Its All About Relationships

As I look back at my life, I recognize that relationships have always been so important for me.  Even as a young boy I remember wanting to be in a good relationship with everyone.  Maybe that is one of the reasons why it was important for me, even at an early age, to understand where I stood in relationship to God. 

 

When I was 8 years old, I learned that I needed to receive forgiveness from God if I was to be in a right relationship with him.  It was a key event in my spiritual life and opened the door to many experiences of God's faithfulness and His presence.

 

While I enjoyed a growing sense of God's presence and His will for my life through my years as a teenager, in my early 20's I went through an experience that made me uncertain as to my faith in God.  At that point I re-examined everything about my faith again and asked myself if I wanted to believe in God, now that I was an adult.  It was then that my experiences as a child and my own desire for a relationship with the One who created me and loved me, were the key for me choosing to believe God with a fresh sense of confidence.

 

I really like Ephesians 2.  It says that because Jesus died on the cross, I-we can be reconciled or made right with God.  This means that the tension of being separated from God or away from Him because of the decisions I have made, can be eliminated.  That is important to me; I want to be in an open and free relationship with God and with other people.

 

In those times now when I feel particularly afraid or I feel like God is far away, I hang on to the words from Psalm 46:1&2 - "God is our refuge & strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore we will not fear..." 

 

Pastor Henry F.