Are you struggling to get by and praying for someone to intercede on your behalf?  Do you feel everything has to be resolved immediately or do you pace yourself and tackle one issue at a time?  Are you stressed out or do you live with a certain calmness in your life?  Do you feel rushed or are you able to stop, take a breath and then move on to resolving whatever the issue or crisis is?

 

How is your spiritual life?  Is it growing?  Are you invested in it or are you under pressure to make that important choice of whether to follow Him or not?

 

Yes, I am tossing quite a bit of questions your way for a reason.  I want you to take a long hard look at yourself and see where you presently stand.  Basically are you prepared or are you living each day barely getting whatever needs to be done under the wire so to speak?

 

There is a means to this madness and I want to be able to help you with this process, but first I need to explain why I am asking all of this.  You see my friend, time is short and it is definitely not guaranteed, so we need to invest a few minutes here to determine what our priorities are, what they should be, and how to set ourselves back on track.

 

I have always found that when I am going through a dilemma that it is always good to take a moment and reflect before I proceed further.  And this is the perfect time to do so.  I ask one small favor of you. This weekend as we set the clocks back an hour, pause for that hour and reflect on who you are, what you believe and where you are going.  Think about this as if your life depends on it.  And believe me my friend, it does.  I am addressing your spiritual life and where you are likely to spend it for eternity.  Now this is a reflection so not everything will be immediately resolved, but as a first step, it can lead to attempting to find the answers; thus leading you to take action and bring a swift resolution.  Okay maybe not swift but it will at least point you in the right direction.

 

Let’s begin shall we?

 

I, by no means, am perfect and I am fine with that.  However, I have a perfect Savior who through the grace of God, is there for me so I can endure whatever may come my way.  Jesus is my focal point.  Years ago I was living a somewhat normal life.  I had my ups and my downs and I navigated appropriately to get through them.  I (naively and possibly somewhat arrogantly) thought I had all the answers and could handle whatever came my way.  I was wrong, so wrong.  I just existed – nothing more.  There wasn’t a purpose other than making money, supporting myself and occasionally getting a few “good things” out of life.  I thought I was happy, but deep down inside I wasn’t.  I had a hole in my heart that jeopardized my soul and my future.

 

I held onto things and pushed it all down inside of me.  I guess you can say I didn’t resolve issues, I just shoved them deep down inside.  And it began to eat me up little by little until it began to fester.  I had a wicked sarcasm that cut others to the bone.  I was angry a lot of the time and I was deeply dissatisfied with myself and my life.  Once again I had no purpose.  I needed to seal that hole within me.

 

Did I take the time to find out why?  No, but then again I did say I was naïve and I guess a little stubborn as well.  I had heard the word before and at the time it passed right through me.  Do not get me wrong I believed Jesus came to earth and died on the cross for all of us, but the Word did not penetrate me personally, nor did it prompt me to go further.  I thought I had all the time in the world.  A viewpoint many still have today.

 

During what seemed like another bad crisis in my life (a common occurrence that ran throughout my whole life and was my norm), I finally felt I was at the end of my rope.  I couldn’t take it anymore and needed to make a change now instead of later.  I prayed on it (yes, even though I hadn’t fully committed my life to Christ at this point I still believed in praying to Him for guidance) and my prayer was answered only I did not see it that way at first.  I saw the negative – the crisis, but not what would come out of the trial.  Often people cannot see past the circumstance, but He showed me that this was a new beginning; for the crisis was an ending.  Again at first I did not see it this way ( I was stubborn and wore blinders as well), but think about it.  One cannot move on to the new until the old has ended.  He had to open my eyes to see that something better was on the horizon.  To be blunt, the trial was hard, but there was an end in sight.  I swallowed my pride and waited for that end.

 

It happened during the Good Friday service. I broke down and was moved to tears.  I knew something was happening to me, but I could not fully describe it.  I felt a change inside of me and I wanted to progress further down this road.  I had worn the cloak of shame for so long and I needed to discard it.  He showed me how to “put on a new garment washed by His blood and washed in white”.  By that Easter I was so overjoyed and felt like I was walking on air.  I could not bottle it up.  I had to express my joy and learned to be grateful because of it. I knew my life was making a turn for the better.  I felt a fervor building up inside of me that pushed me to know and learn more.  I followed up with bible study classes, asking questions of the church, getting answers, and eventually I got baptized again.  Let me stress the reason for my second baptism.  The first time I was a baby and had no clue what was going on.  The second time, as an adult, I decided to rededicate myself to the Lord.  I was saying my life was no longer my own, but His and I was willing to follow.  Huge Leap!  Huge!  It changed my perspective on everything. It solidified my faith.

 

This decision has made my life such a blessing and I find myself so thankful for all I have received:  the good and the bad.  I have learned to act on the opportunities He gives me to help others and I have grown to not only accept the trials He gives me, but appreciate what I have learned from them.  That did not come right away, but with patience (which also took a lot of time) I was able to achieve this.  Out of my trials came blessings for His glory.  The blessings may have been for someone else and not for me; which is fine.  Again, they were learning experiences and moments of refinement for me to be a faithful follower of Jesus.

 

So you may be thinking why I stress the urgency in my blog today.  Because friend we tend to sit on things a little too long before we act.  We tend to use the mindset that we have all of the time in the world and we don’t.

 

How can I serve and worship my Lord if I cannot tell you the truth and warn you of what is to come?  No one knows when He is coming back and this is too big of an issue to set aside for later.  Your eternity depends on this.  And I care where you will end up.  I am told in Mark 16:15-16 the following:  “And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.’  He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but he who disbelieved shall be condemned.”   Therefore I am to proclaim His word and cheerfully tell everyone about Him.  I do so because I believe in Him and I want to obey His command no matter what fruit does or does not come from it.

 

You may be thinking right now:  Lady get off your soapbox!  That is fine, but I cannot do anything but proclaim this good news.  My friend, do not just hear what I am saying, but take a moment to examine your life and see who you are and where you are.  Invest time and question everything (in moderation) and search for the truth.  Pick up a bible and just start reading to hear the whole story about Jesus and the cross.  Find a wise counselor to question what you’ve read (someone who studies and knows the gospel preferably a local pastor), go to a local church to hear the word and then seek Him.  You have an important decision to make and one that needs to be made now.  On that great day when you see His face and acknowledge him (as well stated in Romans 14:11:  “It is written:  ‘As surely as I live says the Lord,’ ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God’”) it will be too late to change your decision.  Your life will have been lost and you will suffer the consequences in the eternal lake of fire.

 

Do not live under the wire, but live each day with a purpose.  Live for Him alone.  I implore all of my readers to do this and I pray with all of my heart that you take this seriously and with much thought.

 

I was headed in the wrong direction thinking I was living life right.  Again I was wrong and if it wasn’t for a gentle nudge by the Holy Spirit I would not have been saved.  I have been in very precarious situations in which I know it was His hand that saved me and time was not on my side.  Don’t wait please.  I ask that you take Him up on his request to search for Him and you will find Him.  Pour out your heart to Him – everything from your little issues to gigantic ones.  Ask for wisdom and repent for your sins.  He wants you to find Him.  He loves you and wants to spend an eternity with you.  We all came into the world as sinners.  We all are broken, but only He can fix us.  Are you willing to give your life to Him or do you want to risk losing it forever?  You need to decide my friend.  God Bless.