For Real

Today I read the kid's version of "Heaven is for Real" to my children. I cried. I always cry during things like that so Savannah had to finish it for me.

It hit me how I marveled at a three-year old's account of heaven and the similarities of it's description in the Bible. Why would I marvel at that?

I mean, it's all right there in the Bible, the book that I claim to take as God's word. This has happened since college. Before that, I don't know if I had an actual conversation with God. More like, "I know He's out there.......somewhere...." And then when I really needed Him He showed up and it shocked me.

We see the things of God as mysteries. And some things He has kept mysterious to us. However, so many things are plain as day on the pages in front of me. God is for real. God's love is for real. The hugeness of God is for real. The wonderfulness of God is for real.

Yet it is so hard for me to just accept. As I've pondered these things I've concluded we've been lied to so much and have not questioned those lies that the real truth is so unreal. We pray and ask God to fix our problems and immediately doubt that he'll answer us. Yet we get mad at God when it looks like He didn't. Who lies to us? Satan. The author of lies. It says so in the Bible. Satan is for real.

Do you know why I cry when I read about how much God loves me? Because it's so hard for me to believe. I've done some bad things in my life. On my own, I am certainly not worthy of my relationship with God. But really the lies I've been told were nothing about what I've done, rather whom I was. And what do those lies accomplish? Stopping mighty things dead in their tracks.

Now I know God has done and will do mighty things through me, as anyone who is willing. But if I had not overcome the lies, I would be easily defeated. But God is big, and he already won so I don't have anything to fear. It says so in the Bible.

Believing lies hides our immense blessings. When compared to many in the world and even more in our history, I've got to be in the .001% of the most blessed people ever born. And with that comes responsibility. But unless I realize this, I cannot take that responsibility.

But even if I wasn't living in these blessings, I still would have the benefits of salvation available to me, which is worth more than ten million bucks.

And that is why complaining is so offensive to God (the Bible says so).

So what I want is to live as though nothing God has told me comes as a surprise because it is reality. And anything that is contrary to God's promises is what I doubt. I want to stop crying whenever God speaks to me, because that is what He does. And I want my children to learn to expect answered prayers, victories, and the realizations of their life as an adopted child of God. For if I live like that, they will more likely see it as real.

I want to know what is real.