I Have Chosen You

The current song on my heart...



I Have Chosen You
Words and Music by Don Francisco

Like a king who hides in shadows while a thief usurps his throne
You stumbled down through all your days without direction.
While the soldiers and the servants who should be at your command
Are all abandoned to surrender and defection.

As the kingdom groans beneath the load,
Your feet go running down the road
In panic you've forgotten all I've told you.
If you'll just call you'd see Me there
At the very instant of your prayer
But you've bought a bill of goods the liar's sold you.

CHORUS

I have chosen you
There's no need to run away.
I have chosen you
Why do you doubt the words I say.
Through it all I've been right by your side.
Ask me and you will not be denied.

Like a slave who wears the collar of a hard and cruel man
And is convinced that he deserves the treetment given.
Tortured to believing nothing's ever going to change
Till you've forgotten there was ever more to living.

But as you struggle with your load
The messengers come down the road
And the slaver flees in fear as he beholds them.
They break your chains and set you free
To stand amazed in liberty
And at last they give the word that God has told them.

CHORUS

I have chosen you
And I will not turn you down,
I have chosen you
You were born to wear a crown.
I'll give you what you need to carry on
Till all that stands opposed to you is gone.

I have chosen you
And I will not turn you down,
I have chosen you
You were born to wear a crown.
Through it all I've been right by your side.
Ask me now, you will not be denied.

Ask me now, you will not be denied.
Ask me now, you will not be denied.

The Importance of Being Earnest

"Earnest" isn't often used anymore, yet it's a very fitting word for what our relationship with God should be. As King David said: "O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water." The definition of "earnest:" is resulting from or showing intense conviction.

If you combine Earnest with Faith than our actions will be the result of showing intense conviction of the truth. And that is perhaps where our search begins; with a desire for truth, and with an intense conviction to seek after God. If we do he will draw us to Him, and He will fill us until we are satisfied. I think that it is this intensity that Simon, the unlikely pilgrim feels.

However, as I mentioned in previous posts, before we begin our journey, we have to make sure that our heart is prepared. We have to humble ourselves before God and accept the full responsibility for our sins--we have to trust that He will cleanse us completely. Then, we have to completely forgive those who have sinned against us as God has forgiven us--And his forgiveness has been great. Unless we do both of these things we are hindering ourselves in the journey toward heaven. (We are also putting ourselves in a position for correction...God will bring us to where He wants us to be--but if we resist we are only making it more difficult on ourselves.)

Finally, we have to be prepared for God to show us things that take the Christian life out of the realm of theory and put it in our laps in a very practical way. This is often difficult, because if most of us were honest with ourselves, we are afraid where God is going to lead us? We are afraid He might lead us away from our traditions, our dreams, and that truthfully we might be convicted of something we'd rather not be convicted of.  Fear of the future, not trusting God, is often why we sometimes put our heads in the sand and choose to continue to live on a plane that we know and where we feel comfortable.

The antidote to fear is to know and understand the person of God. The more we hunger to know his character, the greater love we have for Him, and the greater will be our willingness to embrace where He leads us. When we do this we will find that following after God is an adventure into wisdom, grace, peace, and blessings in abundance.

The Unlikely Pilgrim pt. 2

The early morning sun slid across the skyscrapers pushing away the last remnants of night. Simon stood in the cold shadow of the government building and took in his surroundings. The streets were beginning to fill with vehicles and the area parking spaces were quickly filling. Office workers hurried past him toward the revolving doors of the office building juggling coffee, and satchels, ipads and cell phones.

The wonder of God's presence that Simon found so stirring in the night, seemed to have dissipated with the morning fog, leaving him miles from home, with sore feet. For awhile he'd almost forgotten about the burden on his back, but now he could barely think of anything else. Simon limped over to a cement bench and slowly lowered himself down. In the congestion of the city he couldn't find the Presence of the night.

