Tag: words not return void

“Who Told You That?”

It’s been a few months since I’ve posted to my blog – nine to be exact. I’ve written a few things but they just didn’t feel right. They didn’t feel worthy of posting, so some wait patiently in a notebook and some quickly found the nearest trash can. Despite the fact that I have known for a long time that God has called me to write, nothing I wrote felt good enough to me.

This week I realized why.

Monday I pulled out my copy of The Quest by Beth Moore. It’s a Bible study I started a few months ago but didn’t finish. I started reading the answers I had written back then in response to some of Beth’s questions, and I realized why my writing “wasn’t good enough” but I didn’t do anything that day to change it.

Then I received a message today from God. Well, the message was actually from Facebook, but God can and will use whatever means He needs to in order to get His children to listen. I heard His message weeks ago when a handful of people asked me in the same week if I was still writing. Then I heard His message through Beth this week. Today’s message from Him sunk in when I received a notification that said, “1,014 people who like Forgiven Faith haven’t heard from you in a while. Write a post.”

Four hours later that number has increased by five. I don’t know where all these likes have come from. I haven’t posted since November of 2017 and the last I checked it was only in the 300s. My writing is not enough to attract 1,000 readers and I don’t promote, so I don’t know how my likes increased that much. I do know God has used that number to convict me.

God told me four years ago to write. I fumbled through writing for about three years. Some of my posts were terrible, but some were pretty good.

Somewhere along the way, I guess a year ago, I made a grievous error. I listened to a newly published author who is not a faith-based writer or even a faith-based person. That counsel was very discouraging and I have been unable to focus my thoughts on writing since that time. I learned the feel of writers block.

The counsel I received from Beth Moore this week is helping to reverse the impact of the false counsel I internalized all those months ago, however. There are two questions she posed that really spoke to me. The first felt like a knife in the chest and the second, a knife in the back.

“Where are you?”

When Adam and Eve first sinned, when they ate that infamous fruit they immediately knew they were wrong to do it and they hid from God in the garden. God knew exactly where they were but He wanted them to come to Him, so in Genesis chapter one verse nine, “the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?'”

God has been asking me that same question in more ways than I can remember and today He sent it to me by Facebook. I was knowingly ignoring His directions and was not writing. I was coming up with every possible excuse to explain why I had not done what He had instructed just like Adam and Eve did. I had thrust that knife into my own chest.

Then God (and Beth) asked, “Who told you that…? (Genesis 1:11)”

Who told me my writing was unworthy of publishing? Who told me I was doing it all wrong? Who told me I was wasting my time writing faith-based blogs and stories? Who did I allow to stick a knife in my back?

It wasn’t God who said any of those things to me; and, since it wasn’t God, why was I listening?

I’m back. Good or bad blog post, I’m back. I pray I don’t disappoint.

Tired of Praying? Me, too.

Do you ever get tired from the emotional strain of praying for the lost people whom you love?  I mean the kind of tired you feel after praying for years only to see that nothing ever seems to change in that person.  You’ve tried to be a good influence.  You’ve tried to help them in any way you can.  You’ve tried talking openly to them about faith, and you were repaid with accusations that you were judging them.  You’ve tried subtly trying to show them faith by living it as best you can in a terribly fallen world, and you were called a hypocrite with all of your flaws and failures thrown in your face.  You stepped back from the situation and tried to be just a friend on the outside while you prayed fervently on the inside and were accused of not being a good friend or family member because you weren’t doing enough.  You tried all of this but nothing ever changed.  It may even seem like the situation has become worse.  I’ve been that kind of tired.  It seems like I’ve spent the last few years that kind of tired.  As tiring and emotionally draining as this seemingly-fruitless praying can be, we can’t give up.  Praying for the lost is not a simple choice we make.  It is just one battle in a Spiritual war going on all around us every day.

“Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe.  They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News.  They don’t understand about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God (2 Corinthians 4:4 The Bible, New Living Translation).”  Satan first deceived himself; and ever since he first fell, he has been the deceiver to all.  There is no redemption for him, and he is determined to take as many of us with him as he can in the final Judgement.  If you are the kind of tired I am, then you, like me, know we have been given a way to escape Judgement.  John 3:16 is pretty recognizable, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life,” but John doesn’t stop there with the Good News.  “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.  There is no judgement against anyone who believes in him.  But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.  And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.  All who do evil and hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.  But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants (John 3:17-21 The Bible, New Living Translation).”  That very last sentence says so much.  We are not to live up to the reputation that Christianity has earned for itself throughout the years.  We are to be real Christians, believers who truly try to follow Christ’s teaching, and we are to express His love to the world so that the world will see and feel His love for all people.  This includes those people who have already exhausted us and led us to nearly give up on them.

So if we can’t give up on our loved ones and we can’t really talk openly to them because they get angry, what are we left with?  We pray and we live the best we can, and we continue to do these things until we can’t do them any more.  We learn to love them like Christ loved them.  We remember that He never stopped loving them.  We never give up.  We remember, “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth.  They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry.  It is the same with my word.  I send it out, and it always produces fruit.  It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it (Isaiah 55:11-12 The Bible, New Living Translation).”   God will use your words, actions and prayers to plant seeds.

I recently heard a story about a man who was walking down George Street in Sydney, Australia when a man stepped from a doorway and handed him a tract.  That tract eventually let him to a relationship with Christ and he eventually became a preacher.  This preacher was later counseling a woman and asked where she heard about salvation.  She told him she had recently been walking on George Street in Sydney, Australia when a man stepped out of a doorway and gave her a tract.  Some time later, the preacher was talking to another person about where he learned about Christ.  He also mentioned the man on George Street.  After hearing the same story numerous times at conventions and meeting all over the world, the man decided to look up this man who had planted so many seeds on George Street.  When he told the man about the many people he had talked to who claimed their first step toward salvation was when he gave them a tract, the man broke down in tears.  This man had given out tracts for years on George Street and never knew anyone had ever been saved because of the seeds he planted.  It has been estimated that over 100,000 people were saved because this man never gave up.  He continued to do what God wanted him to as long as he was physically capable of doing it even though he never knew he had made a difference.

Don’t give up on your loved ones.  Keep praying.  God’s words will not return to Him without producing fruit.