Discovering Who I Am, Relationships, Words of Endurance

Trusting Others With Who I Am

February 20, 2013

- Discovering Who I Am, Relationships, Words of Endurance

A friend loves you all the time
PROVERBS 17:17 (NCV)

I love the book of Proverbs. It truly is the Book of Wisdom. Last week we learned from Proverbs how important it is to journey through life with wise, safe and trustworthy friends. There is nothing like a true friend who loves us through the good times and the bad times.

The next step is learning to trust those friends – removing the masks that we think they will like and accept – and allowing those friends to see who we truly are underneath those masks. That is a scary step for most of us – I know it was for me – especially within the Christian community. Because …

We gain admiration and respect from behind a mask. We can even intimidate. But as long as we’re behind a mask, any mask, we will not be able to receive love. Then, in our desperation to be loved, we’ll rush to fashion more masks, hoping the next will give us what we’re longing for: To be known, accepted, trusted and loved THE CURE (JOHN LYNCH, BRUCE MCNICHOL, BILL THRALL)

And the truth is that mask wearing stunts our growth – our maturing process. We will never mature into who we truly are until we learn to remove our masks and reveal our struggles and weaknesses with trustworthy friends. The purpose of friendships is to help one another grow and mature – sharpening us into who we never dreamed we could be.

As iron sharpens iron,
so a friend sharpens a friend.
PROVERBS 27:17 (NLT)

On the Journey with You,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Relationships, Words of Endurance

Journeying With Others

By Nathan Solla on

February 15, 2013

- Discovering Who I Am, Relationships, Words of Endurance

God said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone;
I’ll make him a helper, a companion.”
GENESIS 2:18 (THE MESSAGE)

It is true that we cannot do this life alone – God never meant for us to do it alone. We need our relationship with God but we also need real relationships with others as we journey through this life together. We need one another in order to mature into who we truly are.

Because not all people are “safe people” the Scripture does instruct us that we do need to be careful about WHO we choose to journey through life with …

Godly people are careful about the friends they choose.
PROVERBS 12:26 (NIRV)

And the type of friends we can trust and walk with …

Become wise by walking with the wise;
hang out with fools and watch your life fall to pieces.
PROVERBS 13:20 (THE MESSAGE)

I know for me I am so grateful for my true, wise, trusted, and safe friends and family who have skipped along the mountaintops with me and celebrated each triumph and yet they didn’t dessert me when I trudged through the valleys of life with all my personal struggles. I thank God that …

Friends love through all kinds of weather,
and families stick together in all kinds of trouble.
PROVERBS 17:17 (THE MESSAGE)

My prayer for all of you on this journey is that you are not journeying this life alone. I pray that you have true and trustworthy friends and family to journey with through life. And if you do not – because you do not know if you can trust anyone – then I pray that God will heal your broken heart and give you the courage to open your heart and learn to trust others again. Because remember and know …

Friends come and friends go,
but a true friend sticks by you like family.
PROVERBS 18:24 (THE MESSAGE)

On the Journey with You,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Relationships, Words of Endurance

We Are An Open Book Before God

By connie on

February 5, 2013

- Discovering Who I Am, Relationships, Words of Endurance

I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.
PSALM 139:13-16 (THE MESSAGE)

I just recently visited the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and one of the highlights was when I was able to visit the laboratory where they are studying the cell for the purpose of stem cell transplants. As the scientist explained how each cell functions and all that these cells do in protecting us – I stood in awe! I was amazed at how marvelously made we are! I could only cry out as King David did in Psalm 139 – what a creation we are – created by the Great Creator!

He knows us inside and out – which means He knows our hearts – the very seat of our being. There is no hiding our hearts from Him. And what is even harder for me to grasp – harder for me to wrap my finite human mind around – is that even though He knows my heart He still loves me!

