My Thoughts

The other day while I was sitting around bored a friend challenged me to put down my cell phone and put away my laptop and to just sit and read the Bible, to write down whatever sticks out to me.  So upon his suggestion I started reading from the gospel of John. While I was reading I came to the story about Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4.  The one part that really stood out to me was in verses 39-43 where it says “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.””

I find it so incredible to see that even though these people didn’t have the encounter with Christ and only heard about it second hand they still believed. Later on we see that they saw for themselves that Christ was the saviour of the world. Why is it that these Samaritans can see this but the Jews or the even the disciples that are always with Jesus are not able to see this?

I got to thinking about this and the more I thought about it the more I realized that it’s kind of like Christians.  Christ can be right in front of us but we won`t see him, we are too stuck in our ways, too comfortable with how things are that we don`t look for him and even when we think we see him we don`t believe its him, we start to doubt that it really is him. Where is this faith that we claim to have? We need to be shaken awake, knocked out of our comfort zones. We need to look for God in our lives and look for the ways that he tries to talk to us, we need to listen and let him guide us in his way, and we need to ask where he wants us to go with our lives. Many people (me included) would ask the question of how do we do this, but really it is very obvious. We need to stop for a moment and take time out of our lives to pray and to just sit quietly and wait and listen for God to talk to us because God truly wants to talk to us and to tell us his will for our lives. God longs to be in communication with us, but we need to stop being so involved with the world, we need to stop being part of the world, stop letting it distract us from God. We need to let him into our lives and let him talk to us, and we need to spend the time talking to him, let him show us the way that he wants us to go.

This won’t always be easy to do, we will face times when we don’t hear God’s voice, times when we feel that we are far away from God. We can see in the Psalms that even David had these moments. In these moments we need to make sure that we remember that God is always nearby, that he is always trying to talk to us, and that he is still answering our prayers even if they aren’t in the way that we are wanting him to answer them.  During these times it is important to take a moment out of our lives and to see what we are doing wrong. Are we putting forth the effort that God wants from us? Are we spending time talking to him and are we spending time waiting for God to talk to us? Are we falling out a regular reading of his word? Maybe God is trying to speak to us through his word but we aren’t seeing it because we aren’t spending the time that we need to spend reading his word. I know for myself whenever I am going through these times it is because I haven’t been putting forth the necessary efforts to talk to God. These things are so important for us to do, they are so important for our communicating with God. And it is always when I started to take time out of my day and started spending time reading the word and praying and really trying to connect and talk to God that I was able to hear his voice again. It was once I made the effort to really listen to him that I heard his voice, it wasn`t that he wasn`t talking to me, it was that I wasn`t making the effort, I said I wanted to hear God`s voice but I didn`t want to do anything to talk to him. This is something that played a part in my life lately, after the Mexico trip I have made more of an effort to spend time with God, to talk to him, and to wait and listen to what he wants to tell me. In this time I have seen God working in my life is so many ways. He has been teaching me so much about who he is, he has been showing me how I can better learn to listen to him, and he is showing me more about myself and about the struggles that I was trying to handle by myself. He has also shown me how I can truly give everything up to him, how I can give all my struggles, my worries, and concerns up to him.  I was able to see all of this through spending a little bit of my day talking to God. But it makes me wonder is it really too much to ask for us to give up a little bit of our time every day to talk to the one who created us, and loves us so much that he sent his son to die on the cross for us? Are we that focused on this life that we can’t even stop and ask God to show us what he wants us to, are we so focused that we can`t stop and just talk to him? God wants to talk to you, will you let him? Will you spend time talking to him?

 

The other day while I was sitting around bored a friend challenged me to put down my cell phone and put away my laptop and to just sit and read the Bible, to write down whatever sticks out to me.  So upon his suggestion I started reading from the gospel of John. While I was reading I came to the story about Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4.  The one part that really stood out to me was in verses 39-43 where it says “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.””

I find it so incredible to see that even though these people didn’t have the encounter with Christ and only heard about it second hand they still believed. Later on we see that they saw for themselves that Christ was the saviour of the world. Why is it that these Samaritans can see this but the Jews or the even the disciples that are always with Jesus are not able to see this?

I got to thinking about this and the more I thought about it the more I realized that it’s kind of like Christians.  Christ can be right in front of us but we won`t see him, we are too stuck in our ways, too comfortable with how things are that we don`t look for him and even when we think we see him we don`t believe its him, we start to doubt that it really is him. Where is this faith that we claim to have? We need to be shaken awake, knocked out of our comfort zones. We need to look for God in our lives and look for the ways that he tries to talk to us, we need to listen and let him guide us in his way, and we need to ask where he wants us to go with our lives. Many people (me included) would ask the question of how do we do this, but really it is very obvious. We need to stop for a moment and take time out of our lives to pray and to just sit quietly and wait and listen for God to talk to us because God truly wants to talk to us and to tell us his will for our lives. God longs to be in communication with us, but we need to stop being so involved with the world, we need to stop being part of the world, stop letting it distract us from God. We need to let him into our lives and let him talk to us, and we need to spend the time talking to him, let him show us the way that he wants us to go.

This won’t always be easy to do, we will face times when we don’t hear God’s voice, times when we feel that we are far away from God. We can see in the Psalms that even David had these moments. In these moments we need to make sure that we remember that God is always nearby, that he is always trying to talk to us, and that he is still answering our prayers even if they aren’t in the way that we are wanting him to answer them.  During these times it is important to take a moment out of our lives and to see what we are doing wrong. Are we putting forth the effort that God wants from us? Are we spending time talking to him and are we spending time waiting for God to talk to us? Are we falling out a regular reading of his word? Maybe God is trying to speak to us through his word but we aren’t seeing it because we aren’t spending the time that we need to spend reading his word. I know for myself whenever I am going through these times it is because I haven’t been putting forth the necessary efforts to talk to God. These things are so important for us to do, they are so important for our communicating with God. And it is always when I started to take time out of my day and started spending time reading the word and praying and really trying to connect and talk to God that I was able to hear his voice again. It was once I made the effort to really listen to him that I heard his voice, it wasn`t that he wasn`t talking to me, it was that I wasn`t making the effort, I said I wanted to hear God`s voice but I didn`t want to do anything to talk to him. This is something that played a part in my life lately, after the Mexico trip I have made more of an effort to spend time with God, to talk to him, and to wait and listen to what he wants to tell me. In this time I have seen God working in my life is so many ways. He has been teaching me so much about who he is, he has been showing me how I can better learn to listen to him, and he is showing me more about myself and about the struggles that I was trying to handle by myself. He has also shown me how I can truly give everything up to him, how I can give all my struggles, my worries, and concerns up to him.  I was able to see all of this through spending a little bit of my day talking to God. But it makes me wonder is it really too much to ask for us to give up a little bit of our time every day to talk to the one who created us, and loves us so much that he sent his son to die on the cross for us? Are we that focused on this life that we can’t even stop and ask God to show us what he wants us to, are we so focused that we can`t stop and just talk to him? God wants to talk to you, will you let him? Will you spend time talking to him?