability to walk free from the bondage of self. God is our hope, and hope is a free gift from Him.

So, if you feel hopeless and in need of hope, remember that hope is not the goal. It is the by-product. Instead of looking for hope, seek to improve relationship and conscious contact with the Creator. Seek Him first, and hope will find you.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 28 ~ Hopeless Beginnings

I remember the hopelessness I felt. It was fun. It made me feel better. It was killing me. And I couldn't stop, or at least I couldn't stay stopped. The cycle continued long after I knew it had to end. Use, indulge, slip, give up and give in, be driven by obsession for just one more, there were many ways I fell, walked, and ran back into the chains of old.

Sometimes I really did enjoy it. Sometimes the guilt and shame and condemnation would hit before the buzz was gone. Afterward would come the dilemma. I knew what I was doing was killing me and destroying my life. I had to quit. I also knew that it was comfortable and fulfilling for a minute or two and I wanted it. I wanted to do it again, or if I didn't, I knew that I would. I would resolve to stop.  I determined to do better.  I would try to eliminate everything that made me want to return. I might do OK for a day, perhaps a week or two if I really set my mind to it.

Then it all fell apart. The obsession would kick in. I thought of little else than that I wanted to, needed to, was going to partake. Sometimes I didn't even think of the question, should I or not? Instead the thoughts were just obsessing over which shackle to put back on first. It was like being on self-destruct and auto-pilot. Knowing it was wrong didn't help. Knowing it was destroying my life didn't stop me. Knowing I'd feel like a failure and full of shame didn't even slow me down. It seemed to speed it up. I was going to fail sooner or later, so why wait and torture myself fighting a battle I would lose. Just do it and get it over with. The determination to try again to stop tomorrow. After this one. As soon as what I had was gone I wouldn't get more. At the start of the new week, month, year, I would start fresh.

Resolve, relapse, regret. Resolve, relapse, regret, repeat. The cycles of addiction and bondage are pure, uncut hopelessness. If you are in such a place, whether it's chemicals or something else, whether everyone knows or just you and God, whether you're completely beat or still able to function and hide the chains, there is hope.

The cycle can and will be broken, just not by you. If you are hopeless to free yourself, to stop the runaway train before the tracks end and you go over the cliff and fall, then you are in the perfect place to discover the path to freedom. As long as you believe that after the defeat that follows defeat and leads to more defeat you will someday wake with the will, strength and ability to control or stop what is controlling you, the cycle will continue. But if you are hopeless, then there is hope.

If you are hopeless than you can see that you are not able, you can't control, stop or stay stopped. But there is One who is able, who does have the power to restore your life, to set you free and to break the cycle. More than being able, God wants to set you free. He created us to have relationship with Him, but that was messed up by selfishness and sin. We couldn't be good enough, we couldn't do it right, and we couldn't restore our relationship with our Creator any more than we could breath under water or set ourselves free from what bind us. So our Heavenly Daddy sent Jesus, whose life served a specific purpose, to preach good tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

Not only is He able to set us free and make us new and clean,  that is His great desire. He wanted to do that so much that He endured the pain of the cross in order to make it possible. He is not only the reason that we can have hope; He is our hope. If we will surrender our life and will to His care, we will find that He is faithful to set us free, to give us a life worth living and to satisfy our souls in a way that everything that brought bondage only promised to and failed.

You don't have to earn His help or deserve it. You don't have to shape up and start living right. You don't have to do anything other than admit that you can't do it and ask Him to help you. All He asks in return is that you love Him and love others. There is hope. Though there is no way that you can regain control on your own, and no one else on earth that set you free, God can and will if you will seek Him and allow Him to do so. From the ashes of misery and hopelessness rise the beauty of hope and a life worth living.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook. 

The Light Of Hope - First Week Of Advent

Dalyn Woodard shares on what hope really is and why we have it. The message,  "The Light Of Hope - First Week Of Advent," is about 21 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Sunday, November 27, 2016. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 23 ~ Grading The Year

Here we are in the final week of November. We are two days from Thanksgiving. One month, seriously, 31 days, away from Christmas, which leaves us only 38 days till we scrap another year and start again, full of hope and fear and good intentions and the futility of our resolutions. Being around 90% through with the year, maybe it's time for a quick review, a mini-inventory if you will. I'm not talking about an in depth  Fifth step over the year, although if you are going through a particularly rough time of feeling irritable, restless and discontent, a Fifth step over the issue might help you get in a better, safer and more free place spiritually, emotionally, and mentally before the stress of the holidays really kicks into overdrive.

But what I am talking about is more of an end of the day review for the year. This, if it is done, should be constructive, and while it doesn't need to be as in depth as a Fifth step, it does need to be as rigorously honest. As it is with the nightly review, a good place to start is with prayer that the Holy Spirit guide you through the process, help you to be honest and reveal to you what you need to remember. Of course in the nightly review it's:

Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. 

- Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 86

In reviewing the year however, I would strongly suggest that some of those questions most certainly need to be reworded. It's not were we or was I selfish, dishonest or afraid, but rather when was I? Are there times when I was selfish, dishonest and afraid that I have still not dealt with or that are effecting my spiritual condition now?

Do we owe an apology? Well that may depend on how well we've been walking the spiritual path. We should be doing regular spot checks on where we are spiritually, asking God for help and forgiveness when we get off track and quickly making any amends we may need to make because of our selfishness when we take our will back (Step 10). If we have done that well, we may not owe any apology or amends. But if we let something slip by undone, if we allowed fear or pride or resentment to keep us from doing what is right, we need to look at that. What better gift could we give ourselves this Christmas season that to relieve the guilt and shame that comes when we refuse to clean our side of the street? For that matter, making amends may be a blessing for the other people involved as well. We can't claim to be praying for peace on earth while refusing to take the first steps needed to make peace, forgiving others and asking for forgiveness (in that order).

