Another pretty Fall day, some of
the leaves are turning now and the brilliant colors of yellow, red and oranges
are dotting he landscape. Love this time
of year.
Sent the heart monitor into the
company, hopefully it will have some things to let us know how the heart is
reacting to the ablation. It is hard for
me to tell, often I find I am still in A-fib without realizing it – and other
times I am quite dizzy.
Doing better, just not sure if
it is going to continue to get better or we need to re-evaluate what we need to
do.
Still, doing fine in general –
ornery as ever.
Isaiah 59:1-2 Behold, the
Lord's
hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it
cannot hear:
2 But your iniquities have
separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you,
that he will not hear.
These verses, along with the
rest of the chapter – indeed the book of Isaiah – yes even the entirety of the
Bible – declare that it isn’t God that moves from us, it is us moving from
God.
He is there; He is always
there. It is us that have failed in our
attempts when we try and live a life that doesn’t include Him.
But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid his
face from you, that he will not hear.
We go through periods where we
feel we are lost. No one cares, not even
God. We get up in the morning, we go
about our daily chores, whatever they may be, and we go back to bed feeling
alone, wondering what is to become of us.
It seems that God no longer
cares and we are just flotsam for satan to use as a demonstration of a person
who, professes Christ but can’t serve Christ.
It is the kind of ‘depression’
that can pull down a man, make him wonder if his life is any good, why should he
go on and ask God to just take him. He
cries out, but hears no reply and he rests upon his bed wondering what will
tomorrow bring – not in eager anticipation, but in sorrow and dread.
It doesn’t take much to put us
into that frame of mind. For some of us
any little thing can bring us down, for others it takes a massive amount of
trauma – but in either case we feel like we are of no use.
When we feel that way we need to
ask God to search our hearts, to help us find out why we feel that way. To be honest in our misery with Him. Not always will there be sin that seems to
block our communication with God – unless it is the sin of despair and not
believing He really does have control of all things.
Oh, that we could live on a
mountain top and be so close to God we can reach out and touch Him; that no
valleys would ever come into our lives – no pain, no self-doubt or doubt of
others.
Oh, that we could live a life
free of pain and suffering while walking on this earth so we can fully enjoy the
many gifts that He has given us – and not find the pitfalls that shake us and
make us falter.
But that is not the world we
live in. That is not the world that
satan wants. He gives us many
opportunities to sin; he tempts us every day, and many times several times in an
hour. He wants us to fail so when we do,
we lose contact with God.
The whole heavens rejoice when a
sinner comes to Christ – satan rejoices when a Christian fails. AND THEN, he promotes that failure in our
minds, he embellishes it in such a manner that we dwell on it and find ourselves
even farther from God.
God is still there. He doesn’t move, He doesn’t change. He still loves us. He still wants to cover us with His
Spirit. He still wants to lead us into
righteousness.
We must confess whatever sin we
have committed, we must realize that it is a barrier between us and Him. If we dwell on it, we allow it to get us
down, then that barrier gets stronger and higher. It can be destroyed, but we must confess it,
accept His forgiveness and trust that He abides with us still.
Emotions can be a huge part in
someone’s life. More in some than
others, but still they impact our way of dealing with things. Emotions are fine, they are God given after
all, but they must never be the basis of our relationship with God.
Loving God IS an emotion, but
more importantly it is an act of will.
Recognition that He is worthy of our love and devotion. While it is a two way street, we must never
let our emotions tell us whether God cares for us or not.
God is there, His arms are not
shortened; the only thing between us and God is our refusal to accept that, no
matter how we feel emotionally.
Communication with God is easily
repaired, we ‘just’ have to ask Him to forgive us.
Sometimes it isn’t easy, we cry
out, we know the pain of concern for loved ones, for the world in general and
for ourselves as we may go through traumatic times. Our heart feels like it is broken and will
fall out of our body – but God is listening when we openly call out to Him in
honesty with a willingness to submit to Him.
Christ, bearing all of our sins
upon the cross, cried out to God, “why have you forsaken me?” Those sins He carried became that barrier –
but the death and resurrection of Christ became our salvation.
Now, it is up to us not to carry
a burden of sin so that God must hide His face from us. Then as we give those things up, that
interfere with our relationship with God, we can ask Him to restore the joy we
felt when we accepted that salvation.
Psalm
51:12 Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation; and uphold me with thy free
spirit.
Later, Art :-)
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