Lean On Me

And then this morning, you know, I woke up late, had a lot of things going on this week. I've spoken way too many times this week, way too many places. I've taken on too much. My body is telling me quit, go back and lie down.

I got up late, didn't get to my normal routine, felt a little, little kind of ill. I don't know if anybody woke up that way this morning, felt a little ill. And I jumped in my, my truck and I put on my CD. I jumped in my truck and I put on my CD, I'm a jazz freak, and I put on Frankie Beverly and his song, Happy Feelings.

And I played it, and I played it, and I played it, and I played it. And by the time I got here, I was happy. Now I'm happy. Thank you, Jesus.

Amen. So I hope that you're happy today. But also this message is going to touch a few hearts in a certain way. So this message is going to touch a few hearts in a certain way about certain feelings, and I hope it helps.

So I ask you the question, what's your go -to in times of trouble? Where do you go when you're having a battle that you have to fight? What do you do to get by? My Marine Corps training taught me not to panic.

My mother, who was the strongest woman I've ever met, taught me how to be strong, taught me how to go through things. And then when I was a kid I was so competitive in all sports and everything, it taught me not to quit. No matter how difficult it was, don't quit. But I got lost somewhere.

Valium and alcohol were my medicines of comfort. As my trouble grew, my PTSD and other issues persisted. My doses increased and the quality of my life decreased. Maybe you've been there, not sure.

Some of us are fortunate to have grown up in a normal atmosphere, if there is such a thing, right? And stayed on track. Others like me have wandered trying to find themselves, and in the process found themselves in the wrong places doing the wrong things, having bad feelings. You know what I'm talking about, Chris.

That may be you today. Imagine, if you would, that God is saying these words to you today, directly to your heart. Imagine that. And this is as if God was speaking to you personally.

I see the battle that has been taking place in your mind and in your heart. I know the nights when sleep would not come and the moments when it felt hard for you to focus. You are not alone in this struggle, and you have not been forgotten. You are not alone in the struggle, and you have not been forgotten.

I'm walking into your mind now, and I'm evicting depression, anxiety, addiction, and the painful memories that have tried to take space in you. These things do not belong to you, and they have no authority to remain. Your mind is a dwelling place for my peace and for the presence of the Holy Spirit. And as you lean on me, I will restore peace to your thoughts, strength to your heart.

I will restore peace to your thoughts, strength to your spirit, and hope to your heart. Walk in that freedom because I am renewing your mind and filling it with my light. That was God speaking directly to you. And I hope it got through somewhere.

We can't always have happy feelings, can we? Life is not that way. We call it in the program, Life on Life's Terms. Life dictates the ups and downs like a roller coaster.

And so in Proverbs 3, that's my title today by the way, Lean on Me. In Proverbs 3, verse 5 and 6, it says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight. That's why I got messed up.

I took some crooked paths to get here today, but thank God I found That's where I got messed up. the right one eventually. I hope you all have too. I have never, well, let me just quote this scripture first.

In 2 Timothy 1, 7, it says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And I know this ever since I have come to the Lord, I have never leaned on God when He didn't lean into me. to the Lord. I've never leaned on God when He didn't lean into me and answered what I needed answered.

He was right there for me. And He gave me the power and the strength to have a sound mind, to make sound decisions. And I think it's gotten better and better and better. I don't know if you've felt that way, if things have happened that way with you, where God has come in.

The more you lean on Him, the more He pours into you and gives you wisdom to make the right choices in life. And the more you lean on Him, the more He pours into you. There's a saying in it, and a guy that used to be an old -timer in AA, in one of our meetings said, when you're in your mind, you're behind enemy lines. When you're in your mind, you understand, you're behind enemy lines, okay?

So when a battle starts to rage in our minds, and that's where most of them usually are, fought between the ears, we need to ask ourselves several questions. First, am I letting God help me in this one? And if so, am I relying on his strength, wisdom, and timing? That's usually the problem, isn't it?

Timing, right? Hey Joshua, how you doing brother? I'm that kind of guy, I just deviate from the script all the time, okay? Apologize.