With a sigh, he reached behind him and pulled out a book, The How and Whyfore of Christian Living. The worn fabric cover warmed him like a visit from an old friend. He could recite whole paragraphs by heart, and many bore the notation of his ink pen. They had never failed to offer Christian counsel for marriage, parenting, finances, perhaps now it would again point him in the right direction. Yet instead of the pain of his burden easing it sank deeper into his bones. But after reading for awhile he realized with a shock how dry the writing was. The words didn't feed the ache in his soul, they didn't bring him closer to God, and he yearned to know better the Presence that he'd seen in the night?

Word Scramble and book give away!

This weekend I'm giving away Two Tickets to the Christmas Ball, by Donita K. Paul. All you have to do is solve the puzzle and put the answer in the comment field (or swipe someone else's answer.) On Monday, I'll do a random drawing of all the correct responses and mail out the book this week. You might get it in time for Christmas!



dan shi enam alshl eb dllcae mnulaIem hwich emsan God hiwt su

Clue: Mt. 1:23

Behold, I am your God

Behold, I am the LORD,

the God of all mankind.



Jer. 32:27

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:

Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied his ropes? I gave him the wasteland as his home, the salt flats as his habitat. He laughs at the commotion in the town; he does not hear a driver’s shout. He ranges the hills for his pasture and searches for any green thing.

“Will the wild ox consent to serve you? Will he stay by your manger at night? Can you hold him to the furrow with a harness? Will he till the valleys behind you? Will you rely on him for his great strength? Will you leave your heavy work to him? Can you trust him to bring in your grain and gather it to your threshing floor? “The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but they cannot compare with the pinions and feathers of the stork. She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers; she cares not that her labor was in vain, for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense. Yet when she spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider.

“Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? Do you make him leap like a locust, striking terror with his proud snorting? He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength, and charges into the fray. He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; he does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against his side, along with the flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. At the blast of the trumpet he snorts, ‘Aha!’ He catches the scent of battle from afar, the shout of commanders and the battle cry.

“Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high? He dwells on a cliff and stays there at night; a rocky crag is his stronghold. From there he seeks out his food; his eyes detect it from afar. His young ones feast on blood, and where the slain are, there is he.”

“Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit. 1His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron. He ranks first among the works of God, yet his Maker can approach him with his sword. The hills bring him their produce, and all the wild animals play nearby. Under the lotus plants he lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh. The lotuses conceal him in their shadow; the poplars by the stream surround him. When the river rages, he is not alarmed; he is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth. Can anyone capture him by the eyes, or trap him and pierce his nose?

“Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words? Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.

“I will not fail to speak of his limbs, his strength and his graceful form. Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would approach him with a bridle? Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth? His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn. Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth. Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes before him. The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing. The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance. His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair. Nothing on earth is his equal— a creature without fear. He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud.”

Then Job replied to the LORD: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  

Behold My God!

Behold, means to see, to consider, to take in. I wrote this some time ago to a friend of a friend who mocked my belief in God, I wanted him to see and understand. But as I dwelt on the magnificence of God I found myself humbled and in awe of the God I call "Father."

 Behold my God!

Dear Friend,

As you know some of these issues are very dear to my heart and even though the letter had it's humorous side I take it very seriously, since I am what you criticize--namely, a believer in God. God does not need me to defend him, anymore than he needed the prophet Elijah to build an alter to Him in front of the prophets of Baal. However, because the person of God is someone I hold very dear, I feel it is my responsibility to answer some of your attacks on His name.

You stress how hard you've tried to believe in God. Belief does not result from our own effort based upon our desires, it begins by the compiling of facts from the world around us and using them to form a conclusion. I can try really hard to believe it will rain tomorrow; however, it won't change one iota whether it actually does. It will rain whether I believe or not. Likewise if there is a God He is there whether we believe or not. So the question is: "Is there a God?" If there isn't, there's no reason to waste time expounding in meaningless discussions. However, if in fact there is a God then we have to determine who He is, and what our relationship to Him is. Is He a far off distant Being who has no interest in the happenings of the world? A Being who allows war, disease, death and destruction? Or is He an ever present Presence? What we believe will not change who He is, but it will change who we are.

