Doug Bender – A Story By Me

In November I told you about a project I was going to be a part of in which I and 14 other bloggers would be reading and blogging together through a new book called ‘Live Second: 365 Ways to make Jesus first’ by Doug Bender. This is the first of my 4 posts. You can also go to the I am second website and sign up to follow along as the other 14 bloggers and I journey through the book. You can also get the ‘Live Second‘ book in stores NOW.

Day 29 of My Live Second Journey: Release ~ I Have Nothing to Release…or Do I?

“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ Matthew 18:32-33

This Week’s Live Second – 365 Ways to Make Jesus First focus is on relationships. The topic today is ‘Release’ based on scripture from Matthew 18:21-32. In the scripture it talks about forgiving others as God has forgiven me.

When I read today’s topic I honestly thought I did not have anything going on in my life as far as forgiving or releasing that I would be able to work on. As far as I knew I did not think I had anyone I that needed to forgive…plus I usually forgive others pretty easily, at least that is what I thought when I read it. Little did I know that in less than an hour I was going to have one of those days where God shows me I just might be wrong.

Shortly after I read today’s page of the book my husband said something to me that hurt my feelings. Before I go any further rest assured that I am not going to use this blog to slam my husband, the assignment is to write about how I am going to apply what I read today in my life. I will try to do the best I can without giving you all the unimportant details.

Within about 2 seconds of my husband’s hurtful comment I fired right back in a not so ‘WWJD’ type of fashion only to be met with a more hurtful statement than the first one.

Since the book reading was fresh in my mind I was a perfect angel and I was quick to apply what I had just read by forgiving him immediately and then apologizing for my own behavior… I wish I could say that statement was true but instead I fired right back at him in perfect ‘Terri’ form with things I am not so proud to say I said now and then I proceeded to carry the hurt and anger around for 3 days. Yes you read right day 2 took me 3 days to figure out how I was going to ‘release’.

Forgiveness is really hard when you have been hurt. Words can cut a person in half sometimes cutting clear to the bone exposing so deep you can almost feel them hit your soul. How can I forgive when I feel so torn and ripped apart? Especially when the person who did the hurting can not see they have caused a hurt so deep that I am still carrying it around? How do I forgive when I am so darn mad?!?

Yesterday I started to think about what I had read and I asked myself ‘was I treating my husband with the same sort of grace that God has given me?’ I then prayed “God please help me to forgive my husband. After praying I reluctantly decided to forgive him but then when I saw him before I could catch them the words “I forgive you for being an ass!” fell out of my mouth. My husband then said, “You forgive me for being an ass??” as he kinda laughed. I know what I did was not really what the author of this book had in mind and I am pretty sure it most definitely is not what God would want me to do. But in this instance it broke the ice… the ice on my frozen heart.

As he said the words “you forgive me” with a glimmer of humor in his eyes at that moment God convicted me of my behavior… Yes you read right, my own behavior. My husband had hurt my feelings but it was not until that moment that I realized that I was carrying around so much more anger at him than I even knew I was carrying. I am not sure why but I think I had been keeping a tally of every thing he had ever done or said to ‘hurt’ me. The problem with that is when we have arguments I go back to seeing those past things instead of focusing on what is going on right now at this moment. The minute I asked Jesus to be my savior and to forgive me of my sins the slate was wiped clean and now it was time for me to do the same.

A few minutes later found my self apologizing to my husband and the next thing I knew he said he was sorry to me also.

I know this will not apply in every circumstance and our issue was a minor compared to what others may be facing. But I do know that when we release that anger and live with the same type of forgiveness God gives to us it allows for wounds to begin to heal.

How will I live more second today? By trying to remember that the only way I can have peace in this life and be able to let the light of Jesus shine by giving the same grace to others that God has given to me by forgiving and then learning to truly release it.

Come visit tomorrow for Day 30: Love ~ Love Across the Miles.

Thank you for reading.

#IASrealease

This week I am participating in a blog campaign for the release of a new book Called ‘Live Second – 365 Ways to Make Jesus First’ by Doug Bender. It has been a fun and exciting week with one of the highlights being yesterday I had the opportunity to speak on the phone and interview the Author of the book, Doug Bender.