I am an open book before God – one more reason that I do not need to try and hide my heart from God because I can’t! This is one more good reason to shed my masks and be real before God! This is one more good reason that I can trust God with who I truly am – warts and all – because …

I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!
PSALM 139:1-6 (THE MESSAGE)

On the Journey with You,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Healing, Peace, Words of Endurance

Your Heart is What Matters to God

By Nathan Solla on

January 21, 2013

- Discovering Who I Am, Healing, Peace, Words of Endurance

“God judges persons differently than humans do.
Men and women look at the face;
God looks into the heart.”
1 SAMUEL 16:7 (THE MESSAGE)

I have learned that the masks that I wore were pretty much useless because God bypasses any mask that we wear and goes straight for the heart. After all Jesus did say to the Apostle John on the Island of Patmos that …

… appearances don’t impress me.
REVELATION 2:23 (THE MESSAGE)

So even though the Scriptures share that …

The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
JEREMIAH 17:9 (THE MESSAGE)

We can feel safe with God and trust that as He searches our “dark and deceitful” hearts that He will get to the “root of things” if our hearts need changing …

But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be.”
JEREMIAH 17:9-10 (THE MESSAGE)

And He will give us a “new heart” as He has promised …

I’ll give you a new heart.
I’ll put a new spirit in you.
I’ll cut out your stone heart
and replace it with a red-blooded, firm-muscled heart.
Then you’ll obey my statutes
and be careful to obey my commands.
You’ll be my people! I’ll be your God!
EZEKIEL 11:19-20 (THE MESSAGE)

And then there will be no need for any mask because our hearts will reflect what He is doing in our hearts …

Just as water mirrors your face,
so your face mirrors your heart.
PROVERBS 27:19 (THE MESSAGE)

On the Journey with You,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Healing, Peace, Words of Endurance

Face to Face-No Masks

By connie on

January 15, 2013

- Discovering Who I Am, Healing, Peace, Words of Endurance

Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did,
God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face!
They suddenly recognize that God
is a living, personal presence,
not a piece of chiseled stone.
And when God is personally present, a living Spirit,
that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete.
We’re free of it! All of us!
Nothing between us and God,
our faces shining with the brightness of his face.
And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah,
our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful
as God enters our lives and we become like him.
2 CORINTHIANS 3:16-18

I have only recently discovered that a major step in maturing is that I must discard the masks that I have developed and worn through the years. I did not honestly know that I wore any masks because through the years I have been more than open about my own personal struggles but the truth is that we all wear masks – all for different reasons.

I personally have developed these masks not only to protect myself from being truly known but to protect others and even to protect God from who I truly am. I have discovered that behind my mask of strength and confidence is a root of fear and self-doubt. Feeling shame and not wanting anyone to know this part of me I have used anger as a way of steering others away – enabling me to hide those fears of failure, inadequacy and frustration.

“That’s why revealing the origins of our masks is so important.
We need to see ourselves objectively within our story,
to see what drives the responses tripping us up.
Our controlling behavior is rarely random.
It’s triggered by unresolved junk,
and if we begin to understand the process of unresolved sin,
we may no longer react to each new provocation
like lemmings sprinting for the nearest cliff.
Our masks are a symptom, not a root cause,
a fever indicating a raging infection deep inside.
We must expose this dark dynamic compelling us to protect ourselves.”
THE CURE (JOHN LYNCH, BRUCE MCNICOL, BILL THRALL)

How freeing it is to know who I truly am does not need to be hidden in the dark behind a mask but it needs to be brought out into the light and the “brightness of His face “– fully exposed – so that I may be healed and “transfigured much like the Messiah.”

How awesome is it that “God removes the veil” – the masks – and there we are – “face to face” with Him! There is to be “nothing between us and God” and what is even more awesome is that He is “personally present” – we are fully known by Him – He knows us inside out and yet He still loves us. Oh how great and unfathomable is the Grace of God!

On the Journey with You,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Guilt, Healing, Words of Endurance

Maturing From the Inside Out

By connie on

January 10, 2013

- Discovering Who I Am, Guilt, Healing, Words of Endurance

“Cursed is the strong one
who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
in a land where nothing grows.”
JEREMIAH 17:5-6 (THE MESSAGE)

After I committed my life to Christ I felt that I needed to change my sinful ways. After all I wanted to please God and as I reflect back on those early days of my journey with Christ I felt responsible to “fix” me – on my “muscle alone” – not God’s. I had high expectations of myself – in my own power and strength – to perform well for God.

I also had those high expectations of my wife and children. And I am ashamed to admit now that when they did not meet those expectations – when they would fail, sin and expose their weaknesses – I would shame them by asking them if their actions were “glorifying to God.”

