Sample ChapterS
No Need to Judge the Book By Its Cover
I do believe in "The Golden Rule" from the "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 7:12 and to that end I always wanted to be able to read some key chapters of the book before I bought it. I have to many books taking up space that I bought and then I did not connect with it.
CHAPTER 1 - THE PERSPECTIVE THAT MAKES UGLY, DARK, TILES BEAUTIFUL
Justin James Franklin was now in his early eighties and was very conscious of the fact that he would likely not have many days like this again. He was holding the hand of his beautiful, six-year-old great-grand-daughter, walking in the sunshine of a lovely spring day in Pittsburgh. Sasha spoke continuously during every step of their walk, from the train station to their ultimate destination at The Grand Market.
This date between Sasha and Pop Pop was something that he had done with each of his children, and each of their children, and now his grandchildren’s children. The math of his age, and the age of his grandchildren, meant that this would likely be the last such date.
Sasha had driven her parents crazy from the previous evening to the early morning. She heard of the extraordinary adventure from her mom and some of her cousins, and she had the feeling in her heart that she was going to go to the ball like Cinderella. Pop Pop promised that he would drive them in his 1957 Cadillac Deville. It was only for very special family occasions that Pop Pop brought his prized possession out, such as weddings, important anniversaries, and graduations. Pop Pop also declared that if his Pirates won the World Series again that he would lead their parade with the car he named Liberty.
Sasha was to bed late organizing, and re-organizing her outfit for her big day with Pop Pop. She agonized over the hat, bow, and tights that she would wear with the pretty dress that Sasha and her mom had picked out the week before.
Sasha was then up early like it was Christmas morning as she rushed into her parent’s bedroom before it was 5:30 am. Her dad dutifully made a special breakfast while the ladies began the preparations for the day with a shower and a new hairstyle featuring the use of a straightening iron and curling iron. After breakfast, Sasha dressed and then engaged in an argument with her mother, insisting that she needed makeup for such a special day. After twenty minutes of intense conversation, they agreed that such a young and beautiful lady would only benefit from the slightest amount of gloss for her lips and a bit of blush for her cheeks. With that completed, Sasha insisted that they all sit on their porch and wait for her grandfather to arrive.
JJ lived only two blocks away, and they could have walked there in less than three minutes, but they all loved seeing the Caddy drive up to the house. As was now customary, he paid a local professional detailer to do what he would have previously done himself to get the car ready for the day. The “kid”, as Pop Pop referred to him, a forty-eight-year-old man, handed JJ the keys and stood back to enjoy what he knew would probably be the last of their inspection. Miguel Salas was well respected for his attention to detail but, he purposely allowed three fingerprints on the chrome of the Caddy so Mr. Franklin could find them and wipe them clean.
“Oh, Miguel! How could you miss this one right here on the back of the mirror?” JJ implored. “Men your age start to need glasses,” he said as Jamie smiled and offered his more sincere apology watching JJ wipe the fingerprint clean. JJ continued down the driver’s side of the car and around the back, bending as low as he could to do his inspection. “Ah! I found another one Mr. Salas. Sometimes you have to not be standing up to be able to see some of these spots. Sometimes you tall guys miss spots like this!” Miguel smiled again. Being five-foot-nine-inches tall, he was rarely accused of being tall. He had left the third smudge on the rear passenger-side door handle, and JJ quickly found that one and wiped it clean. Jamie knew the joy that JJ had in being involved in preparing the car he loved for these events.
With the final inspection finally done and the payment made, both men hugged each other as they tried to suppress tears, knowing in their hearts this would be the last transaction. As Miguel drove away, JJ stood back and looked at Liberty as he allowed over forty years of memories to come back. So many hours he and his wife had shared restoring the car, cleaning it, driving around the country in it to shows and events, and always using it to glorify God. They had never had much, but the inheritance from a favorite uncle had been a blessing and touchstone for a beautiful marriage.
JJ got in Liberty and turned left instead of right so he could go around two extra blocks before he got to his daughter’s house to pick up Sasha. Sasha and her parents could hear Liberty from two blocks away and stood so they could see Pop Pop come around the corner to their street. With phones out, picture after picture were taken of Liberty and her grandfather’s smiles flashing in the sunlight.
Sasha began to run to meet her grandfather in front of the house where he parked, but her mother held her by her arm. “A princess should be dignified and wait,” her mom instructed her as she had remembered her mom instructing her a couple of decades earlier.
JJ walked up the driveway in his best suit, and then bowed and held out his hand to receive his great granddaughter’s hand. “May I have the pleasure to escort my princess on her special day of adventure?”
“Why yes King Pop Pop!” Sasha said as she quickly let go of the formality of receiving his hand and hugged him. The family gathered around the car to take pictures for the special day, and then Sasha and her mother made their place to the back seat while JJ got in the driver’s seat and her dad in the passenger seat. JJ had never trusted his kids or their kids to drive Liberty, but he now trusted Sasha’s dad Mark to drive it back more than he trusted society not to damage it or steal it at the station.
