We originally shared this post 3/31/18 – it has since been updated to share reader feedback and purchase details that were not available when this post was first published.
8/31/2019 UPDATE
My latest book, From Taskmasters to Tambourines, released on Amazon last spring. The inspiration for this book was in the works for nearly a decade, and it’s been truly exciting to see it come to fruition.
Since its release, I’ve been blessed to hear from those that have found it a valuable and validating narrative that expressed their own experience as they walked out of personal wildernesses.
Many have found it to be an encouraging resource that guides them as they pursue sobriety, participate in recovery programs, or disentangle from other habitual practices they’re ready to leave behind.
One reader shared with me that he gave the book to his wife, who broke out in tears when she came across a single sentence that unlocked years of personal wrestling – just like that.
I’d love to share the first chapter with you here.
From Taskmasters to Tambourines
Chapter One
Something happened to me today as I walked in that spiritually arid place in my life. You may know of a place like that too; seems like everyone does.
It’s where I leave my lush walk in the Spirit and travel in the dryness of my flesh. It’s where I serve the taskmaster rather than the Master. It is a place of fruitless aggravation; and yes, I hate that place—just like you do. But I can’t escape it.
It’s been traversed for years—seems like forty or so, but that’s hard to say. Having wandered around in its dryness so long, I am resigned to the fact that I will never leave. I have conceded that, in this particularly personal place, my history has forever determined my future.
But as I said, something happened to me today. I must have walked this path a thousand times and never saw it…or maybe God, in His grace, wanted my attention; maybe in His mercy, He had heard my parched and whispered desire to leave this dry and thirsty land. It was there in my daily routine, practiced comfortably for decades now, that I was abruptly interrupted. I was arrested by a sight I have never seen: a bush on fire, yet consumed not. It was a fire unlike any other, for the flame I witnessed on the outside had ignited an inner burning that caused me to draw closer to see just what was before me. Then, in that nearness deep inside my spirit, the truly indescribable fire spoke to me.
Speaking my name, He stopped me in my tracks.
It is amazing how you can stop in the deepness of your spirit while never moving an inch on your feet.
But I did.
I stopped at His powerful, yet compassionate, command to go no further. His holiness would not be breached by anything man-made. I had gone as far as I could go on my own; yet, I was not on my own. I had not initiated this journey. He had, by starting that fire that burned within me. But I did take notice. I did turn and look. You see, there are some things we must do, but even in that work He is the initiator.
He, the God of my fathers, said He had heard my cry. He had heard from His heavenly dwelling my cry to be delivered of my taskmaster and expelled from the desert land he rules. God said He would come down and deliver; He would deliver me from the power of my enslaver. Oh, it had been so long, for so long I had cried to be free…and now He said He had heard! His words, so empowered by His holiness, brought hope to my being, tears to my eyes, and chagrin to my soul. There, in my sinful embarrassment, in my loss-of-face, I hid my face from the very One who loved me more than I loved myself; the One who loved me more than I loved my own fruitless ways that I had chosen over Him—time, after time, after time.
