Turning to God

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding”.

 

Proverbs 3:5

 

Recently I was visiting with a GREAT friend who had lost his wife in a horrific accident.

As we sat there chatting about lots of different things, this topic came up.

He said that the only way he is making it through this is because he knows that God is there for him.

We chatted more and that was when God gave me this amazing wisdom, then just after I said it. He turned to me and said, You better make it into a devotional.

So what do I do?

I listened!

The great advice was that we make choices every day.

We either chose toward God or chose to turn away from him.

The problem is that when things get tough and we turn away from God. That is when we turn to the world. A lot of times it means that we turn to Alcohol, and then sex, and then Drugs.

But when we turn to God, that is where we truly find comfort and relief from the pain.

So how do we turn to God?

There are so many different ways.

We can join Christian groups that help us to think about God and make Godly decisions.

We can go to Church and surround ourselves with like-minded people

We can dive into the bible and go deep into scripture.

We can pray!

Prayer doesn’t have to be hard, it doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to be in private but it can be.

You can pray anywhere at any time. All you have to do is open your mind and let God in.

So the real question is how do you choose to turn to God when things get tough? Especially if we are already in the habit of turning away from God when it gets tough.

This is much harder than it might seem.

You see Satan wants us to believe that we can cure our problems without God. The truth is that God is the answer.

So when I find myself starting to fall away from God, I set up a reminder on my phone multiple times a day to read the bible.

There is a great app out there, the bible. It works wonders at reminding me to read the word.

How do we help others who have fallen away from God?

It might be even harder for others, who aren’t sure they want the help.

The first step to helping others is to pray.

Pray for God to help their mind be open to your words.

Next, you simply talk to them. Remember that your words should not be coming from you, they should be coming from the good lord.

With that being said, it means that you should not write a speech, or prepare for what to say. But instead, pray for God to guide your words.

I know that these will not always work, but when they do you will be happy that you trusted God and his guidance.

Take Action

Now that you know how I turn to God when the going gets tough, it is your turn to take action and turn to God.

Remember to make GREAT choices.

Prayer

Lord, today we come to you with a broken heart. God, we mourn for those who chose not to turn you when things get tough. But we also celebrate with everyone who chooses to turn to you.

God, we pray that you would help us to have the right words with us to comfort others. And we also pray that you would help those who are grieving or going through a tough time to turn to you.  Lord, you are amazing and can do anything. We know that you are in control of everything.

God, you are amazing, and we know it.  God, we pray that you help us to turn to you for everything. Even if it’s hard, harder than anything that we have ever experienced before helping us to turn to you for everything.

We ask all these things in your precious son’s name.

Amen

 

 

A Little More

I remember back to when I first came closer to God.

I was about 26 and working for the county as an equipment operator.

They had me watering roads for a blade hand. To say the least, we didn’t get along.

If I could have said that I had a mortal enemy, it would have been her. Looking back, it wasn’t that bad.

After working directly with her for about 6 months. It was getting harder and harder. And she was making my life miserable.

Or at least I thought so.

Anyways..

I couldn’t do anything right and she kept turning me into the boss for stuff that I wasn’t actually responsible for.

Looking back again, it was a blessing. But at the time it was hard.

I remember before this I was cussing like a sailor. Every other word was a cuss word.

Then this one day I finally started listening to Jenna. She had been telling me to dive into the bible. But I didn’t believe that God could help me.  (what a rookie, right)

Then finally I took my bible to work and started reading it in my downtime.

I would pray, then open the bible and start reading wherever God took me.

To begin with I was a skeptic, to say the least.

But then something happened. I woke up one morning and stopped cursing. I didn’t try, I did not even really want to stop cursing. But it was no longer an issue.

And still, to this day I rarely curse.

But there was more that happened. As I read the stories throughout the bible, I learned that God is in full control. I started praying more and more.

And then I truly forgave her from the bottom of my heart. It took me several weeks to really truly forgive her.

Then all of a sudden, this crazy thing happened. The gal that was causing me soooo much trouble lost all of her credit with everyone!

Overnight my problems were solved.

To me it was a miracle.

And all it took was turning to God and trusting him to make sure that everything would work out.

I know what you’re thinking, Dan this story is great.

But,

Just because you turned to God does not really mean that your problem was solved.

Here is the icing on the cake.

A few years later I went to work for another company and our safety meeting was at the same place where she was a bartender.

The night before my new boss (of about 2 weeks) was hanging out at the bar with his assistant.

She served them and struck up a conversation with them. And she brought me up and started running my name into the dirt.

The next day, my boss came over to me and said, do you know the lady who bartends here?

I took a wild guess and it was her.

Then my boss asked me this crazy question, did she want to sleep with you and you turned her down? Because she came up to me and started talking about you.

I did not get upset at all, instead, I laughed!

You see God protected me yet again.

My boss had the option to listen to her, but instead, God made it seem like I was the knight in shining armor.

So here’s to turning to God when things get tough.

 

 

 

 

 

Will you pray with us?

Mankind throughout the world throughout our current situation

All Law enforcement and emergency response personnel

For all military personal serving our country and their families

Those in Leadership positions throughout the world