I know I have blamed God for the bad things that happen in life. He is the God of the universe, above all authorities, healer, owner of riches and much more. He is sovereign. Why can't He just fix my situation? Why can't he just heal? Why can't He just give me the money I need? I have said to Him: you are God why don't you just give me what I want? It's just our selfish hearts that lead us to believe that life is all about us. We have been taught to believe that God will only do what is good for me. But have we ever asked ourselves what is good to God? What does good mean to Him?
This summer has been hard. I've had nothing to do, which has left me with a lot of time to just think. My thoughts just lead me to being worried or scared. I noticed that in my life I don't really spend much time just being with God. I was explaining to a friend about how I've been having a hard time spending time with God. I know that this is not ok but I've been worrying about all the money I need to raise in order to go to Norway. I was tired of trying to get somewhere but there was always a problem that came after another. I lived in fear of problems. I've been carrying a weight that Jesus promised to take. I have been worrying if God will provide or not. There is one thing my friend said that really struck me. She said "You know what Steph, I don't really think that this is about the money and how it will come. It goes beyond that. This is about how much God wants to be with you. How He wants you to set your eyes on Him only. You need to realize that He loves you and wants you to only look at Him."
It's not about our problems, it's all about desiring to know God and the love he has for us.
That's what this summer has been all about, learning that the alone time I spend talking to God is the most important time in my life. I have come to the conclusion that knowing God and living every moment of my life conscious of his presence is all I have to worry about. I listen to preachings and they are all redundant to me. All I can think about when I hear them is that there is no way people will live the life Jesus expects us to live unless they spend time knowing God. I am offended that when we teach we don't emphasize that spending time with God is the most important thing we need to do. In almost all of my personal applications for all the books in the Bible I said that it all comes down to knowing God personally. You can try and try to be "good" or do "good" but if you don't know God then what is the point of it all? If you don't spend time knowing God then how can you know how to love? The most beautiful thing about this is that God desires to know us more than anything. He longs for us to talk to Him about what we think and what happens in our day. One thing I know for sure is, to know God is to truly live.
"It is our duty to live in the beauty of the presence of God on some mount of transfiguration until we become white with Christ. After all, the deepest truth is that the Christ-like life is glorious, undefeatably glorious. There is no defeat unless one loses God, and then all is defeat, though it be housed in castles and buried in fortunes." - Frank Laubach
