Have you ever noticed that a lot of people seem to know a lot about the bible, but when you really dig into it, not many of those people have actually ever opened it.  I had a conversation with someone who told me that Hell wasn’t actually in the bible, it was a fabrication of the Catholic church, after Dante’s Inferno was written, because it got bodies in seat.  Now over the last six months or so I’ve been pretty good about reading the bible daily and I have to tell you, Hell is absolutely in there.  Along with a lot of other scary stuff.

So what scary stuff am I talking about?  There are lot’s of places in the Bible that talk about being chosen by God, or being God’s chosen people and that you can only come to know God if he allows you to.

“He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”  Ephesian 1:4

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”  John 15:16

“…no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father”  John 6:65

Today I was reading Romans 9.  This chapter talks a lot about the idea of “Divine Election”.  Basically God will chose who he wants to be merciful to and who he doesn’t and all of your good works aren’t enough.   I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that and I know that my bible reading said that this is an idea that a lot of Christians struggle with.  I mean don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of being chosen.  That word makes you feel special, cared for, included.  But that also means if you read Paul’s words that there are going to be people that we might care about who aren’t chosen, people whom God might chose to harden like “Pharoh” in the story of Moses.

And then if God is picking some people and not others does that make him unjust?

This is what my bible reading had to say…

“Thus, while God may sovereignly bestow His grace on some, He must also sovereignly punish others. He will not “leave the guilty unpunished” (34:7). When Moses asked for grace to be granted to every Israelite, he was asking for that which would have been unrighteous. God’s justice requires that He punish sinners. His grace enables Him to sovereignly forgive some. It is not failing to save all which would be an injustice, but failing to judge many. God’s sovereign election of some to salvation is completely just.”

https://bible.org/seriespage/22-divine-election-questioned-romans-914-23

I’m trying to link this back to my idea that God gave Pharoh and others he punished in the Old Testament so many chances.  But ultimately, while he always gives us free will, he also always knows what our choices will be.  He knew Pharoh’s heart and the kind of person he was.  So I thought maybe what I need to understand is that God will never chose someone who is not already at least slightly on the path toward him.  I mean would you call a friend if you knew that they were never going to pick up the phone?

But then I read this…

“As Paul drives home (Rom. 3:10-12), “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.” Scripture also piles up metaphors such as being spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1), blind (2 Cor. 4:4), deaf (Matt. 13:14-15), lame (Luke 14:21), hardened (Eph. 4:17-19), and enslaved (John 8:34-36; Rom. 6:6), to show that as sinners, we had no inclination or ability to choose Christ or believe in Him.”

https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-3-he-chose-us-ephesians-14

I think partially what scares me about it is that the concept could harden someone’s heart against God – a reason why people argue against preaching Divine Election. I mean we live and teach our children the idea that we are all created equal.  But what this passage is saying is that we are not all equal in God’s eyes.  I also understand that I am trying to constrain the God who created the heavens and the earth with my human understanding.  The last reading I quoted from ended up saying that we should stop fighting and just let God be God.  I do know that there are things in the bible that even the most educated scholars can’t make sense of.

I don’t know, I feel like I need to keep praying about this idea and for wisdom and understanding.  At the same time, I think that as part of God’s chosen or elect, we have a responsibility to reach out to and pray for those we love.  I heard once that if we have come to know God and Jesus and his love and sacrifice then it’s probably because someone prayed for us.  So let’s take some time today in our prayers to pray for God to soften someone’s heart, someone we know and love, so that they too can have the privilege of being called a child of God.

If you have any more insight into this concept and passage I’d love to hear it.

God bless,

Meredith

So do you ever have those moments when you are absolutely certain that you are in the right?  Those time that you feel absolutely justified to yell at your spouse, child, co-worker, friend?  I had one of those this weekend and God used it to teach me a lesson about forgiveness.

Some of you may have read my blog post from Saturday night, condemning an image that recently appeared in an issue of Batman.  I only knew about that image because someone sent it to me.  Someone looking to get a reaction out of me.  They succeed.  It also just so happened that we had good friends of our over that night, and the husband is also our priest.  Of course they too were horrified by the image.  In fact that image riled me up to the point that I did something I wouldn’t normally do and I posted an angry assault upon the people responsible.  This is why there is a 24 hour rule in kids sports.

When I woke up that morning, I knew that what I had done was wrong and I thought today I would talk about why.  When I woke up, the bible verse that was in my mind was John 3:17  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.“  I knew right away that I had let God down.  I hadn’t prayed for the people responsible, I had done the very thing that Jesus would never have done.  I condemned them.

