Unshackled Moments ~ December 11, 2017 ~ Christmas Chaos & Peace

The Holiday Season could almost be changed from the 12 Days of Christmas to the 12 Weeks of Chaos. If you look at how many stores begin decorating and promoting Christmas purchases around the first of October, it truly is closer to 12 weeks than 12 days. And it is chaos. The stores are mad and overcrowded and people curse one another over parking space. Poor postal workers are killing themselves to deliver all your Amazon Prime packages and get home before midnight. Then there's all the work that needs to be done to get the house ready for decorations and company and cooking. So much to cook. So much to clean. A month or so to prepare for a few days with people you might not even associate with if you didn't share DNA or weren't married to someone who shares their DNA. I personally lucked out in the family department, including the in-laws. Still, family gatherings can be serious sources of chaos, even when everyone gets along and likes one another. Then there is the tug of war between just wanting to curl up with some hot chocolate and sappy Christmas movies for a month and the invitations to more programs, parties and gatherings than exist during the rest of the year combined. For those who don't do people in groups very well the stress of forced Christmas cheer is jarring.

There are less than two weeks until Christmas, and I feel like I am running out of time. I put our first tree up before Thanksgiving and still don't have the decorations all done. It seems so ironic, or maybe depressing is more accurate, that a time when so many songs and sayings proclaim peace on earth is the most stressful, chaotic and anxiety ridden time of year with the highest relapse rates. There are reasons why the definition of merrymaking went from simply being the act of taking part gaily or enthusiastically in some festive or merry celebration to the process of enjoying oneself with others, especially by dancing and drinking. With all the chaos of the season it is easy to feel like we must be in an altered state to enjoy it, even if it's only being hopped up on sugar and dazzled by a thousand sparkling lights. But the truth is that the peace proclaimed during the Christmas season and the Holiday chaos are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, rather than making peace impossible, the chaos can make it even more recognizable and amazing. It is the peace in the midst of the storm that is miraculous, that is peace beyond understanding and the peace that brings glory to God and causes those seeking it to seek Him. Peace that comes when the situation calms, when people stop getting on one another's nerves, when everything that had to be done has been done, when the pressure passes and the chaos quiets is not all that impressive. It is nice and a blessing and something to be appreciated and grateful for. But it's not a miracle. To have peace when the situation and circumstances are peaceful is just not something that makes us go, Wow! How'd that happen?

It is those types of moments though that we seem to long for most when we think of finding peace during the holidays. And if that is what we are hoping for, we will most likely be disappointed as those chaos free Christmas miracle moments are few and far between and a large percentage feel a bit manipulated and manufactured as well. But those times when I have seen and understood that the storms are raging and chaos reigns (regardless of the time of year) and see someone going through that with and in peace, that has and does amaze me. I find that miraculous,  outside the normal and natural, and something to make me go, I want that.

Peace that come from the spirit out instead of from the outside in is so much better because the world and life don't have to cooperate or coordinate in order to have it. It can't be killed by chaos and circumstances. Just the opposite, like darkness only makes a light appear brighter, chaos makes our peace shine all the more. And that light in the darkness helps draw the world to the source of light that entered the world when the Word was made flesh. It is the peace that comes from communion of our spirit with the Spirit of our Creator that we all need, that Christmas is all about and that we can all have because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that is both miraculous and meaningful. This is the peace that can coexist with chaos and overcome it.

Instead of looking for those moments that are free of the chaos of the season and trying to force or manufacture them, let us look instead for that communion with the Prince and Lord of peace.

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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.

Miraculous Peace - Second Week Of Advent 2017

Dalyn Woodard shares on lighting the candle of peace for Advent and what peace really is and where to find it. The message, "Miraculous Peace - Second Week Of Advent 2017" is about 33 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Sunday, December 10, 2017. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

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 Audio Echo ~ December 9, 2017 ~ The Light Of Hope

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

November 27, 2016 as 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.

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 Moments ~ December 8, 2017 ~ Hope That Doesn't Falter

Hope is a many fickle thing, at least that has been my experience and observation. And it's not only one characteristic of my hope that is as constant as East Texas weather. I am still a mess in some ways, and that shows in the way I hope and the way I don't.

Sometimes my hope seems to be solar powered. When the sun is shining, all is well, and I feel hope for so many things. Then darkness descends as night falls or the storm clouds occlude my view of the sun, and I despair. My hope fades with the light.

