Month: September 2018

There is so much need in the world. There is so much that needs to be fixed. We seek God’s face and we ask that he provide answers and solutions. We pray and we pray and we pray. Sometimes he gives us the answer that we look for and, sometimes, the answer is not what we want. Then there are the times when it seems like he isn’t listening and isn’t giving us any answer at all.

Is it that God doesn’t hear your prayer? Sometimes, it feels that way. There can be problems at work or problems with a family member. Finances can have you at a standstill. There can be lonely times when you want to have friends. There are times when the events in the world are crushing down on you. You may be looking for how to live your life according to God’s plan without having success. Perhaps, worst of all, is when illness or death are at your door.

I know that all of these things have been issues for me. It’s when times get hard that we instinctively turn towards God. That’s when we cry out for help.

When things are going great, we somehow think that it is through our own efforts. That God didn’t have his hand on us and it wasn’t him raining down love and blessings. There may be a cursory “thanks” in our prayers (especially at mealtime) but otherwise, we pat ourselves on the back, give ourselves a mental high-five and congrats. Then we go about our way, continuing on with what we want and what we think and what we do without stopping to give thanks and glory to God. We don’t ask if what we are doing is what God wants for us because, hey, we’re doing great!

Then it all crashes down. The cry that is lifted to heaven is “Why are you letting this happen to me?” It suddenly becomes all of God’s doing and no longer our own. We then ask God to fix things so we can continue our lives as we did before.

Is it any wonder that God doesn’t answer?

We haven’t thanked him for the good times. We haven’t given him real praise. We haven’t asked if what we “feel” is good to us is what he wants for us. We blame him when things go wrong. We want him to fix everything just right.

It reminds me of a little child who expects their father to take care of everything. The child who expects Dad to give them a level field to walk without any obstacles in the way. Dad is there to fix the boo-boos and make sure no hurts come our way.

That works well for a toddler. But just like a child is expected to grow and start making good decisions and choices so, also, are Christians supposed to grow in knowledge and wisdom. We are to stop being little children and start growing and functioning as part of the body of Christ. We have the jobs that God wants us to do and we use our life experiences to do them.

But we want to act like the toddler. It is easier to be given everything and not have to do the hard work. I’ve recently heard of a phrase that is being used to describe this. It is called lawnmower parents. These are parents who make the path smooth for their children. Seems like a great idea until those times when the parent either can’t or won’t do what is needed. In those times, those over-protected children (adults or otherwise) will have no skills to work through their issues on their own. In effect, the efforts of the parent to create a smooth and perfect life for their child has, instead, ruined the child for real life.

God won’t do that for his children. He knows that we have to stumble and fall and pick ourselves back up. He gives us the support and the love that we need in order to learn. He doesn’t do everything for us. He created everything for us but it is our job to live our lives for him not the other way around.

So, when we cry out in prayer, he hears us. He sometimes answers what we want to hear. When it is something that we don’t like, it is time to pull out the Bible and find out where and why we have gone astray. Why it is that what we are want to hear isn’t what we have heard.

Then there are the times when it seems like God ignores us. When we ask and we ask and we ask and nothing seems to happen. I’ve found that in those times, I need to look at what I am praying for. It has generally been that I am praying for the wrong thing. I keep forgetting that this world isn’t really about me. It is about God and his love and his glory and his grace. When I get my prayer life together and I start to pray for the right things, then God provides the answers that I seek. The answers may not be what I want or think I need but it is what God knows is right and just for me.

This type of “unanswered” prayer happens to me all the time. I suspect that is true of all of us. It was when my 18 year old son was ill with a harsh and acute form of leukemia that I first learned this lesson. For fifteen months, I prayed that God would heal him. It seemed like God was answering prayer. My son was ill, when into remission, relapsed and had a successful bone marrow transplant.

When things seemed to be going right, my prayer changed to asking God to use my son to bring glory to Jesus. I was upset that my prayer changed. I wanted to keep praying for healing but I could not change my prayer. Then I thought perhaps it meant that my son would become a preacher and show the glory of God to the world.

Then my son died of a massive brain infection caused by the suppression of his immune system.

It seemed like God wasn’t listening. My son was gone from me rather than healed. He wasn’t there to preach the gospel or for me to hold him in my arms like I wanted to do. He was in heaven with Jesus and, thankfully, out of the horrible pain he had been enduring.