The evidence for God-

You have claimed to accept the sun as your god. The sun? Why such an inconsequential object like the sun? You'll find that the sun, though 861,800 miles in circumference, is 100 times smaller than the Pistol star, and miniscule compared to the Milky Way, the galaxy it sits in.

It takes 220 million years for the sun to go around the Milky Way galaxy once. The Milky Way's mass is estimated to be between 750 billion and one trillion solar masses. Its diameter is about 100,000 light years, (or in our units that equals 100,000 x 5.88 trillion miles) it contains at least 200 billion other stars besides the sun.... And the Milky Way is only one galaxy--a very tiny part of space. In 1999, using the Hubble Space telescope, it was estimated that there are as many as 125 BILLION galaxies in the universe. Some believe the number is closer to 500 billion. Talk about miniscule, it makes the Milky Way look miniscule, and the sun that people worship, but a speck of sand on the beach. What does this have to do with God?

If we turn from space into ourselves eventually we will get to our DNA--the recipe that makes me related to you. It's been proven that DNA is found in each of our body's cells, as well as in the cells of every other creature even as tiny as a bacteria. Did you know that bacteria have sex? They do, and they create new bacteria with their DNA. Yet the DNA itself consists of components that form its well known twisted-ladder like strand. When taken out of its chromosome and stretched out it extends farther than five feet. Imagine every cell in our body having 5' of material in it. If our DNA was stretched end to end it would be over 125 billion miles long. Whew! But that's not all. DNA processes over a 100 trillion times as much information as our most sophisticated storage devices. And it's all inside of 5'7" frame. Both our DNA and the Milky Way have at least two things in common, both are immensely large, and like everything else in creation both are evidence of design. If you have design it stands to reason that there is a Creator behind it all. A Creator that is bigger than the 125 Billion galaxies and yet still able to control 1 protein in a single DNA link. Yet people find it easier to believe in the process of evolution, that all of this wonder and magnificence came from nothing, than to believe that there is an intelligent designer. This, even after their own research has declared that "spontaneous generation" of life from inanimate matter cannot happen. Life must arise from pre-existing life. It reminds me of the story:

Two men talked among themselves and decided they did not need God anymore. So they went up on a mountain and called God. He came down, and they told

Him: "We have decided that we no longer need You at all."

God looked at them and said: "I think you do need me."

The two men said: "Nope. We don't, and to prove it we are going to have a man-making contest."

God said: "Okay, that works."

One of the men bent over and picked up a fistful of dirt, at which point God stopped him and said: "No, you go use your own dirt."

Let's presume that what I believe is true, there is indeed a God. Why is the world so messed up? I don't pretend to have a mind that can even comprehend the vastness of space or the complexities of my DNA, therefore it also stands that I can't fathom the mind of God without His help, and neither, I might add, can our great scientists. And this is where you see my faith. As a person without God I would be lost in time and space, not significant enough to acknowledge my own existence. But if I believe in a Holy Presence that created everything, it is to that Being I have to turn to with my questions. . .It is the Bible, God's Word, where I turn to for my answers. But not to believe, I already believe, but to try and understand.

God created a perfect world. What's more, He created a world where we could be in His presence; we could stand before the mind of the Creator of the universe. But like everything else in life He created a balance, and our ancestors, given a choice between all things good, and all things evil, chose all things evil. Nor were they any worse than us, as judged by how many times we chose to do the evil. It was disobedience that opened the Pandora's box of sin. I don't know why God allows evil to exist. I don't know why God created Satan and then allowed him to rebel. What I do know, and this from the scripture, is that all things happen for my good, and God will be glorified in it all. Again, I don't understand why or how, anymore than I understand a million other things about the world I live in.

