A funny thing happened on the way to my latest blog. . .

It has been quite some time since I have entered my last blog.  There are many reasons as to why this is the case.  I would like to touch upon the main reason.  I hope this isn’t too much like therapy, rather an honest assessment and observation of life’s difficulties and how we respond when the choices presented are not too favorable.  Quite simply, I have been going through one of the most difficult times I have seen in a long time.  That is saying something considering some of my life experiences are unenviable to attain.  The past month has involved far too many occasions of going to bed at 4:30 a.m. and waking up at 6:30 a.m. and doing it  all over again.

It has almost been a year since I realized that my thriving and growing business was a bit of a facade.  I have experienced many painful moments surrounding the decline of my business after 3 years of tremendous growth.  In the last year I have closed 5 offices across the country.  I have laid off all of my staff, including my brother who left a great position to join my company.  I have moved the home office (corporate headquarters I used to call it) to my home office.  I have had people arrested for stealing from the company.  I have been in lawsuits against people that owe the company money.  I have been plagued with angst regarding money my company owes.  I have had sales reps who we fired, steal money from customers while continuing to use company cards and contracts.  This is just a sampling of what my life has been like since August of last year.

Anyway, I want to share with you about my trials because it is real life.  I also want to share with you my experiences I’ve had with our Lord and Savior during this time.  The Lord has a funny way of dealing with you and your issues.  Make no mistake, your issues (sin) will always provide the opportunity to deal with them.  They may go away for awhile or hide in the background, but all they are doing is planning the most inopportune time to come back and pay you a visit.

So what issues am I referring to?  Dare I tell you what they are?  Can’t I just talk in generalities and let you assume they really aren’t that bad.  I could, and I prefer to do that of course – which brings me to one of my big issues of pride.  I know, I know.  You are saying to yourself, “pride isn’t really that bad.”  Oh, I have others of which I will share.  So here it goes, in no particular order:  pride, gluttony, drunkenness, lust (like how I buried that one, like you will just gloss over the various sins I have or had in my life and really pay no attention to that one), manufactured honesty (otherwise known as lying), selfishness and laziness.  I am wincing at actually writing this.  But I take great joy knowing that the Devil hates what I am doing.  He hates that I am pulling back the veil of my sins which automatically weakens his competitive advantage against me.

I will not bore (or abhor) you with all of the gory details of my sins but I will give you a little synopsis of the sins that have stuck with me for most of my life and what role they have played in my life over the past year.  Ever since I can remember I have had issues with lust (I hate the word lust, it just brings automatic disgust at the mere thought or mention of the word).  I remember having sexual dreams as a very young boy, even 3 and 4 years old.  That automatically predisposed me towards lying (not that I needed much help) in covering up this shameful sin.  Then I got a little older and became exposed to pornography.  I thought it was great.  Then I went through puberty and the Devil thought he had me game, set and match.  Then the wonderful world of the internet came online and I became deeper entrenched   Then I got married and divorced quickly and became a bartender, enough said on that one.  Then I met my wife and we started having kids and started a business.  Finally, I thought I am going to be a responsible husband, father and business owner and put this ridiculous lust thing behind me.  I prayed for strength, I just never really exercised it.  In the year 2000, my Dad went into a coma and finally passed away in 2005.  That woke me out of my spiritual coma I had been in most of my life.  I had started to read the Bible more (one minute a day was more than what I was doing) and praying beyond the superficial fast-food style of prayer.  I was becoming stronger against this area of weakness, but it still had a stronghold on my life.

(I am not the greatest at grammar and paragraph formation but I felt the need to make a new paragraph here because it was getting too long – also, while I have you here in the parentheses I feel I must acknowledge that I insert too many parenthetical thoughts in my writings but I just cannot help myself).  I will say the strongest I have ever been in my life against lust has been in the past year.  This is no coincidence.  Never in my life have I been more dependent upon God.  For the first time in my life
I have experienced prolonged failure (hate that word too).  My experience up to this point in my life has always been short lived failure.  I would fail at something, then I would work real hard and turn things around.  I never had to depend on God because I could always depend on myself to get out of any mess I got myself into.  Sure, I would always thank God for blessing me with so many talents.  That prayer sounds something like this, “Thank you Lord for making me so great.”  Pridefully pathetic.  I think the Bible has a little to say about pride.  Here are a couple good ones:  Proverbs 8:13 The fear of the LORD [is] to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverse mouth I hate (youch! there is that fear of the Lord again).  Proverbs 16:18-19 Pride [goes] before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.  Better [to be] of a humble spirit with the lowly, Than to divide the spoil with the proud. 1 John 2:16 For all that [is] in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–is not of the Father but is of the world.  Once I became humble before the Lord I have increased in strength against the many sinful pitfalls in my life.  It doesn’t mean they are completely gone, it just means that with the Lord’s help I am making progress towards erasing these strongholds.

Though I touched upon it briefly, pride is another sin that has been riding with me in this thing called life since a young age.  As long as I can remember I have always thought that I would and should win or be the best at anything I ever do.  And if I didn’t it was because I didn’t really try as hard as I could have.  I remember crying and running up to my bedroom at the age of 4 being pissed off when I would lose in a game of Monopoly.  Even now, when I lose in Monopoly it is only because two of my best friends ganged up on me (I won’t name any names, Big D and Wildfire you know who you are – I demand a rematch!).  Pride is a tough thing to get rid of.  It is definitely counter culture.  We are taught to be proud.  We are told it is good to be proud.  Meek and humble is considered a sign of weakness and pride is sign of strength. Funny how the culture has it exactly the opposite of the way the Bible says it should be.  I believe pride is a major factor in obstructing  a close relationship with our Father.  Proverbs 29:23 A man’s pride will bring him low, But the humble in spirit will retain honor.  Being humbled is painful, but it brings spiritual healing and fantastic dependence upon God.

To put it bluntly, the past year has been one of the most painful and most rewarding years of my life.  I have experienced failure, embarrassment and humility on many levels.  The trials and tribulation of this past year has brought me closer and more dependent upon Father God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit than ever before in my life.  I believe my marriage has become stronger as well.  My family and I continue to deal with the daily struggles and I ask that you pray for us to have patience and clear direction.

One last thought, and it is a bit of a challenge that I am putting out to you.  Do you want a closer relationship with God?  Do you want to experience the Holy Spirit working in your life daily?  Do you want to be more bold for Christ?  Than I have a challenge for you.  It is scary, be warned.  Coincidence or not (I think not), the first part of August in 2010 one of my specific prayers was to gain discipline in my repentance (not just admission, but turning away from my sin) and receive discipline from the Lord. God answers prayer!  Amen.

Your brother and warrior in Christ,

Ty Adams

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