My first blog! Hope you like it :) Happy Easter!

Closeness to God

Ever wonder what it takes to have mighty, powerful, miraculous things happen in your life? I do. From what I've seen, God is not predictable. If He were, He'd be no smarter than us, right? Those that know Him, know that our intelligence can't hold a candle to His omniscience.

He oftentimes shows His reasonings for doing things that we wonder about, but many times we have to wait for that revelation: “Aha. THAT was a gift that He took so and so home so early.” For example, in the early 90's I knew a very handsome young man in his twenties from my old church that was skiing and hit a tree and died suddenly. It was so tragic. He had his whole life ahead of him..marriage, kids, and who knows what else. THEN, having talked about it with my family, I later learned from my brothers, who were kids at the time, that they knew a girl their age who was friendly with Brian. She relayed to them that he had a degenerative disease that would put him in a wheelchair at the age of 30 or so! That was my “Aha” moment.

You might think it strange that I think it's merciful to take someone to be with the Lord just because they'd have to be in a wheelchair since I am disabled! Well, the fact is, I know what life is like, and I totally treasure it, even with my limitations, however, I had the ability to live life with limits from an early age, progressing slowly to the point I'm at now. For others, it would be a jail sentence, and if his disease was that quickly to progress, would his death be within 5 years & one of suffering, like ALS? God knows best. Always. Of course, if we really think about it, being in Heaven with no sin, disease, hurt, or sadness will be so much better than what any of us experience now. The struggle sometimes can be wanting to stay here for our loved ones, our kids, to see what else “life” has to offer.

OK, that was a side note. What inspired me to write this passage was Elijah. I was just reading about how he was taken up “in a whirlwind” by chariots of fire right in front of Elisha's eyes (2nd Kings Ch.2). Wow, huh? He's also mentioned many times in the New Testament, showing how the Jews recognized his award-winning faithfulness to God. One specific instance I'm reminded of is where he appeared to Peter, John & James while they were with Jesus. He was already gone from this earth but God chose Elijah and Moses to appear before these disciples in “glorious splendor” to talk with Jesus! My curious mind wanted to know! Why Elijah? There are many men & women of faith mentioned in the Old Testament times. Well, I think he was one of many who showed death-defying faith on many occasions. One is in 1st Kings 17, where he literally lived raven to mouth! He then followed God's direction into enemy territory to ask a widow who was about to feed her son & herself their last bit of food before dying to feed HIM with it! He KNEW God was faithful and would multiply the food throughout the famine. Of course, He did.

So then, what do I do with this? What's the application of this information that's coming to me this day before Easter morning? There's a theme to me, between Elijah totally trusting God with his very life & direction, to Jesus actually suffering a horrible death, knowing that God would raise Him from the dead three days later, for a MUCH greater cause. Of course, there are many other instances in the Scriptures of people like you and me sticking their necks out to trust God to get where they needed to go. TRUST in the ONLY One that can totally be trusted. DO what He wants us to do. KNOW that He will provide the best path possible. This is one way to have the closeness to God that can lead to miracles & power in our lives!