It took months for me to realize that David’s death would be used to bring glory to God. That it would be up to me and others who knew him to tell his story to the world. So, when I thought that God wasn’t listening, he was busy answering my prayer. The answer wasn’t what I wanted when I wanted it. It wasn’t anything like what I thought it should be. What it was, was the answer that needed to be provided. It was the answer that was just and true. I had to grow enough to understand it and, once I did, it gave me both solace and a new perspective.

Since then, I’m careful about what I pray for. I look to the Bible to see what it is that God wants for me. My prayers are for needs and even desires but with the caveat that, even so, God’s will be done.

I still get answers that surprise me. There are times when no answer comes through. I have to slog my way through my trial. The difference is that I know that God is listening. I know that he has answered my prayer. It may seem that I am facing my trials by myself but in truth God is holding my hand. Just that understanding makes what seems unendurable, something that I can endure.

I’ve learned to trust God in good times and in bad. To trust him through those times when my life isn’t going very well. You see, for God, all time is his time. There isn’t good or bad times. That is in my mind. I need to trust him regardless of how I feel or think or what I want or what I think I need.

He has a plan that is unfolding and I am part of it. He will use my life and then, at the end, I will go home to the kingdom he has prepared for his children. That is the promise that we Christians can depend on. It is the ultimate answer to all of our prayers.

It’s easy to love God but not so easy to give him our trust. It is time for us all to learn to trust God even when it seems like he isn’t answering our prayers.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

How do we know what God expects from us and what he wants us to do? Simply put, you should pray. You should also read the Bible. It is God’s plan for eternity. In it, you are included. Everyone is.

It’s always easy to find an excuse for not reading the Bible on any given day. I know that I have a number of excuses at the ready. It’s busy, I’m tired, I’ve already read enough today.

I forget that reading the Bible is like a breath of Life to the soul. Just like the unconscious action of breathing in and breathing out, so should the effort of reading the Bible be for the believer.

The thing is, we get caught up in the troubles of the day and try to sort things out on our own. If we took the time each day to read God’s word to us, we would find the answers that we seek. We’d find that sorting things on our own is hard work (and really rarely right) whereas having God provide the answer is easy and is always, always, always right.

My husband and I are reading the Bible in a year. We’ve found a plan that allows for five days of reading and adjusts to any week you wish to start. It also adjusts for those times when you fall behind. Instead of staring at a date that has passed (which shines like a huge failure sign), each week is consecutively numbered. That way, when we fall behind, it just adds at week on at the end. We may not finish in 365 days but finish it, we will.

We decided to use the Amplified Study Bible this year. That is a huge endeavor as some days there is more to the study portion than there is to the reading portion (though the Amplified is quite verbose compared to other translations.) We’ve found that we are getting more from this reading than we have previously. So, even though it takes longer, I recommend it if you can find the time.

In addition to reading the Bible, prayer is important. I start each day speaking with God and we end it together in joint prayer. Before I start writing, I always give myself to God. I ask that he use my past, my future, my words and my hands to bring glory to his name. Then I thank him for what he will do with me and through me and thank him for sending his son. I ask that the name of Jesus be lifted up and high and that he uses my words to draw others to Jesus.

You see, in the end, when Jesus left us to return to the Father, he left Christ followers with two tasks. One was to spread the good news of his sacrifice and resurrection and the other was to love one another.

If you are looking for what God wants you to do, measure it against these two tasks. If what you think you should be doing will accomplish one and/or the other, it is very possible that it is exactly what you should be doing. If it doesn’t do either, go back to God and ask that he remove you and your thoughts from the equation and that he set you on the path you need to follow.

Lately, I’ve seen more and more Christians spending time arguing points with other Christians. They seem to spend more time critiquing the nuts and bolts of what others teach than in reaching out to and teaching the non-Christian world of the love of Jesus Christ.

There is no doubt that false doctrine needs to be routed out. If that is happening in your own church, you should take your concerns to your elders to have them deal with it. If it involves the elders, then get them replaced. If the needed changes don’t happen, flee that church and find one that is preaching sound doctrine.

If it involves another church and not your own, let the members of that church deal with the issue. Stand aside and let God do his work. Just like in the Old Testament days, God can rain judgement down on those who are perverting his Word. He doesn’t need us to spent our time arguing about it.

