SO sorry...

Hello Friends,

So sorry for the lack of material from me over the past several months. I am really trying to focus on getting my first book done, which is no small task with all of the other work I have going on in my world.

One day, I will get back to blogging regularly - I promise.

Here are a few recent thoughts, though...

I just made it home from a long speaking road trip, during which I had the privilege of spending a week with a couple hundred pastors for their denominational conference. Now, I know what you're thinking - this is a dangerous idea. It was. We had a wonderfully difficult time talking about pornography and sexual addiction for about three days.

God is continuing to open doors and bring others into my life that have a desire to help those trapped in addiction to pornography and sexual addiction. Plans are coming together, and we'll hopefully be launching something in the coming months. I'm very excited about it, and think it will revolutionize the current church culture. It is bold, and that's what it takes.

If you could, please pray for us as we continue to plan.

If you haven't - please swing over to www.TOHcommunity.com and join up! You can watch our live stream on Sunday nights! We'd love to have you worship with us!

I'll be back, I promise!

Happy 2009!!!

This is a repost from last year - it has been often requested - SO here ya' go! IF you want to watch the video clips, you may want to turn off the music player... That should go without saying, but you and I both know how we can be, right?

So, have you broken them yet? You know - those pesky little annual failure reminders we like to call resolutions. We're a few hours in yet, and many resolutions are already forming the foundation of failures and frustration for 2009. I, however, just completed one of my resolutions, and that was to form one sentence using at least four words beginning with the letter f.

Resolution. Such a strong word, isn't it? It can be such an inspirational word. Resolve. Resolute. The word makes us seem so strong doesn't it? I am resolved to do this. I am resolute about that. So strong... A large difference between resolution and resignation, isn't there?

Could it be possible that resignation is the way to go? Could it be possible that New Year's resolutions are just another illustration of insanity? Addicts know the definition of insanity well, don't we? Doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. It has been a way of life for us, and when we come to the end of a year and everyone begins touting their resolutions for the next year, we quietly resolve to ourselves that this is the year that we quit. This time, I mean it.

Then stress enters the picture as it always does, and we begin to seek medication for the pain and discomfort we feel. Then we look like this:

The deal is this - we think that the answer to our problems is trying harder. We just need more will power, right? It really comes down to this - the battle for control. We try to gain more control over ourselves. Why can't you just stop, right? Just try harder. You can do it, c'mon, buck up little camper... When that doesn't work, we then figure the problem must be the people around us. Our spouse, our boss, our friends, our church, our pastor, our neighbors, our lawn service, somebody, anybody other than us.

This is when some of us decide to "try God." This usually amounts to a prayer that sounds something like this - "Dear God, please take this craving away. Please help me stop doing this or that. Thanks. Amen." Or even this, "Oh Heavenly Father, please take this extra weight off of me, Thanks. Amen."

Trying God, I have found, really means tailoring God to meet our desires. Anything about Him that gets in our way, we just try and cut that out. It's like we are tailoring God to fit us, but this is not the Gospel. If we are in control, and making God fit us, aren't we still in control? Haven't we proven ineffective enough? We are God in this picture, and then we will say, "I tried God, but that didn't work." What we mean is that we continued our cycle of insanity and named it God for a bit.

The Gospel is not about exerting control, it's about exiting control. It's not about resolutions, it's about resignation. It's about surrender. It's about realizing that we are incapable of controlling ourselves and others around us. Jesus says in John 15:5, "Apart from me, you can do nothing." Nothing. He is the vine, and we are the branches. Branches do not create fruit. The branch is utterly dependent on the power and life force of the vine. The vine works through the branch to produce fruit.

This is tough for many of us, particularly Americans, as we are very fond of the concept of independence. The Gospel is about dependence.

If we will surrender control to Christ, and seek Him and His glory in all that we do things get much better. The reason those traditional addict prayers don't work is that God will not take magically take our cravings away from us. He waits for us to crave Him over our flesh, and then He sweeps in with His empowering grace to guide us.

Instead of making God fit us, the Gospel is about God stretching us and tailoring us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. How could we not want that? Why do we act in opposition to that? If we surrender, and allow God to make us more like Christ, what happens to our addictions, imperfections, and concern for our own image?

It's an ongoing process that takes place over the rest of our lives, if we are followers of Christ. It's called sanctification, and it requires surrender. It's the first of the twelve steps - admitting that our lives are unmanageable and that we are powerless. It's also the first of the Beatitudes. Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Dallas Willard translates that, "Blessed are the spiritual zeroes."

Paul understood it well. Read what he wrote to the Romans,

"I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. isn’t this YOUR experience?” Yes, I’m full of myself - after all I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So, if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, IT becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t DO it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it. I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question. The answer, Thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different."

