Who We Are

Our identity matters. Dalyn Woodard shares that though we can never do enough or be enough on our own, our identity is that of child of God because of what Jesus did. The message, "Who We Are," is about 13 minutes long, and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on March 10, 2019. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen.

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 ~ March 9, 2019 ~ Time For Mourning

Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded people! Be miserable and mourn and weep. Your laughter must change to mourning and your joy to sorrow.

- James 4:7-9

In every situation we can give thanks, for this is the will of God. We can rejoice in the Lord, always. That means that even during times when we take a good, hard, honest look at ourselves and see where we are, the sins that are still so much a part of our daily and habitual life, and how far we have to go to be even in the neighborhood of perfect as our Daddy is perfect, we can still be grateful for the grace that brought us this far and for the grace that will  lead us on. Yes, be grateful and rejoice for what the Lord has done in your life and what He can be trusted to complete.

But there is a time for everything under the sun, and that includes a time to weep and mourn. Even as we rejoice in who He is and His love for us, we experience heartache and sorrow over our sin. For those who use the principles of the 12 Steps to set the frame work of their spiritual house, built on the solid rock foundation of Christ, during and after inventory is an appropriate time to feel such sorrow. Some people do an inventory at the start of each year. I like to do one at Lent. There is none of us that can take an honest look at our self and say w';re getting it right now. Maybe we're getting it a lot right or at least a lot more right than we used to, but if you're still breathing, you still haven't attained full sanctification.

If we ever examine our hearts and are not grieved by the sin we find, than we either need to take another look because we didn't examine under the guidance of the Holy Spirit or with rigorous honesty or we have hardened our hearts by becoming comfortable with our sin and rejecting the voice of the Spirit. We need to sub,it ourselves to God, ask Him to forgive us and to break our hearts of stone and transform them into hearts of clay that He can mold. Soften our hearts, Oh God, that we may no urn and weep and be filled with sorrow at the sins that we have allowed to stay within us.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

February 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 ~ March 8, 2019 ~ Autopilot

If you, Dear Reader, are anything like me, it can feel quite disappointing to take a look within, examine the heart, take a moral inventory like many did on Ash Wednesday two days ago, see what needs to be different or better, decide on a change of heart or attitude and then fall short soon thereafter. It might go something like I've been impatient with people to the point of being unloving and critical,even hateful, in my heart so I'm going be more patient and loving. Even if I don't let it show on the outside, that impatience isn't Christlike, and I want to be more like Jesus, especially during this Lenten season. Or maybe it's more along the lines of self deprecation and self condemnation over mistakes of the past. So during the Lenten season you determine to remember that you are forgiven of those mistakes and are a valued and significant child of the Most High God. Or maybe mentally you've returned to the fantasy of living for self without consequences. Insert your own thing here. I imagine that we all have something where either our thoughts or our attitude hasn't been what it should be.

Maybe, like me, you've decided to do something different during Lent. Maybe you vow to be more loving and patient and kind toward that annoying co-worker. Maybe you vowed to agree with what God says about you instead of the self deprecating that is the norm. Maybe something else. And maybe, just maybe, like me, three days in it's already a struggle. The good news is that we don't feed to get more determined. The good news is that we don't need to strengthen our resolve. We don't need to give up i the face of defeat. The same forgiveness we received for the sins of Fat Tuesday is available for the sins of Tough Thursday and Frailty Friday.

We've never been good at control our thoughts, changing our heart or walking and living in a Christ-like manner. That's why we need grace. That's why we need the power of the Holy Spirit. It's not even that we didn't desire or really determine to do things different. But maybe, like me, as the day goes by sometimes, without even realizing it, we flip on the autopilot and cruise through not really paying much attention to our position. Then something happens, and before we even stop to think that old default switch is flipped and we're thinking and acting just like the days before the vow.

Something like that happened to me in the days of my early sobriety. I went into the store for a soda. I wasn't even consciously craving alcohol, but as I approached the counter to pay I realized I had a beer in my hand. I hadn't even thought about picking it up. I simply went through the automatic motions so familiar to me. I almost dropped it like it was a hot coal. I put it back and grabbed a Mt. Dew, paid for it and left. It was a narrow escape because I wasn't paying attention.

When desiring to surrender and let God change something that has become as natural to us as breathing, whether it's picking up a drink or drug, cutting someone to pieces with our tongue or hating on our self, no matter what it is, autopilot is the enemy. We have to guard our hearts and minds. It's not our power that gives us strength to overcome our old nature, but we can't just go about mentally like business as usual. It's time to pay attention, close attention, to our position in regards to where we are at that moment with the will of God, how we are feeling and how we are acting and thinking. Until the new flight plan has become second nature and the automatic response, we cant afford to fly without direction.

