Return of the King

Dear Gentle Reader,

It’s been a long while since my last entry. The reason for my lack of postage is because the GAP year has been so busy that any free time is usually allocated to sleeping or skyping family.  I just wanted to quickly share about this week and how God has really worked with me.  During this GAP year, I have found it really difficult to hear from the Lord in a personal way and just have not felt his presence much (even though this GAP year and my house life is catered to give me more opportunities to pray and study scripture).  My struggle with my relationship with the Lord has changed through an alteration in perspective.  The start of this change occurred during last Saturday’s (a little over a week ago), ABLD at Chelsea.  ABLD stands for All Brothers’ Lord’s Day.  Brothers from the Servants of the Word (and their guests) gather together from different parts of Michigan to participate in a Lord’s Day celebration. 

For those who don’t know, the Lord’s Day Celebration is a ceremony that occurs Saturday evening that is a way prepare us for Sunday a holy day for Christians.  The Lord’s Day or LD includes elements of prayer, worship, a shared meal and fellowship. 

After the worship, I heard a talk given by Brother(a).  He spoke on attending to the foundations.  By attending to the foundations, it would make it easier to secure victory in the struggles and conflicts that we face in life.  Initially, I had a pretty hard time relating to this talk.  It didn’t really stick in my head or hold much weight on my heart. 

A couple of days later, Brother(b) told me that during the next Lord’s day, we would all spend some time discussing what we learning during last week’s talk.  I began to somewhat panic and worry because I really didn’t have anything to say.  I started to think about it a bit and couldn’t stop thinking about a talk that I received a while back about staying connected to the Lord – John 15, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”  This talk spoke about being connected to the Lord in prayer and scripture.  These two things were the fundamental elements necessary for staying connected to the Lord.  I began to think to myself, ‘this has been a season in my life where I have spent the most time with the Lord in scripture and prayer yet I haven’t been able to hear him clearly and I haven’t really felt his guidance in my life.  The solution to this problem was finally given to me last Friday during the PPPM – Pan Peninsular Pray Meeting.  UCO chapters from all over Michigan gathered together to worship and hear a talk.  Friday’s talk was given by Brother (c) he spoke on changing our perspective of God as an idea to God as a person.  This sermon really cut to my heart and I really felt that the Lord was telling me to change the approach to our relationship.  So often, I tired to analyze God as this distant God with several of his traditional attributes; omnipotence, omniscience, immortality, infinitude, etc.  I guess that’s what philosophy has done to me in a way.  It has made me try to understand him as an idea or concept that I can explain to people.  The talk was a wake up call for one of the reasons why Jesus came an died for us; he died that we may have relationship with God.  He is a person yet I was not relating to him as a person.  I had been relating to him as a distant God only really present in my life during times of worship or service.  He is a person who is always with me but he was a person who was made present only during the times that I wanted to have him there.  He was never acknowledged during my normal activities of life and I in a way lost my personal relationship with him. 

Praise him for working himself back into my life.  Praise him for sending Brothers (a), (b), ^ (c)!   Nehemiah 8, the Joy of the Lord is my strength.  Thank you for restoring that joy! Praise Him (hand motion)!

Mamonluk