Jesus Christ can and does. His name is I AM. My name, as Giglio points out, is I am NOT.

This year, resolve to surrender.

Happy New Year!

Playing for Change

Are you kidding me? What a great idea, and what great film making this is!

What do you think about it?

Here's My Mission - What's Yours?

I have a love/hate relationship with some of my friends, don't you? One of my friends asked me today, "Tal, if you had to boil your mission in ministry down to one thing, what would it be?" Usually, I would do one of three things -

1. Dance around the question like Paula Abdul on meth.
2. Flip the question back on the questioner.
3. Answer with some ridiculously complex sentence that made no sense, yet left every conceivable option wide open.

This day was different. There was no thought - no paralysis - no hesitation. I said, "My mission in ministry is to do all I can to help those in or out of the church get off of porn instead of getting off on porn. That pretty well sums it up - there's a lot that goes with it, but that's what I love to do.

What about you? If you had to boil it down to one simple sentence, what is your mission? What is God calling you to do?

We All Have A Context

This is from a Chuck Swindoll sermon and it impacted me greatly and served as a crucial reminder that I felt compelled to pass it along to you.

Read this biographical sketch and see if you can guess who this person is.

He began his life with all the classic handicaps and disadvantages. His mother was a powerfully built dominating woman who found it difficult to love anyone. She had been married three times, and her second husband divorced her because she beat him up regularly. The father of the child I’m describing was her third husband and died two months before the child’s birth.

As a consequence she had to work long hours during the early years of his childhood. She gave him no love, no affection, no discipline, and no training during those early years. She even forbade him from calling her at work. Other children had little to do with him, so he was alone most of the time.

He was absolutely rejected from his earliest childhood. He was ugly, and poor, and untrained and unlovable. When he was thirteen years old a child psychologist commented that he probably didn’t even know the meaning of the word love.

During adolescence the girls would have nothing to do with him, and he fought with the boys. Despite a high IQ, he failed academically, and finally dropped out his third year of high school.

He thought he might find a new acceptance in the Marine Corp, they reportedly built men and he wanted to be one, but his problems went with him. The other marines laughed at him, and ridiculed him. He fought back, resisted authority and was court martialed and thrown out of the Marines with a discharge marked undesirable.

So there he was – a young man in his early twenties absolutely friendless and shipwrecked.

He was a small and scrawny man. He had an adolescent squeak in his voice, he was balding, he had no talent, he had no skill – he didn’t even have a driver’s license.

Once again, he thought he could run from his problems, so he went to a foreign country to live. When he applied for citizenship, he was rejected there too. Nothing had changed.

While there, he married a girl who herself had been an illegitimate child, and brought her back to America to live.

Soon, she began to develop the same contempt for him that everyone else displayed. She bore him two children, but he never enjoyed the status and respect a father should have. His marriage began to crumble. His wife began to demand more and more things that he could not provide. In stead of being his ally against a bitter world, as he had hoped, she became his most vicious opponent. She could outfight him, and she learned to bully him. On one occasion, she locked him in the bathroom as punishment. Finally, she forced him to leave.

He tried to make it on his own and was terribly lonely. After days of solitude he went home and literally begged her on his knees to take him back. He surrendered all pride. He crawled. He accepted humiliation. He came on her terms.

Despite his meager salary, he brought her $78 as a gift, asking her to take it and spend it anyway she wished. She laughed at it. She belittled his feeble attempts to supply the family’s needs. She ridiculed his failure. She made fun of his sexual impotency in front of a friend.

At one point he fell on his knees and wept bitterly as the great darkness of his private nightmare enveloped him. Finally, in silence, he pleaded no more.

No one wanted him. No one had ever wanted him. He was perhaps the most rejected man of our time. His ego lay shattered in a fragmented dust.

The next day, he was a strangely different man. He arose, went to the garage, took down a rifle that he had hidden there and carried it with him to his newly acquired job at a book storage building. From a window on the third floor of that building, shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, he sent two shells crashing into the head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Lee Harvey Oswald, the rejected, unlovable failure, killed the man who more than any other on earth embodied all the success, beauty, wealth and family affection that he lacked. In firing that rifle, he utilized the one skill he had learned in his entire miserable lifetime.

Those people you don't like? They have a context. Those people that irritate you? They have a context. Those people that make you feel sad? They have a context.

It is so easy to demonize people in our world, but they have a story that we rarely hear until it is too late. How do you think Lee Harvey Oswald's world - and ours - would be different if he felt loved? What if the followers of Jesus showed him the love of the Gospel?

Wanna change the world? Who irritates you? What's their story? What's their context? Do you know? Why not?

Baby, It's Codependent Outside

Ok, so it's Christmas time, and out comes all of the Christmas music. I really enjoy the music of the season; well except for the cheese assault of Christmas Shoes. That song should be banished from the annals of recording history.