How have we treated God through this? We have denied God's existence. We have refused His help. We have not acknowledged His brilliancy in creation, instead giving the credit to a mysterious bang, and we have taken the man that was made in His image and glory and eagerly relate that image of the Glorious God to the animals we are supposed to subdue. We question God's motives, and we have turned away from the wonder of His holy Presence and replaced it with a life of evil and misery. In essence, we have rejected Him and everything about Him. We don't want Him in our life and we don't want Him in our world--until the terrible happens and we get skin cancer from basking in the sun. THEN we beg God for help. We pray for healing. We cry out to Him. We beg him to heal us, but we do nothing to acknowledged Him as Creator, nor to change our rebellious hearts. As one person said; "We want to sow our wild oats and then we pray for a crop failure." It is our rebellion against God and our desire for the presence of evil that allows the war, disease, death, destruction, hunger, etc. Yet God continues to show us His mercy. It is God that shows me how to live in a world that has rejected him, that has taken my heart which has rejected him and turned it back toward Him. He has redeemed me not from war and diseases, but from the rebellion in my own heart. Our life, be it 50 years or 90 years, is less than a speck in the consideration of all eternity. I'll deny myself now for an eternity spent glorying in His presence. You wonder, "You really look forward to that? No beer, no football, no smoking?" I can say with all the honesty of my heart that those desires compared with being with Him, is like asking if I'd rather own a piece of coal now or the Hope diamond later. I will wait for the Hope diamond.

I agree that it's of no purpose to become a mindless religious robot. However, while you are seeing the world in turmoil I have hope. I know that in the end the good guy will stand. You see blight attacking good people. I see blight attacking bad people. It's like thieves stealing from thieves. The hearts that are decent are equally rebellious to the hearts of those that are wicked, and their actions are equally as bad. God has chosen to show mercy on them by allowing them to plant and harvest, by giving them more time to see the errors of their way. But God has chosen to show mercy on me by turning my rebellious heart into a heart that loves him.

Yours,

Janice LaQuiere

Footnotes:

"For centuries people accepted the "spontaneous generation" of life from inanimate matter. When this long-standing myth was finally dispelled in the mid 1800's it became clear that all life must arise from pre-existing life..." http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/7/concept/index.html

http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/planetarium/solarsystem/sun.html

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/021127a.html

http://www.reikiblessings.homestead.com/dna.html

The Unlikely Pilgrim

Simon shut the door behind him and stared up at the night sky. Even in the faint glow of the city lights the stars sparkled, begging him onward, but to where? He rubbed his bare foot against the cement slab of the porch. He had begun this journey, but it wasn't too late to turn around. His bed still awaited him, and there he could burrow under the covers and live tomorrow as if tonight never existed. He could forget.

He rolled his shoulders and the backpack thumped his ribs. Man, was it heavy. The weight of it seemed to jostle through his body and land with a thud in the pit of his stomach. He shouldn't have packed so many books.

For eight generations his family had been taking their burdens to the cross, one individual at a time, just like Great-Grandfather Chris. (He'd packed the family legacy along with the rest of his hardcovers, but he could recite the Pilgrim's journey from memory.) Simon's turn at the cross came when he was seven. And eight. And nine. Then Pastor Williams of First Baptist sat him down and told him once was enough, God wouldn't forget. At twelve he was baptized. But the books on his back were in many ways heavier than the young sins of a seven year old, and the cross was somewhere behind him. How was it that he still carried a burden?

The solid chunk in his stomach grew heavier. He slipped on his shoes. Simon knew all about being prepared for long journeys. Isn't that what the apostle Paul instructed: Strengthen your arms and make level paths for your feet? It was the "throwing off of everything that hinders" that was impossible to do. Instead, those little hinderences seemed to him to stick like label adhesive on a recycled mason jar.

Oh, he was a Christian all right, his volumes of traveling companions assured him of that. He wasn't worried about making it to the Celestial City. What he wanted to do, was see God.

