Pointing To Greater

Who and what was Melchizedek? Dalyn Woodard continues the series, "Jesus Is Most Excellent: A Study Of Hebrews," with a look at one of the reasons why we can trust Jesus as our anchor and how the Old Testament scriptures can double as fact and illustrations of what Jesus came to do.  The message, "Pointing To Greater," is about an hour long, and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on May 15, 2019. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. Video below.

You can hear the first message in the Jesus Is Most Excellent: A Study Of Hebrews series, "It's All About Jesus," here, the second message, "A Most Excellent Word," here. The third message, "Jesus Is Enough," here. The fourth message, "More Excellent Than Angels," here. The fifth message, "Defeating The Dangerous Drift," here. The sixth message, "The Most Excellent Man," here. The seventh message, "The Most Excellent Help," here. The eighth message, "Consider Jesus," here. The ninth message, "Don't Lose Your Rest," here. The tenth message, "There Remains A Rest," here. The eleventh message, "Living And Active," here. The twelfth message, "Hang On And Come Close,"  here. The thirteenth message, "We Need A Mediator," here. The fourteenth message, "Wax Build Up," here. The fifteenth message, "Growing Up Is Not Optional," here. The sixteenth message, "Don't Get Burned," here. The seventeenth message, "Blessed Assurance," here, and the eighteenth message, "A Sure And Steadfast Anchor," here.

This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

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 Echo ~ May 15, 2019 ~ Progress Not Perfection Needs Progress

Progress not perfection is all that keeps us from giving up in despair at times, especially in the beginning. When we have never walked with God or have played the prodigal for so long the pig pen is all we know, it becomes first nature to do anything and everything but the will of God for us. When we come to begin the spiritual journey to freedom and new life, it can be so difficult to accept and utilize the grace that will enable us to make the right choices and steps.

There is often a lot of falling down and getting back up, asking for forgiveness and trying again. I am two days from six years clean and sober but had I not relapsed more than once since the first day I realized I was truly powerless and in need of help I would have seven and a half years. But I don't beat myself up over the relapses and the setbacks because I learn from them, they give me experience with which to help others, and because I believe in grace and forgiveness and a loving, understanding God who takes us forward from glory to glory and from hopeless to new life over time.

But before we get too comfortable in the idea that not moving forward as much or as quickly as we should is OK because we are only supposed to be making progress not be perfect, let us remember that we are called to strive for perfection and that to accept progress rather than perfection we need to be making progress.  When we have been in rebellion to God and in bondage for so long we know nothing but the slavery, to even look off in the distance from Egypt's border toward the Promised Land and decide to trust God and begin the journey is progress, even if we haven't taken a single step. But if time passes and we still haven't taken a step further than believing there is Promised Land and something different out there somewhere, we're not making progress.

At the start of the journey to freedom, we may look back so often it would seem our head is on a swivel. We might even make one step forward and two steps back at times. This period is often when we hear the encouragement of progress not perfection. I heard it often as I struggled. I would get about two weeks sober and then fall, having to start over again. It took me months to get one month clean and sober, which I celebrated by getting high and drunk.

But at the time, that indeed was progress. For a little while moving three feet forward and then six feet back is progress when compared to constantly going in the wrong direction. But if it doesn't become one step forward one step back, and then two steps forward one step back, there will never be any real progress. There has to come a point where there is more forward progress than negative movement or there is no progress.

The Israelites  got free from their slavery in Egypt, but they stopped making progress. They didn't return to the slavery of the past, but they also didn't experience the joy and blessing of the promise either. They wandered in circles in the desert for 40 years to finally reach a place they would have found theirs in a few months had they followed God. Most of them died in a dry place instead of in the lushness of promise. That's not progress.

Only God and you can honestly evaluate if you are still moving enough to be calling it progress or if you have begun to wander the desert. I myself have taken time away from pursuing the promise to spin in the sand of the desert. I can attest that it us a dry and miserable period where I thirsted for God, experiencing Him just enough to remember He's real and stay alive, to keep me from returning to slavery, but not enough to experience the flowing milk and honey of having my needs all met and living happy, joyous and free. If we have become the wanderer, we do not need to make things worse by beating ourselves up or reacting by refusing to try because we failed.

The truth is that whenever we begin trying on our own. we will come to a place of failure. We need grace to make progress. So let us be quick when we realize that we have stopped moving forward or when we continue to make U-turns that give back the yardage we have made to repent, ask for forgiveness and surrender to His direction. He will lead us out of the desert if we let Him. It may be quickly, it may be slowly, but it will happen. But may we not confuse slow with stationary.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

May 15, 2016.

This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments, the weekly Unshackled Echo and or listens to the Audio Messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them on social media, commented on the blog or replied to an email subscription. 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 and sermons to more people by sharing this? Hitting the share button or forwarding this to a friend 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.

