Stumbling About for Truth

My daughter and I have had some issues come between us lately. That got me to thinking how many times God and I have had issues come between Him and I. We have had many. And of course, the issues in this relationship are not a two way street. When it comes to my daughter and I, we're both at fault. When it comes to God and I, I am at fault. It's amazing how He uses my relationship with my daughter to show me how He feels when I grieve Him. It never fails. I always find myself thinking: "This is how God must feel when I rebel against Him." He also uses my relationship with my daughter when it comes to who she is and the good things she does. When I look at her and things are going good and think about how beautiful and talented she is, I think: "This is how God must feel about me when He looks upon me." He, after all, chose me to be His child when I didn't want much at all to do with Him. Why would he do that except that He loves me? It's hard for me ...

I was listening to a friend earlier today talking about how the church tends to not want to deal with those that aren’t like them - those that might not have enough money to dress the same as church folks do, or if they don’t have all their ducks in a row personally - maybe they are addicted to something - maybe they’re addicted to many somethings. Or maybe they’re not the right color - or maybe we just don’t understand them because they come from a different background or culture. No matter the reason, many times we just keep those people at arms length. The gist of his comments were that if we are going to do that, then we have forgotten from whence we came. We have forgotten that we were dirty before God. That we were unacceptable before God. That we were rebellious against God. That we had no business coming before a God Who is perfect expecting anything. Heck, even as Christians, we’re still sinful and unacceptable but for the fact that Jesus took brunt of punishment for our sin. ...