Day 11: Becoming Best Friends With God
Question to Consider: What can I do to remind myself to think about God and talk to him more often throughout the day?
Well, I don't know about you, but today is the second...third...maybe fifth day, I don't remember now how many days it's been since I've began my process of total surrender. Some people might say that I'm not facing reality or some may say ignorance is bliss. No...I'm probably the most well-informed person I know. Not only do I read and research on my own, but my husband also researches on his own and makes sure I know everything he knows. He listens to Jack Van Impe, Alex Jones and Prophecy In The News regularly. He visits their websites and researches the Old Temples and churches or any topic they are currently talking about. I've tried to get him to blog himself, but he's not as computer saavy as I am. Sometimes I've thought of him as my muse, but now I realize it's God at work in my family, preparing me for my purpose.
Have you ever looked back on your life and thought that all the experiences you had, whether you were close to God or not, may have been preparing you for today and tomorrow? He says he'll never give us more than we can bear. He promised that to us...period. Even when we've been lost with no intention of trying to find our way home. I don't know about you, but I'm not in the looney bin yet, but Thank God I've turned my life around because I don't want to know where the path I was following was going to lead me next.
I was thinking the other day that maybe all these changes I'm feeling have something to do with me being in my 30's now. Several times I've heard somebody say, "it's like they finally woke up and decided to be an adult" and I'd ask, "how old are they". More times than not they've said 33. That's how old I am. That's also how old Jesus was when he died. Which is probably why it stands out in my mind, but the other thing I think about is how many people are out there "finally waking up" and calling themselves Jesus Christ. For so long I've told myself that I would never see the end days in my lifetime and even read things trying to convince me that it's all a conspiracy to control man. I've never been so sure in my life that we are in the end times. Sometimes I wonder if people can actually fathom the actual number of people who are truly being deceived into thinking that the whole Bible and religion is a lie or how many more are going to start proclaiming that they are Jesus Christ.
My husband and I both have basically been "on our own" since we were 16 years old. It was not quite as uncommon as it was when our own parents were 16. Today, it's not uncommon for a 16 year old to be pregnant with her second child by different men. My own daughter goes to school with several girls like that, not to mention all the ones who have dropped out because they were pregnant. I've heard stories about what 12 to 14 year old girls are doing in my own small town that makes my stomach turn. In 4 years, these kids are going to be young adults. I heard a 19 year old boy say the other day that he didn't have any idea who God was. We wonder how can that be! When was the last time you asked someone if they knew who God was? Better yet, do your know if your neighbors know who God is? I know that 3 of my neighbors do, but that's only because one of them invited me to go to church with them and the other because I just spoke with her this week for the second time in the past 2 years that I've known her.
Scandals and politics are going to cause an uproar here in America. There are so many different reasons for someone to become so furious that they can rally together thousands of supporters for their cause. In the next couple of years, I believe that American's will hate the government so bad that they will start revolting. Do I think we will have another revolution? No...I think we'll be offered a solution.
I read some years back that they way to make something happen is to introduce an idea and expect people to become furious over even the idea of mentioning it. You might have a few supporters. Over the next few years, reintroduce the idea with "if we had this then that wouldn't be an issue" and don't expect acceptance to be unanimous, but you will get a few more people that agree with you. Keep reintroducing the idea and eventually you'll have more people that agree with you than disagree with you. Granted the ones that do disagree with you might be more powerful than those that agree with you, but it does gain you publicity and a chance to get even more supporters and maybe even someone with a little bit of power to join you.
Several things come to mind when I think back over even just my own lifetime that at one time everybody I knew was saying, "that idea is like a rock, it will never float". Not to mention all the times I heard someone say, "that will never happen in my lifetime". I imagine I might feel a little like Noah. He might have tried to save more than just his family. In the 100 or so years that he spent building the ark I'm sure he had to have run across paths with somebody that wasn't part of his family. Maybe if he had the internet he could have reached more people to let them know that God wasn't messing around, he was going to flood the earth. I'm starting to realize, God's not messing around, Jesus is really coming back. Fortunately for Noah, he found favor with God and his family believed him. Unfortunately for me, there are people in my family who think it won't happen in their lifetime and the Bible doesn't say anything about sparing our families because we believed. I can say Praise the Lord that more of them are turning their lives around and are getting closer to the point where they're realizing that they do need God in their lives. That means that I won't have to spend my eternity without them.
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for my family, especially my mother who from the earliest of my memories has always lived for God. No matter what mistakes she has made, or issues she's dealt with in life, the one thing I have always known is that God loved her and He loved me. I look back and think of it as riding on her coat tails on her spiritual walk with God. She gave me something more valuable than anything she could have given me that had a price tag on it. She gave me the knowledge that God loves me no matter what I've done and that He will always welcome me back. More importantly than that, she taught me about Jesus' forgiveness and I learned how to forgive.
I hope that everyone has a Thanksgiving day remembering to be thankful for every person who has ever touched your life. From the smallest to the largest part of your life, even in a way that may have caused some kind of tragedy in your life, because it's made you who you are today. You are one person in the world, but to one person you might be the whole world and not even know it.
