An important read

I recommend reading the whole passage, but want to share part of a passage from the Old Testament, which I believe is important for us today.

2 Chronicles 7:12-22
Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now My eyes shall be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked even to do according to all that I have commanded you and will keep My statutes and My ordinances then I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with your father David, saying, 'You shall not lack a man to be ruler in Israel.;
But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you and shall go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot you from My land which I have given you and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. As for this house, which was exalted everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, 'Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?' And they will say, 'Because they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them from the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods and worshiped them and served them, therefore He has brought all this adversity on them.'"

Private Thoughts from January of 2013

How do you make your mind stop thinking about the woman who you believe is your soul mate?  I haven’t figured that out yet.  I spend time with others, but my mind is set on one only.  When I have time to think alone, my mind goes back to the same one over and over again.

Is it obsessive compulsion?  Is it blind devotion?  Is it a mental disorder?  Or is it just love?

If it is love, then what am I to do about it?  She has a boyfriend if what I have been told is true.  He is someone I know and respect so how do I go about even maintaining a friendship?  If I were to try to pursue her, then I would feel like I was disobeying God, yet if I don’t, I feel like I am being untrue to who I am and betraying my heart.

Does anyone hear my cry?  Yes, God hears.  But, He seems so silent at this time concerning the answer to this question.  “Trust the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”  Proverbs 3: 5-6

This tells me that when I trust in the Lord, and do not lean on my understanding, when I acknowledge Him in everything that He makes my path straight.  Lord, I really need that path to be straightened now.  My mind is in a whirl.  Only You can make my road clear.  Help me to trust in You and put You first in everything.

Private Blog from December of 2013

How do you react when there is a woman that you love, who is in a relationship with another?  Do you fight?  Do you flee?  Do you walk away?  I ask each of those questions to myself with no answer. 

A little over a week ago, I found out that a woman, who I am pretty sure I love is going out with someone else.  This shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did come as a big surprise to me.  It explains why she said she wasn’t interested at the end of community group.  Perhaps she thought I knew, which is why she might have said yes to coffee, but I had completely misread the situation.  I thought she was ending a relationship with the guy’s brother rather than being in a relationship with him.  This led to me giving out more of my emotional feelings towards her, than I had ever communicated with someone whom I truly liked or loved.

I had previously shared my feelings with one other person whom I trust completely about this lady, and he had hoped that I would have a chance to share how I felt about her.  Well, to a large extent, I did share what I felt about her, but now am left in a situation that is not quite completely new, but that is rare in my life.  Someone knows how I feel about them, but what to do next is unclear.  I know that I can’t pursue her right now and perhaps never.  The not knowing certainly that never is the option that is true makes it very difficult to decipher what course to take.

There is another lady, who I think is incredible in many ways.  She loves Jesus whole-heartedly and is always speaking of Him.  If there is anyone that I know that I should pursue; then she would be the one, however, my heart is not over the one whom I loved for almost a year.  I don’t want to dwell on impossibilities, but my heart is not yet letting go. 

Do I need to make  my heart let go with action?  Force my affection to change?  Seek comfort in another and be made to forget my previous affection?  Scream?  Rage?  Beat my fists against the losing of a light?  I do not know what to do.

I cry out to God!  Make my path clear!  Is the prayer; that I had previously prayed; to be answered with a No?  I do not know that answer now, so for now I wait until there is a clear light for my path.

My Best One-Liner Ever

My best joke, that I ever told was when I was 13 years old.  I was at Christian Youth In Action, which was a training camp for Child Evangelism Fellowship, an organization that shares the Gospel with children through 5 day clubs, fairs, camps, and open air.  CEF had a major role in shaping me as did CYIA.

Let me set the scene.  Each night of the training camp we would have a speaker who would share a message that was meant to train, inspire and equip us.  Over the 5 years that I went to CYIA as a camper, I listened to many excellent messages and was trained to share the Gospel easily with others through a memorable mnemonic system.  We used the letters of the word GOSPEL as our device to help us remember the important parts of the message and we would use a Bible verse to emphasize each point.

G- God the Creator loves you  John 3:16  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

O- Only Perfect Son 1 John 4:14  "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world."

S-  You and I have sinned.  Romans 3:23  "For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God."

P- Precious Blood  Hebrews 9:22 "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without  shedding of blood is no remission."

E-Ever-Living Risen Savior 1 Corinthians 15:3-5  "For I delivered unto first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again according to the scriptures and that he was seen by Cephas, then of the twelve..."

L- Let Him In  John 1:12  "...But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God, even to those who believe on His name.

We learned how to share the truths of the Gospel in this way.  These truths have stuck with me throughout my life.

Now back to the one liner scenario:  The speaker asked us all a question, it was a profound question that has been asked in various ways by other people.  The question was:  "If you knew that Jesus was coming back in 24 hours, what would you do with the time you had left?:

My thirteen year old response that I gave after raising my hand, (I think) was, "Skip School."  I think that I got the biggest laugh response out of the camp that I have had after a joke, which I really enjoyed at the time.

The last couple of months, I have been pondering the question again,  What would I do if I knew that Jesus was coming back today?

The fact is that I don't know when Jesus is coming back, but I want to be living in a way that honors our Heavenly Father and Jesus when He returns, and I want my life to be pleasing to Him as I live in submission to Him.  That kind of life is the most difficult easy life imaginable.  It is easy because God empowers us to live for Him when we accept His light burden, and o so difficult, because, actually letting Him lead is very contrary to how I often want to live.

For those of you who got to the end of this.  Thank you for reading it.  If any of you have any questions or comments related to this post, I would love to chat with you about them or comment back and forth.