After saying goodbye and watching Liberty drive away, covered in JJ’s prayers, the two went into the train station to get an ice cream treat, a mountain of dress-protecting napkins, and their tickets. As the commuter train gently rocked its way towards the center of the city, JJ told Sasha stories of the neighborhoods and old mills they passed. Stories from when he was a younger man and adventures and mischief that he had done with friends now long gone. JJ always liked to play a game of guessing what people on the train or out the window were on their way to do. Were they important business people? Inventor? Doctor? Spy? War hero? Writer? He had always been blessed with a child-like imagination, and the interaction of his imagination with that of a child of six always resulted in intrigue and laughter.
From the train station downtown, JJ would walk his companion to a sophisticated, historic, upscale dining establishment called Josef’s. His young companions in the 1960s and 1970s were treated to a restaurant that was in the midst of its glory days. To his six-year-old companion, it was still grand, but JJ, the owner, and his staff that had stayed with him for the decades could all see that it too was nearing the end of its life with grace.
The wait staff played their roles very well using excessively exaggerated formality and attention to Sasha’s every need. JJ always made it a point to order a more sophisticated dish for his guest, hoping that they would use the pressure of the surroundings and the wait-staff to try something other than chicken strips and something to put catsup on. As the meal was being served at the table, JJ asked Sasha to say grace. They held hands, and Sasha began, “Thank you, our Father for this wonder food and my nice date with Pop Pop. Please bless Mr. Josef’s restaurant, and please bless Mr. Williamson for serving us and let us be together in Heaven with him and his family. In Jesus name, amen.”
Their server Mr. Williamson, bowed to Sasha and said with a glisten in his eye, and a catch in his soft voice said, “Thank you, Miss Sasha, for including me in your prayer. God answered your prayer with your prayer. I feel very blessed.”
After a lovely lunch and even better dessert, JJ started out of the restaurant holding Sasha’s hand and soaking in the admiring glances of the many grandparents in the restaurant. It was only two blocks to the Grand Market building that was the purpose of his date.
As they walked in the large entrance into the market, they both spontaneously smiled at the sights, and sounds, and smells of the market. JJ lead them purposefully to near the center of the large stone hall. The building was of a grand dimension. It was a massive, circular edifice that, for a century, provided the opportunity to buy and sell surround by a sense of grandeur. Around the perimeter were arches that contained stalls. On top of those stalls was another level of stalls connected by a flight of granite stairs. On top of them, yet another level of stately commerce.
When they were in the center of the hall’s first level, JJ directed Sasha’s eyes down to the tiles on the floor. “What do you think of these tiles, Sasha?” JJ asked. He watched as her eyebrows furled into a frown of disappointment. “Oh, Pop Pop!” she exclaimed. “Why do they have such ugly, mismatched tiles in such a pretty place?”
“Do you think they are ugly, my beautiful girl? Do you think that the creator of the Grand Market made a terrible mistake as we stand here and look at these tiles?” Sasha looked sternly at her great grampa. “Oh Pop Pop, do you think that these tiles look good?” JJ rubbed his hand on his chin as if to reconsider his error of judgment. “Well, my beloved child, it does seem that you may be correct. Let’s walk away from these ugly, mismatched tiles and maybe find some treasures to bring home with us.” With that, they moved to the stalls at the edge of the hall with their thousands of trinkets, foods and clothing items.
JJ had a specific path he took with each child to have them consider all of the beautiful items and interesting people that were there. It truly was a spectacle that was Disneyesque for the eyes and mind of a young child. JJ directed Sasha to the first flight of stairs, and with some difficulty, he made his way up the stairs. It confirmed for him that this would be his last time to visit this extraordinary destination.
He directed Sasha’s attention to the details of the outer wall as they walked up. Many wonders filled the stalls on the second level, and they enjoyed snow cones before heading up the last set of stairs to the third level. Sasha was a little hesitant of the height, so she stayed to the outside and averted her glance to the outer wall.
At last, they reached the third level and greeted a couple of the vendors. It was now about 30 minutes to closing time. Some vendors were packing up and willing to offer some of their wares as gifts to a pretty young girl. JJ looked down at Sasha. He could tell that she had about used up all of the energy that her young body had for one day of adventure. “Can Pop Pop pick you up and show you those ugly, mismatched tiles that we were standing on?” She put her hands out in the universal “uppy” gesture, and God blessed him with the grace to easily pick her up in his arms as he whispered a thank you to his Maker.
At the edge of the rail overlooking the center of the hall from the third level, JJ watched her face as her eyes took in the beauty of the Grand Market main level. Each of the ugly, mismatched tiles from 45 feet up took its proper position of size, color, and texture to serve as a pixel in an awe-inspiring scene of God’s beauty. The scene of an orange and gold sunset, and glistening falling over rocky hills wrapped in the hues and colors of autumn that the artist had called “His Glory.” The sunlight streaming into the hall seemed to come from the tiles themselves instead of the other way around. Sasha mouthed a “Wow!” in quiet reverence.