So, how did we do? Were we mostly thinking of ourselves this year or did we think of others and put them and the will of God ahead of ourselves? Selfish or servant? If we are honest, I pray there was both, since I know we all had moments of selfishness, but which was the majority of the time filled with? Remember, we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.

If we did OK to pretty good, as long as we're giving ourselves an honest grade, rejoice. We have a reason to be Thankful, for God has given us and we have accessed the grace to walk with Him more than not this year. It may not be what we wanted for the year. We may have failed every goal and forgotten any and all resolutions, but we are free and walking with God by grace. That is something to be thankful for.

And if not? Then you have even more to be thankful for. That's right, more. Because God still loves you, He still desires to heal and restore your life and to set you free. God still loves you, no matter how you may have dropped the ball, or even if you decided to chunk it. Whether you risked returning to bondage by becoming careless with your spiritual condition or even if you slipped, fell or jumped back into the chains of the old master, His mercies are new every morning, and He is quick to forgive. Rejoice, for if you can read this, then you still have time to return to the God who loves you and wants to return you to the Promise Land and lead you out of the captivity you have returned to. If you have already returned to freedom from going back to Egypt earlier in the year, don't look at this year as a failure, but thank God for His faithfulness and His forgiveness. You can end the year free. Some who return to their bondage never make it back home alive.

Sometimes we fail a night or two to be honest with our review. Sometimes we are sick, tired or too busy and let the review slide. There may even be a dry period of a day or week or more where we let our spiritual life slide and didn't bother with a review or talking to God at all. Whatever the reason, sometimes we miss things that need to be worked on. We may have picked ourselves up and just returned to the journey without reviewing the time during and before we fell short. Or maybe we just need to see how God has been faithful and His grace has been sufficient and that we have had a good or great year, regardless of what our circumstances or bank balance may say. Take a look. Ask for forgiveness where needed, and rejoice for His forgiveness and grace. Regardless of if this year has been mostly an A+ or an F, we can end the year stronger, freer and closer to God than we started it, if we will seek Him and ask Him to search us, to see if there is any rebellion and sin within and lead us to the place in Him where those things are removed, forgiven and we are strengthened by His might and filled with His peace.




Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook. 

Unshackled Moments ~ November 22 ~ The Best Deal

This morning as I went to load up my email to gain access to the devotions and such that I have sent to me each day I saw the headlines for the various news stories that had made the mail home page. Most were horrible and sad. There is so much hate and misery in the world today. One was sad but amazing and beautiful. They got me. I had to click the link when I saw the headline Holocaust jacket, and prisoner's story, found at tag sale.

The next headline over however was less news and more, what we always referred to as fluff pieces. I believe the technical term is human interest. The Holocaust jacket was borderline, but the story had some historical significance and and there were actual newsworthy moments. But This Year's Best Black Friday Tech Deals is not news. It's free advertising for companies that pay the bills and a way to get people to click the link which, in addition to the information they're after, of course, will expose them to more advertising. It's human interest, and they probably will get many hits, although they didn't get mine.

Since the first time that we stuck our tiny thumbs in our mouths as babies trying to satisfy our hunger, we've spent our lives trying to fill the empty spaces and ease the misery in our lives. But we instinctively learned and were taught by adults, who have been trying to satisfy their own needs or have them satisfied from the time they also were babies, that when we can't have what we need or what we want, we should be and can be pacified by something that is counterfeit but close. That's why we call a baby's breast/bottle substitute a pacifier. They want the comfort and satisfaction and nourishment of Mother, we stick a plastic nipple in their mouth that gives them nothing but a close approximation of the feel of what they are really longing for.

So much of what we try to fill our lives with is just another pacifier. We are looking and longing for the love, peace, joy, comfort, satisfaction and nourishment that can only come through relationship with Daddy, but we try to trick ourselves with counterfeits. Sex and approval from others take the place of love. Escape and oblivion take the place of peace. Momentary happiness and distraction take the place of joy. We seek comfort in people, in sensation satisfaction and more rather than the Spirit who is called The Comforter. And we look to nourish our souls with anything and everything from chocolate cake to catching a bargain to cocaine.

It's good to give gifts, and sales are nice when you're broke like me. But they are advertising for things that people will literally fight others over to spend money they don't have to please themselves and others with on something that will break, become obsolete and fade away. Whatever that article was about is not going to be the best deal for everyone, because no matter how many of whatever tech deal they are selling they have, it's not enough to go around. Plus a new and better version will probably be out by Valentine's Day. They were supposed to be tech deals after all. I love giving gifts, and getting them. I like sales.  I'm not saying don't shop or don't shop on Black Friday.

What I am saying is that we all have times when we try to meet the needs in our lives with something that is incapable of doing more than tricking us into temporary satisfaction and comfort. It will pacify. But end the end there is no nourishment, nothing real that lasts or feeds and the satisfaction and comfort fade or fail as something within lets us know that this isn't quite what we were looking for. There is something that will satisfy, and nourish, and comfort and bring love, peace and joy. It's not going to fall short. It's not a pacifier. It's the real thing, and it's the greatest deal mankind will ever receive.

We can have life, freedom, joy, peace, love and everything else that comes through relationship with our Creator without having to earn it, deserve it, or pay it off. All our spiritual debts have been paid by Jesus. All the resource and power that we need to be who and how we were made to be is available to us through Him. Everything we need to live and breathe and be is given freely to those who say yes to the call to come. And there is enough for everyone.