Jan would always respond to me, “Sure I can perform and change my outsides but what about my sinful insides? What about the part of me that still sins but I won’t dare let others see or more truthfully that you don’t want others to see? But I know that God sees that part of me! What good is it to appear to be holy on the outside when your heart is still raging and desires sin? To me that is being a phony! I want my insides to match my outsides! I need God to change my heart because obviously I don’t know how!”

I, too, have learned that I did not know how to bring lasting change to my heart. Unfortunately, when our outsides do not match our insides what is on the inside – through the seasons of life – will eventually make its way to the outside. Unless God does the maturing or changing of our hearts “our maturing” will be like the “tumbleweed on the prairie” being tossed and blown by the wind. The Truth is we don’t know how to mature our hearts but the Good News is that God does!

“But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season.”
JEREMIAH 17:7-8 (THE MESSAGE)

Fortunately God has been showing me that it is fruitless to try to perform and please Him without trusting Him. I have learned that trusting God leads to a dependence on Him that He will mature me from the inside out – not through any self-effort. If I want to grow and mature I need to trust God to establish those deep roots that will enable me to endure the seasons of life.

Instead fix your attention on God.
You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Readily recognize what he wants from you,
and quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you,
always dragging you down to its level of immaturity,
God brings the best out of you,
develops well-formed maturity in you.
ROMANS 12:2 (THE MESSAGE)

On the Journey with You,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Healing, Hope, Words of Endurance

A Saint Who Sins

By connie on

December 18, 2012

- Discovering Who I Am, Healing, Hope, Words of Endurance

Now we look inside, and
what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah
gets a fresh start, is created new.
The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!
Look at it!
All this comes from the God
who settled the relationship between us and him,
God put the world square with himself
through the Messiah,
giving the world a fresh start
by offering forgiveness of sins.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:17,19 (THE MESSAGE)

After I committed my life to Christ I always looked at myself as a “sinner who was saved” because I knew that I still struggled with sin. What I did not realize was that when I accepted Christ as my Lord I became a new creation as the Scripture above proclaims. Not because of anything that I did or would do but because of what Jesus did for me on the cross.

I am ashamed to admit that I became aware of this awesome Truth only recently on my journey with Christ. But let me assure you that it is never too late to learn the original Good News! I was stoked to learn that when I became a Christ follower I became a saint – totally righteous before God – even though I did not feel or always act like a saint! I was stoked even more when I read the following in the book, The Cure:

Nature provides many examples of this incredible discrepancy between who we appear to be and who we are. Consider the caterpillar. If we brought a caterpillar to a biologist and asked him to analyze it and describe its DNA, he would tell us, “I know this looks like a caterpillar to you. But scientifically, according to every test, including DNA, this is fully a butterfly.”

Wow! God has wired into a creature looking nothing like a butterfly a perfectly complete butterfly identity. And because the caterpillar is a butterfly in essence, it will one day display the behavior and attributes of a butterfly. The butterfly matures into what is already true about it.

So it is with us. God has given us the DNA of Righteousness. We are saints. Nothing we do will make us more righteous than we already are. Nothing we do will alter this reality. God knows that we are “Christ in me.” And now He is asking us to join Him in what He knows is true! THE CURE (JOHN LYNCH, BRUCE MCNICOL, BILL THRALL)

This was revolutionary and freeing for me because I now know that my DNA is the DNA of a Saint – a saint who sins but is forgiven and righteous before God. And if you are a child of God you are too!!! Together we can rejoice in the following Truth …

It wasn’t so long ago that we ourselves
were stupid and stubborn,
dupes of sin, ordered every which way by our glands,
going around with a chip on our shoulder,
hated and hating back.
But when God, our kind and loving Savior God,
stepped in, he saved us from all that.
It was all his doing; we had nothing to do with it.
He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people,
washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit.
Our Savior Jesus poured out new life so generously.
God’s gift has restored our relationship with him and given us back our lives.
And there’s more life to come—an eternity of life!
You can count on this.
TITUS 3:3-8 (THE MESSAGE)

On the journey with you,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Grief, Hope, Words of Endurance

I Need Something More

By Nathan Solla on

December 9, 2012

- Discovering Who I Am, Grief, Hope, Words of Endurance

I can anticipate the response that is coming:
“I know that all God’s commands are spiritual,
but I’m not.
Isn’t this also your experience?”
ROMANS 7:14 (THE MESSAGE)

Is this also your experience? I know that this has been mine. Whenever I have tried to abide by God’s law by my own self-effort – I felt nothing but utter frustration! I concluded that I could not do this in my own power. The dilemma? I needed something more!

