God's Promises - Let's Rank Them . . .

I’ve been spending time lately thinking about the promises of God. And probably because of the amount of time I spend listening to sports radio, I started imagining what order I would put my favorite promises of God. (I’ll bet you're already compiling a list in your head of your favorite promises right now too, aren't you?)

The first and greatest promise is eternal salvation, so I don't think there is much of a debate there. (John 3:16) But what about the next greatest promise?

In my opinion this is the second greatest promise of God. "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you." John 15:7

Where is God in our despair?

What about those times in our lives when we are being crushed by our circumstances - where is God?  When we are so beaten down that we can’t make a fist. When taking one more step requires more energy than we can muster. When our body and mind are beyond exhausted, friends have deserted us, family doesn't understand us, and we can’t think of one good thing in relation to our life. What are we supposed to do when we feel hope slipping away from our lives? Where is God when silence seems to be His only response?

Feelings . . .

One of the hardest lessons in life is learning how to deal with feelings. In fact, there is no way you can have a healthy relationship without knowing the difference between having feelings, and being aware of the presence of those feelings. This very small and yet important difference is the key to self-awareness in our emotional lives.

The Bible makes it clear that not being aware of this difference is being emotionally blind to your true situation. In fact, Jesus spent a lot of His ministry trying to remove this blindness and increasing people's own self-awareness. He knew that without truly knowing ourselves there is no way that we could properly know God. (Proverbs 14:12)

Knowing Your Limits

Religion 101. Sounded like an easy course, especially if you believed that you had a pretty good grasp on this religion thing. My rationalization was resoundingly inadequate but that still didn't stop me from my course of action. (Pun intended) - Mark this class as an easy "B" and homework would not be a problem. And it wasn't. The homework part anyway. What was a problem was that I really didn't know the origins of my faith and why I believed the way I did. The target on my back couldn't have been any bigger.

I'm going to spare you the messy details but this lack of a correct Biblical worldview derailed my faith journey for years. Looking back I wish I had done a few things differently to prevent years of living in the wilderness without God's presence, blessing and His protection. (Zechariah 7:13) Not to mention hurting countless people while I struggled to find my spiritual legs. I write these things in the hope that they might help someone else in their faith journey.