Anyway - here's the question. Have you ever really liked a song only to have it ruined when you discover the lyrical content? I hate it when that happens... Kinda like "You Are My Sunshine" which is nothing short of the National Anthem for codependents everywhere. Don't believe me? Go check out the lyrics and get back with me.

So, yesterday on a drive back from Charlotte, we were listening to Sirius channel 81, which is their Christmas music channel. I love to hear Dean Martin sing, so it was a thrill to hear one of his songs come on. Have you heard him sing, "Baby It's Cold Outside"? It's just so good. Usually, you hear this song only in the background while shopping, or at parties, right? Sure, I caught the playful banter between the man and woman, but yesterday I really paid attention to it.

It is an incredible look at the narcissistic sex addict and a codependent - all wrapped up neatly into a charming Christmas package. Take a look at these lyrics and watch as the codpendent tries again and again to establish a boundary. Notice how she is highly image conscious and the boundaries center around what others will think. Then take note how the narcissistic addict continues to be concerned, only with satisfying his own wants and needs. The only concern for her is really only manipulation to get what he wants. Take a look.

"I really can't stay - Baby it's cold outside
I've got to go away - Baby it's cold outside
This evening has been - Been hoping that you'd drop in
So very nice - I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice
My mother will start to worry - Beautiful, what's your hurry
My father will be pacing the floor - Listen to the fireplace roar
So really I'd better scurry - Beautiful, please don't hurry
well Maybe just a half a drink more - Put some music on while I pour

The neighbors might think - Baby, it's bad out there
Say, what's in this drink - No cabs to be had out there
I wish I knew how - Your eyes are like starlight now
To break this spell - I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell
I ought to say no, no, no, sir - Mind if I move a little closer
At least I'm gonna say that I tried - What's the sense in hurting my pride
I really can't stay - Baby don't hold out
Ahh, but it's cold outside

C'mon baby

I simply must go - Baby, it's cold outside
The answer is no - Ooh baby, it's cold outside
This welcome has been - I'm lucky that you dropped in
So nice and warm -- Look out the window at that storm
My sister will be suspicious - Man, your lips look so delicious
My brother will be there at the door - Waves upon a tropical shore
My maiden aunt's mind is vicious - Gosh your lips look delicious
Well maybe just a half a drink more - Never such a blizzard before

I've got to go home - Oh, baby, you'll freeze out there
Say, lend me your comb - It's up to your knees out there
You've really been grand - Your eyes are like starlight now
But don't you see - How can you do this thing to me
There's bound to be talk tomorrow - Making my life long sorrow
At least there will be plenty implied - If you caught pneumonia and died
I really can't stay - Get over that old out
Ahh, but it's cold outside

Baby it's cold outside

Brr its cold….
It's cold out there
Cant you stay awhile longer baby
Well…..I really shouldn't...alright

Make it worth your while baby
Ahh, do that again…."

Ah, the charm of the holidays - all with a reference to a date rape drug. "Say, what's in this drink?" My favorite line of the male? What's the use in hurting my pride? Because, really, there's no love in this at all, and his fear of rejection comes to the surface. The pressure then amps up when he moves in for the tried and true motivation of guilt! "how can you do this thing to me? Make my lifelong sorrow?"

According to the song, it all worked out for the male as she needs to borrow a comb before trying to hit the door once again. Doesn't it just make you want to focus on a manger in Bethlehem and the power of God coming in the flesh?

Anyway, wasn't really looking to ruin a Christmas favorite here, but Teresa and I were really blown away as we listened to it. Initially, we were fascinated at his persistent disrespect of her boundaries. Then I read the lyrics, and so many other issues jumped up. I just had to share...

What songs have you loved only to have them destroyed when you really looked at the lyrics?

Along The Way

Ummm, Remember me? My name is Tal and I occasionally used to write here.

So sorry, friends. Life has been crazy and I had started my blog as a way to relax since writing is one of the things that relaxes me. The drag is that I started to feel pressure to write, and honestly I felt pressure to "be impressive." It switched from being a place for me to just let loose, to a performance based exercise in which I was trying to be impressive. Sorry about that - but that is all on me. I just needed to take a break from writing - what was meant to be relaxing and interactive became another job.

Now - I am working on a new blog, and all of this will migrate (hopefully!) Hopefully in the next week or so, we'll be up and running there. I'll let you know.

On Friday, November 14 I'll be hosting Along The Way in the midwest from noon to 2:00 PM Central. Click on the link if you would like to listen over the internet. If you can't listen, please pray for me during the show. That would be very helpful!

Thanks for hanging in with me, and praying with and for me.

I'll keep you posted on the new blog that is on the way!