Jesus gave his disciples a mission when he sent them out – to show the world God’s love.  Over and over again he talked about loving your enemy and turning the other cheek.  When I think about my angry post, I have to ask myself what I was trying to accomplish?  Did I think that I was going to change their minds with my rant?  Did I think I was going to convince other’s to my way of thinking?  Did I think that Jesus wasn’t capable of defending himself?  That’s where it really hurt me.  I presumed to speak for God, for Jesus, in a manner and with words that our Savior would have never used.

Thankfully yesterday was Sunday and church. Let me tell you, the very first thing I did when I walked through those doors was get down on my knees and ask God for forgiveness.  But even still, I just couldn’t let it go.  I just had the most awful feeling of having done something wrong.  I felt embarrassed and sad that I had taken something good that God had given me and used it against him.  I felt that I had listened to the enemy and I prayed over and over again that God wouldn’t let this black stain take away from what I been trying to accomplish with my life and my writing – putting out positivity and light and sharing the message that Jesus love us.

I also want to say thank you to my readers because, as the day went on, your prayers and comments began to lift me and I started to feel like it was going to be okay.  A friend sent me some songs that were meaningful to him (not even because of this) and I listened to them and felt even more restored and then last night, God put a song in my heart and I felt so wrapped up in his forgiveness and love that I couldn’t stop crying.  God is good and I have been redeemed.

So if you are wondering why I took down the blog post, now you have the answer.

This morning Jesus continued to remind me of what he wants from me as his servant.

“Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom… But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy….Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”  James 3:13, 17, James 4:8

“…but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”  Romans 8:6

I know that I will fall down and fail God again.  I’m human, it’s in my nature.  But I also know that I am so deeply loved that God will always forgive me.

I hope and pray that my failing can be used to remind all of us that we are messengers of God in the world and the only message he wants us to share is one of LOVE.

God bless,

Meredith

 

If you read yesterday’s blog post, you know that I have been asking some questions, trying to make sense of my faith and what it really is I believe in.

So my next question is really about reconciling the wrathful God of the OT to the loving God preached by Jesus.  I have had many discussions with my priest and other people about the discrepancies.  My priest had the following insight as transcribed by me (because I write our church newsletter):

“The story of the Garden of Eden is a story about when man and God were one – in harmony – and as such there was no need for any rules, except one; ‘Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’.  I think we all know, human nature, being what it is, rebelled.  As a result of that rebellion – Adams and Eve’s choice to eat from that tree – we were cast into chaos; ‘Paradise Lost’ if you will.  We saw the beginning of a society in which each of us were living by our own set of rules, doing what was best for ourselves (sound familiar?).  Out of this chaos came Moses and the 10 Commandments.  Again, God sought to bring us back into communion with him and his divine intention.

But rules are hard, and these rules specifically were difficult for people to understand.  Over time, the 10 rules given by God were broken into 613 subsections.  God’s rules for living in a manner that was close to him evolved into what became a legalistic and very convoluted means of pleasing God.  Instead of bringing man closer to God – the expansion of the 10 commandments took mankind farther away.  We could almost call it a misinterpretation of God’s intention.  But God was patient.  He gave us time and the prophets…but that time only took us further from his intention.

Enter Jesus.  Jesus was, in essence, the new Adam…the new Moses.  His role in coming to earth was to cut through the legalese, rewrite the rules, and simplify our understanding of what was required to be closer to God; to get back into communion with our Lord.

As an Anglican, it should be very familiar to hear those two rules as they are presented to us in The Book of Common Prayer.  “Our Lord Jesus Christ say: Hear O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

What a contrast.  Two simple, easy to understand rules, presented by the son of God, that cut through all of the legalism and, for the first time since the fall of Eden, gives back to us the concept of grace.  God’s grace.

The Old Testament is book about Man attempting to deal with Man.  It is an attempt to reconcile the chaos that resulted from our very first break with God in the garden of Eden.  In the New Testament, Jesus offers himself to light the way – to lead us back into paradise.

So, when we are asking about the change we see in the God of the OT verses the God of the NT, what we are seeing is a transition of our own human understanding.  A transition of a legalistic God to a God of grace.  Have no doubt that this transition is absolutely of God’s own doing.  He uses Christ as his son, as a demonstration of his love, to show us a way to come back into the garden.  The vengeful God of the OT can only be a misinterpretation by mankind of who and what God truly is.