This was the first time in my life I have ever interviewed anyone and to interview the author of a book well lets just say I was a teeny tiny bit nervous…okay I will admit it I was more than a teeny tiny bit nervous I was a lot nervous! Armed with my list of questions (all 5 of them) I called his phone number at our scheduled time. As I sat there holding the phone to my ear listening to it begin to ring I have to admit I was shaking in my house slippers and hoping I would be able to speak when he answered the phone. The phone rang… and rang… and rang… and rang, when it was finally picked up on the other end I heard the sound of a recording saying that the person I had called was unavailable so to please leave a message. I have to admit I think I may have felt a bit relieved he didn’t answer; But my relief was short lived because within about two seconds I received a text message saying he was on another call and would call me back shortly then within a matter of seconds my phone rang and it was Doug Bender. I also realized from the first hello all my nervousness had been for nothing because Doug Bender is a very friendly and easy to talk to guy.

Below is my interview with Doug Bender …

I will start with a lesson I learned today as I tried to put this all together…

Interviewer lesson #1 make sure you remember to write things down or bring a recording device unless you are a speed writer or retained the shorthand you took in high school. For those of you youngsters who do not know what shorthand is you can Google it or just take my advice you don’t really want to know shorthand. With that being said please remember I tried to decipher my notes and in quoting Doug I am pretty sure I got it all right but just in case I didn’t consider this as my disclaimer * 😀

Now on to the interview…

Doug was born July 8, 1983 and lives in Dallas Texas

Are you married? Yes I am married my wife’s name Catherine and we have a two year old daughter named Bethany.

What do you like do when you are not working? I love to run, I just ran a marathon this past weekend. I also love music, my wife Catherine and I met while we were doing music. I play the guitar and I also play the violin. As a couple we both also love to cook and visit ‘hole in the wall’ type restaurants where we love to eat Ethnic and spicy foods.

The new book has 365 Ways to Make Jesus First. Do you have a personal favorite? Why? I’m not sure. I think everyone will have a different favorite depending on where they are at. But for me, I think my favorites are all the Day 7 entries. The Day 7 entries are all prayers from the Bible. Prayers from the Psalms, from Jesus and from the prophets. I was blown away in writing this when I got to read nearly every prayer in the Bible. I found I did not talk with God nearly in the same way as they seemed to. It really changed the way I approached God. *(see note at the bottom)

How did you get involved in I am second? I came on with I am Second just after it started… I think it was a couple months after the website launched, about 5 years ago. I worked (and still do) with e3 Partners overseas as a church planter, I was in Ethiopia at that time. I am Second was started as an attempt to share the faith and spread the gospel that we were seeing overseas to our own backdoor. I came on the team to write the small group discussion guides for I am Second and my role has grown with time, I now work full-time on the I am Second team.

Well that about wraps up my interview with Doug Bender we talked for about 30 minutes I know I did not get it all down here because I was just so interested in what he had to say that I got to listening and forgot to write it all down. The most important thing I discovered in our talk is Doug Bender has dedicated his life to God. He loves Jesus and he seems to be doing his best to make sure others know Jesus too. I had a lot of fun as I talked with him and I am so glad I had this opportunity to get to know him better.

If you would like to know more about I am second or Doug Bender here are a few links for you…

A link to Doug’s personal video on the I am second website – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wazdvj2Mnmc

I am second website – Iamsecond.com

I am Second blog – http://www.iamsecond.com/blog

I also want to mention I have been reading the book every day and highly recommend it. It is a book with 365 daily readings that get you into your Bible to read. The book then also prompts you to take what you have learned in your reading and apply it in your daily living. Link to the book – Live Second- 365 Ways to make Jesus First

That about wraps it up have a blessed day and thank you for reading 🙂

* from the question above about which day is Doug’s favorite from the book…this question was also asked during an online chat I attended on facebook the night before, like I said earlier I forgot to write down all the answers during the interview so for this question copied his answer from the facebook chat I am pretty sure he answered this question almost exactly the same in both interviews.