  

~

O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah,

Behold your God!

Isaiah 40:9

The Journey of a lifetime begins with one small step

I had been toying with the idea of starting a blog for some time. I want a place to record my observations as I journey toward the Heavenly Jerusalem, a way to record my spiritual thoughts so that someday I can look back and say: "Ahh, I remember that."

There are many places in the Bible where God commands us to set aside days and times to reflect and remember: The Sabbath is to remember God our Creator, Communion is to remember God our redeemer, both were ordained by God. Christmas—though man-established helps us remember God as man, and the Resurrection Day helps us remember that God reigns even over death. Deuteronomy and Proverbs are particularly filled with the instruction to "forget not my laws," to remember, for they bring blessings and are the way to life.

Deuteronomy 17:18-19 says it this way: “Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. “It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom."

Perhaps it's my penchant to live like royalty, perhaps it's because the way to God is through the Bible—not just through reading it but through understanding it and adjusting my life to God's word (notice that there is a difference between applying scripture to my life, and adjusting my life to scripture,) but several times I've set thoughts and scripture to paper in order to know and understand Him better.

My prayer is that God uses this blog for His glory, that I don't wander from His purpose, and that I stay true to Him. I also write for those who are willing to join me in the journey, for those who are curious in where I've been and how I intend to get to where I'm going. (Whence the name: Through the Bower Window.) It's like pointing out a hidden bird in a tree to a companion; taking her chin and lining her vision up your arm and over your fingertip, and saying: "Look. See. Behold." 

Blessings of the day!

"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good,
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary"

Psalm 107:1-2

Today I'm giving thanks for:

The beautiful December day that made working outside pleasant

The friend I spent the day with

Biblesoft

Sams Club Coke

Chocolate truffles

Homemade Lasagna
My Land's End Jacket

The family gathering together

My sister and brother-in-law, who gave us a couch.
Thanksgiving day gift opening (2 weeks late, but still a lot of fun)

Nieces and nephews

Halt! You are in a No Trespassing Zone!

Since I was two years old, every night before we'd go to bed, my dad would read to us Mark 11:22-26, which speaks of a faith that can move mountains, but ends with; "Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions." How strange that a section on "faith" should end with "forgiveness."

Our modern society doesn't often address forgiveness. Punishment, repayment, apologies, are often encouraged but they skirt the issue and never hit the target. But forgiveness directly effects both our relationship with God, and our relationship with others.

So what is forgiveness? To fully comprehend the importance of forgiveness to our Christian life and our walk with God we have to break it down into specifics: to seek forgiveness, and to forgive.

An apology is not a profession of guilt nor is it expressing a desire to be right with God or man. It's only an expression of sorrow for our behavior or another person's misunderstanding of it. But to seek forgiveness is acknowledging that we've committed a wrong, we are guilty. We are humbling ourselves before another person, acknowledging our responsibility for our actions, and asking them to not hold it against us. Forgiveness isn't popular in our society because it requires humility and a humbling of ourselves before another party. "Will you forgive me?" demands an answer and places us at the mercy of the offended party.

But forgiving may be the more important of the two. Forgiving not only restores the relationship between us and the offending party, but it liberates us from being tied to the past and our emotions. The act of forgiving destroys the seeds of bitterness before they have the chance to sprout. And sprout they will. In granting our complete forgiveness (there is no such thing as partial forgiveness) we are giving up the right to hold the offense against them, to carry a grudge; in effect we are cleaning the slate. To realize how important this is for the injured party you have to understand what happens to us if we aren't willing to completely forgive:

1.      God doesn't hear our prayers. (Mark 11:26) There is a breech in our relationship with God.

2.      The measure we use against our fellow man will be measured unto us. (Mt. 6:12, Mt. 7:2) God may not be willing to forgive us our sins.

3.      We create an impenetrable barrier between us and the offender. (They can do little right as we are constantly holding their past sins against them. What starts out as hurt, becomes a grudge, which turns into bitterness toward man and God, and we end up lonely and miserable.)