But, to understand this is to understand a fundamental truth about humanity:  We can’t live without rules.  To take that a step further, if you don’t follow God’s rules, you aren’t in, and have no access to the garden.  God has given us a set of rules to live by – breadcrumbs, if you will, that will lead us back into the garden, if only we have the strength and will to follow them. ”

I felt like this was a good partial answer, but didn’t completely deal with the question that my heart was asking.  For me it always becomes most clear when it comes back to being a parent.  When my boys don’t do something I’ve asked them to do, like cut the grass or clean their room, I give them a warning…several in fact.  If they still don’t listen, then I take away something or “punish them” for their transgression or failings.  Now I think about what I would do if someone hurt my child.  You’ve heard the term “mama bear”  or “hell hath no fury like an angry mother”.  The biggest argument I’ve heard for a vengeful God is the killing of Egypt’s first born and then their army in the story of Moses.  But let’s really look at that story.  How many times did Pharaoh need to be warned?  I mean, there were literally 10 plagues; water turned into blood, frogs, lice or gnats, flies, livestock, boils, hail, locust, darkness and then finally the death of the firstborn. I think that God did everything he could to convince Pharaoh to release his people.   Think about that concept in your own life.  How many times has God tried to warn us against an action, and we still persist in the belief that we know what is best.

There are so many instances in the OT where God is faithful and loving and kind.  Look at the Psalms.  David was overwhelmed with the love of his God.  Isn’t this exactly what Jesus preaches in the NT?  My explorations have really brought me to a deeper understanding of the idea that God is eternal and never changing.  The only thing that has changed. the only thing that can change is us and our willingness to allow him into our lives.

God bless,

Meredith

It has taken me some time to write my blog today I guess because I have spent today in contemplation of a variety of Christian truths. Why does God let bad things happen to innocents?  How do I reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the loving God portrayed in the New Testament? What is sin? How do I defend my faith against the naysayers?

It’s been a bit of a heavy day.  But at the same point I also feel like I found some answers so I’m going to share my perspectives with you to take or leave as you see fit.

Why does God let bad things happen to innocents/to children.  I had this conversation with another comic book professional recently.  His stance was that he used to believe in God, and that there was no scripture I could quote that he couldn’t refute.  He had decided that God didn’t exist because bad things happened to children.  My answer to that statement…”free will”.  I wish with all of my heart that there wasn’t evil in this world.  But I also absolutely believe that that God didn’t create that evil.  He created us, out of a more pure version of the same love that causes us to have a child.  God just had an abundance of love to share.  Unfortunately part of loving us, was giving us the ability to make our own decisions.  We get to chose whether or not we believe in a divine creator.  We get to chose, every single day, in the thousands of choices we make if we will do good or chose selfishness and evil.  God didn’t bring evil into this world, we did.  Can anyone really believe that God wants a child to suffer from physical or emotional abuse?  I love the lyrics of the Matthew West song “Do Something” for this very reason.

People living in poverty
Children sold into slavery
The thought disgusted me
So, I shook my fist at Heaven
Said, “God, why don’t You do something?”
He said, “I did, yeah, I created you”

We have been given the gift of free will.  God gives us the choice to make things better.  People doing evil isn’t God’s fault.  If someone has done something terrible to you, don’t lay the blame for that at God’s doorstep.  Don’t compound the evil that Satan has perpetrated in your life by blaming God for the acts of man.  When you feel as if something isn’t right, that something in your soul crying out for justice…that is a part of you that is recognizing God and how far we have fallen from his desire for us to live in union with him.

I read a story today about a woman who was abused as a child and she blamed God for not saving her even though she prayed to him.  My heart broke, because of what she experienced.  But I absolutely believe that God walked through every part of her abuse with her. God gave us free will, and so often we use that as a weapon to prove he doesn’t exist.  Because he doesn’t stop evil people from doing evil things.  But God loves us so much he can’t/he won’t usurp that gift from us.  Just as a parent would never take choices away from a child.  And I do believe, I know that God has the power to make good come from evil.  He can’t always take the pain away, but he can certainly walk through it with us if we’ll let him.

There are times when I absolutely struggle with my faith and I think that, over time, this blog will be a testament to that.  But when God reminds me that he is with me…when I stop trying to make him prove himself to me and start trying to prove myself to him…the reward, the joy I feel is so amazing.

In tomorrow’s blog I’ll try to share the answers I feel I found to the rest of my questions.

God bless,

Meredith

I have to give it to God.  When he’s trying to tell you something, he really makes sure you get the point.