There are times though when the fickle nature of my hope is really only a reflection of my own fickle emotions. I spend years hoping and praying and working to rebuild a relationship, for example, and then the person does or says something that reminds me why I don't like them much and suddenly my thoughts are, I'm done. Forget it. Why do I even want to rebuild this relationship? And all hope that things will ever be different, much less better, is quenched within, until I get out of my self, stop trying to control other people and myself and submit to God's will in my life and relationships. Then I return like the prodigal to the place where I try to accept and love as Jesus does, as they are, not as they should be, and I hope that my part in the relationship will be an example of the love and way of God, and that will transform both the relationship and all involved, including me. Hope returns as I get out of the way and don't tie it to the yo-yo of my emotions and selfish whims.

The issue is that sometimes my wants are His wants, and others they are both His and mine as I want what He wants, and, of course, sometimes I slip on the ice of selfishness and I only want my way. When that happens it's not that I lose hope or that hope dies. It's that I no longer wish to have, pray for or work towards the goal. I don't care because I don't want it. It's too much effort. It's too much sacrifice. It costs too much.That's when I have no hope that the will of God will overcome the situations and circumstances, because I am myself outside of His will in my heart and motives, even if it hasn't yet become evident in my actions.

Seriously, sometimes I am such a whiny brat. It costs too much, is too hard, is too much of a sacrifice, too tiring or painful? Because I was such a selfish, messed up man that I couldn't want to do it right most times and couldn't hope to live for anyone else but myself, even as I destroyed the self I lived for, the King of all creation gave up His throne, became like me and like you, subject to the hell and desperation of life under the curse, surrounded by the spiritual disease that stems from separation from our Creator. Then He did what we were supposed to do but never could. He put the welfare of others and the will of Daddy before His own best interests, comfort, pleasure and security, He loved and gave because of that love, right up to the point where He gave His very life in place of ours. He loves us when we are enemies, when we are stupid and selfish and annoying, and He loved in a way that took all He had in effort, in the amount of suffering He could endure and still live, and even in all the rewards that come with doing it right. He even shared His inheritance with us, and gave us His resources to live and love like someone who is not an annoying, selfish, broken mess. When I remember that, how can I consider it too much to treat someone like they are worth the effort of being kind to and to continue to try to show love and acceptance, no matter how annoying and selfish they may seem?

That's the crux of the matter. My hope is fickle. It comes and goes as my ability to see past my circumstances varies, or as my situations shift. It changes from hot too cold in minutes as what I want and my selfishness pushes and pulls on my emotions. It even ebbs and wanes as my desires fluctuate between what I want over all and long term and what I want right this instant. Sometimes I want to feel different, to escape the now, to get my way this instant and tomorrow be damned. Five minutes future be damned for that matter. When I get like that my hopes of remaining clean and sober recede, and I am in danger of throwing everything away on an impulse that will bring only shame, pain and misery. But that is my nature. That's what I do. I cast myself into the sea and then curse the waves.

My success in avoiding the rocks exposed by those changing tides is not in wanting the long term more or in playing the movie through, or in trying to avoid the fear of the shame and other consequences. My hope is not in my will or in any little tricks to manipulate myself, because I am as fickle as my hope. I can't be counted on. My hope is built on the guidance of the Spirit to let me know when I am straying into the danger zone of rip tides and sharks, on His desire to see me safe and secure and succeeding, even when I don't care, and in His dispensing the power to enable me to put my impulses, desires and will on the cross with Christ and surrender to the will of Daddy, who loves me and always takes me to what is best for me. That hope, the hope that is built on the power of God granted me by the work of Jesus, has not failed me. That hope is the foundation for over seven and a half years of sobriety. What God has done and continues to do for me, He will do for you, if you'll let Him, no matter what the area of your life needs His touch and no matter how many times you have fallen short or how fickle you may be. He is faithful, able and sure, and a hope placed in Him will not falter.

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.