I love the fact that the Apostle Paul faced the same dilemma. He had come to the same conclusion and experienced that same frustration! He, too, needed something more …

Yes. I’m full of myself—after all,
I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison.
What I don’t understand about myself is
that I decide one way,
but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.
So if I can’t be trusted to figure out
what is best for myself and then do it,
it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

But I need something more!
For if I know the law but still can’t keep it,
and if the power of sin within me
keeps sabotaging my best intentions,
I obviously need help!

I realize that I don’t have what it takes.
I can will it, but I can’t do it.
I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it;
I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.
My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions.

Something has gone wrong deep within me
and gets the better of me every time.
It happens so regularly that it’s predictable.
The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.

I truly delight in God’s commands,
but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight.
Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I’ve tried everything and nothing helps.
I’m at the end of my rope.
Is there no one who can do anything for me?
Isn’t that the real question?
ROMANS 7:15-24 (THE MESSAGE)

Sounds hopeless – doesn’t it? Oh but it is not! Let me share with you the Good News! On our worst day – God still loves us. Hard to believe? I understand but when we trust God we enter the His Room of Grace. And in His Room of Grace He does not leave us to our own demise but works within us to mature us into – who we truly are – His child – a Saint who sins.

The answer, thank God,
is that Jesus Christ can and does.
He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions
where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind,
but am pulled by the influence of sin
to do something totally different.
ROMANS 7:25 (THE MESSAGE)

On the journey with you,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Hope, Peace, Words of Endurance

I Am God’s Man

By connie on

November 28, 2012

- Discovering Who I Am, Hope, Peace, Words of Endurance

We know very well that we are not set right
with God by rule-keeping
but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ.
How do we know?
We tried it—and we had the best system of rules
the world has ever seen!
Convinced that no human being
can please God by self-improvement,
we believed in Jesus as the Messiah
so that we might be set right before God
by trusting in the Messiah,
not by trying to be good.
GALATIANS 2:15-16

Being by nature a “rule keeper” it was very easy for me to adapt to following God’s rules when I became a Christian. My heart’s desire was to please God by following His rules. I actually believed that …

More right behavior + Less wrong behavior = Godliness
THE CURE
BY JOHN LYNCH, BRUCE MCNICHOL, BILL THRALL

I don’t know about you but this formula did not work for me. Unfortunately, I was frustrated time and time again because of my inability to achieve Godliness by my own efforts. That frustration only resulted in anger towards those I loved and especially myself. I did not realize that my self-effort was fruitless because …

If I was “trying to be good,”
I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down.
I would be acting as a charlatan.
GALATIANS 2:18

Oh I tried so hard to rebuild my old barn but finally, after years and years of failed attempts to be Godly only of late have I learned that …

We can never resolve our sin by working on it.
We may externally sublimate behavior but
we’re essentially repositioning the chairs a bit
on the deck of a sinking ship.
When we strive to sin less, we don’t.
THE CURE BY JOHN LYNCH, BRUCE MCNICHOL, BILL THRALL

WHAT A RELIEF! The truth I learned was that I would achieve His righteousness by trusting in God and knowing that I am set right before Him – not by what I have done or will do – but by what Christ has done for me in His death and resurrection. This truth has set me free from shame of my failed self-improvement project and allowed me to trust that it is only through Christ living in me that I will mature in Godliness.

