Hello my readers and travellers in this journey we call life.
Have you ever had a major turning point in your life; or perhaps you had a memorable day impact your life so much not because of some major change, but because you chose to make a (to you) minor change in your daily routine. I have had one of those days (of the second kind) this week.
As many of you who have known me for more than a year know, I am a former heavy duty, gotta-have-it, stinkin’, smelly 1 1/2 pack a day chain smoker. (OK…some of you think I’m still smelly or stinkin’…I’m OK with that, you’ve got your opinion.) I quit on 12/27/08, so this coming Sunday will officially be my 1 year anniversary. I started smoking when I was 19, so I’d been a tobacco user (cigarettes and smokeless tobacco) for almost 29 years. As humans, we are creatures of habit. My smoking habit consisted of having 1 cigarette on my back porch before eating breakfast, then chain smoking in my truck all the way to whichever store I was servicing for my employer, taking at least 2 breaks in the day to go out to my truck and have a smoke (and actually planning my workflow around them) + sitting in my truck during lunch breaks and smoking more. Then I drove home after work, again smoking til I got home, after which I would sit at out patio table on our back porch, no matter what the weather was like. I have sat out there in sub-freezing weather, in rain storms, in 100 degree South Carolina heat, you name it, I’d smoked through it. It got so bad that I actually ran an extension cord on my back porch to accomodate my work laptop and a television. I was not only seperating myself from my family physically, but spiritually and emotionally. I had created my own cubicle, solitary confinement or bubble where I spent most of my time.
When I quit smoking, I suddenly found myself faced with the fact that I had abandon my family relationships in favor of cigarettes. For 14 of our 16 years together, I had used my smoking as a tool to open the chasm between my wife Tammy and I. Now it was gone, and I found myself having to deal head-on with issues I had formerly ignored.
In the past year, God has blessed me with just enough sense to know how I screwed up, how to make it right and how to let HIM have all the glory for the changes evidenced in me, but as we all try to do, I wanted to still hold onto the past. I had 1 pack of cigarettes that I have been holding onto since last year. I found them in my glove box of my old company van in March or April this past year. I was really surprised to find them so I decided to keep them “JUST IN CASE”. In September, my company took my company van back as lease expired and put me on an auto allowance, which meant I had to provide my own vehicle. I was given a 20 year old Ford Ranger pickup by my son as he had just purchased an almost new car. In moving everything out of my van into the pickup, I thought about throwing that last pack of smokes away. Several other times during the last 7 months I had been tempted to open that pack, take a smoke out, light it up with one of the lighters I still kept in my truck, and go back to the habit and lifestyle I had created. Just 1 little smoke wouldn’t hurt! It was a major security blanket for me to know that I had that pack there anytime I wanted it..but God has a funny way of dealing with us.
In God’s word (the Holy Bible), God tells us through the words of the Apostle Peter (1st Peter 1:13-16)
Be Holy
13Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 14As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
God has been dealing with me in such a way that I don’t want to have any part of my old lifestyle back. He has been working inside me to boldly proclaim him and his message. I took a small action yesterday in taking that pack of smokes out of my truck and giving them away. I told the guy I gave them to a short version of this story. I am praying I can be used by God to open this young man’s eyes, ears and heart to God’s message of forgiveness. Here is the basic outine of that forgivness:
Knowing we have a sense or right and wrong in us from birth and that wrong being called sin, we also need to know what is truly right. God gave his son, Jesus Christ to become sin for us. How is that possible? God sent Jesus to live here on Earth as a tempted, but sinless perfect sacrifice. He was called “the Lamb without Stain” or the “Perfect Holy Lamb of God”. These two statements refer to the Jewish practice (that Jews do not typically practice today) of offering as close to the most perfect white lamb, with no defects or blemishes, to be sacrificed on the high priest’s altar as an atonement for the sins of the people. Here Jesus was without ANY sin, being placed on criminal’s place of death, so that he might take all of our wrongdoing and let it die with him. But it doesn’t end there…Jesus did not stay in the death masoleum or tomb. As prophecied (like his birth and death) Jesus the Christ (the Messiah or Chosen One) was raised up from the dead BY HIS OWN POWER and he left the forgiveness in place of our sin.
God wants you to find this forgiveness. God wants you to look for it in his son Jesus Christ. If you are feeling lonely or unfulfilled, God knows it already. If this holiday season seems empty, God wants to be part of it. Choosing to accept that this is for real can be THE major turning point in your life. I’m not going to say life is better, or that you are going to hear angels singing, or that life will be rosy and cheerful all the time. The difference is I have someone to go to whether I’m up or down who wants me to be the best I can be through his power and help.
Atta boy, Harold!!!! I’m proud of ya! (and I’m thinkin’ probably Pastor Rod would be too……)