This morning I was looking into the author of the book, Banhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.  His name is Eric Metaxas and I found this amazing video of his testimony.  It’s only 3:19 minutes long and is well worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2p2EhwbVyg

Eric talks about a dream that God gave him and how that dream led him to believe in Jesus.  The main point that he wanted to make in publishing his testimony is that God speaks to each one of us in a way that only we can understand and relate to.  That has huge meaning to each one of us because that means that this enormous God, the God of every man, woman and child who has ever lived, knows each one of us individually, completely and intimately.  He knows what we like and don’t like.  He knows how we think, and He’s not disturbed by it.  He wants to help us to change the way we think (and act) and in order to do so, He is willing to relate to us in a way that we will understand Him, in the deepest language of our heart and soul.  He knows what will touch us.  He loves each one of us uniquely.

I have to tell a story about my life here as well.  I was studying in another country during my junior year abroad in college.  One morning I was sitting on a bench in the hallway at the university before class.  As a teenager, I was a shy person and had a lot of self pity, but I was feeling lonely on that day being so far from home.  Down the hallway, there were some girls that were arriving for class.  They had all traveled to that country as a group from a university in Florida, whereas I just went there by myself.  That morning, they were all greeting each other and smiling and chatting.  In my mind I was envying them and yet at the same time thinking I was better than them.  At that very moment, a very loud voice in my head said to me, “If you want to have friends, you have to smile!”  I looked around wondering if anyone else had heard that as well since it was so loud, but no one flinched or moved a muscle.  It truly shook me.  I couldn’t deny what I heard or what He had said.  How could anyone know me so completely and know exactly what I had been thinking and feeling?!  The voice did not speak to me angrily in spite of my envy and arrogance, but it was just very matter of fact and completely accurate.  The accuracy absolutely blew me away, but it also caused me to see myself the way others might see me.  Who wants to start up a chat with someone who always has such a sad face?  A revelation about my attitude and behavior was born.  Slowly but surely, that voice changed my life.  I had just met God my Savior.  He saved me from myself, brought me up out of a deep pit and set me up on His mountaintop.

Our Father is such a loving and kind father to each one of us.  He only wants us to search for Him and find Him.  The instant we do, He pours out His love and leads us ever close to Him, not at all as He leads others, but in a way that is unique to us, so that each one of us can know Him and come to love Him.  It is not always an easy path.  Nowadays when I sometimes find myself slipping back into a moment of self pity, in His kindness, He brings me out of it and reminds me of His infinite love.  He shows me that He can only allow something to happen if it will somehow help me, even if it’s just in some small way, to know Him better.  I grew up thinking that He was a very angry God.  He may sometimes have to speak difficult truths to us, but there is no anger in Him ever.  

He does that for each and every one of us.  Every day.  He is just amazing.  The best.  The only.  Our one true constantly loving Father.

Jeremish 31:3  The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.