So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man.
Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it.
I identified myself completely with him.
Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ.
… Christ lives in me.
The life you see me living is not “mine,”
but it is lived by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me.
I am not going to go back on that.
Is it not clear to you that to go back
to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion
would be an abandonment of everything
personal and free in my relationship with God?
I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace.
If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping,
then Christ died unnecessarily.
GALATIANS 2:19-21 (THE MESSAGE)

On the journey with you,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Grief, Guilt, Healing, Words of Endurance

One Comeback After Another

By Nathan Solla on

November 13, 2012

- Discovering Who I Am, Grief, Guilt, Healing, Words of Endurance

Have mercy on me, O God,
because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion,
blot out the stain of my sins.
PSALM 51:1 (NLT)

Who am I? I have problems like everyone else and I don’t always deal with them well. I am a guy who struggles every day. I struggle with being down, with being a husband, father and now grandfather, with communicating and with how to lead a ministry. Every time I turn the corner I find another problem in front of me that I don’t know how to deal with. I look at my life and I say to myself “Is this the way it is going to be day after day after day?” And the answer is probably.

Yet I am learning that I can endure this journey and the ongoing struggles best when I accept that I am a man who has faults and sins – who needs the Grace of God – a man who is still in the process of learning and maturing – still growing up! Life is easier for me when I realize it calls for one comeback after another – a comeback to God.

The Bible tells a story about a guy who was a jock, a national hero and also a sinner. In a strange sort of way – that comforts me. He was a guy who had to depend on the Grace of God – just like me. This man, King David, fought bears and lions – and won. He won the greatest slingshot competition of all time where the prize was more than just the pennant. The fate of his entire country depended on how well he would pitch a little stone toward the massive forehead of a giant named Goliath. When he beaned that Giant (who was fortunately from Philistia, not San Francisco), he became an instant hero. The whole country was cheering him, honoring him, loving him.

But David was far from a perfect guy. I am so thankful that the Bible brings balance to King David’s victories by also sharing his failures. (It is just nice to know that David was human too and I am not alone in my own victories and failures) He had it all – he became King – he was famous – he was affluent – he was a skilled and successful warrior. He even had a great relationship with God – leading the entire nation in worship through his songs. But …

One day he caught a glimpse of his neighbor’s wife as she was stepping in and out of the tub. He liked what he saw and had an affair with her. When he found out she was pregnant he had her husband killed to try to keep his image intact. David kept up the pretense until he was confronted with what he had done. When he finally realized his sin – he admitted his failures, came clean and repented. He came back to God.

Wash me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
For I recognize my rebellion;
it haunts me day and night.
Against you, and you alone, have I sinned;
I have done what is evil in your sight.
PSALM 51:2-4 (NLT)

Whoever I am – I don’t want to live in deceit. I want to be real even if it tarnishes my image. I want to be real even though it means I have to admit some ugly things about myself. Whoever I am I will always be a guy who needs the Grace of God. When I realize God’s grace in my life and who I am in relationship to Him that gives me the desire to live for Him every day but also honest before Him about my faults and sins.

In each devotional I have shared with you some things that may have surprised you – they don’t match my public image. I hope you don’t hold it against me. I do not do it for shock value but in hopes that you will be encouraged to see the Grace of God at work in the life of a man just like you. I hope it encourages you to come clean with God – repent of your sins and receive His Grace that erases all our faults and failures. And most of all I hope it motivates you to keep on coming back even when you fail because life really is just one comeback after another.

Because of God’s Grace, together with King David, we can all cry out …

Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Do not banish me from your presence,
and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and make me willing to obey you.
PSALM 51:10-12 (NLT)

On the journey with you,
Dave Dravecky

Discovering Who I Am, Relationships, Words of Endurance

Trusting Others With Who I Am

Discovering Who I Am, Relationships, Words of Endurance

Journeying With Others

Discovering Who I Am, Relationships, Words of Endurance

We Are An Open Book Before God

Discovering Who I Am, Healing, Peace, Words of Endurance

Your Heart is What Matters to God

Discovering Who I Am, Healing, Peace, Words of Endurance

Face to Face-No Masks

Discovering Who I Am, Guilt, Healing, Words of Endurance

Maturing From the Inside Out

Discovering Who I Am, Healing, Hope, Words of Endurance

A Saint Who Sins

Discovering Who I Am, Grief, Hope, Words of Endurance

I Need Something More

Discovering Who I Am, Hope, Peace, Words of Endurance

I Am God’s Man

Discovering Who I Am, Grief, Guilt, Healing, Words of Endurance

One Comeback After Another

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