It may be that you see yourself as a latter day Paul, preaching to and teaching the churches. That’s fine if you also started those churches as Paul did. He was their spiritual leader and it was his job to make sure that correct doctrine was being taught. If you didn’t start and/or attend a particular church, then you are not personally responsible for correcting it.

The church is the Bride of Jesus Christ. Think twice about statements that you make regarding his Bride. Just as an earthly husband would not take kindly to derogatory or inflammatory comments about his wife, Jesus will also protect his Bride from these types of attacks.

But when it comes down to arguing with other Christians, most of the points that are argued are debatable and are of little interest to the non-believing world. Except for one thing. When non-Christians see Christians argue for hours, days, weeks and even years, there is little of interest there to draw them closer. They are more likely to laugh among themselves at how disjointed Christians are and how little of the “love” of Christ really shows through. They will focus on the disunity and see little reason to want to join in.

We need to stop this. We need to stop taking one another apart. We need to focus on what Jesus asked us to do and stop finding busy work on our own.

If you are preaching Christ crucified to an unbelieving world, you are good. If you are preaching to the choir, you need to stop, back up and step back to when you first believed. Little points didn’t matter back then. What mattered was that God, as Jesus the Son, stepped into our world to save us. He lived here and died for you to be saved. Remember the joy of your salvation. When you do, know that there are so many others who need to hear of and experience the saving power of Jesus Christ.

The small points of debating Christianity don’t really matter. There is no way we can definitively answer these points because, frankly, we are not God. We don’t have his mind or his view of eternity. All we have is what we are and on our own, we are a mess. Perhaps, when we enter eternity, we can ask God for his answers. My guess is that we won’t care – just as we shouldn’t care right now.

Arguing among Christians is a tactic the enemy uses to divide us. He has lost and he knows it. All he can do is stop us from fulfilling our jobs. If he and his cohorts can keep us from spreading the news of salvation, he glories in each individual who dies without ever hearing of Jesus Christ.

Someday, I want to stand before the Father and hear him say, “good work, faithful servant”. That means more to me than winning points of argument twenty million times a day. Each day that passes, I feel time is even more short. We’ve been living in the last days for more than 2,000 years so, in a very real way, the end is coming ever closer.

Whether it is today, tomorrow, or thousands of years away, for me, the end can be today. I need to live my life as if each day is the last one I can put into service for my God. When I stand before him, I hope that my last day, week, month or year will stand the scrutiny of whether or not I was doing what Christ asked me to do.

For years, I didn’t pay any attention. It was when life and death confronted me and I chose life that I realized how unfruitfully I had been living. I was like the seeds thrown among the thorns. I let the troubles of life choke out any growth of my Christian life. God gave me a second chance to serve him and serve him, I will.

God has a job for you to do, my Christian sisters and brothers. The job is one that only you can fill. If you are not doing as he wants to spread the gospel of Christ and love to the world, you need to change your efforts. You need to look at what you are doing and make sure you are really serving God and not yourselves.

If you are doing nothing, then it is time to step up and step out. God wants you to do your part. What that is, I don’t know. Seek him in his Word and seek him in prayer. He is just and good to answer you, when you diligently seek him. He will always provide you with the right answer.

Matthew 7:7-8

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Admitting our mistakes and wrong-doing is really difficult to do. I know that it is for me. I generally get along well with and leave others alone. Except when I don’t. Every once in a while, I do something that I know, deep down, that I shouldn’t be doing. Yet, I do it anyway. Why, I don’t know.

Sometimes it is quicker to do something a little bit wrong than to take the time to do it right. Other times, I think that I’ll get something more by fudging the truth a bit. Still other times, I simply want what I want and I do what I have to do to get it.

In all cases, I’ve done something equally wrong. That’s simply another way for saying, I’ve sinned… yet again.

Both in my various readings this week and in the sermon our pastor gave on Sunday, I was reminded of two instances where I’ve knowingly been in the wrong. Two times where I sinned and needed to not only confess it to God (the easy part) but also, to go to the individuals involved and apologize and ask for their forgiveness (this is the hard part.)

I was teetering on conviction when I saw a video by one of the people involved where she talked about how difficult it is for people to apologize but how good it is to do so. Her graciousness slammed me in the head when I thought of how I had taken advantage of her.

Interestingly, one of the instances involved my actions of twenty years ago (with this lovely lady) and the other (with a business), my actions of about a week ago. Two occasions, separated by so many years. I knew that if I didn’t do the tough stuff that it would have its effect on both my relationship with God and with an industry that I am starting to relate to once again.