So I’ve talked about being brave for your faith a few times, but I realized yesterday that the people around you can sometimes have comfort zones for your faith.

Sometimes I wonder if this is what Paul was talking about when he said that Christians would be persecuted for their faith.  Persecution doesn’t have to come from angry mobs, sometimes it comes in more subtle ways from people that you love and you don’t even realize it’s happening.  And then you start to question yourself and your beliefs…Am I going to far for my faith? Am I losing myself?  My grasp on reality?

This was something I wrestled with a lot yesterday and it made me sad.  The day before I had reached what I would call a new level in my faith journey, or experienced a very special moment with God and the very next day when I tried to share that moment I was dragged down.  I honestly didn’t know how to feel, but I know that I lost some of that “freedom” my faith gives me.  And soon I wasn’t just worrying about my faith, I was just worrying in general, about everything.

If you want to know if I turned this problem over to God yesterday…you bet I did and today, as our always, faithful Lord answered as he promised he would, I asked…and I received my answer.

My bible reading today started with Romans 3.  This is a chapter all about, you guessed it…faith.  It talks about Abraham being justified by faith and that he received his promise from God because of his righteousness, a righteousness that comes by faith.  It says that righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  And in the study notes I read “faith does not refuse to face reality but looks beyond all difficulties to God and his promises”.   So first God reminded me to have faith.

My second reading was Luke 12 in which Jesus tells his disciples not to worry.  This contains that famous line “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?  Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.  Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Luke 12:6-7  So first God reminded me to have faith and then he told me not to be afraid.  There is a whole section of this chapter specifically devoted to Jesus telling his disciples not to worry.  In fact in my bible, this section is titled “DO NOT WORRY”.  Point taken.

The final nail in the coffin so to speak was when I picked up my son’s comic book version of the bible and the line that literally jumped out at me (it was right after Jesus calmed the storm)  “Your faith is too small.  Don’t be afraid, just believe”.

So you see, I asked a question and God responded.  He was faithful and I need to be too.  Today I’m not going to worry if my faith makes people around me uncomfortable.  I’m going to take my own journey, confident that God will provide me with everything I need to grow closer to him.

God Bless,

Meredith

 

Today I seem to be wrestling with the question “Will being a good person and doing good deeds get you eternal life?”.

And the honest answer is I don’t know.  I know that this is something a lot of people, members of my family included, believe.  That if they do good, and are a good person than, if there is an after-life, if there is a heaven, they will go there.

If you read Romans 2: 6-11 you will see that Paul states:  “God will judge everyone according to his deeds.  Those who do good will attain eternal life.  Those who do evil will incur wrath.  Those who do evil will suffer tribulation.  Those who do good will receive glory.  God will judge everyone impartially.”

And this isn’t the only place in the bible where the idea of being judged by your actions is presented.  So, the question then becomes how does this fit into the idea Paul later presents that man can only be saved by grace through faith alone, apart from our works.? Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God;it is not from works, so that no one can boast.”

I mean, if all we need to do to get into heaven is do good deeds, then what was the point of Jesus dying on the cross?

Let me point out right now that I’m no religious scholar, these are just my thoughts.

Let’s go with the idea that people who do good deeds are judged based on their good deeds. But how many of us are Mother Theresa?  I mean sure, I might do something good in any given day, hold the door, pay for someone’s coffee, spend time with someone who is sick or elderly.  You know what I mean, right?  But over the course of that same day, I probably also going to do some crappy things too, like yell at a driver who got in my way or wasn’t driving fast enough, take out my frustrations about work on my kids or my spouse or have a bad thought.  The point is that there isn’t a day that goes by that I can look back and say I was perfect.

I think that is the point of Jesus dying on the cross.  Sure, good deeds are important, and I absolutely think that they are a sign of God working in the world. A person who shows God’s love in their actions, even though they don’t yet know him, may be moving along the road to a heavenly journey.  But can any of us, if we are really honest with ourselves, say that we can tip the scales in our favor by simply doing good deeds.  Are they so much greater than the negative?

If you can say yes.  Then I congratulate you and commend you.  I do think some people are just born more good than others.

That being said,  I know I can’t.  I don’t, in my heart, believe that I am a good person.  I can be a gossip and jealous and envious.  I yell at my kids when they don’t deserve it.  I yell at my husband when I’m frustrated.  Do I try to do good things for the people around me?  Do I try to live like Jesus and be loving and patient and gentle and kind?  Absolutely!  But not for a minute do I think that I can stack up enough good deeds to outweigh the bad.  That’s just not how I’m made.  But I don’t need to.  That’s why I have Jesus.

