Monthly Archives: June 2016

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7

The following is a brief talk I gave recently in the morning worship services at First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge. Rev. Brady Whitten, the wonderful pastor of that great church, was writing a sermon about our need to ask for help. He cited the apostles' asking for help with the daily distribution of food (Acts 6) and Jethro imploring Moses to ask for help in dealing with the people. Knowing part of my story he thought it might fit the theme.

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I know a little bit about what the 12 apostles faced, and what Jethro faced, and what Brady faces. I was a pastor for 34 years, and I loved it, or about 80% of it. My career was spent among Baptists, and, I'm sure unlike Methodists, we have an occasional stiff-necked member who complains and is chronically dissatisfied. So it's not always a glorious experience. But I'm genuinely grateful for those 34 years, mainly for the fact that I got to stand before a group of people on a Sunday morning and tell them of a good, and loving, and smiling God. I was blessed.

About 5 years ago I faced some mounting stresses in my life, some I'd been gathering up over the years. You know what made my stresses unique and different from yours? Nothing. Not a single thing. Life is difficult, whatever your calling or your occupation. Sometimes the burdens become so heavy, and we need to ask for help. I didn't.

Asking for help isn't easy, or at least that's what we tell ourselves. Of course, that's not true. Asking for help is really quite easy and should be very natural. But for reasons of pride, probably some fear, most of us don't ask. That's why I didn't ask. If I ask for help, then you're going to realize that I don't have all the answers. You're going to know that I'm not as strong as I want you to think I am.

So about five years ago, instead of asking for help, I decided to start drinking. Just to relieve stress, and to sleep. I realize now I was drinking to cover up my fears, resentments, anger, self-pity that I had been collecting for some time. I can see a lot of things more clearly now. I can see that my drinking was an act of quiet desperation because I had lost more and more control over my world and the people in it. That's pure pride. I can see that now.

I was adopted at birth, so I don't know anything about my genetic background, but chances are very high that addiction is in my family history, for little by little and suddenly I became an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic. Here's the face of addiction. But mine is also the face of recovery because a friend in my church came to me and said "we need to get you well." I felt ashamed, guilty, angry, but there was enough of a sliver of the real me left that I felt relief. I didn't ask for help, but I accepted it. I went to in-patient treatment for 90 days. It was the best experience of my life that I don't want to repeat. Today, one day at a time, I work a program of recovery.

One of the key things we learn in recovery is the importance of asking for help. You see, addiction wants us alone. I was convinced that no one would understand, no one would really help, and I didn't need anyone anyhow. That worked so well that I got to the point, not where I was exactly suicidal, I just didn't want to wake up. I dreaded the sunrise.

Today I welcome the sunrise. Truly. Caring people helped me out of the shadows of addiction into the beautiful light of recovery.

I have a sponsor named John – my Jethro. I called him a while back and said "I just feeling fearful today." John doesn't have magic words to remove my fear. He'll simply say something like, "have you prayed about this?" And "I'll pray for you."

The simple act of saying "I'm fearful" to another human being, of transparently revealing what some would call a weakness but you learn is simply a common human experience, that simple request for help diminishes my fear and sometimes it evaporates like a morning mist. And when it comes back I ask for help again.

I have been open about my alcoholism and recovery because I believed it might be the key for others finally to ask for help. People did come and ask for help, so many in fact that I resigned as a pastor and founded Chrysalis Interventions. I now travel all over the country at the invitation of treatment facilities to see their methods and get to know the staff. More importantly, I'm honored to step into the lives and homes of families all over the country who have a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a father or mother in the growing shadows of addiction.

I have the family members, in that little sacred circle one by one, tell how much they love that sick person, then what they've seen a drug or alcohol do them. Then I lean forward and say "will you accept the help we are offering you today?"

I believe that's the question God asked me daily when I was in my active addiction. I believe that's the question God asks each of us daily. Finally, finally, I said yes. And God put people in my life to help. I've learned through this wonderfully humbling experience that I can't do this alone. Today I ask for help.

And life today is so much better, so much easier, so much more joyful because I ask for help.

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We can ask God for anything, but we must realize that God almost always uses people to answer requests for help. This is God's way. Asking reveals our need that can only be met by another person. Isolation is the real enemy, for it breeds a dangerous self-reliance. God created us to live in relationship, and asking for help deepens those relationships.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

June 26, 2016

"To Thee, O Lord, I lift up my soul, O my God, in Thee I trust." Psalm 25:1

I have a lot of stuff. A house, two cars, clothes, furniture, food in the fridge and pantry, money in the bank, and in retirement accounts. I have more stuff than some of you and less than others.

