Adventures In Woods

I want to give a quick explanation about my Twitter/Facebook update just 25 hours ago: “it’s a new day! Praise God, His mercies are new every morning, and I love Jesus Christ with all my heart. Yeah, there’s a story :)”  Ok, so what was that all about?  This one’s for you, Mikkey, since you asked

My wife and I had just watched a very powerful documentary/video about a young lady named Niki Ochenski who was miraculously healed.  It’s online, and here’s a brief description:
“In this video you will hear the story of Niki Ochenski’s strange illness. No matter what the doctors called it, the disease made an invalid out of an otherwise normal teenaged girl, wasting her body for 5 long years. Finally, it began pushing her to the very brink of death. On November 15, 2000 Andrew Wommack came to Niki’s home church, the Shepherd’s House in Lewisville, TX. His teaching that night sparked a remarkable change in Niki, a change that resulted in a dramatic miracle of healing. In this video, we invite you to enter Niki’s home and witness this miracle in the words of those who were there to see it.”

If you can take the time to watch the video, I would highly recommend it.  I was moved to tears over the powerful story.  I was encouraged and amazed at the miracle God did in her life, but the thing that really caught my attention was the depth of Niki’s relationship with God.  She actually knows Jesus intimately (one of, if not the main purpose and joys of the Christian life), and that comes through very clearly in her testimony.  I was convicted, in a good but very challenging way, about how nonchalantly I’ve been seeking the Lord recently due to how busy I’ve been.  That’s my excuse anyway.  But life is always busy, and we make time for what is important to us.

When someone asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  The greatest man who has ever lived on earth said that loving God and loving people is what real life is all about.  Yep!  It’s so true, and I’ve tasted of that life to varying degrees for over 25 years now.  But I don’t want to just taste it anymore; I want to drink it in deeply on a daily basis.  It’s not a matter of earning brownie points with God.  I can’t do anything to make him love me any more or any less, and I’m already completely accepted by God through faith in Jesus Christ - totally by his grace (unmerited favor) and not by any “good” works I’ve done.  That’s the Good News - we don’t have to be good enough for God!  Jesus took care of that.

So why seek to know the God of the universe on a personal and intimate level?  Because he loves me and wants to hang out with me in an ongoing, life-giving relationship.  When most people think of eternal life, they think of spending eternity in Heaven - or something like that in most cases.  That’s definitely part of it, but again, Jesus had a rather shockingly simple definition of what eternal life is, and I value his opinion more than anyone else’s - as recorded by his disciple John: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

I have eternal life now because I know God, but like any relationship, I can get to know him better by spending more time with him.  I’ve been married almost 7 years now, and I know my wife very well, but I’m still learning some new things about her and falling even more deeply in love with her - as I spend more time with her.  It’s the same with God.  I don’t pray and read the Bible and go to church so that God will accept me, but because he already has and so that I can get to know him better.

I could go on and on about the goodness of God, but I need to go to sleep, so I’ll wrap this up by explaining my Tweet.  There’s a passage in the Bible that says:

Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.
This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.

After I prayed last night and asked God to forgive me and help me to seek him more whole-heartedly, I looked down at my watch for the first time in an hour, and it was exactly 12:00 and roughly 25 seconds.  It was a new morning! It was as if God was saying, “Of course you’re forgiven, and I will help you know me better because that’s what I want too.”  I was overjoyed and decided to send the quick update to FaceBook via Twitter before going to bed with a great sense of peace - I love modern technology :)  So there’s the story.

Just for the fun of it, a picture from Friday - one of our first evening walks outside as a family this season!