Entirely Christ’s …and Not Yet
A selection from an as yet unpublished book written in the latter half of my first year into "recovery" from sin and addiction. In this, the start of 2025, I'm just a little over two years removed; doing well spiritually, yet keenly aware of how fragile human life, at least mine is. The following is a short devotional from very near the end of "Entirely Christ's ...and Not Yet," together with and my own thoughts and feelings in response ...at the start of 2025.
In short: There is no certainty but Christ and such is rooted in faith; the most vulnerable of all possibilities. Yet the only one that makes any sense of it all.
FROM HERE, WHERE?
I come to the end of these 180 + 90 days a bit frightened and hopeful, saddened and looking forward to what adventures lie ahead.
I’m afraid because I’m quickly approaching the four months of every year—October, November, December, January—that I’m historically vulnerable to sexual addictive desires and behaviors having, in recent memory, made little progress toward interior sexual sanity in terms of desire enfolding love instead of lust. I’m afraid because I know I will not sin yet will wish I could. I cannot go down that road because the pain is too high for all; my lady, kids, grand-kids, Church, peers, those I’ve spiritually mentored or in whose life I’ve invested. The cost to me is life itself. I’m afraid because I remain alone, now more than ever.
I am saddened because I continue to desire meaning in life, not from my family first, but from thinking, feeling, writing—from helping others. This root of loneliness many would say is selfishness or narcissism. Probably in a measure. It is certainly selfish when I do not trust God, entirely. In such seasons (thankfully not too many) the ‘not yet’ takes control, cementing my heart in the lost environ of living unto myself alone.
I grew up alone; A sibling 7-9 years apart and growing up on a homestead in southern Idaho on land stolen from the quiet wonder of a sagebrush desert filled with dangerous wonders, rattlers ever near. In this space two realities emerged within me, each a wonder and yet incomplete in terms of human-making.
The first was interior silence and imagination. Like the desert around me, I discovered a world within just as full of wonder and danger, fears and hope. I could spend days building my imaginary farm or empire or city beneath the ocean. When done, I put it away, never to be played with, just held. Kinda like these books no one reads, yet remains a space neither big enough nor pure enough for the other discovery of childhood. God.
I also discovered there is a difference between loneliness and the wonder of aloneness. The primary difference between these polar ends (lonely and simply at home, alone) is the relationship of love I and you are invited into inside The Trinity of God. Only twice in my life, since my earliest childhood has the signature of God’s love, God’s voice turned into a knowing and grinding emptiness; each the result of choosing to live into sexual addiction, whatever the cost. So, as a 70-year-old gentle and passionate man coming home to Christ is coming home to sanity, to inner congruence, to peace and meaning fulfilled in loving others.
In this last 8 + months (248 days sober at this writing) God has graciously allowed me to re-think and re-feel what I really believe, whose I am, who I really am. What has my complete attention is ‘the Not Yet’ of the days of this writing. Genuine repentance has barely begun, really. I move back and forth between the intimate longings of my heart and the absolute conviction that ‘lust’ parading itself as more than longing is a lie. It is no longer a war. Indeed the awareness of it often brings pain and sadness, especially for those whom my sin has stolen innocent faith. Yet underneath, if I could create a world of painless sexual play , I would.
On the “Entire” side of living the re-discovery of Jesus, my Creator, redeemer, friend is simply joy. Added is the tender re-acquaintance with Joetta, my kids and grandkids and the rhythms of family that I’ve always felt a kind of distance from. Joetta has made for me and our kids a home, a safe place where I used to retreat—mostly into myself, I think—having orked 40-70 hours in mission, often in profoundly loving ways, where I always felt ‘1st person’ alive.
The Church is my mother and father. I was raised that it should be so, not realizing that such was never God’s intention; at least not as a replacement of my familial relations.
So, I’m hopeful that in the sobriety of the weeks, months and hopefully years ahead I may actually live to:
1) Experience anew this human making journey I and you are ordained of God to live— observing, feeling, thinking, and praying it into writing, and;
2) Actually love God and my neighbors once again, and;
3) Meet, increasingly, my lady’s needs, addressing her fears, desires, and vision of what this season of our life together may become, and;
4) Once again receive the trust of the Church of Christ (Naz) as restored to the rights and privileges of ordination as one called of Christ to that end.
I pray and will focus all of my years of service that may yet be to these ends; God helping me. I also ask for your prayers for Joetta, my children and grand-children, our community of faith of 30 + years and for myself. Please. Thank you. Terry Blessings!
Scripture Reflections: James 4: 13-17 & 5: 1-16
End of Devotional Writing from "Entirely Christ's... and Not Yet"
Reflections from 01/04/2025
"Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them" (James 4: 13-17).
Humility (Reverence) is foundational to being human... continual inter-active intrigue; knowing "the good we ought to do" and doing it. (James 4: 17a)
If we try to establish our own kingdom, to that extent we are at war with what is essential in human making; the keen awareness that we by nature of our creation "are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4: 14c). It is relaxing or settling into this reality that turns chaos, obstacles, disruptions into the wonder of a child at Disneyland.
Herein lies the secret of "Entire and Not Yet". The only hope of eternal significance in all our wonderment is a fragile but profound discovery in Jesus, who ever plays the "child" within us.
A Prayer
Father, I live in the awareness of so much loss for others and for myself. I will likely never again be trusted with the proclamation and teaching of Your life, though Your call burns within like an ember in the heat of flame. Please, help me to be happy somehow again witht he privelege of living it, as one newly born.
Truth is, I deserve noting more. I leave my fragile life within Your good hands—as Jesus leads. Amen.
Remembering: A video of a 2023 one day devotional journey to my childhood home...
Comments