So yes, let us try to find that perfect thing to give to those we love, and to do so at the best deal possible. But let us also remember that what we need and what those we love need is the freedom that comes from Christ and the transforming power of the love of God in our lives, and that deal is the only one that truly matters. The deal of a lifetime, the deal that brings life, the event that caused good to triumph over evil is freely available to us all and happened on a Friday around 2000 years ago when the sky went black as the Son gave His life out of love for us.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 21 ~ Garden Friends

The spiritual journey we are on was never meant to be walked alone. Truthfully, it can't be. Not well. If we isolate and cut ourselves off from the world and others to pray, meditate, and study we will be unable to serve and show the love of Jesus to others. There may be a short period of time that we may need to get alone with God to refresh, recover, or prepare, but that should not last long. Even Jesus went off by Himself to pray, but with the one exception of the 40 day fast and time of temptation in the desert before His ministry began, that time alone with God was never for more than a night.

And of course Jesus is our example, because He is the only person who has ever carried this fleshly body perfectly through the spiritual journey. He was full of the Spirit and full of compassion and love for others. The two go hand and hand. But even Jesus, the one closest to the Father, the one who never did it or got it wrong, the one who perfectly walked in righteousness didn't try to do it alone.

When His toughest time came, the night at the Garden of Gethsemane, when He had to struggle with what was to come and setting Himself to surrender the will of the flesh to the will of the Father, He didn't go alone. He asked three of His twelve closest friends to support Him, to stay close, to watch and pray. Sure they fell short. They fell asleep. The fought when they should have submitted and ran when they should have stayed, but those things were after He was ready. He had already said, "Not My will but Yours."

The point is He wasn't alone. I am sure they fell asleep praying, like I often do. It's not like Jesus told them to watch and pray, then walked away and they said, "forget that, let's take a nap!" When we are stressed out, afraid, struggling to surrender our will and our life, facing tough times, it is time to go to our garden, somewhere we can be with God without interruption and talk to Him, plead with Him, and stay until we can set ourselves to surrender to His will for the joy that is to come once we endure laying our lives down. But if life has come to that place, where we are walking through the Valley of the Shadow and we are not entirely sure we are going to make it out, we need support.

We need to let a trusted friend or three know what's going on, so they can stay close, even if close only means they know that if we call they need to pick up because it's a spiritual emergency but physically they are miles away. Are garden friends are friend we trust, who will pray and watch and be honest with us if we ask a question and simply listen to us and pray otherwise. It's not about geography. It's a spiritual closeness.

Someone needs to know we are in the garden so that they can be praying for us, even if they fall asleep. They need to watch to make sure we don't get out on a slippery slope where we may slip and fall before we come to the place of not mine will but Yours. No, we can't expect them to be perfectly what we need. They are not God, and we should never expect them to take His place or to never fall short. But even though the disciples failed Jesus and scattered they did not do so, until after the battle was won spiritually. By the time the soldiers came, it was a done deal. Jesus was ready to go to the cross.

There will be times when we need to go to our garden to settle ourselves spiritually and settle the issue of surrender. We need others to know what is happening. Others who will watch and pray. And they will also have times in their own gardens. If someone counts you as one of the special 25% they want close by in their hour of Gethsemane, don't forget that support is so crucial that even Jesus needed it. Watch. Pray. And try not to fall asleep.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Reason For Thanksgiving

Dalyn Woodard shares on why we can be thankful no matter what is going on in our lives. The message,  "Reason For Thanksgiving," is about 15 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Sunday, November 20, 2016. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 19 ~ Adoption Blessed Me

In the November 1 UM, Healthy Heart Conscious,   about being spiritually healthy and having a loving heart, I mentioned a list things, such as diabetes, that we are supposed to be aware of this month because November is (insert quite a few health issues) Awareness Month. But I saw today, from a different source that in addition to the health causes, November is Adoption Awareness Month. I am aware of adoption all the time, so I guess it's not that big of a deal that I missed nearly three weeks of knowing this is the month people focus on the issue of adopting children out of foster care.

Adoption is an amazing and wonderful thing. The need for adoption is a horrible and heartbreaking thing. But the idea that some child who has lost their family, or who was endangered in their family situation and needed protection can be more than just taken in and cared for (fostered) by another family, but they can become a part of that family is awesome and important. I understand the system is not perfect and has a lot of problems. It doesn't always work out, it's not always a good situation and or family, there are spiritual, emotional, mental, and sometimes physical problems that often come with the child (especially the older ones) that can make transition, trust and accepting love difficult.

But with all the flaws in the system due to it being filled with broken people living under the curse, yes both the adopting and the adopted, it is still a way to protect and help the little ones. They get a new name. Their rights of inheritance are guaranteed by law to insure that they are treated as family in inheritance issues. They are taken from danger and possible death and given a place of refuge. They gain family and yet keep family.

I am grateful for adoption, because without it I may never have met the wonderful, smart, interesting, pretty, messed up girl in junior high with me who would become my bride nearly 30 years later. I was friends with the oldest of her adopted brothers in junior high and high school and became friends with the younger during college. I saw Leah once after 1987, pretty close to exactly ten years later, and then we started talking over twenty years after that when God knew the time was right to put us in touch. It turns out she was even more interesting, thoughtful and thought provoking and had grown out of pretty into absolutely beautiful. She totally stole my heart.

But when we got married I gained more than just the family that I had known personally, or known of, for years. In addition to the brother and sister I had met about the same time I met Leah, I gained two more brothers and a sister from her biological family. I have tons of nieces and nephews. Some cool and interesting in-law spouses and  aunts and uncles. I have an amazing mother-in-law, and the one person I can talk sports with the most in my family just happens to be my father-in-law. My life is enriched because of the people that Leah brought into it that she was born with and kept and those she had added to her when she was adopted.

