Gospel
Have you ever felt completely out of sync with everyone else around you, as if you are tuned into the same channel but you can't get the picture to come in clearly or the sound to make sense? Sure there are glimpses of good reception times when you can make out the picture clearly and understand the dialogue around you, but then there are those days when everything just seems fuzzy. Even the words that come out of your own lips seem to betray you and sound like they belong to someone else. Sometimes life seems like one endless TV show full of loud static and poor reception. I have these days’ weeks even, when doubt clouds my vision and things just seem so overwhelming. Times when it feels like the whole world is either against me or could care less. That is when I feel the loneliness trying to creep in and take over. When I wonder why no one seems to care and why I feel so alone. These are all just lies of course...well to the untrained eye they might seem completely justified. After all there are obvious unfortunate events and rocky relationships surrounding us at all times. There are disappointments from trusted people and unplanned circumstances. This is life after all. We don't always get what we plan for. Sometimes we get much more and at other times we get much less.
The deception doesn't lie in the circumstances however; it is in the perception of our loneliness. Sure it would be great if our friends never got mad at us or forgot about us. If our husbands, wives, children and parents always showed there love and appreciation for us. Yes, that would be great! The fact still remains, however, that this is life and not TV or the movies. In the day-to-day business of living, there is rarely anyone who will fully appreciate you or your efforts. No one will applaud you for finishing the laundry or waking up every two hours to care for your sick baby. No one will hand you an award for choosing the low fat salad instead of the greasy hamburger you have been craving all week. No one will care that you studied all week for a math test and still failed or that you tried your best to smile and be polite even when your boss unfairly yelled at you. So why not be lonely? After all we are pretty much alone, aren't we? Even those of us who are surrounded by people are still ultimately alone. We are the only ones thinking about ourselves since everyone else is pretty much preoccupied with thoughts of their own life. Who can blame them? After all no one is thinking much about him or her either.
Yes this is life and at times the lie can seem real but what if it's not? What if there was someone watching over us every second of everyday? Someone who knew even the smallest thought we had before we ever knew we had it? Someone who quietly coaxed us to do the right thing all day and silently applauded for us when we finally did. Who shed tears when we were hurt by our own selfish and foolish choices and helped us to stand back up again when we were ready? Someone who intimately knew every inch of our body and soul as well as a painter knows his own masterpiece or a musician knows her favorite song. Someone who chose the color of our eyes and shape of our smile long before we even took our first breath.
Someone who stands over us when no one else even knows where we are. Someone who loves us even when we make the same mistake over and over again. What if that same someone also created every inch of beauty around us, as well as the vastness beyond us that even our most powerful telescopes cannot see. Someone who cares for each burning star, tiny ant and swimming fish. Someone who can wake the morning sun or shake the earth below.
What if deep down inside you knew this someone? You felt them calling your name in the summer breeze or in the nighttime rumble of thunder. Somewhere deep in your heart you could hear His voice when you felt like nothing mattered or no one cared. What if just for once, you listened? What if just for once, you let go of doubt and cynicism? You let go of fear and justification and just, surrendered. Just, let it go. Just, listened.
Maybe then you would begin to see the truth about the lies that have surrounded you since your birth. The ones telling you that no one cares and that your life is meaningless. The ones that threaten to tear you apart on dark nights when you think no one is watching. You can hide from the strangers around you, you can hide from the people who care for you, and you can hide from the ones so close to you that they sleep in the same house or the same bed. You can even hide from yourself for a while but you cannot hide from the truth. No matter how hard you try.
You can be so caught up in the lie that the truth is a distant flicker of light but it still burns and it will never go out. It still sees you and knows you better than you know yourself. I know sometimes you think about it. You wonder what else is "out there". You know there is more to this life than what you can see on the surface. You were designed to wonder. To seek the truth. That is why the world is full of seekers.
Those who are not seeking are simply too busy escaping. Trying to hide, to run from the truth as if it can't see them but all they manage to do is prolong it. Put it off until it is too late. Sooner or later the final curtain call will come for all of us. It doesn't matter who you are. If you were born, you will die. You can do everything in your power to delay it or to escape it, but in the end nothing you do will be good enough.