As I waited for the weekend to be over so I could approach the business that was closed until Monday, I wrote an email to the other individual. I told her what I had done twenty years ago. I didn’t offer an explanation but instead, I told her what I did was wrong and that I apologized and asked her for forgive me.

Monday morning, first thing, I called the business. I tracked down the individual I had spoken to the week before. I told her what had changed in the relationship between her company and my own in the past decade and then told her I thought that my actions the week before were wrong.

I can tell you that confessing my wrong-doing felt like I lost a great weight on my heart. Even though it was difficult and I didn’t want to do it, once done, I felt clean again. I knew that I could ruin my relationship with an individual I respect and sever a relationship with a company that I cared about. Still, it was the right thing to do.

Here’s where it gets even more interesting.

You see, the individual at the company listened to what I had to say. She asked a few questions about my business and then told me that there was no problem, I was still a customer in good standing. While I had thought I needed to fudge my intent with my work, it turned out that the reality of what I will be doing is more than enough. As far as the company was concerned, I had never done anything wrong.

When I got off the phone, I found an email response from the other person. She was not only gracious and forgiving, she told me that what I had done was more than okay with her. She actually wished I had told her what I was doing so she could have provided me with better information than I was able to scrape off her website. She then made some lovely comments and asked me to stay in touch. Now that I could openly talk to her without feeling the stigma of having abused her hospitality in the past, I could see that we could become friends.

So… in both cases, the people involved told me I had done nothing wrong. Does that mean that I hadn’t sinned or wronged them? Absolutely not. What mattered was my intent and my thoughts. My intent was to take advantage of situations and I went about it in ways that weren’t nice.

In the middle of all of this, my on-line Bible life group was discussing the need to apologize. One of the ladies mentioned the old movie saying “love means never having to say you’re sorry”. We all disagreed with the sentiment. To an individual, we all thought love meant saying you’re sorry whenever you hurt the ones you care about.

If it is hard to apologize to people you are only slightly associated with, it is like dragging a millstone around to apologize to someone you love. Is it because we don’t want them to think less of us? Is it because we don’t think we have to give them the same consideration that we give to others in a type of familiarity breeds contempt situation? I’m leaning toward the latter. We get complacent in our relationship and don’t give time or thought to the loved ones feelings and needs.

I think it is also because we hate to admit we are wrong. That means admitting that there is a better way to do things than the approach we have taken. We like to think, deep down, that somehow we are better than the others. That how we think, feel and act are the right ways. That if others would simply emulate us, the world would be a better place.

Except for those times when we know better. At least for me, I know when I’ve done something I should be ashamed of. I usually know it before I do it. I’m given that split second to pull back and do things a better way. Sometimes, I do just that. But other times, I go right on ahead. Not only is it wrong, it has become an intentional sin and not something that I did by accident.

Over the last year, I’ve been working hard on close relationships and learning to say I am sorry. I have also learned to tell others when something they have said or done that is hurtful to me. What I didn’t do was tell them how what they said or did made me feel.

That was a study note from our sermon this week. It was so important in our relationship, my husband took a photo of the comment to keep handy at all times. The comment that we will use from now on is: “When you do abc, it makes me feel like xyz”. Example: When you don’t listen to me, it makes me feel like I don’t matter to you. That is better than just saying I’ve told you this ten times already!

I’ve apologized a lot this week. I’m asking God to let me know if there are others I have harmed that I need to speak to. Perhaps he will reveal them to me now or will do so at the appropriate time. Whenever that is, I know what I will need to do. It’s important for Christians to confess their sins when they happen. We are saved but our relationship with God is still hampered by the weight of the unconfessed sins we have committed since the day we accepted Jesus as our savior.

Jesus told us so when he said: “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)

It’s so important that it is something we are supposed to do even before heading to church or into prayer. We have God’s forgiveness but we also need to admit and seek the forgiveness of those we have hurt.

Saying we are sorry is very hard to do. It’s at the base of why some people have problems with repenting of sin and accepting Jesus as their savior. To repent, they have to admit they were wrong. They have to say that they are sorry for what they’ve done. They then have to ask Jesus to forgive them and to accept the huge sacrifice that he made on their behalf.