Jesus took all of our sinful ways upon himself and laid down his life for us.  The gift of his sacrifice means that I don’t have to be perfect.  I don’t have to try to “good deed” myself into heaven.  All I have to do is believe in him.  And I think that really believing in him and making him a part of my life, makes me a more loving, gentle, patient and kind person. It makes me more good. I know my family thinks so.

So I guess the answer I’ve come to is that I’m sure there are people who can do enough good deeds to out weigh the bad, but I know I’m not one of them.  If I’m going to heaven, it will be through my faith in the grace and love of Jesus.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments section below.  And don’t forget to follow this blog if you’ve enjoyed reading it.

God bless,

Meredith

Each morning after I’m done my bible reading for the day, and again before I do any writing (including this blog) I like to say a prayer.  After my bible readings I ask God to open my heart and my mind to his message and to give me wisdom to understand the truth of his words.  Before I sit down to write, I ask that he guide my words and message, so that what I am sharing is his will, and because I always try to remember that in him I can do “infinitely more than I can ask or imagine”.

If it isn’t already obvious, today I’d like to talk a bit about prayer.  How many of us incorporate prayer into our daily lives?  I willing to bet that there are lots of people out there who would say that they believe in God, but a lot less that actually speak to him on a daily basis.  But, that’s what prayer is, it’s our way of talking to God.

There are so many passages in the gospels, but especially in the gospel of Luke that speak of Jesus going off by himself to pray.  There are lots of passages about this because this was something Jesus did a lot.

Now let’s look at  this from a couple of different angles  First of all, Jesus was the son of God.  It makes sense that he would want to stay in touch with his Father.  Talking with people, with our parents, is part of having a relationship with them.  It is through conversation that we learn about the things happening in their lives and share things that are important to us.

Of course God already knew what Jesus was doing.  So do my parents.  They know I’m driving kids to school, making lunches, writing comics.  But it is in that active communication, in Jesus specifically setting aside time to have a meaningful and heartfelt conversation with his Father, that the relationship is nurtured, that he is nurtured.

And that’s the second point I want to touch on in this post.  That prayer is nurturing.  Yes, Jesus absolutely was the son of God, but he was also human.  That means he had all of the same emotions that you and I do.  He had moments when he was tired and emotionally wrung out (image having people clamoring for you to help them all the time)  I know that sometimes trying to meet the needs and demands of my family can be emotionally exhausting – but being surrounded by people wanting a miracle, needing a miracle or a sign or to expose your weaknesses….

I’m sure at also times that Jesus was frustrated and angry, imagine having the Pharisees constantly picking at him, trying to undermine who he said he was.  But it wasn’t to his disciples that he downloaded those feelings.  He gave them to his heavenly Father.  He gave them to God.  Jesus used time with his Father, in prayer, to restore himself.

I want you now to think about times in your life when you are feeling tired and wrung out and stressed.  Of course there are times when we unintentionally download those feelings onto our family and those we love.  But how much better if we turn to our Father in heaven and give him those feelings.

Prayer doesn’t have to be complicated.  You don’t have to sound like your preacher or priest for God to listen, you just have to reach out.  David (my husband) and I have talked about this and he confessed that he felt like he didn’t really know how to pray.  The disciples didn’t know how to pray either, but when they were ready, when they asked how,  Jesus taught them.  Luke 11: 2-5

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“Father,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins,

for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.

And lead us not into temptation.”

May of us already know the Lord’s Prayer by heart.  I recommended that Dave start there, just taking time to really say it, to think about what it is saying and what he was praying for and to try to make that a daily habit.

Many people will tell you (and it is what I was taught) that the Lord’s prayer was really Christ giving us a pattern for how to pray.  First we give glory to God and thank him for our blessings.  Then we present our petitions, (for strength, freedom, peace, health), we ask for forgiveness and pray for others and then ask for protection from falling away, or being led astray.

I used to think of prayer as a chore, something that I was supposed to do.  Now I find myself reaching out and talking to God throughout my day.  In fact, my day wouldn’t feel right if I wasn’t talking to him multiple times.  He is my Father and he loves me so very much, he was just waiting for me to reach out to him so that he could show it.

I guess today’s challenge is prayer.  Try reaching out and developing that relationship with your Father in heaven.  I can promise you will be glad you did.

God bless,

Meredith

Here’s a rocking song to inspire you today!