Stuff, in and of itself, is neither good or bad. I would not be a better person by getting rid of all my stuff. And I would not be more peaceful by acquiring more stuff.

All of this I know, but still struggle to accept it. Stuff has a certain seduction to it. It creates a false sense of permanent security. Without question, if I didn't have money to pay my mortgage, for example, I would be unsettled and fearful. There is a kind of security that comes with stuff, and that's not bad.

Jesus taught this very thing when He said "My peace I give to you, not a peace like the world gives" (John 14 27). There a peace that the world gives. The peace of the world, this physical, mental, emotional life, is real. I'm more peaceful in some important ways when I'm healthy, clear-headed, and happy. There's nothing wrong with that kind of peace.

The problem comes when I make the stuff my life's focus, and I spend a great deal of time doing exactly that. Essentially I'm trying to arrange life so that I do not have to rely on God. I'm eliminating trust, a complete reliance on God so that even when some part of the stuff fails, I remain unshaken. I'm shaken too often, and that is a deficit of trust.

My single greatest challenge is not to have more money, a larger house, a better car, etc. In fact, my challenge is to realize that I need none of those things. Ever. My greatest need is simply to trust God, who supplies all my needs and has promised to be faithful. If I can trust God then "all these things will be added to me" without my straining and worrying and or even glorying in the fact that they're mine.

Jesus' singular accomplishment was His perfect dependence upon the Father. All things in His life flowed from that relationship. As the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, Jesus, as a man, relied on God's power for all He did. The miracles were not His in that sense. It was the Father working through Him, which is precisely what He taught. The Father works through the Son.

Understanding this relationship is vital, not just as a theological or Christological curiosity, but as a pattern and example for our lives. Jesus truly did empty Himself of divinity and became fully human. He did not cease to be God, but stepped fully into the human condition. In other words, He knows precisely what it is like to live like you and me. He understands, from the limitations of being human, the challenges of being one of us.

What we find in the Gospels is a remarkable, repeated demonstration of Jesus' full trust in the Father. He retreated from the crowds to pray to God. He relied on God during temptations. He prayed and asked for help prior to His miracles. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He knew the Father's will for Him but did not want to fulfill it, He prayed, expressed His fears and His trust, and rose from those prayers with a renewed reliance upon God.

Most significantly, on the cross when felt abandoned by God, He found, with His last breath, the trust to commit Himself fully into the Father's hands. Jesus was a man who trusted completely in God. He showed us the way.

The implications of this are quite staggering. With careful reverence I say that I don't think Jesus did anything I could not do if I had His complete dependence on the Father! Any good I do now is the Father flowing through me in my meager dependence on Him. If I could be free completely of the false sense of security that comes from stuff, then I would realize fully God's complete sufficiency.

Not for a moment do I think I would ever be able to still storms, heal sickness, or raise the dead. My dependence is too weak, too beset by doubts, fears, and unwillingness. Oh, but the Father takes my little mustard seed of dependence and brings a powerful peace to my life and an abiding sense of purpose.

I'm not what I will be, thank God. But I do have enough hints to be thrilled right now by God's presence and power. I do have moments, sometimes extended moments, of clarity when the things of earth grow strangely dim. There I find God with a simple invitation: "Trust Me."

A while back, as I wrestled with a major decision, I was beset by fears and doubts. I called a dear friend and simply said, "Bill, I'm just scared right now. I don't know any other way to put it. I'm just fearful." He understood all that I was going through and listened patiently. Then he said, "Terry, God's got this!"

He was right. My challenge during any moment of fear is simply to trust God. In fact, my fear is a tacit admission that I don't think God is sufficient and trustworthy. But I thank God that I can call a fellow believer and be reminded that God is more powerful than my fear.

I hope I can be that reminder for you this week. You have needs that stuff can't meet. You can't buy your way out of the fear, or think your way out of the fear, or bend the world to your will so that you eliminate fear. No matter how much more of anything you get, the fear will still be waiting there.

And so will God with His simple promise to meet every need. The decision we all face at that moment is simply this; do we give into the fear? Or do we smile and say "God's got this."

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

June 5, 2016