Running Towards the Father

Our great Father who is in heaven, we need your grace today. We need your strength in this moment and to continue throughout the day God. We want to experience you by being with you, and be with you by persevering in the faith. Thank you for your mercy upon our souls when we have failed you. When we have fallen into the temptations of our flesh, for the times we have knowingly disobeyed you God. We love you and we are glad you know our hearts, because you have made our hearts clean, but on the outside we often look so dirty. In Jesus name, Amen.

Do you ever feel like God is speaking very clearly to you or has spoken to you about something very clearly and you simply don't want to listen? You know for a fact it's God, but you say "no, I don't want to". Have you ever knowingly disobeyed our Father? Don't say no to this question, that would be a lie. All of us have experienced saying "no" to God when we know for a fact it is God calling. We all have "fallen short of the glory of God" in this way, and many others.

What are we to do after we have said "no" to God? Jonah said "no" to God and he even tried to run away and tried to kill himself and wanted to kill himself. Talk about saying no to God! Jonah was very avidly trying to pursue not doing what God called him to. Guilt often times takes over when we have said "no" to God. How are we to get rid of this guilt of having said no to God? How do we get over ourselves and focus on God again after we have so obviously denied him as Peter did? In order to get over the times we have said no to God, we must say yes to God. What did Jonah end up doing? He went to Ninevah. What did Peter end up doing even though he had denied Christ? He was crucified for Christ at the end of his life.

So how do we overcome our guilt? We change our ways. We don't overcome our guilt by simply saying "it's okay, God loves me anyways". No! We overcome our guilt by saying yes to God next time he calls. God will change his Children. We may run, we may try to hide, but it will all fail if we are truly a Child of God. If you are a child of God, give up on running away, and start running towards.

"'You are my witness,' declares the Lord, 'and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.'" - Isaiah 43:10