“Do you see the tiles that we were standing on in the center there, my love?”
“Yes Pop Pop.”
“Do you still think that the creator of the hall was able to make even ugly, mismatched tiles work together for something truly beautiful?
“Yes, Pop Pop,” she repeated in a whisper.
“My beautiful, little Sasha. We did this today so that you remember one thing that your old, silly Pop Pop wants you to know and understand long after I am with Jesus. Even when you feel like you are stuck on an ugly, mismatched patch of tiles in your life, your Creator is going to use those ugly, mismatched tiles as part of a beautiful picture. Just trust that sometimes the perspective, from on high, in eternity, is what is needed for true glory to shine through.”
With that, she laid her little head down on his shoulder and squeezed her arms around his neck. The last rays of sunlight glistened on the happy tears of an old man and a beautiful, and wiser, young girl.
CHAPTER 22 - The Healing Has Begun
Fran parked the truck he was borrowing since he had to return in his BMW 7 series. A 2009 Ford F150 work truck with over a decade of dirt and mud and odors was his current ride. The church parking lot had about fourteen other vehicles parked in it. Old habits died hard, and he caught himself ranking the vehicles, and by extension, the people who belonged to them. He then smiled to himself. I have the worst, or maybe the second-worst vehicle. There was a Saab there, and they stopped making them in 2009. He told himself not to look down at Saab guy and prayed Saab guy wouldn’t look down on him.
Fran had spent most of his day dealing with the necessary forms and documents from his lawyer and Jeff’s lawyers. After a day of dealing with “old Fran” activities, he was looking forward to a “new Fran” activity like attending a men’s group activity at a church.
Fran picked up his Bible and walked towards the side door. He nodded to a few of the guys standing in the hallway. He noticed some of the men seemed genuinely joyful to be there, and a few looked the way he felt. Fran was uncomfortable and unsure about what this experience would be. His mind raced back to the first day of kindergarten at Manitou Park Public School. That was the closest feeling to this.
He quickly found a seat on an aisle, about midway up the rows of chairs on the right side as he walked in from the back. A couple of men who were two rows in front of him were discussing fishing. He could hear a few men behind and to the left discussing the Cubs and Pirates series that was going on that week. He looked down in his lap to the Bible. What were the chances he would have been sitting in a men’s group meeting at a church on a Thursday night just three months ago? Zip, zero, nada.
Fran noticed there was a piano set up at the front of the room. He recognized Raymond Irvine from some of the Sunday services. Raymond seemed popular and seemed to have his life together, and Fran looked forward to hearing what Raymond had to say. Fran wasn’t popular right now, and he definitely didn’t have his life together.
Raymond turned on his microphone and asked the men to find a seat to start the meeting. There was a great shuffling of feet and chairs moving and the sounds of Bibles and notebooks opening. The men finally settled down, and a respectful silence allowed Raymond to continue.
“Welcome men to our “7 Times Down Men’s Group”. I know it has been a few months since we last met for the winter series, and I can see we have some new faces. This time together is only effective with the genuine involvement of every man here. Most men clam up in a room full of other men because we all assume the other guys are as judgmental as we are”, he finished with a smile.
“As the men who have been with me before know, I will provide plenty of material for you to be judgmental towards me. The truth is I fervently believe in the Bible’s command to pick up our cross and to crucify self daily. Do you know the best way to crucify self daily? In my opinion, it is to confess the darkest secrets you have spent your life trying to keep from other people and probably yourself.” Fran could feel himself becoming less comfortable. Fran had some fear that this would be one of those events where they go around the room, and they each have to share some profound dark secret, with each guy trying to be more spiritual than the previous guys.
On cue, Raymond continued, “Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those things where I go around the room and make you stand up and confess some deep dark secret, and then guys start trying to be more spiritual than the other guys.” Fran smiled, and others chuckled, and the nervousness dissipated. Raymond continued:
“Gentlemen, most speakers will say what they are saying isn’t about them. That is BS! By that, I mean blessedly stupid. What is it that your sinful, worldly minds thought?” More chuckling and laughter. “Tonight, it is about me, gentlemen, and I hope by giving you an honest and authentic testimonial that I will be made freer from the bondages I have carried in my life. I hope many of you will jump in and make it about you, and some of you will be free from the chains binding you and limiting your effectiveness in life. We had some fun and laughter to start, but that is mostly over. Are we ready to start?” With that, a roomful of men nodded their assent, and Raymond moved over to the piano and sat down.
“The testimony of a man to other men about how the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah changed him and the direction of his life is the single greatest tool for winning souls. When a man’s soul becomes tuned to the eternal over the temporal and the spiritual over the material, the direction of families, communities, and countries are changed eternally.
One of the most powerful revivals in history began in a church on the verge of closing, with a prayer meeting organized by Jeremiah Lanphier attended by seven businessmen. We have more than seven men here and a country much more in need of revival. Let’s begin, gentlemen, with a short prayer.