Workers For Jesus

Dalyn Woodard returns to the book of Ephesians, verses 5-9 of chapter 6, and the topic of our identity. What is our identity as it pertains to work and career? Who do we work for and why? What does it mean to be a slave or bondservant of Christ? The message,  "Workers For Jesus" is about 49 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, December 6, 2017. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

If you missed Part 1 of the Identity Crisis series, Who Are You, it can be found here. Part 2, Living Free, can be found here. Part 3, The Blessing Of Belonging, can be found here. Part 4, The Fullness Of Jesus, can be found here. Part 5, Good News, Bad News, can be found here. Part 6, But God's Amazing Grace, can be found here. Part 7, Welcome To The Family, can be found here. Part 8, Count It All Joy, can be found here. Part 9. Power Prayer, can be found here. Part 10, Walking In Unity, can be found here. Part 11, Grow Up, can be found here. Part 12, Trading Up, can be found here. Part 13, Daddy Knows Best, can be found here. Part 14, Turn On The Light, can be found here. Part 15, Living Under The Influence, can be found here. Part 16, Spirit Filled Marriage: Part 1 Wise Husbands, can be found here. Part 17, Spirit Filled Marriage: Part 2 Wise Wives can be found here, and Part 18, Daddy Issues, can be found 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 Moments ~ December 6, 2017 ~ I Don't Believe In The Spirit Of Christmas

I love movies. I used to want to help make them, which is why I had a film minor in college for a while. I dreamt of winning an Oscar for cinematography. And oh my, I love Christmas movies. I begin watching them sometime around Thanksgiving and go right up through Christmas day. I am so grateful that my wife shares my love for both Christmas and film. We watch a lot of movies together and take turns choosing the flick.

But sometimes I think society has done itself a disservice with the Hollywood Happy Ending. I'm not just talking about Christmas movies, or even Disney for that matter, but the vast majority of movies generally work out. It may not be happily ever after, but even in a horror movie, the main character somehow survives when everyone else bites it. No matter how many stupid choices and mistakes she or he makes. Dumb luck or the indomitable human spirit save the day. Of course the Christmas movies may be the worst as the Spirit of Christmas magically solves everything and makes all well.

In one sense we don't believe it. But I believe that on some basic level we do. We believe it all, in the everything will somehow work out and in the idea that the Spirit of Christmas and the good of humanity will eventually conquer and make things  right. It bleeds into our real life. Or maybe I'm entirely wrong, and that's not the cause at all. But right or wrong, whatever the cause, we seem to have a tendency to just wish that things will be OK and believe that if we find the right program or the right theme song or the right friends, partner, etc. that things will just sort themselves out. If I can get a better job, if I can find a better place to live, if I can find the right person for relationship, then things will get better and I won't keep doing these things I'm doing to try to get through the day.

We get the idea that if we just go to recovery meetings and or church every chance we get that life will smooth out and the problems will go away. Our hope becomes that these tools God can use, the people, places, things, and organizations, to help us are the answer. They are not. They are the tool. It's like looking to a magical, mystical, vague Spirit of Christmas to make the world cleaner, brighter and better once a year. It's empty and meaningless and misplaced, and if we put our hope in the tools, in the organizations, in religion, in undefined vague spirituality, in people, places and things, our hope will fail us, and we will become even more discouraged. The holiday spirit is half hearted at best, and is the spirit of humanity, which is, of course, the problem... the world run by selfish, broken people trying to make life better. It just doesn't work. No matter what the movies tell us, we don't get the solution by osmosis, and things don't just magically work out.

Christmas is just another day that happens to be intended to remind us that our Creator loves us as we are and came to make a way for us to have relationship with Him and to do for us what we can not do for ourselves. Church is supposed to help encourage us to look to and for Him. Twelve Step groups were originally designed to put us in contact with our Creator. Relationships should be a mutual exchange of love and service to encourage, build up and draw everyone closer to our Heavenly Daddy. Jobs are there to make us able to provide for ourselves and others. Locations are simply a base of operations for service. Our hope is not in any of these things. The Spirit of Christmas is as meaningless and empty and as foolish a hope as the idea that finding a four leaf clover will make your life perfect. But the Spirit of the God who loves you as you are, not as you should be, and has declared His desire to make His very home within us to give us the power to change and to be all that we were created to be by Him and who wrapped Himself in our humanity to take our just deserts upon Himself and give us His just rewards, yes, that Spirit of God that Christmas is supposed to remind us of, point us to and that we celebrate, in Him is our hope. I do believe in that Spirit, because He has set me free and made me able to love and be loved. And He can and will do the same for you if He is sought.

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 Moments ~ December 5, 2017 ~ Hope For The Hopeless

As the philosopher Jagger said, "You can't always get what you want."

- House

Oh, I looked into that philosopher you quoted, Jagger, and you’re right, “You can’t always get what you want,” but as it turns out “if you try sometimes you get what you need.”