I wish Leah and her three siblings had not had to endure what led to their being separated, and I regret that the situations were not ideal for any of them. I pray for complete healing and restoration in the hearts and lives of every person involved. But I believe it kept Leah alive, which of course led to her amazing daughter and son, who have also been made an important part of my life. There's a grandson now too, who might not have been able to light up the world with his smile had someone not adopted an older (grade school) child out of a messed up faster system.

A lot of healing has taken place in Leah, and she is one of the most amazing, compassionate people I have even known. I love her more today than when she stole my heart. It's beautiful and inspiring to see what God has done in her life. Her adopted Heavenly Daddy is perfect. He's also my adopted Daddy, and I fully believe that He brought us together to bless one another and help each other grow and heal and walk with Him. God does so much more than just save us from judgment.

He doesn't just make us servants. He makes us sons and daughters. He adopts us. We become legally His and are protected from the obligations and threats of the old master. He gives us a new name, and He provides for our needs.  He restores and heals our souls. He tattoos our name in His palm (Isaiah 49:16). He promised to make us co-heirs with His only non-adopted child, His Son, Jesus. The King has pulled us from the dungeons and the gutters and the triage centers and made us His His children. We are truly and legally His. Adopted. It may take time to restore us, to heal the damage from our life before. The older we are when we start living like someone from our new family instead of like someone who hasn't yet been adopted, the more messed up we likely are. Even those who are adopted young can get messed up and hurt by their brothers and sisters who are adopted into the family but still broken.

But there is healing from the brokenness. There is comfort from the pain. There is joy in the promise that the work will be done. What an amazing process. What an awesome miracle. We become new people and part of an new family without having to earn it, or deserve it, or manipulate or buy our way in (that can't be done by the way). The only thing that we are asked to do in return for such lavish love and acceptance is to love each other. To love our new brothers and sisters, even when we disagree like family can do, and to remember our old family that hasn't been adopted yet. Love those who remain children of the curse. Daddy loves them and wants them to be family too, and they may not realize that if they think we deserted them, abandoned them, hate them now that we have a new family or any such nonsense as that. We are to love them even more and even better than we ever could have before and introduce them through the love of action to our new Daddy so that they can get adopted and rescued from the bondage and brokenness and misery and curse, just as we were.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 18 ~ Compassion Cripple Trains For Marathon

Recently the call to compassion has been on my heart a lot. You would think that someone who preaches that the law of love is all that matters would have this awesome compassionate spirit, right? Well, if you thought that you would be wrong. I have to work at it. I have to use the power of grace to do what is not normally in my nature, or in my desire, to do.

That's not entirely true. It depends on the type of act of compassion that is needed. I am pretty good with my money, what little there is. I can give to the hungry and the needy. I give to others who are giving of themselves. But I really have a hard time giving of time without doing so begrudgingly. I am not a social person anymore, and I truly have become quite the homebody. It's hard for me to sacrifice my time with Leah, even to be of service, even when I remember that it's not my time. It's His. Everyone has things that are harder to put on the altar than others.

The point is that I am not naturally a compassionate person. That may not have been true during childhood, but the selfishness of addiction and the environment of prison both worked to weaken compassion in me. At the same time, I know that you can't walk in love without walking in compassion. Compassion means to have sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. According to the dictionary it's a noun, but according to Christ it's a verb. I'll trust Jesus for truth over Webster any day. The scripture never talks about Jesus having compassion without accompanying action, He was moved with compassion and full of compassion, and it always lead to acting to help the one suffering and in need.

Is the sympathy and concern real if it doesn't do something within us and stir us to action? This is a case where I need grace, and God has come through big time. One thing that He has done is given me the perfect helpmate. Leah is one of the most compassionate people I know. She is moved with compassion, will weep over the pain and needs of others, even others she doesn't know. She doesn't have to try to figure out how to care about this person or that person. She only needs to know what God wants her to do about it. Pray. Give. Work. Combo? What would you have me do for them Lord, what can I do for them Lord?

It's awesome and beautiful to me, and inspires me and reminds me of the call to compassion. It was Leah's recent project on compassion that really put me in that place of realizing that I need to go further, do more, care more. Compassion is one of her gifts, and she understands that it is indeed the heart of Christ. If we are going to claim to follow Him and live unselfishly, than compassion is a major component of the love we are called to live. Yesterday she and I discussed it more, that Christians need to begin to move in true compassion for the world, the broken and those in need as Christ did. Her heart is filled with the desire and need to spread the call to compassion. Then, last night a song I heard on a secular show hit me over the head with it again. We are called to love one another, not to fight each other. Acting on compassion is an essential act of love.

So this morning as I prayed about what to write, this idea of acting on compassion, that we are called to do what Jesus did on an even larger scale and what Jesus did was to love others more than self and to be full of and moved to act on compassion. But I hesitated. Leah should be writing this. She's the one full of compassion. I have to work for it. Something in my spirit said that she will write on it, teach on it, share on it and show it and the need for it to others. But this morning I have something she doesn't have. She is a naturally born swimmer in the sea of compassion and none of the hardship she has endured has hindered that. But some of us aren't that way. We either aren't born with it, or the world and life and pain and selfishness have beat it down and buried it so deep it might as well be dead, if it's not. We don't know how to stir up the spirit of compassion.

So for folks like me who would in all honesty much rather stay home with their spouse than go hang out with and talk to someone who's hurting, who would rather take his wife out to eat than give to feed someone else, who would rather watch college football than go volunteer on a Saturday? Well, we need to act on compassion even more! We don't get a pass on what is one of the most dominate aspects of who Christ was just because it isn't easy or come naturally! That's what grace is for. It's not in my nature or within my power to stay sober any more than it is to walk in compassion, but I do that because of who He is, not because of who I am.