Who wants to be so wrong that the Son of God had to give up his life and to take all of your sins as his punishment? Not many want to admit it but every single one of us is just that guilty.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I’m as guilty as any and more so than most. My sins were killing me and I was ready to die. It was at that moment that Jesus revealed himself to me. I’m really that stiff-necked, you know. It took the imminence of death to bring me to my knees. I am so thankful that I took the chance and asked Jesus to be my Lord. I did it on faith and was rewarded with knowledge and understanding thereafter.

That is part of the deal. God wants you to accept Jesus on faith. That takes an act of your free will. Accepting a fact isn’t something that takes thought and risk on your side. Accepting Jesus as savior means stepping out of known fact and into the spiritual world.

Our connection with God is through our spirit and not through our intellect and mind. Having said that, know that there facts and logic surrounding every single thing that is said in the Bible. It’s just that until we have the spiritual connection once again, we are blind to the truth of God’s word. It’s like trying to read a foreign language without a translation key.

When you accept Jesus as your savior, it is like having the Rosetta stone engraved in your mind. With time and study, the Bible that seemed nonsense or inapplicable suddenly seems to have been written just for you.

If you have had problems admitting your failures. If you don’t like to say when you’ve done something wrong. If there are times when you know that you know that you’ve been wrong but are unwilling to let others know… there is someone you can turn to. Jesus knew everything you have or will do, say or think long before you were born. Even with all of that, he was willing to die to save you from an eternity without God. He wants you to be with him forever.

It is available to you but you will have to do the hard thing. You will have to say you are sorry for the sins you have done. You will have to accept that Jesus died so you could be forgiven. You will have to acknowledge that the God of all Creation willingly came into the world to take your punishment. Then, ask him to help you in the future and to guide your path.

Eternity is there waiting for you. It doesn’t take a huge sacrifice on your own behalf as Jesus has taken this one himself. What it will take is admitting that you have been wrong.

Please don’t let saying you are sorry be too hard to do. Saying you are sorry really doesn’t have to be the hardest thing to do.

1 John 8-9

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 

It seems like I can never stop talking these days. This is unusual for me. I come from a family of talkers and I was always the quiet one. I would sit and listen and observe but rarely would I have anything to say for myself.

In part, this was because I didn’t think I had much worth talking about and certainly less that I felt that I needed to communicate.

The one exception to this was in my school work. If I was in a class and a question was asked, I would almost certainly be the first one to raise their hand. In fact, one teacher had to ask me to stop answering questions because all of the other students relied upon my knowing the answer and because of it, they did not bother to study. I was so shocked by this that I agreed, in this class, that I would stop answering questions for the rest of the semester.

Sure enough, the first day, no one knew the answers and they kept turning and looking at me as if something dramatic had taken place. I sat and doodled on my notebook and never looked up. By the next day, several brave souls had studied and were able to give answers – whether accurate or not didn’t matter. They were having their voices heard.

Apart from schoolwork, I kept my thoughts and voice to myself. I enjoyed listening to others talk about their lives. This worked well for me because my life was not what most people would be considered the norm. By hearing that others had good lives and that normal things (though not always good) happened, it kept me from dwelling too much on the train wrecks which were more commonplace in my life.

When I was older, I recall going to a counselor as my first marriage was falling apart. I saw her separately and had to speak out loud for half of hour each week about myself. It was kind of like sticking myself with hot pokers and it took the full week to recover enough to do it all over again. But it was worth it as I wanted to be as healthy as possible as I was going to be raising my children pretty much on my own.

Fast forward a few decades to November 2017. This is when I was hospitalized with my current illness/disease. I was given little hope for survival and the large team of doctors decided to, essentially, throw the kitchen sink at me. One doctor listened to what (little) I had to say and thought perhaps I just might be suffering an allergic reaction. Because of this, she ordered massive doses of steroids.

It worked. I popped back up and started breathing and fears of my imminent death receded. The other thing that happened was that my mouth became unsealed. After a lifetime of keeping quiet, I guess I had a lot of things to suddenly say.

I remember thinking to myself (and still do from time to time), “who is this crazy woman and when will she ever shut up?” A nurse stuck a thermometer in my mouth and then he told me it was the only way to keep me quiet. When I apologized (at length, of course), he told me that it was okay. Better me talking than dead, which is what they all had expected to find as they came in to work each day.