So, now I've lost my place, so that's what my ADD does, and I apologize for that. The timing is usually the problem. So, think about this, okay? To God, it says in, I think it's 2 Peter 3 .

8, it says to God, a thousand years are like a day. Today, a day is like a thousand years. So we pray to God, God, let me have this. So, we pray to God.

Show me the way for this. Help me to do that. Provide for me what I need. But we don't know when he's going to do it.

So we develop a time frame. I need an answer in 24 hours, God. Right? So we do good with the strength and the wisdom, but then the timing gets us off, right?

And then we start to take action ourselves and then we get in trouble. And then we start to take action ourselves, and then we get in trouble. Does that make sense? And we lean on our own understanding instead of his understanding.

He hasn't provided what we needed yet, okay? But we'll talk more about that in a minute. I consider myself a pretty strong -minded person, but there have been things that have weakened my spirit in the past. Divorce, business failure, loss of a relationship, and the absolute worst, the death of a child.

All that came to me during sobriety. Eventually, I found the strength to carry on. But it was a struggle to get there. Maybe it has been that way for you as well.

If you're a football fan, you're familiar with the analogy, bend but don't break. When a team is driving down the field trying to score a touchdown, and they're moving, and they're moving, and they're moving, and they're moving, they're moving, they're moving, and all of a sudden the defense stops and all of a sudden, the defense stopped. them. They say they bent, but they didn't break because they gave up a field goal for three points, not a touchdown for seven.

They bent, but they didn't break. So sometimes when situations like that happen to us, a death, depression, whatever the case might be, loss of a job, loss of a relationship, okay? We buckle, we buckle, and I think it's We buckle. We buckle.

And I think as human beings, that's a natural reaction. It buckles us. I remember when I got the call that my son had died. I buckled.

I got to tell you, man, worst phone call I ever got. I buckled right then. But then, all of a sudden, my faith kicked in. And I started to lean on God, and he brought me through it every step of the way.

Every step of the way. And you know what? Sometimes I found myself drifting away from his wisdom when I neglected the basics of my foundation. That happens, doesn't it?

You stop praying, you stop fellowshipping, stop reading the Bible, stop reading those motivational stories and tracts that you usually read, and all of a sudden you get in a funk. I call it the funk. You can call it whatever you want. Depression, anxiety, difficulty, you get in that funk.

Depression, anxiety, difficulty. But the one thing that was the hardest thing for me to get out of my own mind is I needed to have an interdependent, let me try that again, interdependent relationship with God, not a codependent one. In other words, there were normal things that he provided for me to do that I didn't have to ask him permission to do because he already provided that I didn't have to ask him permission to do. me with him so that I could do the things that I needed to do.

For example, you are in depression and you can't get out of the bed. Well, you got a car in the driveway, right? Get in the car, go to a meeting, go to church, go to your friend's house. The answer is right there.

He may give you the answer of who to talk to, but you already have a solution, okay? And for example, the Bible, when you read the Bible, how many of you have read a Bible verse and all of a sudden you go, wow, God was speaking directly to me? when you read the Bible, how many of you have read a Bible? Or you watch a sermon on television and you go, man, how did he know that?

Or maybe something I'm speaking today speaks right to your heart. How did they know that? That's God trying to help you because you've been leaning on him and he's trying to provide an answer for you. But again, sometimes he's already provided what we need.

That reminds me of a joke. How many Christians does it take to change the light bulb? We don't know. They're all still standing around in prayer, hoping that the lights come on.

There's a switch. right there God has already provided the switch amen but we're sitting there praying Lord send me send me that money for the rent and you say go to work go get them you know do what you got to do get off you know excuse me get off your rear end that's that the right words to say in the church okay in other words God has given us a switch to turn on in the event of a battle, or in this case, a blackout.

The first thing that I always think about is rehearsing the victories that God has given us. When you get in a funk, when you get a depression, anxiety, addiction, whatever, rehearse the victories that God has given you. What victories has God given you in your life? Think about that.

If you're here, that's a victory, right? If you woke up, that's a victory, right? If you're here, that's a victory, right? If you woke up, that's a victory, right?

