Unshackled Moments ~ August 31 ~ Wes Craven's Real Nightmare

The world lost a Master of Horror Film making yesterday as Wes Craven died of brain cancer. It saddened me to hear the news this morning. I have always admired Craven as a genius and innovator as well as relating to him somewhat on a personal level. Like many of my generation, his Nightmare On Elm Street was more than just another scary movie to me. It scared me on a level that few, if any horror movies before had done, and it gave me hope. Craven understood that the most frightening monsters were the monsters in our heads, not the ones under our beds. It can still terrorize me today to be stuck in a dream and feel unable to wake up. That lack of control while being subjected to terror and pain is not fun. But Craven created a film franchise with the idea of dream warriors who not only survived the monster who existed in the mind, but were able to stand against him, take his power and banish him.

But of course because the killer always returns in the sequel, we get a reminder that whatever success we have on our own never seems to last. Things may go right for a while, but as long as we can remember, the monsters of the past always lurk waiting for a chance to come back into our today.  We just  can't ever seem to completely escape the pain, fear and frustration of the past. But there is a road that leads to life and gives the powerless strength to take the heads of the monstrous giants. Faith in God trumps fear.

But what is faith causes the fear? One of the things that made me relate to Craven was that the nightmare in his early life, the pain that drove him, inspired him and fueled the choices of his life, at least early on, came at the hands of the church. He grew up in a world of religious rules and legalism that had little do with understanding the love of our Daddy with the heart and everything to do with conforming to an external structure. He snuck away from the Christian college he attended to see a movie, the college was Wheaton and the film was To Kill A Mocking Bird, because going to movies was strictly forbidden in the religious community he came from. Chaffing under restrictions raised rebellion, and he searched for reason and purpose in the very world that had been closed off to him.

I have been there saying that I can't be good enough to please the folks making my life hell with their standards so I might as well be bad. I have seen the silliness of some of the rules and restrictions as modern pharisees add restrictions to the laws of God. God said don't work on the Sabbath, the lawyers added rules about how far a person could walk on that day. God said love Him and others, and lawyers added don't go to movies, don't listen to certain kinds of music regardless of its message, don't read this or that.... it goes on and on as religion stresses restriction and the external and produces little more than rebellion, pain and failure. These ridiculous rules that tried to produce internal righteousness through external restriction and discipline were the nightmare that pushed Craven, me and so many others from God.

The sad thing is that they weren't God's rules nor His methods. God has always known that man can not produce his own righteousness, that the internal can not be changed by changing the external. Most of all God knows the simple truth that seems to escape so many. You can not restore something or someone to a state of wholeness from brokenness by cutting away, by removing things. That's why God adds. God always adds to our lives. He never takes away without giving more in return. Grace, freely given, love poured out, joy that can't be stolen, peace that isn't situational, the power of the Holy Spirit, these things and more are added freely and generously into our lives so that we can have relationship with God and walk worthy. We can never live up to the standards of holiness on our own strength, no matter how much we micromanage what we see, hear, taste, smell and touch. Even if we cut off all out sensory perceptions and inputs we would find a way to fall short of the standard.

It is man's attempt to control himself and others who says look but don't touch, touch but don't taste,taste but don't swallow....who tries to find righteousness through divorce from pleasure and the senses. But God made the senses and gave us pleasure as a gift. God said taste and see that He is good. Today let us remember that the restrictions between us and God have been removed. We have access through His grace and the sacrifice of Christ. Let us rejoice that in Him is fullness of joy and the purpose of the senses can be fully realized to take pleasure in Him. Let us not try to find the answer in the external but by surrendering our heart. And most of all, let us not place others under the bondage of law that we have been released from, holding them to a standard none of us can meet, but instead let the power of the Spirit add so much love to our life that others can't help but see it in the way we live our life. Let love and faith in God give us the power to walk free from the things and fears that hold us in bondage, and let us walk into the nightmares of the lives of those we encounter and show them a way of escape from the monsters that haunt us all.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 30 ~ Sorrow Of Heart

I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence, so the king said to me, “Why are you sad, when you aren’t sick? This is nothing but depression.” I was overwhelmed with fear 3 and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4 Then the king asked me, “What is your request?” 