Unshackled Echo May 14, 2019 ~ Momma Giraffes Aren't Mean

There is no shortage of inspirational and moral stories floating around out there, especially on the Internet. Not only is it easy to come across one fairly often, they're hard to avoid, especially if you participate in social media. Stories like the young woman about to be tricked into marrying someone she doesn't want to marry thinking outside the box to use the bad man's trick against him. There are stories about deaf frogs that are supposed to encourage us not to listen to others telling us to give up. One that is easy to find from many sources is the inspirational story about mother giraffes and their newborn babies.

The general idea is that baby giraffes immediately face two hardships. First a ten foot drop due to the mother giving birth standing up; followed by the mother kicking the baby and sending him sprawling. There are variations on the story from the kicking happening only if the baby doesn't get up fast enough to it happening right away with every time the baby starts to rise the mother kicking it back down until it gives up and then kicking it to make it try once more! The idea is that the baby needs to be able to get to its feet quickly if it is going to survive the predators and the hardship of the mother's rough treatment is forcing it to learn this important lesson so that it can survive. If you do a search on Google for this story, you will find many versions to choose from, including many Christian writers and speakers and ministers who use this story as part of some object lesson to remind us that if God is treating us roughly it may be just that we need to learn a lesson that will help us survive later down the road.

It's a good story. There are so many people who feel like God has been mean to them. How awesome to have a tale to tell to give a different perspective on the beatings of our past. The only problem is that it isn't true, or if it is true, it isn't the norm. I found many people claiming this phenomena, but searching led to no documentation.  Even the links that supposedly confirmed the stories led to sites that either were only another person retelling the story or all they confirmed was the mother gives birth standing up, although she squats and the fall is a little over half of the ten feet many of these stories claim.

Animal Planet, The Giraffe Conservation Society and other more legitimate sources say nothing about such treatment. This morning I have watched multiple videos of giraffes giving birth and the moments afterward, and not one kick occurred. So who cares? It's an inspirational story. What does it matter if it's bogus? It's a moral fable.

It matters because it's not being presented as a fable. People are repeating this story as fact and we're learning a false lesson about a real God. The lesson is of a mean mom helping prepare her child to make what we feel like we've been through with Daddy more acceptable to us. It's almost like we are supposed to hear this story and say, OK, God. I get it now. You're were helping me learn something important when you were mean to me, so I forgive You.

But the truth that multiple videos and the animal sites I read showed was not mother giraffes being hard and mean but encouraging. They licked and nuzzled their babies. They cleaned them and made their presence known and stood guard. Daddy does the same for us. Yes, there are times life is hard and we have to endure some hurts and weaknesses. Sometimes the lions show up while we can't stand. There are times we have trouble and are wobbly on our goofy little legs. But Daddy is not mean to us. He doesn't bully or mistreat us in order to toughen us up and make us strong. That's human thinking. God made us strong by becoming weak, taking on our debt, dying and then giving us His power to replace and bolster our own.

We don't need to understand God's meanness so that we  can forgive Him, because the idea that God has been cruel to teach us some much needed life lesson is a myth. God has not been cruel. God stood between our vulnerability and the lions. He encouraged  us. He cleaned us. He called us to Him so that we could be protected and strengthened and cared for. He fed us. He stood by us waiting for us and calling us to come to Him for shelter and supply when life was kicking us and the predators came for our blood.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

May 14, 2016.

This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments, the weekly Unshackled Echo and or listens to the Audio Messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them on social media, commented on the blog or replied to an email subscription. 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 and sermons to more people by sharing this? Hitting the share button or forwarding this to a friend 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.

Unshackled Echo ~ May 13, 2019 ~ Live Beyond Your Means

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. 

- Oscar Wilde

This is funny and sad at the same time, when taken as intended. The great drive we all have to live beyond our means, to have more than we can afford, including in non-financial areas, the concept of laugh now - cry later, is something that has created a hole that many of us struggle to get out of and not to return to. I have thought before that America's motto shouldn't be Land of the free;home of the brave any longer as much as Buy now; pay later. But I don't want to rant against the something for nothing, debt based, leave the mess for someone else to clean up structure our society has become.

The thought that crossed my mind when I most recently read this quote was how, tongue and cheek or not, it really is a call to responsibility and not living beyond our means. Then I thought, but we're supposed to. We are supposed to live extravagantly beyond our means. Not in a selfish, self centered, have everything I want but can't afford, give me what they have, kind of way, but in a child of a rich and loving Father kind of way. He paid the debt due on the damages of our lives so that we can have a relationship with Him and be free of judgment and condemnation. No matter what kind of special interest rate we might find, that is a bill we would never be able to afford.