My Father in Heaven, we have a good group of men gathered here tonight for many reasons. Some are here because they think it is the right thing to do to support me or to support their church. Some believe it makes them look good. Some are here because they hope to get a word for direction in their life or find a tool to make them a better husband or father. I know some here are covering wounds and hurts they are desperate to have healed.
Father, I know You know what every man here needs. Father, I pray for open hearts to honestly want to glorify You with their involvement here. Shine Your disinfecting light in all of the dark areas. I thank You for what you are going to do. I pray this in the name of Yeshua, Jesus.”
As Raymond played a few notes on the piano Fran had a powerful sense of anticipation. He still wasn’t sure what he had come to the meeting for, but he sensed it would be an important event in his life.
“Gentlemen. I do want to warn you. I am not much of a piano player, and I am not much of a singer, but I will be doing both for most of this evening. I can tell you I play the piano to please my Lord, and I sing for His glory, and because God has always blessed my efforts for changing the hard hearts of men.” As he spoke, he played portions of different vaguely familiar Christian songs and hymns.
“As many of you here know, I always start these sessions discussing the lowest point of my life. I always start with the minute that began the process that broke me and finally and truly brought me to my knees. It still horrifies me and reopens the wound each time I tell it, but we are here for me to crucify self and prayerfully for one or more of you to face the things in life you know are weakening you.
So the moment that started the process for me to be here with you was a phone call from my wife. My daughter was four years old, and I was in my work van driving. My wife called me to tell me that she had our daughter with her and went into my office at home to put a nice surprise of a drawing my daughter had made for Daddy. When they had walked around my computer to put my gift on my keyboard, they saw a pornographic video scene. My daughter saw the scene and looked up at my wife in puzzlement at what she had seen. My wife quickly took our daughter out of the office and was without words for her.” Some men gasped. Others were clearly embarrassed, and their minds were racing to situations where the same thing could have happened to them or could be happening at that moment.
“I, Raymond Irvine, inflicted intense pain on my wife by my focus on self. I put a damaging and disturbing image into the mind of my daughter. I can never undo that damage. When I went back home, I could see the look of intense pain on my wife’s face. I could see the disappointment and confusion in her eyes. I could see the respect and trust she had for me melt into nothing. That is something that, once you break it, can never, ever be made whole again. I, Raymond Irvine, did that. I will let the horror of that sink in for you good men. Let me start to play the song because I need to break away from this for a few minutes before I continue. Crucifying self is painful, as it is meant to be.”
With that, he began to play some notes on the piano. His eyes were tearing up, and the look on his face was of a distraught man. Raymond began to sing words that obviously resonated in his soul, “Oh, the healing has begun.”
The room was now completely silent. Raymond stopped playing the piano and looked around the room. By putting himself through the process of looking at the darkness and evil in his own heart again, he hoped it would have an impact. He cleared his throat to continue:
“I guess by now you understand this men’s group isn’t going to be a light-hearted version of “I’m OK, you’re OK.” The bottom line I want to get through to each of you is the damage I did to my family was avoidable. All sin is destructive. The Bible tells you it leads to death. Thinking pornography is better than actually engaging in sex with another person is foolish and insane. You can always rationalize things to yourself, but if you could have seen the look of disgust and hurt and fear and insecurity and hopelessness on my wife’s face, you would know that I could not have broken our relationship any more than if I had paid for a hooker or slept with a woman in our neighborhood. Your sin will find you out, and it will destroy.
The second big point I want to make is that Satan is a liar. He wants you not to take your sin seriously until it causes severe damage to your relationships. He then wants you to believe the lie that the damage you do to yourself and those you love makes you irredeemable. He wants you then to live the rest of your life trying to hide the shame of your actions and to believe the blood of Jesus can’t cover someone as selfish, stupid, or perverted as you. It’s a lie. If you are a child of God, all of your sins, past, present, or future, were paid for in full. If you are not a child of God, you are only a repentant heart and a ten-second prayer away from redemption.
This song I am singing to you somewhat off-key and with my poor piano playing is a song by a Christian singer and songwriter named Matthew West. I have never met him, but God had me hear this song on the radio in my car six months after my sin assaulted my wife and daughter. I had to pull over and sob like a child at the grace my God showed me by speaking to me so clearly through this song. I could hear him say clearly to me, “I will work all things to the good for those who love Me and who are called to My purpose. My purpose for you is to take your sins from the dark honestly and to hold it up for all to see. I want you to stand before other men and show them the folly and bondage of self versus the power and liberty of the spirit. Your sins will lose their control on you, and your testimony will set thousands free.”
So it is with great joy I can stand here tonight to crucify myself and lift-up Jesus because I was promised that He will draw all men to Him. Now I told you I heard this song six months after my sins assaulted my wife and daughter. I always say assaulted because I probably did more damage to my family than I could have with a slap or a punch. That is the hard truth. I would like to tell you that exposing my family to the filth of my lusts and perversion was the worst I had done to them, but that isn’t true.
