November 17
Scripture focus: You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. Matthew 5:8 The MessageAbandoning god – leaves at the slightest provocation, we feel alone with no love or grace in our lives, we feel anxious and try to perform well so he won’t leave us…(paraphrased from Soul Repair)
Do you ever fear that God is off somewhere tending to the needs of others, leaving you to fend for yourself?
At NSC we have an active prison ministry that provides us with many awesome opportunities to learn from our incarcerated friends. On a recent visit, one of the inmates expressed a deep and abiding fear that God had left him as a result of his misdeeds.
As a human, understanding as I do the nature of his offense, I understand his trepidation.
Scripture tells us that God never leaves us nor forsakes us. This man has that scripture and thousands of other words of comfort memories as well. He’s struggling to accept what he knows of God through his word with his every day experience of God.
He struggles because his inside world is not put right. His mind and heart cannot accept the exact nature of his wrong, believing that God can restore him to sanity.
May God make us both willing and able to go to any lengths to get our inside world put right – so that we can see and celebrate God in our outside world – a God who is unwilling to either abuse or abandon us.
Recommended reading: 1 Thessalonians 1 – 5; 2 Thessalonians 1 - 3
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