Forgiven (Settle for more) , Dec 2017

I wrote the Christmas letter below the 1st week of December 2016 and planned to send it around Christmas of 2016, but then my wife Colleen passed away so I decided to wait as there were other updates to send that year. However, I was able to review this with Colleen on that last day she woke up (12/13/2016) and she really liked it and thought I should send this.

I am pretty open and honest in the below post about some past struggles I have had with sin, but I hope in doing so, you will find encouragement in your own struggles in various areas to know you are not alone, and also to encourage you to find people you trust, be open and real with them and as Jesus commands “Confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed.”

You do not have to settle for tolerance of your sin when Jesus offers something so much better, that if we will confess our sins He is Faithful and Just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What a blessed feeling to be a forgiven Child of God. If you find this helpful and encouraging, feel free to share it with others.

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I wanted to take time once again to tell each of you I appreciate you and I am glad God brought you into my life. As we wind down yet another year and I reflect back on my life, I have been reminded that too often what I thought I wanted was not what I really needed. I was settling for less. Unfortunately, I can’t fully give my meaning on a simple one sentence face book post, but I hope if you read this through all the way you will find it is an encouragement to you all this year.

My Journey

I was raised in a Christian home. I grew up praying, reading the bible, attending church three times per week, etc. I loved God and His ways. That pattern stuck until I turned twenty. At the age of 20, I began to drift away from God. I was not consciously rebelling against God. I simply stopped reading the bible, praying, and attending church. I stopped valuing the importance of these things in my life. I also made excuses like Christians were too judgmental, too hypocritical or that I did not have the time to do these things, etc. The reality though is the real reason I walked away from the church and walked away from God is I wanted to be my own god. I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and I did not really desire the God of the Bible or any Christian telling me otherwise.

Within six months of this movement away from my relationship with God, still at age 20, I started to purchase and view pornography. Now, the reality is I knew my earthly Father would never approve of this, and I tried to suppress the knowledge that my Heavenly Father also would not approve of this. I basically tried to compartmentalize this. I would try to rationalize it like, well, I am not actually physically sleeping with another woman and also I am not really hurting anyone so what is the big deal. I got into a pattern of viewing pornography over the next few years.

I married my wife Colleen when I was 23 and yet still continued doing this on the side at times. I never really lied to Colleen about this, but I also never discussed it with her. I considered this something that was no one else’s business but my own and did not want or desire any “judgmental” Christians poking their nose into this.

So, my wife and I started off our marriage not attending church, not reading the bible, and the only prayer we ever said was at dinner time to thank God for the food. We were in love to the best of our understanding at the time of what that meant and we had what we thought was a strong connection physically, emotionally and mentally. I considered myself a good husband as I was a good provider, worked hard and tried to love my wife the best I knew how. However, we had no real connection spiritually as neither of us were truly connected to God, so how could we then have that type of connection with each other.

When I turned 28, my wife had a friend at Lexmark invite us to a bible study at their house. I really was not very interested in this as I thought many Christians were just a bunch of intolerant judgmental people. However, my wife was excited to go and I loved her so I went. We met with them and they were very nice and welcoming. There was no sense of judgement and I began to enjoy meeting with them. They invited us to their church and we agreed to start attending.

Now, even though at 28 I started back to church, that did not mean I stopped using pornography. It did mean however, I started to hear preaching from the bible about various subjects, including pornography.

I was reminded of this verse when Jesus said:

Mathew 5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; 28: but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

That same verse came up several times in different places. It confronted me. Jesus did not lower the standards God set in the Old Testament, but rather Jesus clarified that Gods standard is even higher then we initially thought. I could not continue to claim before God that I had not physically been with another woman when I was in fact lusting after other women with my eyes and in my thoughts. I had a choice. I could dismiss the bible as being too judgmental and continue to use pornography and say it is not hurting anyone, or I could try to begin to see things the way God sees them.

I began to reflect how the God revealed in the bible created both Men and Women in God’s image (Gen 1:27) and that women were intended to be precious daughters of a Holy God.

2 Corinthians 6:18 “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty.

I also began to think someday I am going to have children. What if I have a daughter? Would I really want my daughter to be involved in a lifestyle that involved pornography? Also, what would my future daughter think of me if I continued to use this? (Interestingly, several years later, God blessed me with 2 precious daughters, Faith and Mercy, so this vision came true). Then I thought about the women in this lifestyle. I thought about how they were someone else’s little girl once upon a time and how when these women were children they likely had dreams for their future and this was not it.

I began to see how much God loved these women and desired to adopt them as His own precious daughters and cloth them in His righteousness, and that I was participating in something that was keeping them from all God desired for them.

I came to the conclusion that I agreed with God. Pornography was not harmless. It was devastating to all the women participating in it and was destroying their spirit. For me, It was corrupting my mind and my spirit. It was harming my current relationship with my wife and it placed a wedge in my relationship with God that need not be there.

