It's coming around. Many times I am finding that it's absolutely nothing to do with 'Oh God's not answering your prayers!" No, He is. It's just that He sees the whole picture, the beginning from the end. His view of my life is it's entirety, not the moment that I find myself in.
I will always have moments in my life where I don't get it, that I don't understand...and it's ok.
Because that's what faith and trust in Jesus is about. It's believing in His promises, all of them. Not just the ones that I know or have had shown to me. I have much to be thankful for in that. I can't imagine a life apart from God. I am thankful that I will never know that kind of loneliness or anything that goes with it.
Jesus saved me not only from my sin but from me. If left to my own devices, interests or thoughts, my life would be a disaster. 20 years ago I had a pistol in my lap, despair and the weight of a messed up life had crushed me.
Now many I tell that to can't believe that I ever could consider suicide. But 20 years ago I did.
You want to hear about Godly intervention? As I was about to, my phone rang. He had me answer it. After talking to who called, I put the gun down. I realized that God was there, talking to me. Showing me 3 paths of how this was going to unfold. The first was to go ahead and abruptly meet Him right then and there. End it all. The second was to continue on in the misery of living life my way, never coming out of that abyss. The last was to finally and completely give my whole dirty self to Him to do something with however He saw fit.
Doesn't take much to look at my life of the last 20 years to see God's fingerprints all over my life. I can't live this life apart from God. In reality neither can you. I, in all my filthiest, was still His. I had strayed so far away yet He came back for me. Picked me up, dirt and grime and all and said "I love you. You are still Mine."
God can still do the same for you today. You don't read of condescension in the Father's voice when the Prodigal Son returned. You hear what I heard, the voice of love that never gave up. Don't think that you have it all together and that you don't need God either. Because you can lose it all in a heartbeat. That heartbeat you have is on loan. It's a gift every day you are alive. Nobody is guaranteed a today let alone a tomorrow. Those people you saw in the news who are now dead thought they had a today.
I am so thankful that Jesus never gave up on me. In a world that is spiraling down, He sustains me and lifts me up.
Don't think you need to get yourself right before coming to Christ. He will receive you as you are. He will work at cleaning you up. That's what He does. You are never so far away that He can't find you. Never so lost that you cannot be found. Never so loved than you are right now. At your worst He still loves you.
We are coming upon a celebration of when the world rejoices at His death, but believers in Christ celebrate what happened afterwards, when He came back from the dead. Putting an end to death and making the only way to Heaven, through faith, in Him. Don't wait. Tell Jesus you are done with running, with all the grief, sadness, loss, and all that is clinging to you. Come to Christ and find what your life was meant to be.
I will always have moments in my life where I don't get it, that I don't understand...and it's ok.
Because that's what faith and trust in Jesus is about. It's believing in His promises, all of them. Not just the ones that I know or have had shown to me. I have much to be thankful for in that. I can't imagine a life apart from God. I am thankful that I will never know that kind of loneliness or anything that goes with it.
Jesus saved me not only from my sin but from me. If left to my own devices, interests or thoughts, my life would be a disaster. 20 years ago I had a pistol in my lap, despair and the weight of a messed up life had crushed me.
Now many I tell that to can't believe that I ever could consider suicide. But 20 years ago I did.
You want to hear about Godly intervention? As I was about to, my phone rang. He had me answer it. After talking to who called, I put the gun down. I realized that God was there, talking to me. Showing me 3 paths of how this was going to unfold. The first was to go ahead and abruptly meet Him right then and there. End it all. The second was to continue on in the misery of living life my way, never coming out of that abyss. The last was to finally and completely give my whole dirty self to Him to do something with however He saw fit.
Doesn't take much to look at my life of the last 20 years to see God's fingerprints all over my life. I can't live this life apart from God. In reality neither can you. I, in all my filthiest, was still His. I had strayed so far away yet He came back for me. Picked me up, dirt and grime and all and said "I love you. You are still Mine."
God can still do the same for you today. You don't read of condescension in the Father's voice when the Prodigal Son returned. You hear what I heard, the voice of love that never gave up. Don't think that you have it all together and that you don't need God either. Because you can lose it all in a heartbeat. That heartbeat you have is on loan. It's a gift every day you are alive. Nobody is guaranteed a today let alone a tomorrow. Those people you saw in the news who are now dead thought they had a today.
I am so thankful that Jesus never gave up on me. In a world that is spiraling down, He sustains me and lifts me up.
Don't think you need to get yourself right before coming to Christ. He will receive you as you are. He will work at cleaning you up. That's what He does. You are never so far away that He can't find you. Never so lost that you cannot be found. Never so loved than you are right now. At your worst He still loves you.
We are coming upon a celebration of when the world rejoices at His death, but believers in Christ celebrate what happened afterwards, when He came back from the dead. Putting an end to death and making the only way to Heaven, through faith, in Him. Don't wait. Tell Jesus you are done with running, with all the grief, sadness, loss, and all that is clinging to you. Come to Christ and find what your life was meant to be.
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