Being made clean and giving us forgiveness we never deserve is just the beginning. Then Daddy generously pours out His Spirit to give us power that we could never harness or develop that makes us free and gives us the ability to walk with Him. To walk with God is due to extravagant grace and means that we are living well beyond our means, far outside the confines of what we can do and provide on our own. And wait; there's more! The returns and benefits of surrender to the Spirit include suddenly finding one's self living a life worth living with love from and for God and for others, with joy that doesn't get destroyed by a flat tire, an unexpected bill or even a life threatening illness, and peace that doesn't make sense considering the circumstances that can't shake it, in the very midst of the wind and rain of hurricane the spirit can stay calm.  What would a life like that be worth?

Well, like they say, if you have to ask, you can't afford it. And you can't. I can't either. No one can, because you can not do well enough, make enough, steal enough or fake enough to earn it. Earning it takes perfection, perfect righteousness and perfect holiness. Once again, none of us qualify. The best don't even come close. There are no good people in heaven. There are forgiven people in heaven. There are no low, low payments or even high, high payments or amount of work that can make this awesome life package ours. It is beyond our means.

But the answer isn't found in imagination, manipulation or working any system but rather in the very core of truth that created all that has ever been created. God has made this available to everyone who wants it. There is freedom. There is a life worth living. It is possible to be happy, joyous and free beyond not only our means but our wildest dreams and imagination. It's free. It costs everything that we have. Giving our all could never come close to affording all this and heaven too, but when we give everything, all our heart, mind and soul to Him who made the way, He makes it enough. We become His children, inheritors who live well beyond our means because Daddy made sure the bills have all been paid and everything we need is provided for.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

May 13, 2016.

This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments, the weekly Unshackled Echo and or listens to the Audio Messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them on social media, commented on the blog or replied to an email subscription. 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 and sermons to more people by sharing this? Hitting the share button or forwarding this to a friend 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.

Unshackled Echo ~ May 11, 2019 ~ Criminal Minds

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. 

- Dr. Reid on Criminal Minds quoting Stephen King

I happen to think it's really cool when a character in a book or show I enjoy quotes an author or musician that I like. This is one of those instances. Reid is one of my two favorite, kill them off and I quit watching the show forever, characters on Criminal Minds (Penelope is the other, by the way), and I think that Stephen King has an amazing insight into the minds and motives of average people with an unique ability to express what would happen when Average Joe finds himself in a not so average situation. I think King has also learned that it's much easier to write believable characters and ideas that are scary, sad and screwed up, because it's easier for most of us to identify and associate with that trio than the happy, joyous and free one.

We may not like to admit it, but it's true. Heartbreaking poetry is real and deep, while happy poetry is gift card cheese. Why? Because we don't believe it through and through. Because it is easier to believe in fear and sadness and everything being and going wrong. When I first began to feel good and happy after getting clean and sober I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't know how to handle good feelings, and I surely didn't know how to express it without sounding silly and sappy. And even when we do feel happy, joyous and free, there is all too often that underlying expectation for the rug to be pulled out, for the other shoe to drop, for a million other cliches we have to express the idea of life returning to its normal state of misery and chaos.

Why is it that when things are rough we don't wait for the other shoe to drop something good into our life? Because evil is easier to believe in, even when it reaches unbelievable and unthinkable expressions, than goodness, hope and love that never ends. It's easier to see. I think it's at least partly because we all have criminal minds.

We all have monsters that live in our minds who sometimes team up with the ghosts that dwell there as well. Monsters made up of fear, scars and hurt. Monsters that tell us to grab what we can while we can because everyone else will. Monsters that say hurt them before they hurt us or at least hurt them back. Monsters that say that person's monster is worse and different than mine so they deserve pain and death while I should get mercy and understanding. Monsters that don't bother hiding under the bed or in closets anymore and that try so hard to drown out the still small voice telling us that the monster in our heads is a lying, puffed-up, broken mess of self.

The answer, the small voice tells us, is another, a better way. A way that is not ours and is not natural to us. The way of love will light up and defeat the darkness, within and without. Our minds can be renewed and transformed, incapacitating the monsters and making the ghosts insubstantial. There is freedom from addictions and behavior patterns available, joy that doesn't depend on circumstances and happiness that doesn't live in fear of raining sneakers available to all of us. Criminal minds can become new minds of love, kindness and mercy when we surrender and kill the monster of self on the altar and freely receive the mind off Christ in its place.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

May 11, 2016.

This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments, the weekly Unshackled Echo and or listens to the Audio Messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them on social media, commented on the blog or replied to an email subscription. 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 and sermons to more people by sharing this? Hitting the share button or forwarding this to a friend 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.

