First, ask yourself, are you a child of God?
Many of us, I'm not excluding myself here, have forgotten completely about God until we are in a time of need. I am not condemning anyone, just want to bring something to our attention. Think about that friend you have who only calls when they need something.. how annoying and hurtful is that person?
We must realize that this is what we often do to God! We want to use him for our selfish needs- like that rude friend does to us. We ignore him, don't want any relationship with him, and then we call on him to help us.
Some of us don't even acknowledge that there is a God and still say things like, "Thank God" or "Pray for the troops" or "Pray for Japan". Again, I'm not condemning anyone here but can we imagine how insulting that is to God, the creator of everything! Imagine this for a second, someone you know is choking and you save their life. Literally, they would be dead if it wasn't for you.. then they turn around and spit on you and disgrace you and embarrass you in front of everyone. They deny you even helped them and turn their back on you. A month passes by and that same person is in need of your help again. They plead with you to help them, and you do because you forgave them but they only disgrace you and abandon you again. Then they need help finding a job, or meeting a spouse or getting over a sickness so they ask you to help them again.. This happens over and over and over again... That's kind of what we do to God when we deny his existence and then pray to him when we need something.. it gets old!
Then there is the other situation, where we may forget about God all together and then when something goes wrong in our lives we scream "WHY GOD!!" and put all the blame on him. How dare we! The gall! haha but seriously are we crazy to do that?!
All God wants from us -is US. He wants you to love him because he loves you so much. He is starved for your attention, and there you are just ignoring him until your desperate. The beautiful thing is, though, Gods forgiveness is as wide as the East is from the West, and he is waiting for you to just turn to him and say sorry for using him and calling on him only when you were desperate. Sorry for not caring to know him, but expecting him to do everything for you at the blink of an eye. Sorry for blaming him when something in your life goes wrong, when he is never the cause of it. The moment we take notice of our sins- (as Christians call these faults)- and humble ourselves enough to ask Jesus (Read my past blog to understand Jesus) to forgive us and then trust with all our hearts that he CAN and WILL forgive us, we become children of God, rather then strangers.
When you are a child of God, you can start to build your relationship with him. Your prayers are no longer shots in the dark but rather communication between you and the Creator of the Universe.
I think it is important to remember that we are not just saying with our mouths "Im sorry, God" but rather feeling this fully in our hearts. We can all understand what it feels like to need someone's forgiveness and be desperate for it. We have experienced this feeling in life before with friends or family. If you feel like you cant connect with God in order to be sorry, like you can with a person - Just look to Jesus- the One who saved us all (read my last blog). Apologize to him, from the bottom of your heart. When you are truly sorry and change your views and accept God into your heart rather then rejecting him, he will forgive you.
When this repentance takes place between you and Jesus, you are given a gift. This gift is called the Holy Spirit, it is the Spirit of God which lives within us and guides us like a light at our feet. If we don't have this gift from God, we cannot hear his voice so clearly. (Read more about the Holy Spirit in my last blog).
After establishing a relationship with Jesus, the walls have fallen down and the communication between you and God is wide open. Think about it, talking to God or praying without truly acknowledging him and wanting to know him is like locking someone in a soundproof room and then standing outside the room and talking to the closed door. OPEN THE DOOR PEOPLE! Let God in! Or rather, you walk into the presence of God- and wow how beautiful it is to be there.