~ Nehemiah 2:1b-4a HCSB

There are two things that came to mind as I read the above verses. First, this casual dismissal as the issue  being nothing but depression, the NKJV calls it sorrow of heart. All too often we act as though depression and sorrow of heart are no big deal, something to ignore or push away or snap out of. But the truth is sorrow of heart can be far more damaging to the mind and soul than physical illness. So, when we see someone who is struggling with depression, let us be a source of encouragement and strength for them in their weakness and not dismissive of their situation.

The second thing is that although he felt afraid, Nehemiah told the king what was causing his depression. The king seemed dismissive, "Oh, this is no big deal, you're not sick, it's nothing but depression. What's your problem?" Nehemiah could have been hurt by this and said nothing, I'll do better, he could've gotten angry, or he could have let his fear keep him silent. Instead he said I hurt because......... Being willing to face his fear and be honest about what was going on with him opened the door to the blessing that happened next. The king asked what he could do. Sometimes it feels like we're all alone in our struggles. We don't have any help or encouragement. Then someone asks how we're doing and we say fine. Today let us try to be honest about what is troubling us, not going overboard with drama to manipulate or underplaying things to hide the problem either. Let us simply be honest and keep the door open for the blessings and help that God wants to give us.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 29 ~ Don't Gum It Up

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.

~Philippians 4:8-9

I have been helping a man plane some lumber. It is exhausting and back breaking work. The main problem is that the boards are made from pine, and the shavings and sawdust clog up the rollers that are supposed to pull the board through the saw. This means that we are having to pull and force each board though as it cuts. It takes about a half hour to clean the rollers and before a single board is completed they are clogging again. Cleaning them isn't worth the time. So we push, pull, grunt, groan and fight for every inch of cut.

We have a purpose and a calling. Every one of us is called to do something for God that no one else can do, but  in addition we are all called to be His light and love on the earth and to reflect who He is to a world that is lost and in need of a solution. The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to walk as we are called to walk and to live as God would have us to live. He is the power from outside of us that dwells within us that enables us to access the grace by which we can walk free from hate and sin.

What we run through our lives, what we think and meditate on, attitudes we allow, things we feed our spirit, are like the boards we choose. We have become new creations after accepting Christ, and we are no longer designed to operate on the same stuff we ran on before relationship with God. Like the pine boards and the planer, the wrong things in our life gum up the works. They dirty our spirit and clog the access of the Holy Spirit to our lives. That cuts us off from our power leaving us to try to walk with God, act right and love on our own strength and determination. Something we were never able to do right or well or long.

Today let us be careful to feed our minds and spirits with things that won't hinder the Spirit's power and work in our life. Our walk doesn't have to be a self induced struggle. We can have the peace of God all through the day, and when that peace remains as things go wrong and crazy around us it will point to the power and grace of God.

Unshackled Moment s ~ August 28 ~ Rejoicing In Suffering

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

~ Romans 5:1-5

Sometimes we don't see the miraculous. Sometimes we have a rough day. Sometimes rough would be an improvement. It's hard to do, but changing our focus can help so much. The truth is that every day more goes right than wrong for most of us. But it's also easy for me to ignore 1000 little things that I take for granted and put all my energy into the pain caused by, worry about and or self pity over the one or two major things that went wrong.

The day before yesterday served as a good reminder of my frequent failure in this area. The day started hard on almost no sleep with feelings of loss and hurt because of my not having something I wanted for the vast majority of my life. God has said no, and usually I'm OK with that. Sometimes though I am not, and  yesterday I struggled to get back to OK. My mother was rear ended. I lost time that I planned on using for final preparations for the sermon I was to give. I had several phone calls when I needed a few minutes of peace and quiet. I got behind schedule due to everything going on. I got even further behind when one of the two people that needed a ride to church didn't give good directions to where to pick them up. I ended up sitting in the back of the church and crying for most of the praise and worship portion of the meeting. The description of my latest really rough day.