After all, If God thought this was harmful to the men and women involved in Pornography and it broke God’s heart to see the ones He so loved damaging themselves and settling for this when He had so much better for them, then I needed to see this also.

My heart then changed. I wanted to stop participating in this. I asked God to forgive me for what I had been doing. However, I had created such a habit that it was not that easy for me to stop. I needed help.

Now I never discussed this with my earthly Father, but in a conversation I remember He told me about Billy Graham and how whenever Billy Graham went on the road, he would have a designated man sit in a chair all night in front of his hotel room door to hold him accountable and ensure Billy Graham would avoid any temptation to do something stupid with another women aside from his own wife. I thought about that, and decided that is exactly what I needed. I needed an accountability partner I could trust to hold me accountable and help me. Now, men in this situation make different decisions, but for my situation, I thought the best person for this was my wife Colleen.

As such, I went to Colleen, told her what I had been doing, I asked her to forgive me even as I had asked God to forgive me. I told her I was really struggling in this area. We had a home computer. I asked her to place a password on it and not tell me what it was. If I wanted to go look at ESPN.COM, etc. I asked her to sign me on but stay in the room while I was on it. In addition, I knew where adult bookstores in Lexington were located. As such, If I had to go somewhere that normally I would go near an adult bookstore, I chose an alternate route to avoid them. I also had Colleen weekly ask me accountability questions.

As such, by the time I was around 31 or 32 I think (I can’t remember exactly when this totally ended), as I continued to draw closer to God, to attend church, pray, read the bible, have accountability sessions with Colleen, etc., I stopped using pornography for good. Back in my twenties the pull of this temptation and habit was very strong. However, As I sit today it has been around 20 years since I used any of that and I have zero desire for that anymore.

Now, does that mean that I no longer struggle with sin? Nope. While I no longer struggle with Pornography, there are still areas in my life God is working on to help clean me up. It has been my desire to reflect the character of Jesus day in and day out in my life, yet, I still find there are days when I mess up (at Work, in Public, and at home). For example, On September 4th, 2016 my wife Colleen got out of bed and passed out and fell. She was lying on the floor it was about 11pm at night. There were no bones sticking out or anything obviously broken. As such, I wanted to move my wife back to her hospital bed where she had rails that could protect her and I thought she would be more secure.

My daughters thought it was a bad idea to try to lift Colleen off the floor to the bed that way (Which they were correct, I later bought a lift), but I was not comfortable leaving her on the floor and got very upset they were not helping me. I screamed at them, cussed at them to get their butts over here and help me, was waving my arms around wildly and shouting in anger and frustration.

Well, in the end I did manage to get Colleen back onto the bed by basically throwing her over my shoulder with all my might. Her head hit the bed rail (Which also greatly upset my daughters) , but we did manage to get my wife back resting with the hospital bed rails up so she was in the end secure. She slept all the way then from Sunday night to Tuesday night. When she woke, she said her leg was hurting. We got her to the ER on Wednesday morning and it turns out her leg was indeed broken.

Both of my daughters were very upset at me over this. Both of them called my wife’s best friend Paula Rankin and my brother’s wife, their Aunt Valerie. I will never forget that Paula and Valerie had both of my daughters write letters to me to express how upsetting my screaming and yelling at them was.

My initial reaction was ok, I am sorry I yelled, but given the circumstances we are in, you just need to understand I may on occasion need to let off some steam and yell a little. What is the big deal? Why is my anger and yelling being elevated so high here? After all, everyone sins.

I will never forget what Valerie said next as it was exactly what I needed to hear. She said, that all may be true, but we are not here to talk about their sin, we are here to talk about your sin.

You see, I guess I had forgotten the lesson from my twenties. I was once again demanding tolerance for my sin, in this case for my anger and yelling. I was just expecting my daughters to accept this is just how I was born and is a part of me and you just need to accept this from me. I asked both of my daughters to forgive me as well as my wife.

After this conversation, I read a post on facebook that God perfectly put in my path. The basics are a Father had a son with an anger issue who would lose his temper and say things in anger to loved ones.

His father had him hammer a nail into a fence every time he said something in anger. At first the boy hammered in like 30 nails the first day. After a month he was down to only a single nail a day. He was very proud of his change. His Father told his son he agreed that was good. Now, he asked him to remove the nails from the fence. The son did and noticed everywhere he pulled out a nail, there was a hole in the fence. His father told him angry words leave a hole in relationships that are not easy to mend.

Wow I thought. I had been seeking tolerance for my yelling at my daughters. Tolerance of my yelling would only lead to damage to my relationship with them, something I did not want. I did not need tolerance, I needed instead to repent, confess my sin to them, take responsibility for my actions and ask them to please forgive me. They needed me to own my actions to reestablish trust, and I needed them to forgive me to reconcile our relationship.