If you're helping women that are in difficult situations, you know, that's a victory. If you're reaching out at the church, going to different places, putting out tracts, that's a victory, right? Just think about your victories, man. When you get in that funk, think about what God has done for you.

Rehearse it. Think it. Say, Lord, I know you took me through that, so I know you're going to take me through this. You understand?

He didn't abandon you just because he may not be speaking to you directly because his timing may be a little different than yours, right? Might be a little different. So I remember when I was in the hospital with COVID in 2020, and I really didn't realize the ramifications of the situation.

I saw people dying I was in that category of people that should die went to the hospital was in the ICU for seven days people were praying out here they were crying they thought I was gonna die I didn't even know that till I got out thank God they didn't tell me why I was in a hospital but I kept repeating that verse in Joshua 1 9 okay be strong and courageous for the Lord your God goes before you in battle every day be strong and courageous for the Lord your God goes before you in battle be strong and courageous so I would rehearse that every day and say Lord remember when this happened you did that for me remember when that you took me off patrol in Vietnam and that guy stepped on the landmine and and his leg got blown off that could have been me remember the DUI that I had that I went off the side of the embankment and hit my head and got a concussion, off the side of the embankment and hit I could have died.

And then not only that, but I swerved and I could have hit a family of five driving in the van and killed them as well. But you rescued me, Lord. You gave me a victory. Remember, when you think you've got it so bad, think about how much God has done for you, how many victories you've had.

And then the second thing is memories of how bad things were before I came to the Lord. You know, for those of us that have recovered from addiction or had significant trials and never had the Lord in our life, and now we do, can you see a difference? Can you understand how much different it is now? You don't have to do something stupid.

You don't have to make a bad decision. All you have to do is lean on Him. Amen. Third thing is, it's the times when He supplied us.

with the unexpected blessings that changed our moments. All those things are much more that supply light in our life. And think about David. and his victories.

I love the story when David goes to Saul and Saul says, You're just a little boy. You can't fight that giant. He's experienced. He's too strong for you.

He's too big for you. It's too tough for you. Maybe you've got something like that in your life right now. Maybe you've got something like that in your life.

Something that feels like a giant right in front of you. And David said to him, hey, guess what? I killed the lion and the bear with my bare hands. God supplied the strength that I needed.

God gave me a victory. If he did that, why wouldn't he give me a victory to defeat this uncircumcised Philistine? And I love the way he called him out. And he didn't say giant, he said, uncircumcised Philistine.

In other words, he said, I got this guy. And he went out and he won. And you can win too. We can all win if we lean on him.

I can never feel for a moment sorry for any trial that I face now because I realize how undeserved I was of receiving God's mercy and grace and redemption and forgiveness. Does that make sense? No matter what I go through, I can't feel sorry for myself. I can't feel sorry for myself.

So when my son died, I focused on the moments that we shared together, the memories. The toughest thing I had to do, Allison was there, I had to do his funeral. It was packed, about 250 people in there. And I saw in the audience all these beautiful people of different nationalities and young people.

And God spoke to my heart. It was the time I was in Alabama and working in the car business. and he said you're coming back these are going to be your people so And he said, you're coming back. These are going to be your people.

I resumed the ministry about a year later God spoke to my heart and during that service I held up the things that Paul and I did together the 1996 World Series the time he caught his first fish the time I got the 85 Corvette and scared the you know what out of him going about 80 miles an hour down 120 in Duluth you know and he saw that his day 20 in Duluth, you know, and he saw that his dad was not afraid to take a risk, and he became that kind of guy, and unfortunately, somebody knocked him off his bike and killed him, but that's, he's okay, he's up there with the Lord.

So I focused on the victories that we had, not the things that we would not have in the future, and that's where we get stuck in grief sometimes, is, well, I don't have him, I don't have her anymore. I don't have that anymore. Well, guess what? You had the memories, you know, and lean on God for that, you know, and he shows you those memories.