At first, because of the gravity of my wife’s hurt and anger, I was contrite like a boy who had been caught stealing cookies. As my wife tried to work through the earthquake that had just destroyed the image she had of the man she loved and had admired, I began to defend my self again. I had apologized. I was genuinely sorry, what more did she want, I was thinking?
You might think perversion and stupidity may be as far as I could fall, but even that isn’t the depth of my sins and selfishness. To stop my wife from bringing up the situation and stop the pain and the shame, I started to attack the victim. “Of course, I need to pleasure myself. You never meet my needs, and you don’t make any effort to be attractive to me. It’s not me! It’s you!”
It wasn’t enough I had destroyed the image she had of the man she loved and had trusted. I was then destroying the image she had of herself for the sad goal of protecting self. The more I focused on self, the more death and destruction and despair filled our home.
After six months of my stupidity and self-centeredness, my wife finally shouted at me, “I will always protect you in front of our daughter, and she will never know from me about your issues, but I will not be made to feel like there is something wrong with me so you can feel better about the sin consuming you and our family. I am leaving!”
Was that the lowest I stooped in my sin? No. I called her a name that is a swear, and I left my wife and daughter, so I was in control of who left who. While I was in my van driving around after having left my family, I heard this song by Mathew West. I had just blown up my family, and I had no hope I could ever undo what I had done, and I was in a state of confusion, desperation, and contemplating the completion of my self-destruction, and God gave me this song. This song marks my bottom.
So let me re-start the song: Raymond sang lyrics about living life without knowing what is like to not be free of shame, but how God’s mercy always remembers you as His child.
So let me pick things up here in the song. The song asks, how long has it been since you felt anything but shame? Some of you guys maybe don’t feel any shame. You are the ones I pray for and who I am here for. You are me before my drive and hearing this song. You are an IED about to bring destruction to you and your family.
Some of you guys here look at pornography or look at women in your office or our wives or daughters here at church. We are going to keep this real and uncomfortable. You will feel the shame of your failure intensely. Shame saps your peace and your strength. I hope my experience will help you see shame is not an expression of holiness or an indication of how strong the Holy Spirit is in you. Listen to me! Shame is just another form of self-centeredness and the one that the enemy uses to cripple you and rob you of effectiveness in this life. Self-righteousness and self-loathing are both forms of self-centeredness, and I look at them as the walls that keep people on the broadway that leads to destruction and out of the narrow way that leads to life everlasting. And that, men, leads us to the next verse, and Raymond began to sing again. The song lyrics spoke of a world of broken hearts that could heal if people dared to show their own broken hearts.
I hope you got the main point there. There are hundreds of people around you every day, and the vast majority are going to die in their sin and shame and spend an eternity separated from God. Many people die separated from God because, in their own guilt, they feel they are too far gone to be saved. Do you think that being a super-Christian in front of people wins people to your Lord?
Let me now let you in on the secret I believe has brought true liberty to my life, and that has brought me close to my Savior. It has given me a soft and tender heart towards all of His children. And even mopes like you guys.” Some needed levity broke the silence in the room.
“So God gives me this song on the radio, and it helps me break the focus off of self-loathing, which I then try to deflect by blaming my wife. When I finally get my eyes off me, and I start to look at my situation through God’s eyes, I can finally see myself as a little child in need of protection and love. What God brought back to my memory were several key incidents that had injured me caused me to feel the need to protect myself in dozens of counterproductive ways, and misshaped me into a person my Creator never intended me to be. That all is a little cryptic, so let me get back to a personal testimony, so it is clearer what I am talking about.” Raymond continued to play the melody of the song.
I grew up in the seventies. I was born in 1966. Some of you guys are older, but some of you are younger, and you need to know the context of what was going on in our society back then. Up until the seventies, dirty magazines, like Playboy and Hustler, were rarely in department stores, and if they were, they were covered in paper. But in the seventies, that started to disappear, Playboy and Hustler, and other similar magazines became acceptable. I remember seeing Playboy on the coffee tables at many houses our family would visit. Men didn’t think it was shameful to have them out, and their wives didn’t seem to think it was embarrassing. A decade of progress, right?
When I was in the seventh grade, I remember exploring the woods next to our school. My friend Troy and I were pretending to be soldiers in Vietnam when we came across a piece of plywood randomly in a patch of ferns. We picked up the plywood to scavenge it for a go-kart project or a fort. Underneath the plywood was a hole, and in the hole was a plastic bag. Treasure! What could it be?
Well, the treasure was a stash of dirty magazines. Six magazines probably were stolen from the stash of a father or uncle by teenagers in the neighborhood. Troy and I quickly took the magazines’ bag and started to run through the gulley to a different part of the woods to look at our treasure. We then found our own hiding place for the stash that was now our treasure. When I was twelve-years-old, those weeks after were my first intense exposure to pornography and the intense lighting up of the pleasure points in my brain.