We are called to love like Jesus, not like us. And the truth is, whether you are a compassionate person naturally or not, that's not who you are. Leah may be full of compassion in my eyes, but compared to Christ, she falls way short. We all do. Mother Theresa fell short compared to Christ. Loving like Jesus is just not who any of us are naturally, on our own. We need Him to love through us, and we need grace to walk in His love and compassion for others. So whether you need a lot of grace for this or just a little, His grace is sufficient and available. But it takes something from us as well.

I have a friend who started in recovery around the same time that I did. She's a runner. When I say she's a runner, I mean a serious runner, as in has successfully run marathons. But that is not who she always was. And it didn't happen overnight. She began running in the early days of recovering to help clear her head and stop the "crazies." That didn't mean it didn't tire her out. It doesn't mean that she didn't have to work at it, or that it was easy, or even that she always wanted to and felt like running. But along with the exhaustion and aches and sacrifice of time, energy, diet and other things, it brought benefits. She began to love the challenge and the act of following through on discipline and commitment that made her train and showing up. Discipline and commitment are not something high up on the list of traits used to describe addicts before recovery.

To build the compassionate heart muscle we need grace (or it's impossible), but we also must train and work at it. We don't wait until it feels good to do it. We don't only do it when it's easy and convenient and we're in the mood. We must surrender to the call of grace to use the power of that grace on behalf of others. We obey the call to compassion. Every chance. Every day. By grace.

It may suck at first. It may (read as will) hurt and make us ache. That's the breaking down of the muscles of selfishness. There is something God has put on my heart to help someone with, and it's going to cost me some time, including four our five hours Saturday. My first thought was that's a long time to be away from Leah when she's not at work, and my second thought was that I was going to miss the football game. See? Selfishness and self-centeredness is still an issue with me. Preaching doesn't make me perfect. I can't deny self without grace any more now than before. I just have more desire to do so and am quicker to surrender to the power of grace now than I used to be. I will be there Saturday, and I'm actually looking forward to it...a little.

We obey, by grace. We do what compassion and love would have us do, regardless of what our feelings say, just like my friend trains in rain and when she doesn't feel like running the same as when the weather is wonderful and she's eager to stretch her legs. We pretend we're in a Nike commercial and Just Do It, but I mean we surrender to grace and allow the compassion of Christ to move through us. We can't manufacture compassion anymore than we can walk free of self. We have pray and ask God to give us His heart for others, to give us wisdom about what to do when we receive it and the willingness and strength to move in the compassion of Christ.

But here's the good news. As we walk with Jesus and obey the call by grace we become more like Him. Running a mile stops hurting. We begin to look forward to those small acts of compassion. We find ourselves becoming compassionate people and enjoying it. We begin to seek out ways to push ourselves in this area. We stop dragging our heals at running a mile and start training for marathons. Yes, it still costs. In fact, it costs more. But we get more out of it. It becomes even more who we are and people who see us won't even realize that it's not who we are. We've become runners because of grace. They see the heart and compassion of Christ in our lives, and we love that. We love the changes and the challenges and the act of compassion. But it doesn't happen overnight. It won't happen without sacrifice of self and obeying even when it isn't easy or fun. It's impossible without grace. And no matter how compassionate we become there will be a call to go further. When the marathons become routine, the Ironman Triathlon presents itself, and we may even have to learn to swim before we can begin training. But by grace we can develop a heart muscle of compassion. And if we want the love of God to be displayed to those who need it, we must work on our compassion. People will not see the love of Christ unless His compassion is evident in our actions more than our creed and our words.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Joy In Hardship

Dalyn Woodard shares on facing hardships and struggles with the right perspective. We will all have hard times but we can be victors through Christ rather than victims, regardless of whether or not our circumstances improve. The message,  "Joy In Hardship," is about 52 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, November 16 2016.

At the end of the message, I closed with a song from Audra Lynn's Fading album called "Yet I Will Sing." This is a beautiful song that I heard for the first time as I prepared for this message Wednesday afternoon, and the message is a wonderful prayer of commitment and hope regardless of what may be happening in our lives. From what I was told by the person who introduced me to the song, the entire album is awesome. Audra is a friend of my friend, Jonathan Baldwin, who has his own excellent worship album. I will add Audra's song below the message for those who would like to listen to it. It is worth the time.

It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 17 ~ Wasn't Really Wasted Time

Sometimes we may have dreams and plans and inspiration for what we believe we should do that don't come to be. At least they don't happen in the way that we think they will or should, the way we planned or wanted. But that doesn't mean that the time working for or planning for that path is wasted. It may be preparation for something else, but needed preparation nonetheless. It is possible that it may become a part of what we actually end up doing, only not in the way that we thought.

One example is the Apostle Paul planning to stop at Rome to minister and equip for a trip to Spain. This was on his heart, and he believed he would one day do it to the point where he began planning for the trip. It never happened. Paul didn't make it to Spain, at least not by way of Rome as planned (Scholars disagree as to whether he ever made it there at all or not). But his plans were not a waste. Part of the reason that Paul wrote the letter to the Romans that contains so much wonderful doctrine and truth was to let the church in Rome know that he wanted to minister to them, visit (relax and refresh before the next missionary trip) and equip for the trip he wanted to take to Spain. He knew that they were an established church that he did not help plant, so he shared the doctrine he taught in order that they would know that his doctrine was sound, that he preached the same Jesus as the other apostles and they would know what to expect from his teaching. Because of his plans and preparations for a journey that never happened we have the book of Romans to learn from and the church in Rome knew him and his message when he ended up there as a prisoner.