We trick ourselves into thinking we have some sort of power when in reality we are all utterly powerless. We have tried to control everything here on this Earth but we will never harness the power of life over death. There is only who has that power. The same one who calls you each night and again when you wake in the morning. Are you listening? Are you looking? I hope so because you never know when the end is coming for you and the only way to assure your final destination is to know the one who created you while you still remain here on this Earth. When you leave from here, as we all will, it will be too late. All your excuses and all your reasons will mean nothing.
I know you're skeptical. Believe me, you have every right to be! You were created with intelligence and logic. Not to mention that each generation has been lied to since birth. Lied to by people you have loved or trusted. Lied to by the world and its selfish agenda. You believed in Santa Claus once but then you grew up and discovered the truth. So in the same way you outgrew Jesus or maybe you never knew him at all. I understand, I really do! It seems crazy doesn't it? That God would make himself a human and come to Earth in a certain time frame only to show himself to the few people fortunate enough to be alive at the time. I mean why not come back every ten years or so just to make sure people really get it? And what about all the people before Him? What happened to them? Didn't God care about them too? These are all valid questions!
I mean are we supposed to believe that God came to Earth knowing full well that he was going to be killed by the very people he came to save. That those same people didn't believe in Him and simply saw Him as just another brilliant lunatic that they needed to dispose of so that they could continue on with their own self serving plans. And yet so many people at that time did believe. So many desperate, poor, ordinary and lonely people. People who lay in the streets begging for food, watching as the rest of the world went on without them. He walked by and heard their cry. He stopped and bent down onto the dusty, dirty street and listened to their hearts. He touched them and they were clean. Prostitutes that were used and cast away like filthy rags that were condemned by the very choices they had made in life.
He could have overlooked them and went on to the more "put together" people of his time but he didn't. He saw what was deep down inside them, the faith and hope they desired and he gave them a new life, one free of the slavery they once knew. He ate dinner with the people most hated in the community and explained that loving your friends was OK but loving your enemies was God’s true desire. That He offered forgiveness and mercy to us and so we should offer it to those around us. How many times? Countless times! Over and over again!
He saw the innocence of children as one of the greatest godly attributes a man can strive for. He knew how hard it was to believe like a child believes. He understood that. He still understands it and gives us faith when we ask Him for it. He chose simple fishermen and tax collectors to be His chosen few that would spread His name to the ends of the Earth. And they still do. He knew what the world would do with it and still does with it. Rejects it as they rejected Him. He knew he would die and it wasn't easy for him.
He felt pain. He felt love and compassion for His friends but even more He felt this deep and irresistible passion for the whole world that He had created. He felt it enough that he allowed himself to be killed as the Jews would kill a perfect chosen lamb to offer up to God on Passover as a sacrifice and an acknowledgment of His faithfulness to them. He did this to be the final sacrifice for all people all over the world. He still offers himself as this sacrifice for anyone who is willing to be like a child and simply believe. He knew that many would. He also knew that many would not.
He said that there would even be many who would claim to be his followers when they really never knew him at all. He said they would use His name for their own personal gain. There would be scoffers and people who would never believe. Sadly he said there was a place for those people a place of eternal darkness and gnashing of teeth. Have you ever felt a pain that was so bad that it has caused you to gnash your teeth? I can't even begin to imagine what that would be like. He doesn't want anyone to experience that pain and so He offers himself to the whole world every single day.
Unfortunately He knew there would always be those who laughed and made fun of His name and wouldn't believe and for them he said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." He allows people to decide for themselves, to make their own choices. There is the only true way to love and to be loved, willingly.
Even those of us who really know Him and truly believe in Him have our moments of disconnection and fuzzy reception. Sometimes we are the very ones keeping others from really tuning in and seeing Him as real. Still He extends his loving hand toward us and waits for us to reach back. He promises to always be there. You don't have to believe me; in fact I would be surprised if you did, after all who am I? I am just another person not worthy of your reliance.
Just ask Him, the creator of the Heavens and Earth, the only trustworthy aspect of this entire life, to show you and He will. He might answer loud and quick or it may take a lifetime for you to stop long enough to hear His gentle voice. Quiet the endless voices around you and inside you and listen to the one in your heart. Listen and see for yourself that you are never alone and when you hear Him call you don't hesitate or put it off until it is too late, just let it go and follow Him and see the truth for the first time in your life.
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