My prayer for the new year... to walk confidently with God and to be settled. He draws me back. I want to know HIM. I want those around me to know HIM. And forget the religous red tape, forget it. My struggle this past year has had a lot to do with questions about the heart of God. And truly, He has been faithful even as I have become faithless. I am thankful that His mercies are new every morning. I am thankful that He makes the crooked places straight. I am thankful that He is who He said He is and that He is patient with me in my search.
Over New Year's I celebrated with a new crowd of people in Baltimore, MD. I was not at church, I was not among Christian friends. I was out in the world with people who were living their lives the best they knew how without the hope that God loved them. And I loved being there. And I asked God, "God, how do you reach these people?" Because within the past few months, even I, with strong roots in Christianity, with a heart towards God, had cause to doubt that this life of faith might be for me. How do you reach a generation of kids who live from hearts that have been hurt and broken and hardened. How in the world do you reach out and give them hope? They commune together in bars and in clubs, they reach for empty, broken, unfulfilling relationships, they listen to driving music that asks the questions but gives no answers. They are driven to succeed, to fill their emptiness with money, power, alcohol, drugs, sex, things, as if somehow the American dream will lead them to peace, to the place they long for but cannot describe. Some do not even know they have need of Him. He is a comfort but He is not their life. A few times, I caught the eyes of this one guy that night. And whenever he was looking at me it was as if he was asking a question. He had a girlfriend, and I was there with his friend so it was not a romantic question. It was as if his heart recognized the Spirit of God. It was as if some sort of exchange was going on that had no need of words. I wonder if he even knew, but I trust that someday he will "know".
O God, show me the way and help me to show others Your way.
..Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
and in the hidden part You will me to know wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may rejoice...
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
Then I will teach trangressors Your ways,
And sinners shall be converted to You....
Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion;
Build the walls of Jerusalem.
Psalm 51
3 comments:
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me."
My personaly opinion toward this is that we don't worry about others. Instead we use this as a catalyst for our own journey. The problem with the world today is the church. Christians are not jumping into the fire and they expect all there freinds around them to wade in the pool with them. Unless one jumps in the fire people around them will not be moved. There is enough to be done in ones own life that is lacking in Christ to waste ones energy thinking about how others are lacking. When one see others are lacking this should be a sign for them of all that they are lacking which they do not see. Miss you April, you are the most genuine of friends...P.S. Even though I believe this I tend to do the opposite
You made it sound like their lives were horrible or something. I look at Christians lives and think the same thing, meaningless, empty, drifting aimlessly, going nowhere, wasting time, boring etc. In fact how disappointing is it that you may be spending all this time trying to get a glimpse of God at Church, or at a youth group or with friends but you never will, and quite possibly, not even when you die. At least people like us don't have to live our whole lives thinking that there is another life afterward and living by the laws of God only to find out that there was never a God and it was all for nothing.
I have plenty of hope in my life, I hope that my friends and family, my career, my dog and everything else gets the most out their potential as possible and that I will be happy every step of the way. But no one is happy every step of the way, not Christians, Muslims, or Atheist. If thinking there is a God makes you happy then so be it, but don't worry about the people who make themselves happy via other means.
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