I had no idea that steroids had such an oral effect on people. Given the circumstances, I can forgive the doctors for not warning me of the side-effects. After all, they had no idea if it would work at all. Also, in the end, they had to deal with my torrent of words and jokes, which generally left them laughing or at least plugging their ears.

Once home, it was interesting. My poor husband bore the brunt of it. He would ask if I wanted a snack and then get a ten minute dissertation on whatever I was researching that day. More than anyone in this world, I have been open and talked with him but this was much, much more.

Once I was off steroids for a couple of weeks, my talking settled down (as well as the overpowering need to eat something, anything even though I could barely taste food at that point.) Life took on a more normal hue and pace and quietness. That is, until I developed pneumonia once again in June 2018. Back on the steroids I went and am still on them three months later.

My mouth opened once again and words keep falling out. Thankfully, as the steroid is tapered, my need to speak decreases as well. My physical therapist laughs when I tell him I look forward to being quiet when I am off them altogether. He tells me that he thinks that genie is out of the bottle. I will taper again in a couple of weeks. After I get over the point of falling asleep without warning, we’ll see if my talking slows down.

I’ve met a number of individuals since my illness who all think I talk a lot. It’s become a bit of a joke in my internet Bible life group, with me laughingly pointing it out. Still, I would like to be quiet and keep a few thoughts to myself every once in a while.

The one saving grace is that I still like to listen to others and I do remember what they have to say. So when they can get a word in edgewise, it makes my day.

In the middle of all of this, we had a sermon at church this last week that talked about talking. It turns out that both men and women talk about the same amount each day – approximately 16,000 words. Some think that women talk more than men but that turns out to be a scientifically unsupported comment from years ago that has stuck around.

I think that men and women talk about different things and to different purposes. Most men want answers and most women want support. The interesting thing is that people only listen to about 20% of what others have to say.

Apparently, your thoughts move much quicker than the speech of others (though my speech is now pretty darn fast these days – kind of like a rapid action machine gun.) So, while we are comparatively slowly speaking our minds, our intended audience is off thinking thoughts in the playgrounds in their minds.

One wonders which 20% they hear? Is it the important part of what you had to say or merely a word every now and then that pierces through? So many disagreements are based on lack of communication and it is so frustrating when you KNOW that you KNOW that you TOLD that person what needed to be DONE.

So with all of us talking and so little of us listening, is it any wonder that we feel pretty much alone? No one gets us (because, frankly, they didn’t listen to us) and it seems like no one ever will.

It doesn’t help to meet new people because that compounds the problem. Who needs even more people not listening? But that seems to be our go-to answer. Keep searching for the one that “gets” you and will understand you and will then, of course, love you. Based on the science, that search will go on forever and will ultimately end in despair.

Looking to others for validation doesn’t work. We’re all looking for the same thing and, for a time, it seems like maybe the answer is found in another. That is, until the whole cycle of not listening starts all over again.

There is really only one way to find the one who listens to every word and thought that you have. That God knows how many hairs you have on your head tells you how important you are to him. He not only will listen to you, he wants to hear you speak. He wants to have communication and fellowship with you.

The problem is that the path of communication between God and man was broken years ago when Adam first sinned. As warned, when Adam sinned, mankind experienced death. The death was spiritual and immediate although physical death also came along with it. From that moment on, mankind as man was spiritually dead and God is a spirit, man no longer had open communication with God.

God is without sin and, being the just God that he is, cannot have sin around himself. In order to re-open the path of communication, there had to be a way for the obstacle of sin to be removed.

Jesus, who is wholly God and wholly man at the same time, came and willingly took the death punishment we each of us deserve for our sins. For those who accept Jesus’ gift of salvation and whose spirit is then reborn, the path of communication is once more open to God. This is something that is available to everyone and not just to a few. Jesus died for each of us, including you.

If you are tired of speaking and not being heard. If the effort of listening is more than you can bear. If you want someone who will listen to everything you have to say and who will speak words to you that matter, then look to God. He is always present, always loving, and always willing to spend time with you.

Remember, though, he is your Father and not your best friend. The answers he gives you may not be what you want to hear. But they are the answers that will help you through your present problems and help you to grow.

The only way to the Father is through the Son. God has told us that we can only approach him once our sins have been washed away. He promises that as far as the east is from the west, that once we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, that is how far our sins will be removed from us.

Accept Jesus and have the loving relationship with God that you were made for. He is there waiting for you but the first move is up to you.

Psalms 103:8-12

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.