PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

As a child, I used to sneak into my parents' room to secretly play with my dad's guitar.  His guitar hung on the wall, not allowing any of us children to touch it.  My rebelliousness gets the best of me sometimes because of my desire to learn how to play the guitar.

I asked my cousin to teach me some chords and I learned about 5 easy chords my little fingers could handle.  But with those five easy chords, I was able to play several different simple songs.

When I was old enough to be able to afford my own guitar, I practiced for at least an hour everyday learning more chords, so I can play more songs.

The desires of my heart urged me to do those things and as I progressed, the process became easier and easier as the chords got more complicated.  No matter how complicated the chords were, it was worth it to me because I delved deeper and deeper into making music.

I can compare this whole process to prayer.  Some people think that prayer is only to ask God for a favor, healing, help with finances, etc.  However, when you become a seasoned prayer, prayer includes a heart to heart talk with God, asking him for advise, telling Him you love Him, etc.  How do you pray?

When I pray, I talk to God like I talk to a confidante.  Contrary to popular belief, when there is a one way conversation, you feel silly, but I just don't feel that way when I am having a conversation with God.  I cannot explain it in simple words because there are no words to appropriately do so, but just feeling that He is present with me listening and responding.  God is omnipresent.  Trying to fit Him in a category that our little minds imagine is ludicrous because His power will never fit into our tiny box of expectations.

What is incredible is that when you make this kind of conversation/prayer a habit, it changes you.  When people who pray a lot pray out loud, they pray with familiarity and confidence.  When they pray, you can sense that you are in the presence of the Lord.  They just don't know the Lord, the Lord knows them.  God loves hearing them pray.

Let's tap into that type of amazing life that is waiting for us all, if we just practice praying we come into His perfect presence.

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

NO ESCAPE

There are days I feel like this diver.  She is deep under water with only a limited amount of oxygen in the tank to sustain her until she can come back up for air.

Life feels that way.  I'm sure I am not the only one who knows the feeling.  When there is turmoil and evil all around, sometimes the pressure is too strong that you feel closed in with only so much air to survive, until being fully engulfed.

But then there is that knowledge that we can take in as much air as we want.  It is free to everyone to breathe in and out as much as we wanted.

So with the awareness of being able to take in as much oxygen as  you can, why do some people choose to stay underwater with limited amount of air?  Some people are so ignorant of the fact that relief is just beyond that surface that they stubbornly stay underwater until the could breathe no more.

God is a God of wisdom.  What He teaches in between the front cover and the back cover of the Bible is how to get to the surface.  We need not look farther than Jesus, our Lord.

No lie, as simple as requesting Jesus to help me find something I have misplaced and He does it for me, there can never be a request or a prayer that is too small or too large for Him to grant.

The water around this driver represents life.  More specifically, life's bashing from the devil who runs amok on this earthly existence that chokes the life out of each and every one of us.  The closer you are to evil, the easier your life is.  After all, why would the devil spend any time on taking your soul when he already owns it halfway?  The closer you get to God, the more trials you seem to have.

But you ask, "If God loves me, why would He allow bad things to happen to me?"  Well, the answer is simple.  God is a God of mercy.  But He doesn't dole out favors or pardons willy nilly.  He is a God of Love.  He loves you enough to allow the bad experiences to happen just like a good parent does, so one, we learn from it, and two, we call on Him and get closer to Him and love Him as much as He loves us.  Sometimes God will allow bad things to happen because when He grants the solution to that bad experience, we will be able to appreciate Him more.  He also allows bad things to happen to pave the way to the good tidings He has in store for you.

So instead of wasting your time breathing in the limited amount of air, why not come up for a bottomless amount of air.  God's air.  

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

AS FAR AS EAST IS FROM THE WEST

So you've confessed your sin to God and you were forgiven.  However, a few days later, you start feeling guilty about it again.  You have let satan dredge up that sordid sin again even though you have been previously forgiven.  The joy of forgiveness received from God is that God doesn't remember the sin once He has pardoned you for it.    However, because we are humans, very erroneous ones i.e., we, not God, falter and just can't believe that He forgives us just like that!

Guilt destroys our confidence.  We feel insecure and carry around this awful feeling.  Guilt damages our relationships.  We feel inadequate and focused on such inadequacy that we fail to focus on our loved ones.  Guilt keeps us stuck in the past.  We cannot move on or try to make things better because of that burden of guilt we carry around.  

But this is the exact reason why God is such a loving Father that He forgives us of EVERYTHING!  Everything that bogs us down, everything that satan lied to us about.  God said "I, yes, I alone --- am the one who blots out you sins for my own sake and will never think of them again." Isaiah 43:25

"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." Isaiah 1:18

Furthermore, God forgets!  Psalm 103:12 says "As far as east is from the west, so far ha he removed our transgressions from us." 

The best advise I can give anyone who is guilt stricken, and we are all guilty of this, is to let that burden go.  Ask God to forgive you for whatever it is that is still eating you up, know that He WILL forgive you, and once forgiven, lock it up in the forget closet and throw away the key, because God did.  Release and free yourself from it and move on.  You will feel so much better, I guarantee it.  Keep it locked up, don't try to get it back out!  That would be so silly!

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

THE GREAT PROTECTOR

One of my most favorite Bible verses is Romans 8:31.  What shall we say about such wonderful things as these?  If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

No matter where we are in life, there lurks strife.  Problems are often accompanied by stress.  We can always battle it on our own but it costs us something, whether it be money, time, headaches, sleepless nights, the list goes on and on.  

When we are faced with such life trials, the human in us thinks about the worst possible outcome, because as humans, we are not created nor wired to handle problems on our own.  Believe it or not, God is the master problem solver.  Yes, He will allow these things to enter into our lives but just because He does, it doesn't mean He will leave us on our own to fix it.  He wants us to experience the negative influences of being human so that we would lean on Him for guidance, assistance and protection.  As young and inexperienced children make mistakes and their parents fix their messes, so does God.  He is our Father.  NO ONE can handle the biggest, baddest problem we could ever face but God Himself.

I remember a story once told.  In an Indian tribe, boys are put through a test of endurance by leaving them in a remote spot for 24 hours by themselves inside this circle.  The child must stay inside that circle for the allotted time to become initiated into becoming a warrior.  This boy was taken to the spot by his father and left there all day and all night exposed to the wild animals.  The boy was terrified as he endured the darkness of the night, hearing the howling and the growling of the danger around him.  He is hunched over curled up in a ball crying and trembling in the darkness.  Little does he know that a few feet away, his father is standing by him with a bow and arrow ready to fire at anything that comes close to his son.

That is how much God loves us.  He is our protector, He is present in our time of need and He has His bow and arrow pulled, ready to destroy anything that could harm us.  We need to keep this thought in our hearts because God would not let us carry a cross too heavy for us to bear even though He allowed His only Son Jesus Christ to die for us. Now if you don't feel special after knowing this truth, I don't know what will.

If God be for us, who could be against us?

Until my next rant.... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!