In the same year, I found my father’s pornography stash on the shelf in his closet covered by sweaters. It’s one thing to see that other teenagers think these magazines are cool and acceptable, but a whole different thing when you find your dad has them too. The man you look up to the most looks at dirty pictures too. Wow, it must be cool and ok for “good” guys like your dad to do.
Now we don’t have to buy dirty magazines anymore and hide them from our wives or kids. Nooooo! We have the Interwebs, and stuff is easy to hide on the Interwebs, right? No one will ever see your stash, will they? Well, you know from my story that isn’t true. What you do in the dark will be brought to the light. Not “may if you are unlucky,” but “will be brought to the light.”
But let’s get even more real now. What we looked at in dirty magazines or the JC Penney catalog ladies underwear section can now basically be seen being worn by teenage girls even in some Sunday school classes. May I say delicately that some of the wives now wear sexually-enticing outfits in churches once seen in dirty magazines,” he finished with a raised eyebrow. “You men and your sons are subject to more sexual stimulation in a month than previous centuries of men would have seen in a lifetime. It is now possible to be exposed to more sexual stimulation in forty-five minutes of internet porn site offerings than your great-grandfathers would have seen in a lifetime. Those forty-five minutes have been highly-engineered to stimulate and entrap you and enslave you. As I stand before you as a former slave, I know without a perpetual stance of spiritual warfare and the bondage-breaking love of my Savior, a potential future slave again. This is family-destroying, testimony-shredding, power-of-God-depleting truth!” The men in the room were utterly silent except for the sounds of uncomfortable shifting in seats as conviction spread through the room.
“I know a lot of you are feeling down now. Maybe shame, praying no one here can read your thoughts and memories of thoughts you have had towards women or girls or maybe men or boys.” Raymond played a few notes on the piano to let the heaviness of that sink in. “I know this is hard, and most of you can see your sins pretty clear right now, and it is heavy, but I walked in from the parking lot tonight through a bunch of really nice vehicles that probably came from really nice houses. You guys are blessed, and there is no reason you won’t be more blessed after tonight. I would like to offer my appreciation for whoever drove that pickup truck over there,” and he pointed to the truck Fran had driven to the meeting. “That means for the first time in a long time, my Saab isn’t the ugliest vehicle in the parking lot.” The men, including Fran, chuckled.
“There are a few points I want you to hear and really understand tonight. The first is that everyone here is broken in several areas, and you have a lifetime practicing to act like you aren’t. You are broken in areas you didn’t choose to be and never would choose to be. Before you were even to the age to assert your own choices or protect yourself, you were damaged. Those areas you are broke in cause you pain and shame and insecurity and fear and a lack of peace. Those feelings cause you to hide your brokenness and withdraw and become numb and angry and defensive when others get too close to your wounds. Some use chemicals like alcohol, THC in marijuana, or heroin, and some use sexual-release to numb and suppress negative feelings. Every human is broken and struggling with their brokenness. That is you, and me, and every man in this room.
My second point is although you didn’t choose to be broken, you need to decide to get healing. You are either going to live your life as a victim or as a victor. I want you to listen now and clearly understand this!” Raymond emphasized with a raised voice. “Your outward success is not evidence of victory over your brokenness, and it is often your weak way to cover and hide your brokenness from others. All of us will choose to face and name and confront areas of brokenness and seek others' help to achieve a real victory, or we are going to submit to shame and fear and remain a victim in this life. Please understand shame and fear are expressions of selfishness. Think about that word. Shame is a focus on the negative aspects inside me. Selfishness is not just “look at me, I’m great,” it is also “look at me how broken I am” or “don’t look at me, I am broken.” What is common in all of this is “me.” The truth shall set you free, and that means unpleasant truths. You must choose to be healed and to accept the realities of your life. It ain’t easy to do, but trust me, it is like standing in a lake on Memorial Day with the cold water almost up to your short hairs. Sorry, I can see for some of you, they might actually be your long hairs,” he added with a grin before continuing. “Most of us are standing paralyzed and afraid to dive into a new life that genuinely will be exhilarating,
Healing starts by naming your brokenness and proclaiming it to others. Why are you so ashamed about having been broken before you could ever stop it from happening? The Bible talks about generational curses. What are you beating yourself up for because of decisions made by people before you were ever born? I am practicing what I preach here tonight and have been for years. Shame melts away when where you are broken comes to light. You have heard it before that the devil is a liar. He tells you that if you tell others about the things you are ashamed about, they will reject and isolate you. He says you will lose the respect of people around you. Let me tell you, those that will abandon you shouldn’t be in your life, and I can guarantee that they are broken in the same area or worse. The truth is that truth, and the courage to speak it about yourself is admired. People run to help people who honestly ask for it, and honesty is contagious.
A couple more points, and we will wrap up. When Moses asked God what His name was, God answered, “I Am That I Am.” The Great I Am. Why do I bring that up now? I bring it up because a lot of you are using God’s name in vain. God’s name is “I am,” and then you add a surname to it like “a failure,” or “a drunk,” or “stupid” or “weak.” God’s name is “I am” don’t ever let the enemy cause you to add a last name to God’s name spoken over yourself. Speak life and power and healing and victory over yourself. Use God’s name how it should be used, “I Am Strong,” “I Am a Conqueror,” “I Am a Blessing,” “I Am Healed,” “I Am Saved,” “I Am Free.”