I remember driving down Highway 10, going to an auction before I came back, and a motorcycle pulled up, a motorcycle pulled up next to me, and it was just like the one he had, almost the same paraphernalia that he wore, almost. have her anymore, I don't have that anymore, well, guess what, you have the man. And it went right next to me. The guy didn't look at me, but I thought, there you are.

There's Paul. There's my son. And it fortified my heart. It made me feel better.

It doesn't solve all the problems. I'm sorry, I didn't turn my phone off. It doesn't solve all the problems, but it helps you get through. That's because you're leaning on God.

I do have it on silence. All right. When I became a deacon in the church, then I lost. my marriage, and whatever spiritual privilege I had, that became the moment when God changed the direction of my life to where I am right now.

I call it being un -deaconized, okay? Have you ever been in a church where everybody loves you and all of a sudden something significant happens and nobody talks to you? That was that moment for me. Because here I was, a recovering alcoholic, married a couple times before that.

and they put me up to be a deacon, and when they do, they ask the church for any objections to you being a deacon. Nobody objected. I couldn't believe that. They made me a deacon.

There was about a thousand people in the church then, right? You remember that? They made me a deacon, but then six months later, they un -deaconized me because we got a divorce, okay? You been there?

People abandoned you, but you can still lean on God. People abandon you, but you can still lean on God, even when people abandon you. Amen? It's when I lean on myself, on my own emotions, my own wisdom to fight the battles I face when I lose or fall into depression, anxiety, or addictive thinking.

I used to take Valium to calm me down and numb out. Now I just continue to pour into people less fortunate than myself, and it makes me feel a whole lot better. I'm telling you, man, reach out to other people and help them, I'm telling you, man, reach out to other people. and you'll see how much better you feel.

Get out of that bed. Get out of that house. Go do something. God gave you the ability to go help other people.

It's going to make you feel a whole lot better. And when you do that, you're leaning on him because all the scriptures talk about helping other people. Matthew 11, 28 through 30 puts it into perspective. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and I will give you rest. Take my yoke of pine. and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. In other words lean on me.

I got you Natasha. I got you. You know I got you Donna. I got you.

All those things that I was taught fell away when my addiction hit. I was forced to lean on I was forced to lean not on my own understanding, as it says in that Proverbs 3, those two verses. I wanted to isolate, handle things all by myself, not let anyone know that I was weak, but God gave me the friends, the family, people in the church that were ready and willing to let me lean on them for a while. And after all, God had sent them my way, right?

So if you have a group like this and you have difficulty, why not share it with your brothers and sisters? you know, and let, let, and pray about it, and let this time turn the switch on. Go to God in prayer, and ask him to help you through that situation, lean on him. We say we can't see God, but we really can.

He's everywhere, and everything that is good. And he's battle -tested to provide what we need to win, to conquer any battle we face, because he is, after all, undefeated in battle. Amen? Why not lean on him?

or someone else who has been battle -tested? Open the door to your heart and let us in, and let him in. He may be knocking on your heart right now, saying, let me in. I'm trying to help.

Don't push me away. Revelations 3 . 20 says, here I am. I stand at the door and knock.

Don't push me away. Revelations 3 . 20. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.

Imagine that. Guy knocking on your door and saying, hey, I want to come in and eat with you. know, don't be so quick to leave church. I want to eat with you somewhere.

Lean on me. I'll be there for you. And what happens when we lean on him? He's got a steak for us, not a hamburger.

Lean on me. I'll be there for you. And what happens? Yeah, come on up, y 'all.

Amen to that? Right. He's got a plan to prosper you, not to harm you, right? You lean on him.

And he's got forgiveness for you, not condemnation. Why not lean on him? What's holding you back? What's holding you back, right?

As it says in Proverbs, in all your ways, acknowledge him. and He will make your path straight. I don't know about you, but I had so many crooked paths, I'm tired of walking them. I want to walk straight.

Amen? I want to lean on Him. Okay? I want to lean on Him for what I need.

And I hope that helped you today. And I hope in the future you will lean on Him more in any situation that you go through because He will bring you through it, and it will be victorious. He will turn a tragedy into a triumph. Amen.

He will turn a tragedy.