Another more recent and secular example can be found in Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry had plans for a television series that would be a sci-fi take on Wagon Train. He called it Star Trek and filmed a pilot about the Starship Enterprise and its captain, Christopher Pike in 1965. The pilot was rejected. A year later, a second pilot was made with another captain, James Tiberius Kirk. It was accepted and a franchise was born that led to a dozen movies and six different television series (including the little known and short-lived animated series). The first pilot failed, which is why this is the year sci-fi geeks like me are celebrating Star Trek's 50th anniversary this year and not its 51st. But nothing was wasted. The original pilot, The Cage, had it's footage cut for flashback used in the original series of Star Trek's only two-part episode, The Managerie, Part 1 of which aired for the first time 50 years ago today.

A final example from personal experience. When I first started college I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I first chose math as a major because it came easy to me, I wouldn't have to study much and could party more. Then I realized what my options for careers were with a math degree and no science or computer to go with it (I was an English minor). I changed majors. I didn't choose English for basically the same reason. I settled on journalism, because it was a field that seemed halfway interesting where you could receive a steady paycheck for writing. That led to a required basic photography course, and I fell in love with the camera. I changed my emphasis to photojournalism. I always felt the journalism idea simply took me to photography, something I loved and wanted to do for a living (preferably as a photojournalist and an artist). But the wreckage of my past, my eyesight deterioration and other things have turned photography into something I used to do or enjoy from time to time as a hobby. But I use what I was taught while studying journalism every day in ministry. It wasn't wasted, and though I wasn't walking with God when I made the choices I made that led me to this place, God used every step of my past, including the plans that never came to be, the paths I destroyed and the dreams that fell apart, to prepare me and bring me to a place where He could use me.

It can be discouraging when we feel we know where, what, how and when God is calling us to something, begin to prepare for it, and then God changes it. But the preparation may have been necessary for us, and there may have also been some service during that time in that place that we were needed to do to help someone and to give God glory. It can also be heartbreaking when we look back over lives filled with scars where choices we made, things others did, and life have simply made a mess out of what we thought, wanted and or dreamt we would be doing. When I was a child one answer I never ever gave to the what do you want to be question was preacher. This was not my goal or plan. And my personal hopes and plans went up in the smoke of the fires of destruction I set in my own life. But God used it all, I am not ashamed of my past nor wish to close the door on it because I know that my experience (the word of my testimony) is a weapon to be wielded against the enemy and can and will help others held hostage by the enemy to find freedom and life. What God led me to, even though it wasn't on my own radar, is the perfect fit for me, and there is something more satisfying and purposeful about it than I ever felt doing anything else, including photography. What God did for me, He can do for you. Try not to feel like all is lost because expectations about how life would be failed. It's not wasted. God will use it all as we surrender to Him, and His salvage job with what's left of our life will still be better, more satisfying, than anything we could have wished for or done on our own.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

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.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 15 ~ Soldiers Under Command

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

- Ephesians 6:12

I read a book, Blue Like Jazz, recently where the author, Donald Miller, postulated that the idea of metaphor within Christianity, especially the metaphor where we are called like soldiers to a war, hymns such as Onward Christian Soldier, and other fighting, battle and war phrasing has caused us to treat those who aren't Christians in an unloving manner.He advocates choosing better metaphor to describe what Christ has called us to do and how we are to interact with others.

I see where Miller is coming from and even agreed with what his position at the time I read the book. I still agree that if the battle, the solider under God's command idea is used as metaphor to direct, guide or describe in any way the way we treat or interact with anyone it is seriously messed up. It is wrong. It will indeed cause problems with people, drive those we were called to serve and help away and turn them into our enemies, and if we walk in this mentality it makes it impossible to live as Jesus commanded. We are called to love, even our enemies, to treat those we encounter as neighbors whom we are to love and serve, we are called to lay down our life for others as He did.

So I am with Miller when he says the church has no business treating sinners like they're our enemies or acting like we are at war with people. Bad metaphor. But another problem with this idea is the idea that it is a metaphor at all. See, we, as believers, have far too often turned our weapons on our fellow humans because we have gotten into the wrong battle mentality. And yet we have also neglected to remember that we are indeed called to war. It's not a metaphor. It's real.

Only we are not supposed to be fighting people. At all. We do not fight with flesh and blood. We were never called to wield the two-edged Sword against flesh, against others. We are fighting strongholds of sin, fighting the effects of the curse, fighting spiritual battles against spiritual foes. But when we try to completely dismiss the warrior call, when we forget that we are at war we go the wrong direction. We are not to be fighting people. We are to love people. So when we take the call to war as a reason to attack those who do not agree with us, we have failed miserably the Commander's call to love and lay down our lives for the broken and the captive. But when forget that we are indeed at war, we fail in another way.

This earth is not our home. We are on the battlefield to rescue, help, serve and love those who have been born captured by the enemy, as we once were ourselves. No matter if they have Stockholm syndrome or not, the hostages are not our enemy. They are one of our missions. The other is to overcome sin and walk free and clean by the power of the Spirit. When we remember that sin is the enemy, when we remember that we are indeed in a fight that will not end while we are on this side of eternity, we remain vigilant against the selfish desires that lead us back into bondage. We remain determined to obey our Commander, do His will and reject sin so that we can stay alive and healthy. We are called to deny self, stop being selfish and walking in sin, and to love God and others. Those are the commands and the battle plan of God. He defeated sin and death and the curse by doing just that. He refused to sin, ever, denied His own will in favor of the Father's, even to the very point of laying down His life in place of those who hated Him that we might come to know and love Him and be rescued to life. That is a battle so stressful He sweated drops of blood.