Today, I can go into any store on autopilot and come out with a Mt. Dew. There's nothing in me that reaches automatically for alcohol any longer. But I can't go stand in a crowded, noisy room with far too many people and concrete floors without slipping back into the irritability of a convict in crowds, not on autopilot anyway. What I can do is catch it fast, pray, ask for grace and help to get through the situation without getting further off course and getting back on course as fast as possible. I can refuse to let the autopilot be switched back on. With vigilant awareness, we can pause our natural reactions to situations long enough for grace to kick in and show the necessary course adjustments that we need in order to do it differently today than we did yesterday. So if you wanted to change something and used Lent as a good time to start...and then failed already or at least struggled with the issue, ask for grace and, if necessary, forgiveness, and turn the autopilot off. One good thing about Lent is that 40 days of vigilance is long enough to change a pattern of thinking. Just remember that it's God who does the changing in us, we just have to slow down our reactions long enough to surrender to His transforming touch.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

February 12, 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.

There Remains A Rest

What is the rest that we need to be careful not to lose? Dalyn Woodard continues the series, "Jesus Is Most Excellent: A Study Of Hebrews," with a look at the rest we have as believers, what it is and how to find it. The message, "There Remains A Rest," is about an 55 minutes long, and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on March 6, 2019. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen.

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, and the ninth message, "Don't Lose Your Rest," 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 ~ March 6, 2019 ~ Beauty From Ashes

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. 

- Isaiah 61:1-3

Today is the first day of the Lenten Season, Ash Wednesday. Not all Christians observe Lent, and even fewer  participate in the traditions of Ash Wednesday. But regardless let us take advantage of the reminder to have God search us and know our hearts and if there be in wickedness in us to forgive us and to lead in the way everlasting. It's important to take time and examine our lives and hearts, to test the our own spirits for the truth of God. But Ash Wednesday is a time to see our sin for what it is (death and destruction) and to be honest with ourselves about the areas where we need to do a better job of giving God control of our lives. Once that is done, it's time to get the focus of our self and back where it belongs.

Our sin and our best efforts brought failure, destruction and death. Nothing we can do can ever change that. And even been made new and clean by the grace of God we have continually dirtied up our clean slates, failed to maintain the righteousness bestowed on us and failed to even want to totally lay self will on the altar, never mind actually being able to do that. To stop in that place of powerlessness and examination of where we are and where we've been is hopelessness and despair. But we were never supposed to stay in that place. Once we understand that we need help, that we have failed and will continue to help, the Lord has always said come, look not at yourself but at Me. I have come to heal your brokenness, to set you free, to give you new life that can't be taken away, to make something beautiful out of the ashes of death and destruction of our lives.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

February 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.

Unshackled Echo ~ March 5, 2019 ~ Recovered?

There are two camps in the recovery world. There are those who claim to be in recovery or recovering from whatever their addiction is, and then there are those that after at some point being free of the obsession to engage in the area of bondage claim to be recovered. For a while now, I have leaned toward the recovered camp, after all, with 5 years eleven months without using or drinking I have most definitely recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body. The thought occurred to me more than once that if I was diagnosed with cancer, took treatments and my body was free of cancer for a year or two I would not declare that I have cancer but am in remission. I would say I am cancer free, even though I would be aware that it could return.

But this morning as I gave God thanks for my recovery, He reminded me that I am not done, not even close. I am not in remission. I am in treatment, and I don't need to stop or slow the treatments either. I need to work harder because what hasn't been eradicated at this point is not the large easy to see tumors but the tiny, resistant, dangerous, easy to miss ones. I needed to remember that the drugs, alcohol and other areas of bondage in my life that God has freed me and is freeing me from are not the disease. They are all symptoms of the spiritual sickness I am treating by surrendering to the work of the Great Physician. 

I have not yet reached a state of being 100% submitted to God 100% of the time. I still sometimes fall short, live like my old nature, act, think and feel selfishly. I still at times want to act like I am God and ruler of my life. I still sometimes fail to even want to love my fellow human beings, even more often I fail to love in action as I should. Until I reach the point of being perfect, unselfish, pure in love, in complete submission, reflecting nothing but the glory of the Creator, the cancer of the curse is still at work in my life, and I am not yet recovered, regardless of not drinking and drugging. There is more work yet to do. Let the treatments continue for I am still sick.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

April 17, 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 ~ March 4, 2019 ~ Walk Between The Lines

When the night breaks in I won't spin

Far away from what I know is real

In this heart of mine

Light will shine

For I have found my chart to pilot me

Walk between the lines

- Russ Taff Walk Between The Lines

This song came across my Pandora this morning, and it took me back to 1987, when it came out. My life was in an erratic orbit, and I was a mess. I believed in God, just enough to really screw up my life. What do I mean by such a strange statement? Well, there's a saying in recovery rooms that if they don't do anything else for you, they'll screw up your drinking and drugging forever. I know from experience that there's not much worse feeling that having a heart full of pain, a head full of truth and a life full of sin. 