Can I drop this truth on you now? The truth is there will be people who are close to you now who are not going to be happy with you getting free of your shame. Some use it to control you and “keep you in your place.” They like the power your shame gives to them. There are others who feel comfortable with you because you are broken. They can feel satisfied with where they are broken because they have you to compare themselves to. They don’t want you lifted out of the condition you are in because they are comfortable in a low state and want you to let them feel good there. They will continuously speak discouragement, they will speak your brokenness over you like it is a permanent state, and they will speak God’s condemnation and displeasure over you. You will not experience God’s grace and peace because of their constant use by the enemy to undermine your ability to engage in successful spiritual warfare.
Remember, even Jesus had to empty a home of unbelieving, negative people to raise a girl back to health, and he could do few miracles in his home area because of unbelief. This is deadly serious, men! Evil spirits are real and want to steal, kill, and destroy all that is yours. You are wounded, and you need to do two things. Speak the areas of shame, so their power over you dissipates. The other thing is you need to cry to God for His healing and to other men strong in faith, humility, and prayer. You need help, and you need other men who have fully humbled themselves to their own brokenness and who can minister from that knowledge. Surround yourself with people who will genuinely pray for you in love and speak healing and life and restoration over you.
Jesus was able to come and be a man at any point in history. The Sadducees and Pharisees existed for a relatively short period of history, but God chose to manifest Yeshua, Jesus, when they were at their peak. Accident? I don’t think so. I think it was precisely so our Bible would clearly demonstrate what God saw as the biggest lie the enemy was selling and using to weaken and suppress His children. The Sadducees and Pharisees created hundreds of rules for people to follow so that they would be in a permanent state of feeling separated from the love of God and unsure even of what they needed to do to “please God.” Jesus openly associated with the broken and lifted them up and specifically said it was the lost and broken that most needed and were the objects of His love. Do you hear me? God does not want you to live in shame! The path forward is to confront our shame. This is true for you and me and the church and this town and this state and this country and this world. Shame is a prison. Jesus shed His blood and died so that you would be free.
Church folk like us talk about wanting revival to happen, but they are liars. What is revival? Where has it always started in history? It usually begins with a single man standing up and giving a testimony that begins with a transparent and honest listing of their sins in graphic details. Watching the genuine expression of a man’s brokenness and the pain he experienced has power. That man testifying to the love of God that saved him from destruction has power. His new liberty and the resulting peace and strength cause other men to stand up and do the same. Soon a church and then a town and then a region and then a nation is changed and renewed. It takes a man with the courage to stand up and say, I am done listening to the liar and, I will be honest about my brokenness and trust Jesus to make my brokenness into something beautiful that will help others heal.
Now let’s get back to the music side. I put the lyrics in your handout that you should read and maybe sing along. Let’s start the song again from the beginning.” With that, he sat back at his keyboard and began to play and sing and repeated the song so the men could receive the message of redeeming their own shame, receiving liberty, and then ministering to others openly the areas they once hid in shame.
I want us all to sing this. Where you are broken and where life has been stolen from you is where you are uniquely gifted to minister to others. The places you are damaged are where you are uniquely able to impact this world for eternity. The song talks about your “beautiful scars,” and they can be if you use your scars to minister to others living in shame. Let’s now sing this truth, men. Raymond played his piano, and the men assembled there sang the song softly and with tenderness and choked voices.
When the last note from the piano went silent, Ray continued, “These are my concluding thoughts, gentlemen. Face your brokenness and speak it to men you can trust. Cover your brokenness in prayer, surround yourself with men who will help you, and add their prayers and words of life over you. Make it a practice to confess and speak aloud, your “I am’s.” Use what Lucifer meant for shame and imprisonment to serve and help others who are suffering in the areas you are. You need to be willing to be the tip of the spear and go back into the firefight and save others pinned-down like you were. At that point, you will be a free man and a stronger man. You will become a man worthy of the name of the Great I Am. I Am strong. I Am free. I am going to pray now, and I want every man that wants freedom and strength to come up to the front here like an altar and kneel and just start to pray.”
Raymond began to pray, and he could hear men moving towards the front. When he finished praying, he looked out to see all the chairs emptied, and he looked down to see all of them men kneeling and most with their faces to the floor. “Oh my, thank You, Abba,” Raymond whispered reverently. With a choked-up voice, he said, “The microphone here is for any man that is willing to tell us about the areas of pain that he is hiding in shame and take that step to something beautiful. Anyone want to do that?” All of the men had a hand raised. “Well, let’s just start with the man closest to me. What is your name?”
“My name is Fran Harris, and I would like to share with you the things that I want to be freed from,” Fran spoke through tears, and for the next four hours, the remaining men did too, and no man left until the last man spoke. The healing had begun. A revival had begun.