But let's look at it a little differently. I did get enough rest to be able to function. I woke up, and my back wasn't hurting all that much. I felt that loss I mentioned, but I also knew where to go with my hurt and pain. The Lord ministered comfort to me, and this last bout over the issue didn't mess me up nearly as bad as the time before. I was able to use what I was going through as inspiration for an Unshackled Moment. My motorcycle started. I had a nice ride to work. I only worked a half day, giving me more time to prepare to preach than I expected, so what I lost later didn't leave me totally unprepared. My wife gave me some great hugs and cared so much about what I was going through. My mother is OK, and the car is too. I made it do church on time and was able to help make sure others got there. I was a help to my father. The worship was good, and God met me there as I poured out my pain and anger and bad attitude onto the altar. God gave the grace to preach and let go of the day. I got to visit with my family. I got to cuddle and spend time with Leah. I had a mini marathon of a show I like as part of the unwinding for the evening. I had a delicious lengua burrito for dinner that was very satisfying. I had no problems getting the sermon ready to post. I made it to bed before midnight and got a little rest without having prison dreams. All in all a pretty good day. It could've been even better had I not had an anger melt down less than an hour before preaching, but I am so grateful to God who is faithful to forgive.

Where we put the energy of our attention does effect how we experience the world. We're like the man in the Footsteps poem who can't realize that he's been carried until he looks back and only sees one set of tracks. He even wrongly thinks he walked alone until Jesus points out he was carried. When we focus on our self pity and the negative it's easy to feel alone and ignored by God, like everything is wrong and getting worse. But if we could turn our eyes to Jesus we would realize that we are floating safely through the storm. The storms will come, rain will fall and the wind will blow. It's going to happen. But if we can look to Jesus during those times, we can use the hurricane winds to drive us more quickly into the arms of the Comforter and the presence of the Lord. Sometimes a bad day can be the best thing that could possibly happen. Anything that brings us closer to God is something to rejoice about. That is why we can rejoice even in suffering.

Free From Sin

Dalyn Woodard shares on understanding what grace is really about. Our former manner of life is dead and gone because of the grace of Christ's sacrifice. If we could truly understand the power of grace that is available to us as children of God we could go through the rest of our life without sinning ever again. The message, "Free From Sin" is about 48 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, August 26, 2015. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 27 ~ Burning With The Lions

There are hundreds of books on how to pray. One of the most important questions the disciples ever asked Jesus was for Him to teach them to pray like He did. They observed Him, they knew how often and how well they prayed, and yet they were pretty much clueless. That's encouraging to me, because I sometimes feel clueless about how to pray.

It seems odd to be taught to pray. It's kind of like being taught how to have a conversation with your best friend. Except that's not usually what we want to learn is it? Don't most of the books on prayer seem to be more about how to sell yourself and or your cause to God and how to get Him to do what we want more than about how to have a conversation with a friend who is closer than a brother? Most of our instinctive prayers can either be classified as wish lists where hitting our knees is tantamount to sitting on Santa's lap, trying to convince Him that we've been good enough to deserve to have what we want or they are 911 calls seeking help with the mess we find our lives in, most often a mess caused by our own choices and selfishness.

But relationship with God is not a long term con to get what we want, and no matter how well we pray we don't always get spared the mess. Daniel was a man who knew how to pray. He spent hours on a regular basis chatting with the master. It was the most important part of His day, so important in fact that He refused to stop doing it even after a decree went out saying no one could pray to God. He got caught and sentenced to thrown in a lion's den full of hungry lions. In other words He was to be executed by being eaten alive. There is no record of Daniel asking God to spare Him the discomfort of the den. Yes, he was spared. The Lord shut the lions' mouths and they didn't eat Daniel. They also didn't claw him. But while he was eventually delivered and the event showed the power of God and brought Him glory, Daniel still spent his time in the dark with a bunch of lions. They stank. The place stank of death, decay and lion dung. There were no pillows or mattresses on which to rest and no food for him. It was not a fun place, and Daniel was not spared the experience.