 

So I have been thinking a lot today about the journey God has taken me on over the last year or more. Although I have touched on my faith journey briefly, I feel like today it might be appropriate to talk about it more in depth.

I started my most recent journey back to God, or connecting with God, through C.S. Lewis.  It was shortly after I had finished writing Wonder Woman for DC Comics and I had pitched to basically everyone I knew and no one had responded.  There was a point at which a part of me asked “Why are you waiting for someone to give you permission to do what it is you want to do?”  It was at that moment that I decided to write Rose.  I knew that I had loved the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe series and I felt that I wanted to write something along those same lines; something that subtly nodded toward God and my beliefs.  It was that feeling, that idea, that prompted me to go to my local book store and purchase almost everything they had, that had been written by C.S. Lewis.  I knew enough then to know that he was a religious scholar, but up until that point I had never actually read any of his religious writings.  I started with an anthology that began with Mere Christianity, then I moved on to The Problem with Pain, The Weight of Glory, The Four Loves, The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce.  With every thing I read, I felt as if I gained a clearer understanding of what a real, thoughtful Christianity or belief in God could be like.  C.S. Lewis writes in a way that is sophisticated enough that you need to pay attention, but emotional enough that your heart really understands what he is saying (or at least mine did).  By this point I was almost a year into reading, my faith journey, and writing Rose (trying to incorporate some of those ideas about love).

That spring I watched my then eight-year old come up from Sunday school and tell me for the umpteenth time how much he hated coming to church.  (At some point early that spring we had decided to start attending church more regularly.)  Looking at my sad child, in God’s house mad me angry.  Coming to church and learning about God shouldn’t make him feel like this. I was sitting in my pew, stewing about the quality of our Sunday school, when a voice, literally as clear as a bell, spoke in my head and said “If you don’t like it, do something about it.”   I knew at that moment, that God was calling me.  The only question that remained to be answered…would I accept the call?

I’m going to interrupt this story to really clearly point out, or emphasis, something that was happening, something that God was doing in my life.  He was tapping me on the shoulder in a way that I could accept and understand.  He introduced me to a Christian scholar that spoke to my heart, he directed me to write a story with a heroine loosely based upon his son’s sacrificial love and then he called me to work in his church.  God was preparing me; getting me ready, slowly, and carefully, waiting until I was ready and then calling me each time, to step up and make another commitment to him.

Skip forward a couple of months, Lent was quickly approaching and my church was offering a Lenten bible study.  I decided to try it out.  And I want to be very clear here – I absolutely believe that this was another way in which God called me, because the Lenten bible study was on the books of John.  Now I don’t know how much you have read of John’s writings, but I honestly don’t believe that there is a book or writer in the bible that speaks more clearly and specifically about God and Jesus and his love for mankind.  For the very first time in my life, I recall reading the bible and feeling like it made complete and total sense.  I could clearly understand exactly what the message was that was given to me.

Now let me be honest.  I have tried reading the bible on many occasions.  I’ve started at Genesis.  I’ve started at Matthew.  I’ve tried starting where I last left off, but I have never tried starting where God directed me.  It was around this time that I also discovered the Netflix program A.D. Kingdom and Empire.  This is a series of shows that basically tries to reenact the biblical stories of Acts.  Do you see where I’m going here?  God had made a move in my life and the more I responded to him, the more he fed me in a way that developed my belief and my understanding of him and his love and message.  I’m not sure that I have enough room to speak to all of the other ways in which he was moving in my life and my career. But I was starting to get the point.  God was calling me.  It was time for me to get to know him, to understand him and his work and his purpose for me on a deeper level.

If you are still with me, thank you.  I know this is a lot.  And let me tell you, not once since then have I looked back.  Every day in my life I feel his presence.  I feel him speaking to me in a very real way and I pray every single day that I do his will. I started this blog because I genuinely wish for every single person to have the opportunity to know and feel God’s love the way I have experienced it recently.  I have lived without God.  I have lived letting him into my life on my terms and now, I am living my life on his terms.  Let me tell you, of those options, I choose his terms every single day.  God is so good and he loves us so much.  We just have to open our hearts to him and let him in.

I am so fulling committed to God because he has shown me over the course of this past year and more that he is fully committed to me.  He has chased me down and, now that I have found him, now that I have truly found him, I never want to let him go. So today, when I pray, I am praying for everyone who reads this blog to feel and experience God’s love the way I do.  I pray for you to open your self and your heart so that you can hear God speaking in your life.  Once you experience the never-ending, overwhelming, reckless love of God, you won’t want to let go either.

God bless,

Meredith