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    Seams To Me--Ready When They Hand You The Ball
    Seams To Me--Ready When They Hand You The Ball
    Seams To Me--Ready When They Hand You The Ball
    Ebook202 pages2 hours

    Seams To Me--Ready When They Hand You The Ball

    By D. Dean Benton

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    About this ebook

    Seams to Me is based on our work with addicts and people who are stuck. Addicts and stuck folks tend to know they are in a pit. Nearly all have an idea of the place where they want to be but have no workable plan to get there. The book is about the plan. The first rule of getting well is be willing to participate in our own healing. Unhealed wounds block the ability to even think "I'm Possible!"
    At the heart of this book is that there is healing for abuse, abandonment, betrayal, wrong choices and deficiencies. Seams to Me provides skills, solutions and strategies. In our pastoral and seminar work, we noticed that the abused, rejected or abandoned often have lost their ability to hope. They have no infrastructure to visualize a productive life. It is as if a nerve has been cut.
    With many stories and experiences, Dean uses Joshua 1:1-9 to build on-ramps out of the pit and the highway to destiny.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherD. Dean Benton
    Release dateSep 7, 2014
    ISBN9781311567956
    Seams To Me--Ready When They Hand You The Ball
    Author

    D. Dean Benton

    A native Iowan, husband of one, father of two and grandfather of three. A pastor, seminar leader, author of 27 print books and 15 ebooks, singer, songwriter. After 14 years in the pastorate, Dean and his wife Carole, with family, worked in concerts, seminars and conferences for three decades before returning to the pastorate. The Bentons worked in forty states in about 3000 venues.

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      Book preview

      Seams To Me--Ready When They Hand You The Ball - D. Dean Benton

      DECISIVENESS IN YOUR SPIRIT

      Chapter One

      IT’S UP TO YOU

      Hours before he would lead his troops to the outskirts of Jericho, Joshua runs into a big soldier with a sword in hand ready for battle. Joshua, predictably, is a little jumpy. He asks the unknown man, Are you for us or are you for our enemy?

      The NIV calls the armed person the Commander of the Lord’s Armies. Scholars are divided as to who he was. This may have been God taking on human garb—which is called a theophany. A second possibility would be a Christophony—the appearance of the second person of the Godhead. If not, this guy on a hillside was one of God’s primary emissaries such as the angel Gabriel or Michael. Whomever, this person was a physical display of God’s presence.

      I’m neither. Neither for you or for your enemy. I hear the Commander’s unspoken second statement: It’s up to you.

      I have been lamenting over those who are stuck hip-deep in trouble and others who are immobilized by fear, depression or hopelessness. Also I ache over the totally oblivious. They are not rebellious or in a rant against fate, family or God. They are blind, clueless or don’t care.

      It is a terrible moment for me to realize that the person I’m pouring my time and heart energy into doesn’t want help. When a person is not in the market, they will not be shopping. He will just delete any email from you, I was warned. He isn’t looking for help and will find reasons to reject it if help shows up. Some don’t want help because their ability to have hope has been bruised or destroyed. Others don’t know what to do next and their ignorance keeps them inactive. God is saying, It’s up to you—join me in your healing. I’ll help you supernaturally if you will participate in your own healing. Choose to do nothing or continue in passivity, and God will be with you, but your inactivity neutralizes Him. Your choice.

      A few days before they crossed into the Promised Land, God is very clear what is being offered to this fledgling nation. He renews His covenant and promises.

      "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

      "But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient…you will not live long in the land….

      I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life… (Deuteronomy 30: 15-17a & 19b).

      Now choose life—please choose life! Can you hear the pleading urgency in that? Choose to find His plan for your healing and deliverance. Find your role. Jon Acuff describes that as entering your awesome—doing that which you passionately love. When you do, you release all the forces of heaven with the Commander of God’s Armies leading the charge.

      To enter your Promised Land means to enter your destiny designed by God. To maintain that inheritance, expand your personal holdings, and to fully enjoy and have dominion over that life, there are several relational, spiritual, emotional and mental assets to equip you to fully occupy the territory called you. These are the tools to keep us on the exact path.

      Chapter Two

      PLACE

      Now when Joshua was near Jericho… (5:13).

      Before there could be victory in Jericho, there had to be Gilgal. There is no delicate way to talk about circumcision. (Excuse me while I cross my legs.) Every male Hebrew leaving Egypt had been circumcised. During the forty years of wandering, none were. Neither adult nor newborn. Prior to entrance into the new land and life, Joshua was assigned the task. When he was finished, a suburb of Gilgal was called, Gibeath Haaraloth which means hill of foreskins. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

      The Jewish ceremony, Brit milah, is the covenant of circumcision. The Yiddish word for this is bris. It signifies the unique relationship between a Jewish boy and God.

