God Abides

Hello,
Do you ever feel left out?  Does it appear that everyone else is going, doing and being and you’re not included?  As I sit in the stillness of this morning, my mind wants to “go there.”  There, is that lonely place, that place that will convince you you’re not a part of something and you’re always alone.  That thinking leads you to a dark place.  And that place will relentlessly invite you to the even darker place of comparing yourself to other people.  I promise you from my own experiences, you will never come out ahead when you subscribe to the plan of comparison and it leaves you feeling emptiness and insecurity. 

It's when I am in that place, I must intentionally choose to not linger there for too long and not be consumed by those thoughts and feelings. I have learned that it’s better to acknowledge those things and not ignore them, but once I do that, and I need to work through the thought processes of them.  Then comes the choice to break the pattern and make intentions to leave that place.   One way I do that is by taking all of “it”, whatever I’m feeling and facing to my heavenly Father.  I rehearse what I’m feeling and how it appears to Him.  I lay it all out and often that feels like I have just been cut wide open because it’s a place of vulnerable, yet after a little while, I begin to feel better.  I begin to feel lighter, not as alone and I find myself more receptive to regain hope again.

Recently I felt led to share a Message on Sunday morning with our online church called God Abides.  I know I needed the message the most that morning and as I shared God’s faithfulness, I prayed that God would take my words of His Word and impart God confidence in their hearts, replacing the emptiness with hope!  At the same time, I asked God for my own heart to be strengthened.  When you’re in it, it’s not always easy to be vulnerable with God.  Keep trying again and again.  God’s love is patient with you and if you listen with your heart, you will hear the voice of Jesus calling you closer.

Maybe you’re in that spot of loneliness, or the trap of comparison is oh too familiar.  Maybe you feel left out, you’re not the first one nor will you be the last, because there are countless other people in the same situation.  Can you make a choice to trust God and lay your heart out before Him?  Tell Him again and again how you’re feeling, cry if you want to, but stay with Him through this.  God abides.  It’s who He is.  Soon, you will begin to feel better.  You will become lighter and those feelings of loneliness will lessen and then you will find yourself more receptive to regain hope again.
Be encouraged that God abides with you and through the seasons of your life, so talk with Him, lay it all out to Him.

“By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.”  1 John 4:13
​Pastor Julie
​