When we forget the war is going on, that there are strongholds of sin in our lives and people who need to be rescued, that we are to fight here and pray for the rest that comes from going home, we begin treating this life like R&R. This is not where we fight sin and the effects of the curse, this is where we see how close we can get to the enemy without being turned or killed. The answer is not close at all. Sin in our life must be put to death, not flirted with. It is not OK to coexist with that enemy. But it's not the sin in others we are to fight. We are not to beat, preach or force the hell out of anyone. We are called to love the hell out of people, to go into the darkness of the grave with them and lead them to the light of rescue.

But make no mistake, we are at war. 2 Corinthians 10 tells us that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, not material, not of this realm. That means we do have warfare and are at war. It's not metaphor, But just as our weapons are not of this realm, neither are our enemies. The enemies do not have flesh; they are not people. When we fail to remember and demonstrate the love of Christ to those who have not yet been rescued from the enemy then we in turn are in dereliction of duty and are aiding and abetting the enemy. It is deadly sin.

Here is what we are to be fighting with the Sword of the Spirit, the two-edged Sword of Truth. The strongholds of sin in our own life. This is a call to combat the arguments and lies against God in our minds, to bring our own thoughts into captivity and instead think and act on the thoughts of God which are love and truth. We fight against our own disobedience. This is our battle and we must wage that war. Do not get comfortable with the sin in our own lives or we will end up wounded soldiers unable to do our duty or worse, we will end up traitors, helping the enemy of God destroy the very people He sent us to love. Love others. Fight our own flesh. Walk free and serve. Deny self and lay down our lives to help the hostages. Love those Jesus loved, which is all of us, including the folks who spit on us, curse us, reject us, etc. Especially those our natural bent would be to not love.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 14 ~ Don't Move The Mountain; Climb It

I sometimes want to be a rock climber. When I'm really crazy I even want to be a mountain climber. When watching others do it, it looks glorious and amazing and seems to be that dramatic struggle to live and overcome that good film makers can make look heroic and essential to a satisfying life. I have a lot of respect for the people who actually are dedicated, disciplined and crazy enough to climb mountains.

I am not. In the spirit of rigorous honesty, I am far too lazy. You have to be strong to do that stuff. It's hard and hurts and, even on an easy climb, it is uncomfortable. Have you ever really observed what climbers put their hands and knees through? Not too mention that it may look brave and cool to hang by fingertips from rock thousands of feet above the ground, but, um, no. I'd not do as well as I'd like to think, imagine and dream I would at heights like that. I also quit doing the whole dancing with death thing about the time I got clean and sober and started living a life worth living. It's amazing how valuing life makes one less willing to risk throwing it away for an adrenaline rush. I don't ride my motorcycle at over 100 MPH without a helmet any more either.

But the beauty of mountain climbing is at the top. It's the view that you strove for, that few have seen from that angle because few were willing to pay the price to see it. Those who truly love to climb actually joy in the struggle. The closer they get to the goal of this or that peak the more joy they feel. Keep in mind that the climb gets more difficult the higher you get. The air is thinner. It's harder to breathe. The trail is gone. It's hanging, and sticking fingers in toes in tiny cracks in the face of the mountain and the smallest holds and ledges separating climber from certain death. It's pain. It's struggle. It's dangerous. They live for it. It is their passion and their pleasure. If you used some machine to carve a path to the top of the mountain and open a observatory that people can reach with ease and comfort and stand in a climate controlled shelter to enjoy the view, true climbers would flee the area in disgust, never to return. That might be when I finally see the top of the mountain, but I would be missing something.

These crazy climbers, of which I am not, understand that ease and comfort isn't the point. There does exist a joy and peace that comes through struggle and hardship and risk. In pursuing relationship with God we are spiritually called to places where there are no paths. It takes effort. It takes discipline,  practice and exercise to get into shape. It takes trusting everything to a little piece of ledge that doesn't look safe because God says it will hold and that it's the way up. The elements are against you. It's not ease and delight and comfort and freedom from trouble and hardship like some people try to say and sell. The beginning hills may not be that bad. But the longer you walk with God the higher you desire to go. The hills no longer satisfy. I want to be closer. Experience more. Go higher. And that means bigger mountains. The risk is greater. The air is harder to breathe. Every muscle begins to ache from the stress and the strain it takes to hold on and power up the face of the impossible. Looking around, death is inches away and safety is thousands of feet below.

And in the midst of that is life worth living. In the midst of that is joy. Hanging from near nothing over nothing but death, still far from the goal of the peak, is peace. And in the journey is love that makes it all worth it. At the top is everything, and then it's off to find the next peak to strive for. The next impossible thing God is calling  us to do. We've been tricked into believing that joy is the absence of struggle and pain and sacrifice. But I've seen the joy on the faces of those who climb. It's real. And it always seems stronger and more real than  the joy of the gamer who just beat the virtual mountain from the comfort of his couch. I can't quite bring myself to pursue the peaks for that joy though. I have counted the cost, and the price is too high. But the joy that comes from seeking God, from climbing those spiritual mountains, has made my life worth living, and I can tell you from experience that if you want true joy, it's not found in finding a way to level the road and remove the struggles. It's found in having God lead you up the steepest climb, hanging from broken fingernails, in the cold, fighting for breath in the thin air and sleeping tied to a mountain and overcoming it all to see the beauty of love from a vantage that those who dodge the pain and are too lay to climb can't experience.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 13 ~ Bad Battery

I am shopping for a new motorcycle battery. I bought the one I have a little over a year ago, and it has never been much good. I should have taken it back and replaced it from the start, but I just kept trying to make it work and borrowed my father's charger a lot. The first real issue I had was that once the cooler weather hit and it started dropping into the 50's or lower at night it would not hold a charge well enough to crank in the morning, regardless of how much I'd ridden the day before. When it got really cold, for East Texas anyway, I would have to jump it in the morning, ride to work and throw a charger on the battery by lunch or I couldn't crank it to get home.

