God just ignores me

Seriously, I have all these great plans and ideas of how to make God famous. If He would just stop managing global affairs for a minute and listen to me, He’d know how awesome and perfectly planned these ideas are! I’ve got it all worked out, and if he would just follow the plan, the world would be in awe of Him! Read more »

I want to LIVE!

“He who has the Son has life.” 1 John 5:12

This past weekend turned to be sort of a wake-up call for many of us. The message was simple, but painfully honest. The response was almost overwhelming as person after person began to express how desperately their hearts were crying out to live like never before. (If you missed the sermon, get it here)

As one person emailed me, “Too often we allow ourselves to get caught up in the day-to-day busyness of living and not deeply following the path God desires for us.” We were created with a passion to live, not a passion to be busy. God is inviting us, the people of Covenant Church, to embark on this wild adventure and journey with Him. It is not about becoming busy for Him – Read more »

The moment I hit “Send”

I wanted others in my life to know. I wanted to continue to be held accountable in the future. But as I sat there, having just typed an email to be sent to five guys who speak immense amounts into my life, I literally wrestled with whether or not to send it. “Do I really need to be so vulnerable? I haven’t even really sinned. Didn’t God already forgive me? What would each of these guys think of me? Why not just lay low and move on?”

The Gospel of Mark’s account of Jesus’ wilderness experience includes a detail that none of the other gospels include. Mark 1:13 records “…and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals…” Wild animals? Were they boars? Snakes? It doesn’t say. But I’ve seen enough Animal Planet episodes with my boys to know that wild animals like to hunt, and certain wild animals don’t just eat – they devour.

In the two or three weeks leading up to this particular email, I gained a completely new understanding of this passage. I felt I had been under constant attack of temptation. It was relentless at times, many times overwhelming, and almost always when I was alone. I felt as though there were wild animals just waiting for me to give up, except my wild animals weren’t physical – they were all in my head. I was getting tired, and I knew my ability and strength to fend off these temptations was waning. How much longer would I be able to resist? Honestly, there were times I didn’t want to. There were moments when I tried to convince myself those wild animals were really pretty harmless, and that nobody would be harmed if I just gave in to them. It would have been so easy.

And that’s when I knew I was being deceived.

Once I started rationalizing it away, justifying my “innocent” thoughts, I was in trouble. I could not fight alone any longer. I had convinced myself I could handle it. I had convinced myself I wouldn’t do anything wrong. I needed help.

But getting help would require me to tell someone … to confess my weakness … and doing that would require complete openness and transparency on my part … it would require bringing that which was in the darkness of my mind into the light of God’s holiness.

I John 1:7-9 resounded within me. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

So, I brought it all into the light. Not joyfully, not excitedly; but with great fear and pain. And this is where God absolutely amazed me! The moment I hit “Send” on that email, it was as if every wild animal that sought to devour me immediately scattered. I was in the light of His love and grace.

Will they come back? Undoubtedly. I’ll hear the roar of condemnation from past sins. I’ll feel the horns of remorse and shame. But I know what the light looks and feels like, and it looks and feels incredible. And I know that as I regularly give myself to His Word, to praying, to worship, to being in a transparent community of friends, and to other disciplines of the faith, I will continue to put myself in the light. Rarely is it easy, but it’s always freeing.

So how about you? Need some light?

Intentionally following Jesus … into the light.
Jeff Daigle