Being honest
It's June 22, 1968..... very early (2 am) Saturday....I am in a hotel room in New York City having just been wined and dined by a company that wanted us to buy their hoist equipment....I was 3 sheets to the wind and getting ready to go to bed....the phone rang.....and nothing has ever been the same since.
The call was telling me that my manufacturing building was burning. I sobered up really quickly. For months I was getting these nagging thoughts that I wasn't really in control of my world....and everything in my life was actually being controlled somewhere else and by someone else.....I don't know, God?...the force? Something.
Since I was clueless about being born into the middle of a war and that Satan was trying to destroy me, I did what most of us do, I blamed God (ever done that? Ever heard..."how could God ever allow something like that to happen" (fill in the blank).....as a matter of fact I was really very angry about what had just happened in my life and what had been happening for over a year and all that anger came out at that moment, in that hotel room (wondered what the people in the adjoining rooms were thinking)...I was ticked man, and I cut loose at whoever or whatever was messing with my life and started screaming at God, the force, the power that was keeping me from trying to live out my dreams. So there I am, in my hotel room, screaming at Him with a string of four letter expletives, being very, very honest with him about how I felt and telling him to leave me alone and get off my back (with more expletives)......you know what...not only was I not struck by lightening and turned into toast but....... on that next Monday, June 24th, He introduced Himself to me.
The way to know God, starts by just being honest with Him. Talk to Him! Holler at Him if you have too....but start talking to Him.
As I said yesterday.....You are incredibly important to Him, He loves you more than you can know. Just be honest with Him when you talk to Him….tell Him how you really feel…forget all the religious talk and thees and thous and let’s pretend…..He is your friend….He loves you.
Ellen had an experience like that. The Church had just fallen apart, relationships blowing up all over the place, lost all her friends, very tight community for 10 years....all gone......restaurant a disaster, her only son has leukemia....she started hollering at God! "I've had it. I've had it. I can't trust you any more. I don't want to trust you any more......basically cutting loose on just how much life stunk.....on and on....finally stopped for breath....and the Lord said very simply and lovingly....."Are you finished?"...meaning please go on if you are not.
Boy, does He ever love it when we are honest with Him. If we can only work up the courage to say what we really feel and think. I mean, come on, it's not like He doesn't know what we're thinking anyway. Drop the religious front and say what you feel. You'll be amazed. Ellen was.
"Are you finished?" She thought about that for a minute and then responded......."Yes!"
Then He told her that He loved her and He had her on a rope....told her to take whatever time she needed....He was holding onto the rope....and would draw her back to Himself.
It changed her life.....this getting honest with God thing.
Try it.....what have you got to lose.....you already have Philip's no toast guarantee!
:)
The call was telling me that my manufacturing building was burning. I sobered up really quickly. For months I was getting these nagging thoughts that I wasn't really in control of my world....and everything in my life was actually being controlled somewhere else and by someone else.....I don't know, God?...the force? Something.
Since I was clueless about being born into the middle of a war and that Satan was trying to destroy me, I did what most of us do, I blamed God (ever done that? Ever heard..."how could God ever allow something like that to happen" (fill in the blank).....as a matter of fact I was really very angry about what had just happened in my life and what had been happening for over a year and all that anger came out at that moment, in that hotel room (wondered what the people in the adjoining rooms were thinking)...I was ticked man, and I cut loose at whoever or whatever was messing with my life and started screaming at God, the force, the power that was keeping me from trying to live out my dreams. So there I am, in my hotel room, screaming at Him with a string of four letter expletives, being very, very honest with him about how I felt and telling him to leave me alone and get off my back (with more expletives)......you know what...not only was I not struck by lightening and turned into toast but....... on that next Monday, June 24th, He introduced Himself to me.
The way to know God, starts by just being honest with Him. Talk to Him! Holler at Him if you have too....but start talking to Him.
As I said yesterday.....You are incredibly important to Him, He loves you more than you can know. Just be honest with Him when you talk to Him….tell Him how you really feel…forget all the religious talk and thees and thous and let’s pretend…..He is your friend….He loves you.
Ellen had an experience like that. The Church had just fallen apart, relationships blowing up all over the place, lost all her friends, very tight community for 10 years....all gone......restaurant a disaster, her only son has leukemia....she started hollering at God! "I've had it. I've had it. I can't trust you any more. I don't want to trust you any more......basically cutting loose on just how much life stunk.....on and on....finally stopped for breath....and the Lord said very simply and lovingly....."Are you finished?"...meaning please go on if you are not.
Boy, does He ever love it when we are honest with Him. If we can only work up the courage to say what we really feel and think. I mean, come on, it's not like He doesn't know what we're thinking anyway. Drop the religious front and say what you feel. You'll be amazed. Ellen was.
"Are you finished?" She thought about that for a minute and then responded......."Yes!"
Then He told her that He loved her and He had her on a rope....told her to take whatever time she needed....He was holding onto the rope....and would draw her back to Himself.
It changed her life.....this getting honest with God thing.
Try it.....what have you got to lose.....you already have Philip's no toast guarantee!
:)