- Cuddy

I love that exchange from the pilot episode of House, M.D., even though the two lines are separated by about half the show. The line comes from what is probably my favorite Rolling Stones song. There was a punk metal band in Lufkin, TX in the late 90s that did a cover that was much better than the original, but my attention span is showing. Let me attempt to get back on track. I love this song, even now that I know that my attempts to try really hard to get what I wanted cost me nearly everything, including my freedom and should have cost my life more than once. The chasing of my wants broke me into pieces.

All the king's horses and all the king's men ain't got a hope in hell of putting my pieces back together again.  I've seen things in my life that should never be seen. I'm talking things that'd make your skin crawl.

- Back To The Rocking Horse, Poison

Even as I pumped my body full of poisons to change the way I felt and bathed in regret of the past, I loved the song by Poison quoted above. It expressed the hopelessness I felt so well. I couldn't remember it, but my parents talked a lot about how happy and full of joy I was as a small boy, during my own rocking horse era. I'm pretty sure that I didn't actually have a rocking horse though, and I can't remember those happy days myself. It feels strange to be trying to get back to a state of being that you can't remember, but I wanted it. And I didn't think I could have it. Nothing I tried worked.

I tried really hard, living for the moment with an eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die/laugh now cry later lifestyle. I became a self proclaimed hedonist driven to live for pleasure and distraction disguised as joy. Not only did I not get what I wanted, I didn't get what I needed. My life became most heinous and my existence had about as much joy as Eeyore's. But Jagger was right, and I was doubly wrong.

First, I was wrong in my identification and pursuit of what I wanted. I didn't want much of what I said I wanted and grabbed for. OK, I did, but they weren't the real desire. They were the surface reflection. Like a boy who claims he wants a dog, when what he really wants is a constant companion who loves and accepts him as he is, I sought what I wanted in all the wrong people, places and things, but what it really came down to was that same desire to have a constant feeling of being wanted, loved and accepted as I am, not as I should be, and if I couldn't have that, then, my consolation want was to not feel the pain that not believing I had the first wish I wished caused and to not feel the fear that I never would. I went to places and did things that no one should ever go trying to get at least the consolation prize.

I became so battered, broken and bruised that I gave up all hope of ever having a life worth living. I couldn't do anything to feel better for long, and even things that brought temporary relief began to fail and cause more harm than good. And the King's men (and women) tried so hard for so long to make me better, or at least look better, that I knew that neither they nor their horses could put me together again. In fact, it seemed the more they tried, the more broken I became. I grew to resent the very existence of those who took the mess of my life as their own personal project to undertake as an attempt to look good in the eyes of the King. But the second way I was wrong is that I got the King's subjects mixed up with the King. While it was very true that those folks in the church nearly killed me trying to make me better, good, right.... and didn't have a hope in hell of bringing healing and restoration into my life, it was wrong that I couldn't be healed and restored.

The King could do what His people could never do. That's part of why He is the King. The King of kings and Lord of lords left His throne, out of love for us, and wrapped Himself in flesh to walk a lifetime in our shoes and do what we couldn't do. Then He died and rose so that His power to heal, restore, be made clean, and to live right and have relationship with the Creator could be given to us. He came to set the captives free, to heal the broken hearted and to declare the great news that God wants relationship with us, wants to be our loving Daddy and loves us as we are, not as we should be.

It turns out that the road to hell I traveled pursuing pleasure and distraction and chasing a thousand desires that all had their root in the same wish actually did lead to the place I really needed and wanted to go, and somehow innately knew I belonged. The sickness killing us all slowly and causing us to crave a thousand different things is all a side effect of a spiritual deficiency we were born with. Like a pregnant woman who craves strange foods because her body really needs some nutrient that is in the food rather than really needing pickles and ice cream, we think we need and we crave one strange thing, or a thousand combinations, when what really need is relationship with Daddy. We truly are without hope of filling that need and craving with anything else for long or well. It is hopeless to try to fix ourselves and set ourselves free of the nets we tangle ourselves in while trying to find what we truly want, and no one else, not even the King's children can make us any better either. But there is hope, because what we can not do for ourselves, what no one else can do for us, the King can.

There is a solution. We can walk away from the chains of bondage and the slavery we sold ourselves into trying to meet our own needs. We can be free. We can be healed, restored and satisfied. There is a life worth living. It's not in getting the surface things we want, and it's not in going back to a better or simpler time. It's in relationship with the God who loves us as we are, not as we should be, who loves us so much He became a baby born in a barn and grew into a man who died in our place so that His power could be ours. His Spirit makes us His and lives within us to do for us what we never could on our own. If He is sought, He will be found, and He will provide what we need to have that inner emptiness of lack and want satisfied.

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.