Once the warm weather returned it would crank the bike fine as long as it didn't sit for more than a couple of days. Now it's getting a little cooler again, and it's worse. It's not charging while running. The alternator will keep it going for as long as I want to ride, but if I have to kill it I better be somewhere I can charge the battery or jump it off. It's not even marginally dependable. I have to get a new one.

What does this have to do with recovery and spirituality? Well, it occurred to me this morning as I struggled to get going that my heart is a lot like this defective battery. Perhaps you can relate, Dear Reader. We have a 24 hour reprieve from the bondage Christ has freed us from, contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition. If we do not maintain our spiritual condition and contact with God, then it becomes harder and harder to turn on the power within us that gives us the ability to deny self and obey God, to flee and resist temptation and stay stopped in those areas where we needed God to defeat in our lives.

As long as my spiritual battery is charged through proximity to my Power Source, I am able to walk in freedom and do what's right. I can't speak for anyone else, but my battery sucks. I can't let it sit for a few days or get cold and expect it to fire up when needed. I can't change that, and I can't replace my battery. This is who I am. What I can do is plug into my relationship with God every chance I get throughout the day, end my day charging up and give it just a little more juice in the mornings.

If I don't do that then as my spiritual condition weakens the struggle becomes harder. I slip slowly back into the bondage of self. Sooner or later the power will be insufficient and I will be left stranded without defense against selfishness, the first drink, the first drug or whatever it is that I need God's power to keep me free from. It's not that God failed me. It's that I failed to pursue the relationship that empowers me and tried to go too long on my own power. But I am weak and defective and don't have much power of my own and don't hold a charge long or in extremes. I must charge daily, and I highly suspect that this is true for most. Charge up, ride free and enjoy the journey without fear of insufficient power to carry us through and keep us going.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ November 12 ~ Keeping Up With The Joneses

I had a rough night. Woke up at 3 AM and dozed off and on until I finally got up several hours later. After that 3 AM wake up dream, none of the dozing lasted longer than an hour. So I had a series of naps rather than rest. I had weird dreams during each stretch of dozing. But it was that first one, that first bad dream that caused me to wake with a start at six minutes after three that is the focus of my thoughts at the moment.

I had what I call a jonesing dream. A jonesing dream is a nightmare where I am either for some reason in relapse mode and am literally hurting from withdrawal, which I haven't experienced in years, and having cravings that are maddening. In jonesing dreams I am always either in recovery and struggling not to use, fighting the urge and trying to resist, or I have already gone back out or never recovered and am struggling but unable to find drugs. In each case I wake up in a near panic with a sense of urgency to fix.

I haven't had a dream like this in a long time, and this morning, that sense of urgency to fix lasted about as long as it took me to come to understanding that it was a dream and I was in bed. As the dream faded, so did the desire to drug. That my Dear Reader is a miracle. It is a miracle that I was able to go back to sleep at all, even if it was only for serial napping, and it is a miracle that as I write this about seven hours later I have absolutely zero desire or sense of need for a drink or a drug.

I used to have these dreams when I used. I would wake up and fix. If I didn't have drugs, I would at least drink myself into numbness. If I had neither I would crave, scheme, search and such until I found something to take, whether that took minutes, hours or days. When I first began in recovery dreams like that would spin me off and I could barely function. It amped up the struggle and the need to fight to stay clean. I spent a lot of time calling friends for counsel and help during the days of early recovery when these dreams were common.

I began drinking and drugging at a young age and could have been easily diagnosed as addict and alcoholic before I turned 14 had I sought help or gotten caught more. I had short stretches of being clean or being sober, never both at the same time, as I went from one chemical to another to try to prove that I wasn't hooked on whatever thing I was laying aside. Never mind that my usage of other things simply increased whenever I would stop using something.

Even prison didn't stop me from drinking and drugging, although it did slow me down some. Chemicals are readily available and hooch can be made, but it was not my experience that it was easier to get. There are drive through liquor stores here. It doesn't get much easier than that. Anyway, I didn't get serious about recovery and stopping the drugs that I could never stay stopped on for long and without increasing drinking or other drugs and the drinking, which regardless of what other drugs I did or didn't do, I could never stay stopped when I stopped, until I was out of prison and on parole.

I got serious then because I was afraid that I would end up back in prison, and I would rather be dead. Eight days into my freedom my bondage drove me to foolish choices that could have sent me back inside. I sought help for real. I got off parole in 2009, and that was also the year that I had my first six months completely clean and sober, the longest stretch I'd had in my life since I was 13. I did go back out after 15 months, but today I have been clean and sober 6.5 years.

I am not saying that to brag. I am not saying that to say see what I did. No, what I did was use. I drank or drugged or both for 25 years of my life, no matter how much damage I did to my life (and the lives of others) or how miserable I became. That's what I did. I couldn't stop. Well, that's not true. Stopping was easy. I did it a thousand times. I couldn't stay stopped. I didn't do this. For me to be clean and sober today, for me not to be jonesing for hours after a dream like I had this morning, these things are both miracles. And the funny thing is that they are not even the best or biggest miracles and blessings in my life anymore. The miracle of recovery had to happen before the others, but it was the start of a life worth living, not the end.

Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of that power, God. My past is proof that I could not control my drive to seek my own pleasure, comfort and feelings of security or escape from feeling unable to get those things, no matter what that drive did to me or those I cared about. I could not manage my life or my drug and alcohol use. I believe, because of experience, that no human power could relieve me of my alcoholism and drug addiction, of my general addiction to self and all the bondage that causes. My recovery is testament to the truth that there is indeed a God, a God who not only can set us free and restore our lives but desires to do just that, and that He will do so if He is sought.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.