Shadrach Meeshach and Abednego were men so faithful to God that they were the only three who refused to bow to a false idol. Their reward was a bonfire. They were spared as Daniel was. Not a hair on their hair got singed, even though the fire was hot enough to kill some of the guards escorting them to where they were thrown in. But they still got tossed to the flames.

Sometimes we look around and can't see anything in the dark, but we can smell the lions and their mess. Sometimes they're just enough light to see the mighty beasts lurking in the shadows. Sometimes we see through distortions from the heat that the flames are coming our way. We cry out to God to help us and deliver us. Then, when the lions don't disappear and the flames don't die, we get mad and hurt. We start doubting that God doesn't really love us. But we're so focused on the fact that the situation isn't changing we can't notice that the lions aren't eating us. We could be dancing in the flames with Jesus but we're too busy screaming fire.

We're like someone in a goof ball comedy who thinks that they've been shot because a ketchup bottle exploded and got all over them. They see what they perceive as blood and freak out. Once they realize that it's not blood they also realize that they're fine. So often if we would stop freaking out we would realize that the lion's aren't biting or at least that Jesus is in the fire with us. God is faithful. He does care. And often if we'll stop paying so much attention to our wounds we'll see they're really not as bad as we thought. We can get to that place easier when we see prayer as a tool to get us closer to Him rather than as an eject button for the situations we don't like.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 26 ~ Stuff Happens; It's Not Fair

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.

 ~ Psalm 127:3-5

There are blessings that do not come to all believers. Not everyone gets the same rewards or the rewards they want. It can hurt, and it can serve as a point of entry for the enemy's arrows. Sometimes a person may get a taste of that which they desire so much only to have it taken away. This happened to the shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4.  She had no children, and God, through the prophet Elisha, gave her the blessing of a son. One day the boy had what appears from the description to be a heat stroke and he died. The woman used those famous words, "It is well" to describe how she was as she searched out the prophet to raise her son back to life.

The Shunammite woman's story is one of blessing and healing and restoration. Stories like that are usually awesome to read and hear about. Usually. But what if you're one of the many who never had the blessing of a child and want one? What if your children died and no prophet came and raised them from the dead? Do you rejoice with the man who had a life saving miraculous healing, or get angry at God and feel bitter because your Dad died of cancer and wasn't healed?

There are many situations like the above examples that can raise doubts and questions and cause so much pain. Why does one believer get the blessing and another not? Why does one person get the healing another doesn't? Even harder at times when the answer may feel like "Well, maybe I don't deserve to be blessed and rewarded," why do so many who are flat out evil seem to have their lives filled with the things you want but can't have?

These are tough questions, and I wish that I had the answer for you. I wish that I had the answer for me. But I don't. For one thing I don't think there is one simple easy answer. I  know part of it will have to do somehow and someway to this world being fallen, and at times the answer may include some consequences of free will. At times not getting the blessing  may actually be a blessing and we don't realize it. Other times the enemy may have won that battle, even though he will not win the war. Sometimes it may be  so that God can use us in a different way or area. It may even be at times a result of our sin that a reward or blessing is withheld. I don't know. There are no easy answers. Stuff happens, and life isn't fair. There are no verses that can make some absences and losses never hurt while we remain in these bodies on this side of eternity. There may be days when it's all we feel.

But I do know this. No matter how it feels or how it seems during those times.... God loves me. And God loves you. If you belong to Him, then you have already received the greatest blessing available to anyone, the grace of the cross that makes a way for relationship with Him. It's a blessing and reward that we can never earn or deserve. And it can never be taken away from you. If none  of us received any other blessing, it would be worth dying for. Today, let us remember that being adopted by the Father at such a great price is because of how much He loves us, and let us not focus on what we did not get or can not have in this life. Instead let us look at all His love has given us. And  for the pain that can't be overlooked or ignored? Let us crawl into the arms of the Great Comforter and let His love soothe our souls.