Desperate Joy

  So Delilah asked Samson, ‘Please tell me what makes you so strong and what it would take to tie you up securely.’Samson replied, ‘If I were tied up with seven new bowstrings, I would become as weak as anyone else.’  Source: FreeBibleImages.org , Samson's Hair Before there were kings in the nation of Israel, judges were religious and political leaders who organized the scattered tribes of Israel to fight their enemies. One such judge was Samson. Samson is well known for his Holy Spirit-empowered physical strength and ability in battle. He single-handedly killed hundreds of enemy Philistines and at one point pulled out the gates of a city and carried them away. There are not too many people that the Bible says were filled with the Holy Spirit like Samson was. He was uniquely gifted and used by God. He is honored in the "Hall of Faith" in Hebrews 11, alongside many other people of great faith. But Samson had a problem. As much as he was able to defeat nearly every Ph...

  In 2 Kings 6 in the Bible, we find the king of Syria waging war against the nation of Israel. When the Syrians would plan an attack, the Hebrew prophet Elisha would tell the king of Israel where and when they were going to attack, and they were able to outflank the Syrians in every battle. The king of Syria would attempt sneak attack after sneak attack, and every time Elisha would spoil his plans.  The king of Syria started to think that he had a spy in his court. One of his advisors told him that it was not a spy, but Elisha was telling the king of Israel "the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber."  They discovered that Elisha was in the town of Dothan, and the king of Syria sent a mighty army there. Here is what Scripture says:   "...When the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, a host compassed the city both with horses and chariot. And his servant said unto [Elisha], Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not...

  Image by  Artur Pawlak  from  Pixabay When I was teenager, I had a Pug/Pekinese mix dog named Chad. He was hyper and ugly, in a rather adorable way. His favorite game was to pull on pieces of rope with knots tied in the end. I had a good time swinging him around with those. One night he was laying in bed with me, and he was drooling a lot, so I kicked him off the bed onto the floor. The next morning, he was unusually lethargic and had left a large puddle of drool on the carpet. I tossed him in the back yard and as I was going about my routine, I looked in the back yard and Chad was rocking back and forth, pushing his head in and out of some bushes. I pointed this out to my parents, and they decided to take him to the vet. Turns out, Chad had gotten into some "snail bait"(poison) my parents had in the back yard for the vegetable garden. Chad thought it tasted good and had his fill. The vet pumped his stomach and fortunately he survived to pull on the rope anot...

  Image by  Rain  from  Pixabay For a big chunk of my twenties, I believed that if my willpower were strong enough, I could break free from my addiction to porn. I thought if I were focused and determined enough then I could stop acting out. If I could summon the strength of will then I could wrestle that bear of addiction into submission. I believed that overcoming those mental and spiritual strongholds was a matter of power. The conflict was a simple matter of two forces meeting and the greater won. It was like sumo wrestlers colliding in the middle of the ring, if I were strong enough, I could force the addiction out of my life. This is not the reality that God has revealed in his Word. The apostle Paul reveals a far different perspective in Ephesians, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places." Our battle with sin and a...

  Image by  Mircea Iancu  from  Pixabay "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." (James 5:16) I remember hearing this verse preached about when I was a kid and the pastor saying something like, "I don't need to hear about your sins, don't come confessing them to me! I can't forgive your sins! Only God can do that, just confess your sins to him!" I believe it is true that we only need to confess our sins to God in order to be justified. Jesus is the only priest we need to make mediation and absolution for us, no other human priests are required. But the context of the verse is not about salvation, but about praying for healing from a sickness or affliction. The Apostle James tells us that if we want healing, we should go to the church, confess our faults and sins and have them anoint us with oil, lay hands on us and pray for us.(See James 5:1...

  PRAYER IN THE GARDEN Matthew 26:36-56 ,  Mark 14:32-52 ,  Luke 22:39-53 ,  John 18:1-10 Jesus prays in Gethsemane and is arrested. (Image courtesy of Free Bible Images ) One of the more important and powerful verses in the Bible says this, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." (1 John 4:18) Though I might modify it a little, "There is no shame in love, but perfect love casts out shame." (And just to qualify, I am not talking about healthy shame, but the toxic kind. Healthy shame serves to protect love.) If we want to break free from toxic shame and the multitude of unhealthy behaviors that it causes, we need love. We crave nothing more than love. It is our greatest need. In order to be truly loved, we must be truly known. It is that deep, powerful love that will overcome the shame that binds us. But with toxic shame driving the bus, we will never find it. Toxic shame forces us to hide what is really going on inside of us. It convinces ...

Image by  Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay . There has been a dark, secret force that has been oppressing me for much of my life. It was the hidden power that fueled my addiction to porn and compulsive masturbation. It eventually led me into captivity, literally, in a federal prison where I now reside. It festers and grows in the darkest parts of my soul and feeds on lies and deception. Its fruit is despair and destruction. It kept me hiding, creating facades and masks to hide who I really was. People would ask what was going on and I would say, "Fine." "Just really busy."  "Didn't sleep well."  Always hiding the truth of chaos in my soul. This dark force was toxic shame. The first time I found some relief from that shame was in my late twenties. I had just finished a master's degree in education at a small Christian college and was attending the large church that sponsored the school. I wasn't in full-time ministry or enrolled in a Chr...