Random Reflections For Friday, 6-19

Interestingly, the more I read the news, the more my mind wanders towards God.

When will America realize her need for God? I honestly don’t know; America is being a stubborn nation and as such may have to suffer the consequences of her own god-lessness.

Why can’t people understand that it is only through God that we will obtain true freedom and peace? I have come to realize that perhaps not many really “know” God after all…

When I think of God, I think of Him as a God who saves and as a God who is interested in every single one of us. I also believe He cares about all the silly little incidentals of each of our lives.

In other words, God is a “lover”.

When we love people, we are interested in everything about them – even the smallest details in their lives. I believe that God is like that for all of us; even when no one else notices us, God does because we are interesting to Him.

But God is more than interested in us; He saves us. His love is always redeeming. One who really loves, loves us in spite of our imperfections and sins and so God loves us. But He, like no other lover, can and will redeem our imperfections and sins.

God is the one who is always there; it is man who abandons God.

God never fails to be present when we need Him and presence is what it means to care. It is precisely at this point that I believe much of our faith is tested. We call out to God and ask Him to be with us, but He seems so far away. What we are really asking is for God to reveal Himself to us, and that He will not do. He has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ and Jesus promised to be with us always through His Spirit that dwells in our hearts. That Spirit’s presence is only known through faith, not through some tangible manifestation that makes faith unnecessary. God is present to us now only through faith, and only faith knows that He is with us: that He cares and that He is interested.

Isn’t that the way with human love as well? We have to believe that the one who loves us cares; we have to believe in that person because there is often misunderstanding and doubt and we can interpret non-presence as non-caring. Often the other does not know the depth of our need at this moment or our hunger for a friend’s interest in some project that is dear to us. This in no way means he or she doesn’t love us or doesn’t care. God does know, of course, but because He does not reveal Himself as we would like Him to, we interpret His felt absence as a real absence and not caring.

It is our own complexity that makes God complex? He is simple and means every word He utters. The non-belief is in us. We project our own and others’ failures to love selflessly onto Him. If, however, we live by faith, our own lives become simple, as simple as the word that God has given us. And that word is love.

God is love, St. John says, and those who abide in love abide in God and God in them. (see 1 John 4:16)

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The following video, John Michael Talbot - My Yoke is Easy - Quiet Reflections Part 5, courtesy of You Tube.

Our Father...

Reflecting on our nation's future, my mind wanders towards God's mercy and prayer. Discouraged and tired, I think of The Lord's Prayer; Jesus' own formula for how we should all pray.

True prayer should take us out of ourselves; out of the narrow confines of our self-conscious preoccupation with our own thoughts and feelings. Jesus' prayer immediately does that:

"Our Father who art in heaven." We are out of ourselves, addressing our Father, calling upon God Himself as our Father.

And this other centeredness continues:

"hallowed be Thy Name." God's name defines who He is and we pray that His name always be Holy with reverence, respect and adoration of whom we are daring to address.

"Thy Kingdome come," Praying for God's Kingdom to come is saying yes to all of salvation history and yes for all that is yet to come in the plan of God.

And then perhaps the hardest prayer of all:

"Thy Will be done." God's Will! To say yes to that is to accept the totality of what has happened, is happening and will yet come to pass as it is willed by the Father. And that means suffering and sorrow as well as happiness and joy.

This whole first part of The Lord's Prayer has been addressed to the Father and has been wishing for Him everything He wants from man:

That He be our Father,

that His Name be holy,

that His Kingdom come, and

His will be done.

And we pray for all of this not to My Father, but to Our Father because we are one with all mankind whose common Father is our personal Father as well.

Only then do we pray for ourselves and for all of mankind.

"Give us this day our daily bread." We trust in our Fathers loving providence to care for us from day to day. We live and pray in the present and God answers our present needs, not those future needs we imagine are coming.

"And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." No prayer is possible without forgiveness. We must forgive those who offend us if we are to expect God to forgive us our offenses. A heart that cannot forgive is a closed heart and God will not enter there.

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." We acknowledge our fallen nature and our dependence on God. Only in Him can we be victorious over evil, and only a humble awareness of our need for Him will keep us from succumbing to temptation.

"For His is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen." As we began with praise, we end with praise; and everything in between flows from that praise.

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Father God, on behalf of our nation, have mercy on us; America needs you.

©2008 Judi Lynn Lake. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

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Judi Lynn Lake has kept up with leading edge business trends throughout her varied and successful career. She had already had her "15 minutes of fame" over and over again before starting her family. Judi and her family now reside in South Carolina, but, having been born and raised on Long Island, NY, it is clearly evident that she will always be a "New Yorker." Today, she successfully runs her own advertising agency which handles everything from logos, branding and package design while she continues to work closely with self-published authors from design to promotion. For more information, visit judilake.com

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The following video, The Beatitudes/The Lord's Prayer, from Jesus of Nazareth courtesy of You Tube.