The wonderful thing is that forgiveness, with God's grace is completely within our ability. While seeking forgiveness requires humility, giving forgiveness requires mercy. Jesus, who knew we might have difficulty offering grace, instructs us to remember how much He has forgiven us and paints a very strong picture of the importance of forgiveness: "You wicked servant! [That would be the person unwilling to forgive] I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?'" (Mt. 18:32-33)

Joy! When we are reminded of God's forgiveness towards us and when we are able to replicate that forgiveness towards others, we will overflow with the joy of the Lord, our eyes are opened to His lovingkindness, and we enter into His peace.

"Sin? Sin! That's a mighty strong word there—"

"Sin? Sin! You mustn't say that. That's a mighty strong word there. It certainly is a mean looking burden. What makes you call it sin?" Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Enchanted Journey

And such is often our reaction to sin. Sin, is defined as missing the mark, and missing the mark doesn't seem that bad. We are a horseshoe-and-hand-grenade society—if we're close, we're in. Right? But sin is more than missing the mark, it's separation from God, and separation comes in all shapes and sizes.

Recently, I read Hebrews 11:5 and thinking about Enoch who "walked with God" and "was taken up so that he should not see death, he was not found, because God had taken him." Even now, Enoch continues to walk in unbroken fellowship with God. We are created for union and fellowship with God, to walk with Him in the cool of the evening. The mark that sin causes us to miss is not just perfection, it is perfect fellowship with God.

As a Christian our individual sins are not about loss of eternal life, because through Jesus's blood we are redeemed and forgiven, rather it is about broken fellowship with God. Because of this it's important that we know what to do with that "mean looking burden." How do we handle our sins against our Creator and our Father, God?

From our perspective, sin often represents a failure and hits us personally as a blow to our pride. Unless it's an incident where others were involved and we are obligate to confess and repay, we go to our prayer closet where we confess our sins in secret—just like Jesus instructs us. The danger to us is that we are often unwilling to fully and completely acknowledge our guilt to God or to ourselves. It's that pride thing again; if we can place some of the responsibility on a spouse, a friend, circumstances, or the devil, we can share the weight of that "mean looking burden." Having asked for forgiveness for our part of the sin, we bury the incident behind us. But we can't experience God's forgiveness in the areas where we haven't completely accepted responsibility, (like the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-27.)) So God's mercy flows over us until it reaches the dam of our own making and there it stops, leaving the corner of our heart parched and dry, and fracturing our intimacy with God. Our sin becomes the elephant in the room in our fellowship between us and God.

My advice is to mentally fast forward to judgment day when we will each take full and complete responsibility for our failures, and to see ourselves as He see us—unclean. Then fully repent and throw ourselves on His mercy so that our whole selves can bask in His grace and forgiveness and we can restore perfect fellowship.

The view from the ash pile - Job

Spent much of the Sabbath listening to the book of Job.

Marveled at Job who alternately defends himself to his "friends," makes his case to God, and praises and seeks God's comfort. Not unlike us when we feel that life has backed us into a corner. But in Job's case "life" was merely a reflection of a greater battle--that between God and Satan. Job was God's workmanship. It was Job that was in the fire, but it was God that was being tested. Would His creature stay true to the Creator? (No doubt a foreshadowing of when Satan tempted Jesus.) But unlike many of the contemporary Christian fiction books, Job did not rebel and become angry at God but he bowed his head and turned toward His creator: “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed,Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another." Imagine Job's emotions when he says the next line: Ahh! "My heart faints within me!"

This brings to mind another thoughts: "Satan is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. (1 Pet. 5:8) We see this clearly in Job, again with the temptation of Christ, and with Peter: "Satan has asked to have you, to sift you like wheat...Pray that you might not be tempted." (Luke 22:31,46) How many times has Satan asked to sift us like wheat? Are we praying that we might not be tempted?