      The word Gilgal sounds like the Hebrew word for roll. Hear Joshua 5:9: Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. God will roll away the reproach of your past—abandonment, abuse, betrayal, wrong decisions or what feels like inadequacy. Your part in this process is renunciation, which means to vocally and willfully renounce habits, thought patterns, behaviors or passivity that has kept you out of the full benefits of being God’s child.

      Jesus has been part of my life from day one. My mother’s family was very serious about the Bible, evangelism and being faithful to church. Walking with the Lord was talked about at every meal. It occupied us. We listened to pastors, singers, teachers and evangelists on the radio and then television. They were influential in shaping my life; therefore I get testy when someone denigrates a TV preacher. I walked the aisle in a Billy Graham crusade and was baptized in our home church.

      This walk with the Lord became very serious for me when I was about sixteen. My wounds and self-perception, however, dominated my whole being. My spirit had come alive to Christ, but my soul was deeply wounded. That began to change. (Began is the operative word.) When I made a decision to follow Christ at sixteen, I became active in a different church. I neither abandoned the beliefs or loyalty to my home church. The new church was where my new girlfriend attended. Soon, I was involved with or without her. It didn’t hurt that I had been dedicated to the Lord as a child in that new church. I had traditional connections. Sixty years later, I understand what was going on. It became the place where I could:

      Begin—A friend of mine is six feet seven with size 17 shoes. The last time he was in prison he says, This big dude asked me if I had ever been baptized in the Holy Spirit…. How big must that dude be? The big dude prayed for him and he was filled with the Spirit. That event in that place empowered my friend and set him on a different course. Not every place is that dramatic, but almost all of us who experience a change in life direction can name the place where the shift happened or began to happen.

      Begin Again—If you are a follower of Jesus and stuck again, perhaps you need a fresh place. A new altar.

      Believe—We need at least one person who will believe in us and be supportive. A person—preferably a group of people—an anchor who will not give up on us. I was the beneficiary of those who believed in me.

      Belong—I found a new family. My adult world began to expand. I found members of my tribe. I felt at home. It was a safe place for that time in my life.

      Grow—My adult faith began to take embryonic shape beyond my personal salvation. My whole life took on a different shape. (Carole usually interjects that I did not become immediately perfect! My woundedness dominated me for a long time as God healed me sinew by sinew. That means one muscle thread at a time.)

      Serve—My talents were used and I discovered some gifts. It would be 2-3 years before I discovered the where God was leading me and what dormant skills and Spiritual gifts were coming to life.

      Regardless of our origins and experiences, those are the basic building blocks. Each of us comes to our Promised Land from unique experiences: family of origin, wounds, deficiencies, strengths, natural talents, innate heart longings.

      My Place has looked different in each new territory of my journey. The church in my 16th to 18th years was inadequate for my early twenties. There was a major shift of place in my middle thirties. My search for place has been difficult at times. For the three-decades we were on the road, we missed having a place. Our place was not a building or a city. It was closely related to a group of people. We called the motel where we were staying home. Our vehicle became home. Wherever our support team (or a segment of it) happened to be, that became place. I think that is why I get lonesome for certain highways or sections of specific cities. I even get lonesome for specific hotels. Wherever you connect with God, that is the place. That is why the Hebrews built altars along their travels. They experienced God’s presence, power and provision. They wanted to memorialize it as a defining place.

      Chapter Three

      PEOPLE

      (Joshua)…you and all these people… (vs2b).

      Dani Johnson is a millionaire, entrepreneur, writer, conference leader, among other things including a mother. She tells the story of her teenage daughter’s brain surgery and the days of recovery in her book Grooming the Next Generation for Success,¹ Johnson was scheduled to lead a huge conference during her daughter’s recovery. Canceling the conference and refunding tens of thousands of dollars seemed to be the only option. The doctors released the teen from the hospital with no restrictions. They gave her permission to fly to the conference. The final decision about the conference was made by the daughter who said she needed and desired to be with this rare breed of people seeking to have their lives changed. That’s who I want to be around this weekend.

      Wow! Who is it that I would choose to be around in such a critical healing time? The larger question is who would want to be close to me in such a time?

      I was parked near the flooded Mississippi reading about that teen and was reminded of Isaiah 59:19:

      "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him and put him to flight [for He will come like a rushing stream which the breath of the Lord drives.]" ²

      If Old Muddy rushing ferociously south is the image of the incoming viciousness of evil or satan’s workers, then God sends a standard—a larger force driven by His breath against the turbulence. You will need a certain kind of people who will

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