July 15, 2009
When I woke up this morning I was thinking about the scripture in Matthew where Jesus was answering the disciples about why they couldn’t heal the epileptic man
Matthew 17:20
So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
I love this passage of scripture. That train of thought then led me to the question that I’ve had asked of me several times over the years, “why do you believe the bible is true and inspired by God?” In the past the only answer I could give was I just know in my knower. Of course that does nothing to persuade someone that doesn’t believe and that has always frustrated me that I could not give a better answer. This morning as I was thinking on all that God took me back in my mind to before I was saved and really knew Him and the many times I tried to read the word and just couldn’t. It was complicated, boring and totally didn’t relate to my world and I would just get even more frustrated and put it down. Now I will say that when I was little I had a King James Bible and that translation is very hard to read. However, when I was 16 my aunt gave me a living translation and I tried to read that and it didn’t make any more sense to me than the King James. So it wasn’t just the translation, I just couldn’t read it, it made no sense to me. My mind was closed to the word.
When I was 28 alone with 2 kids after a particularly hard and nasty divorce I began to cry out to God, wondering if He was really real. I had been raised Methodist and was in choir the whole nine yards. I was even sprinkled with water from the Jordan river when I was 13 (which I thought was way cool but totally didn’t have any understanding of anything at that point in my life) I just thought God was this far off entity that I would have to deal with when I died, I didn’t think He had anything to do with my life on this earth or that He even cared about me or anything else today. In other words, I thought He was irrelevant in this dispensation.
As I cried out to Him, He met me where I was. I remember lying in bed singing the doxology (it was all I could remember) and doing that night after night. Even then, the worshiper that I was created to be was coming out, you see we all have gifts and callings that are in us from God and they will come out and either be used for Him or this world, it is our choice.
For those of you that might not have been raised Methodist and you are wondering what is the doxology, here are the lyrics.
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen
Ok, that was a little rabbit trail I just couldn’t resist! Anyway, one night as I lay there singing that little song we always sang at the end of church all I can tell you is God came into my bedroom. I was laying there crying and He just came in and I literally felt Him put his arms around me and He comforted me. I still didn’t understand exactly what that was but I knew it made me feel better. It wasn’t long after that I became radically, annoyingly, amazingly saved. I really came to know Him and He became real to me and I realized He wanted to be involved with me TODAY! It was a life changing thing and I’ve not been the same since. There is a lot more to share but I’m running out of time today.
Bottom line, after my encounter with the Creator of the Universe I could read the bible and it made sense. Not only did it make sense but it was ALIVE! It spoke to me and guided me. So that is how I KNOW the bible is real and God is real and He cares about me and you. If the bible doesn’t seem real or relevant to you then you probably don’t know my God, but you can, He wants to know you and He loves you where you are. If you want to know more about that just contact me and I’ll be more than happy to tell you about Him and how you can know Him too.
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