Well, I don't know about you, but today is the second...third...maybe fifth day, I don't remember now how many days it's been since I've began my process of total surrender. Some people might say that I'm not facing reality or some may say ignorance is bliss. No...I'm probably the most well-informed person I know. Not only do I read and research on my own, but my husband also researches on his own and makes sure I know everything he knows. He listens to Jack Van Impe, Alex Jones and Prophecy In The News regularly. He visits their websites and researches the Old Temples and churches or any topic they are currently talking about. I've tried to get him to blog himself, but he's not as computer saavy as I am. Sometimes I've thought of him as my muse, but now I realize it's God at work in my family, preparing me for my purpose.
Have you ever looked back on your life and thought that all the experiences you had, whether you were close to God or not, may have been preparing you for today and tomorrow? He says he'll never give us more than we can bear. He promised that to us...period. Even when we've been lost with no intention of trying to find our way home. I don't know about you, but I'm not in the looney bin yet, but Thank God I've turned my life around because I don't want to know where the path I was following was going to lead me next.
I was thinking the other day that maybe all these changes I'm feeling have something to do with me being in my 30's now. Several times I've heard somebody say, "it's like they finally woke up and decided to be an adult" and I'd ask, "how old are they". More times than not they've said 33. That's how old I am. That's also how old Jesus was when he died. Which is probably why it stands out in my mind, but the other thing I think about is how many people are out there "finally waking up" and calling themselves Jesus Christ. For so long I've told myself that I would never see the end days in my lifetime and even read things trying to convince me that it's all a conspiracy to control man. I've never been so sure in my life that we are in the end times. Sometimes I wonder if people can actually fathom the actual number of people who are truly being deceived into thinking that the whole Bible and religion is a lie or how many more are going to start proclaiming that they are Jesus Christ.
My husband and I both have basically been "on our own" since we were 16 years old. It was not quite as uncommon as it was when our own parents were 16. Today, it's not uncommon for a 16 year old to be pregnant with her second child by different men. My own daughter goes to school with several girls like that, not to mention all the ones who have dropped out because they were pregnant. I've heard stories about what 12 to 14 year old girls are doing in my own small town that makes my stomach turn. In 4 years, these kids are going to be young adults. I heard a 19 year old boy say the other day that he didn't have any idea who God was. We wonder how can that be! When was the last time you asked someone if they knew who God was? Better yet, do your know if your neighbors know who God is? I know that 3 of my neighbors do, but that's only because one of them invited me to go to church with them and the other because I just spoke with her this week for the second time in the past 2 years that I've known her.
Scandals and politics are going to cause an uproar here in America. There are so many different reasons for someone to become so furious that they can rally together thousands of supporters for their cause. In the next couple of years, I believe that American's will hate the government so bad that they will start revolting. Do I think we will have another revolution? No...I think we'll be offered a solution.
I read some years back that they way to make something happen is to introduce an idea and expect people to become furious over even the idea of mentioning it. You might have a few supporters. Over the next few years, reintroduce the idea with "if we had this then that wouldn't be an issue" and don't expect acceptance to be unanimous, but you will get a few more people that agree with you. Keep reintroducing the idea and eventually you'll have more people that agree with you than disagree with you. Granted the ones that do disagree with you might be more powerful than those that agree with you, but it does gain you publicity and a chance to get even more supporters and maybe even someone with a little bit of power to join you.
Several things come to mind when I think back over even just my own lifetime that at one time everybody I knew was saying, "that idea is like a rock, it will never float". Not to mention all the times I heard someone say, "that will never happen in my lifetime". I imagine I might feel a little like Noah. He might have tried to save more than just his family. In the 100 or so years that he spent building the ark I'm sure he had to have run across paths with somebody that wasn't part of his family. Maybe if he had the internet he could have reached more people to let them know that God wasn't messing around, he was going to flood the earth. I'm starting to realize, God's not messing around, Jesus is really coming back. Fortunately for Noah, he found favor with God and his family believed him. Unfortunately for me, there are people in my family who think it won't happen in their lifetime and the Bible doesn't say anything about sparing our families because we believed. I can say Praise the Lord that more of them are turning their lives around and are getting closer to the point where they're realizing that they do need God in their lives. That means that I won't have to spend my eternity without them.
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for my family, especially my mother who from the earliest of my memories has always lived for God. No matter what mistakes she has made, or issues she's dealt with in life, the one thing I have always known is that God loved her and He loved me. I look back and think of it as riding on her coat tails on her spiritual walk with God. She gave me something more valuable than anything she could have given me that had a price tag on it. She gave me the knowledge that God loves me no matter what I've done and that He will always welcome me back. More importantly than that, she taught me about Jesus' forgiveness and I learned how to forgive.
I hope that everyone has a Thanksgiving day remembering to be thankful for every person who has ever touched your life. From the smallest to the largest part of your life, even in a way that may have caused some kind of tragedy in your life, because it's made you who you are today. You are one person in the world, but to one person you might be the whole world and not even know it.
posted by Chris Smith @ 10:57 PM
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