Unshackled Echo ~ May 10, 2019 ~ Willing To Go To Any Lengths

I remember when I first began getting clean and sober, my second mentor often insisted that I comply to a certain way of thinking and agree to things that at the time I didn't feel had much of anything to do with my sobriety. Whenever I would balk and stiffen my neck in rebellion the response would in some way incorporate the idea of any lengths. The any lengths concept comes from the main text of Alcoholics Anonymous, chapter 5 How It Works, but the first part of this chapter is now used in a wide variety of step based programs dealing with many different issues and addictions. It is the introduction to the 12 steps and is found in a sentence that reads,

if you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. 

But exactly what that means is open to some interpretation, or at least is disputed. To me, it always meant that in order to work the steps successfully and get clean I had to be willing to do whatever it would take to do that. I have heard people say that if that meant they  needed to stand on their head in a corner for an hour they would do so, but I never felt that way. For me it meant if you could convince me that standing on my head in the corner for an hour would help me work the steps I would do it, otherwise you could take the suggestion to stand on my head and shove it. I wasn't going to do it. I took this approach with more than one of the suggestions people gave me of things I needed to do in order to get sober. If it were step related, I did it. If it lined up with or could be read to me from the book, I did it. If it seemed the personal opinion of Mr. or Ms. So-And-So, I did it or didn't as I felt, wanted or saw fit.

I listened after a couple of relapses at work when I was told that until I found myself set free from the obsession to drink and drug I needed to quit that job. I couldn't stay sober surrounded by people drinking and using on the clock and at breaks. I didn't find another job for over a year, but I don't regret going to that length because it was necessary. Today I could work there and stay free, but it's a different situation when freedom has not yet been found, only searched for. I didn't listen when told not to make any major changes to my life for the first year. I had just gotten out of prison after over 7 years. Everything I did, down to the toothpaste I bought at a store with choices and doors that opened and closed for me, was a major change. Some lengths I went to and some, if I didn't see a connection to the steps, I refused. Some suggestions were necessary, both ones I took and ones I refused at first. Some suggestions were not necessary and were extraneous tradition that came later, like many of the traditions in Christianity that are not found in the book but are sometimes treated as though they are, or were simply the opinions of the people trying to help.

And that leads me to where I stand on the idea of any lengths today.  How I understand one day at a time has changed as my recovery has progressed, and so has the concept of any lengths. Today I do not attach the willingness to go to any lengths to any one part of my life, such as recovery. It is tied to any and every thing that has to do with practicing the spiritual principles through which I found life and freedom, which in turn means that it is interwoven into every aspect of life. But it's still not about the thoughts of people, even people trying to help, because I have turned my will and life over to the care of God, not people. Where He leads I will follow, and where He sends me I will go. Whatever He wills I will step out to obey, by grace, whatever, wherever, however lengths He asks of me.

This is the any length that we need be prepared to take, that we must continue to go to if we want to deepen our relationship with God and secure our freedom, the length of total surrender, or complete commitment to His will over ours. Whatever lengths that entails for us, we must be  ready and willing to, by grace, die to self. Nevertheless Father, not my will but Yours be done. When this is the axis point around which our life and choices revolve, we will never fall short of going the distance we need to in order to find and keep freedom. But if a person gives instruction or advice check it, test it. If it is in the book or lines up in agreement with the book, then by all means, do it, but if not, that is a length we dare not got to.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

May 10, 2016.

This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments, the weekly Unshackled Echo and or listens to the Audio Messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them on social media, commented on the blog or replied to an email subscription. 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 and sermons to more people by sharing this? Hitting the share button or forwarding this to a friend 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.

A Sure And Steadfast Anchor

We all need something or someone to cling to, an anchor to hold us and for us to hold on to. Dalyn Woodard continues the series, "Jesus Is Most Excellent: A Study Of Hebrews," with a look at three things God wants for us and one thing He wants from us. There is a purpose that God has to bless us, encourage us and to provide an anchor and refuge that can not be shaken.  The message, "A Sure And Steadfast Anchor," is about 57 minutes long, and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on May 8, 2019. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. Video below.

You can hear the first message in the Jesus Is Most Excellent: A Study Of Hebrews series, "It's All About Jesus," here, the second message, "A Most Excellent Word," here. The third message, "Jesus Is Enough," here. The fourth message, "More Excellent Than Angels," here. The fifth message, "Defeating The Dangerous Drift," here. The sixth message, "The Most Excellent Man," here. The seventh message, "The Most Excellent Help," here. The eighth message, "Consider Jesus," here. The ninth message, "Don't Lose Your Rest," here. The tenth message, "There Remains A Rest," here. The eleventh message, "Living And Active," here. The twelfth message, "Hang On And Come Close,"  here. The thirteenth message, "We Need A Mediator," here. The fourteenth message, "Wax Build Up," here. The fifteenth message, "Growing Up Is Not Optional," here. The sixteenth message, "Don't Get Burned," here, and the seventeenth message, "Blessed Assurance," here.

This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

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.