When I relapsed back in 2010 after 15 months clean and sober, I had so much trouble finding oblivion. Instead what I found was the truth of God and the spiritual principles of recovery floating through the fog of my brain to convict me, to warn me of the death and destruction coming soon and the way of rescue and escape. It didn't take long for me to cry out to God for help, to take my drunk and high and 40 pounds lighter body back where I had walked away from and reach out for the help I'd found previously. I did the work over. I surrendered again, and now I am approaching 6 years since I have last had the need to fill my body or mind, change my situation or feelings or escape with drugs or alcohol. I know that I could never return to that place of bondage without the cries of freedom and the way of freedom echoing in my soul. 

This is part of what made my life so miserable during my teen years and led to multiple attempts to escape by finding a grave. I thank God today that He repeatedly said no when I prayed to die and tried to make that happen. I grew up surrounded by and hearing the truth of God. I heard it in my home, from the pulpit where my father preached and in the life he lived. I heard it from my mother, and even today some of the scriptures that come most quickly to mind in certain situations are ones my mother taught me by repeating them to me every time I violated the principle they represented.  I would begin tearing someone apart with my words, cutting them with my tongue, and my mother would look at me and say, "4:29." That's it. Just "4:29," but I was quickly reminded that I had gotten out of line and I had better watch myself, at least while she was in earshot, because what became shortened to 4:29 once she knew that I knew was originally "Son, remember, Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers."

It's frustrating and  misery to live a lie while knowing truth, but it's possible. If I had responded to the truth I head and saw in my home and in much of the music I listened to as a teen completely instead of only on the surface of my heart I'd have found freedom long, long ago. Instead, I knew about God, and I believed in God just enough to make a life without His presence miserable, even with the drugs and alcohol. I would feel that pull to relationship or I would feel guilty, and I would rededicate my life. I would come clean somewhat with my father. I remember standing at a barn with him admitting that I had become addicted to cocaine and that I was quitting. I had been healed of that addiction after a youth minister prayed for me. And it was true in a way. I'd been out of control with the coke. At a lock-in youth group meeting I had a moment of clarity that I needed help, and I got prayed for. I hadn't done any cocaine in the few months since that point when I talked to my dad. I was high when I talked to him though. It just wasn't coke.

I shifted from one lie to another, from one chain to another, and screamed at the still small voice in my mind and spirit until finally silence was the only sound in return. My screams echoed back, but I was no longer haunted by the truth. Then things really went to hell, and there was no hope at all. That year I lived totally free from that misery of knowing the truth of freedom while living as a slave, and in that year I lost everything but my life, and that was close several times, including a trip to ICU after an overdose. The year ended with me in cuffs, charged with a felony and the weight of nearly a decade in prison coming. Oh yeah, finally not thinking at all or being haunted by the truth I had heard worked out so much better. Please read the previous sentence with thick, dripping sarcasm.

But as I fell apart and my life went to hell, my mother and father, though obviously concerned and hurt by my life and actions, never spun off out of control in reaction. In fact, my father stayed so stable and faithful no matter what happened, whether it happened with or because of me or if I just witnessed things, that I thought for a while that nothing could phase him at all, that nothing ever made him worried or shook him up. And it was in those times that I would think how is he not freaking out? that he'd simply quote a truth he'd learned from scripture. Things were one way, but the truth  says.....

All scripture is truth, but scripture doesn't have the monopoly on truth. Another book that isn't 100% truth like scripture but is full of spiritual truths that lead to freedom says that I am not entirely and for always set free no matter what but rather that I have a 24 hour reprieve from bondage based upon the maintenance of my spiritual condition. I have found this to be very true, and bringing this simple truth to mind reminds me that if I want to walk free today I have to seek God first and foremost.

I have taken a long time to simply point out that the way to freedom starts with truth. Jesus said the truth will make you free, not set, but make. It will change you and drive you to freedom, and one of the reasons is that hearing it and not doing it is hell on earth. The only thing worse is to ignore it until you finally can't hear it anymore. Studying is great, and yes, it's impressive when people have things memorized and can quote large portions of books, but it's not necessary. It's certainly not where to start. Just read, every day, at least a little truth. Put it in, even if it doesn't seem like you're getting anything out of it. Read a chapter or a paragraph or a sentence and go on. It doesn't matter how little you try to remember something, once you've read a line of truth 30 or 40 times or more, when the crap hits the fan, the truth will pop into mind to remind us that in order to blow the crap back off we have to make sure the fan is plugged in. You may think you don't know it, but when you need it, the Holy Spirit will bring it to mind. Freedom, joy and peace are found in turning to that truth when it comes, misery in trying to continue contrary and hell is found in growing deaf to it.

Today let us  read a little truth. Let us keep doing it every day that when trouble comes, we can live in the safety found in the foundation of truth between the lines.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

April 16, 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.