Chapter 41 - Center of Revival, Central Intelligence
Fran opened his eyes and looked to his left to see his now beloved wife sleeping peacefully beside him. For a second, he felt deep regret for the two decades where they had lived as roommates. They weren’t even close friends, just roommates who did their best to live peacefully together but with no real connection, or honestly, any effort to establish rapport. He quickly re-established his focus on the tremendous blessing he and Sabrina had now experienced for many months. He was lying beside a beautiful woman who was literally at the center of a movement that was changing the whole world. She was at the center of a great awakening that drew hundreds of millions to Yeshua through the production and universal distribution of Christian songs and videos.
The phrase “great awakening” drew his mind back to his activities for the day, and probably the remaining days he had on the Earth. The two men’s meetings he had attended before he left for the Johnstown project had kindled a fire that was slowly building in Northwest Indiana. The reality, authenticity, and genuine love and connectedness the men had experienced had created the realization they could live on a higher level. Most men felt a cleansing from openly confessing their sins in an environment free of condemnation but rich in understanding.
As each testimony was given, more men came to realize they were all deeply broken somewhere. These areas of brokenness were inflicted by incidents or relationships long before there was any ability to affect what was happening in their life. Men, who previously would have been dismissive, scornful, or belittling towards a man confessing sins or aberrant behavior, were now gracious and supportive of healing. Courageous men acting in courage, derived from their faith in a loving God, overcame the crippling shame they had carried for a lifetime. They offered their grace in genuine love because they knew they needed it in return. The virtuous cycle created was feeding on itself, and it was entering exponential growth.
Hundreds of stories of local men who had previously been miserable, in dysfunctional marriages, of questionable morals and ethics, who expressed hate for the concept of God, were now radically changed. The testimony of their changes and the complete joy they now exhibited in their life was too powerful for other men not to attend the meetings. Every day revival began in any place men met.
Fran reflected on the day Yeshua rescued his soul. He remembered the sting of Bill’s clear description of him and Jeff as dishonorable men. He also remembered how quickly the pain of shame of who he had been was replaced by the sense of peace, knowing he was clean because of his Savior. Fran couldn’t contain himself anymore. He felt an urgency to help other men find that liberty and peace and leave behind the burdens of shame, chaos, anger, and isolation.
Fran reached over to his nightstand slowly to retrieve his phone. He pushed the side button to turn it on and quickly put it under his pillow to try and deaden the sound, so he didn’t wake Sabrina. He could barely hear the phone tone, and he looked over to see if it had bothered Sabrina, but she didn’t stir at all. Fran swiped the screen and maneuvered his way to his texts and could see there had been dozens that had flowed to him while they had slept. In an instant, he felt overwhelmed by the demands that were now on him to support the plans for dozens of projects like Glenn’s and provide leadership for the burgeoning revival in Northwest Indiana. As he had now learned to do, he quietly said to himself, “Fear, anxiety, and anger are not from my Father. My Father gives me a peaceful, contented, hopeful, sound mind. I refuse the thoughts of the enemy.”
As Fran finished that thought in the quiet of the bedroom, Sabrina let out a roar and lunged herself towards Fran, and he let out a yelp of fear and instinctively cowered to his right. Sabrina was quickly on top of him laughing delightedly she had startled him.
“That’s not funny, Sabrina!” Fran protested. “Bad Sabrina!” he scolded her but with a smile.
Now Sabrina started to tickle him in the sensitive places along his rib cage that she knew made him laugh and squirm uncontrollably, which he did while trying to block her hands. “Say good, Sabrina! Say good, Sabrina!”
“Ok, good Sabrina!” Fran yelled as he slid out of bed to the floor. He looked up, shaking his head. “Where did that come from?”
Sabrina smiled a big smile and started to sing, “I got that joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart!”
“Why don’t you film that and create seventy-seven million hits for it by lunch?” Fran said in a mock cranky voice.
“Grumpy is not from my Father,” Sabrina responded overly cheerfully. “Maybe getting back in bed and holding the woman you love will help with that grumpiness,” she teased. “Who knows what will happen after that?” she continued seductively.
Fran smiled a big smile and enthusiastically jumped back into the bed, put his arms around his wife, and pinned her to the bed. He kissed her passionately and then looked into her eyes with a smile and said, “Go ahead, try and jump, funny girl.”
”Oh, my!” Sabrina replied in a mocking voice, “all this actual physical work has made my husband too strong to resist,” she finished with a big smile. “Not like that soft, passionless, cheating, goof I used to be with.” Sabrina punctuated each word with a passionate, slow kiss and finished the sentence with one that melted Fran completely.
“My condolences for his not-so-tragic death,” Fran responded between more deep kisses as their hands began to undress each other.
The two of them then expressed their complete, unselfish, servant love for each other with a passion, hunger, and pleasure they had never known before the new Sabrina and new Fran were born. Physical, spiritual, and emotional pleasure released in truth and purity. This level of intimacy was as their Father had intended.