Initial thoughts:

1) People could say when I returned to church at 28 and kept using Pornography till I was around 31 or 32 that I was being a hypocrite. That was my original charge against Christians. I guess there is some truth to that if you believe going to church means someone thinks they are perfect. However, I went to church and in part still do because I know I am not perfect.

If one is sick, one goes to a hospital. One is not surprised then that there are sick people in a hospital, so why then are we surprised when there are spiritually sick people who struggle with sin in a church? Sometimes it takes a while for the medicine to kick in, but that does not mean you walk away from the medicine and the treatment. You keep taking it.

I was a broken mess and I needed to be healed in my spirit. I tried for years to clean myself up unsuccessfully, but in the end it was only with the medicine of God’s Holy Spirit, God’s Holy Word (the Bible) and others in the church that helped me.

2) We struggle with different things, yet we all have at times likely wanted tolerance for various sin in our lives (Sexual immorality, Pride, lying, bitterness, unforgiveness, slander, gossip, envy, anger, gluttony, stealing, greed, lack of compassion for those in need, selfishness, failure to love our enemies, failure to love God and trust Him, etc.)

We each have to come to our own conclusions here. If you want tolerance, then the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of David is not for you. Jesus is not for you.

My God loves me too much to tolerate my sin. He confronted me in my 20’s that pornography was damaging to me, was damaging to my relationship with my wife and would be damaging to my future relationship with my daughters and that I needed to repent and turn away from it. He recently confronted me in my 40’s that yelling and screaming at my daughters is not acceptable and I need to repent and turn away from it.

I am glad my God loves me too much to settle for tolerance. I need accountability. I appreciate the people God has used in my life such as Colleen, Paula and Valerie to hold me accountable. If my God had granted me tolerance I would likely still be seeking continued tolerance for using pornography, yelling at my kids, etc. If I continued in that sin unrepentant and unwilling to change and see it as God does, then those actions, similar to all sin, would only ultimately lead to my own destruction.

Instead, my God offers something so much better than tolerance. When I open my heart and start to see things from Gods perspective and start to trust that God’s ways are better than my ways and repent, My God stands with His arms open in love and offers me unconditional forgiveness, grace and mercy (Luke 15:11-32).

My God was patient with me in my twenties when I struggled with pornography even as He remains patient with me at 50 as I struggle with other sins like yelling at my kids. He does not end His relationship with me if I repeat a mistake but is willing to walk through it with me patiently and continue to help clean me up until I finally truly see the sin the way God does and stop it once and for all.

Now do not get me wrong here, sin is very destructive and it has consequences that are often painful and not easily removed, but the Good news is God is a gracious God. As often as I am willing to repent, own up to my actions, and truly seek God’s forgiveness, my God is willing to grant that forgiveness.

Mathew 18:21 Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

My God was in fact so intolerant of my sin, yet so full of mercy and compassion for me, that He allowed Jesus to be beaten, mocked, spat on, ridiculed, tortured and nailed to a cross in order to convey to me just how serious my sin is, yet just how much my God loves me despite this.

As Jesus looked down from the cross and the people were laughing and shaking their fist at him in delight over His agony, yet still Jesus said “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Forget tolerance, that is what I truly need. I need my God to forgive me of my sin, to clean me up from all of my unrightousness and to make me day by day, and year by year, more like Him.

Conclusion:

We each have a choice this coming year. We can settle for tolerance of our sin and reap all the destructive consequences that each sin leads to. However, for myself, I do not want to settle for tolerance. Instead I seek accountability to my God. I believe that God’s ways are better than my ways and when I start to drift, I want those I trust as accountability partners to let me know. I do not want to be tolerated. I long instead to be forgiven!

My prayer this year is:

Psalms 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

Like David, I long for my God to search my heart and reveal to me where I am out of step with His ways. This can be a painful process, but it is also a wonderful process as my God is truly faithful day by day and year by year to clean me up more and more. I was a far better husband to my wife Colleen last year at 49 than I was at 23. The reason is not some great thing I had done, but the reason is the great thing God had done in me. God had cleaned me up to make me a better husband and a better Father, even as He had cleaned up my wife Colleen over the years to make her a better wife and a better mother.

So, as we head into the coming year, I wish for all of you that you will never settle for tolerance in your own lives, but instead that each of you can fully experience the deep love and forgiveness that my God longs to show you.

P.S. A few verses to share:

James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

And as part of the Lords prayer Jesus taught us to pray: Luke 11:4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us

Final Thoughts: Jesus taught us to be real with God and real with each other. No need to pretend we do not struggle with sin. Rather take those struggles to God and ask him to forgive us and clean us up, and find people you trust and be real with each other in our struggles so they can also pray for us and stand beside us that we may be healed. I have been blessed to have people willing to do this for me. Hope you can find the same.

Merry Christmas to you and your Families………….