As people, we go through life and we experience. We experience the good, the bad and the difficult things as we progress through life. Go find any person around you, in your circle, in your work, church, school, etc… and they will all have a story to tell. Everyone has a story and a history. Even those people around you who you assume have a cookie cutter life will have something to say and a story to tell. But even in all that we go through in life; good, bad and the ugly, God is still there. Even when you feel that God is not listening, hearing or even paying any attention to you; God has never, will never and never did leave you or me. Sometimes in our broken humanity, we think that God has withheld his love and left us when we sin. This is not Gods nature. Consider the greatest people in the bible in their darkest moments of their lives, God did not abandon them. Moses, Jacob, Joseph, David, Samuel. Take David for a moment. The guy who was anointed at a young age, defeated Goliath, fled for His life from an enraged King and who was later crowned King of Israel; this same guy is also the person who decided to dance before the presence of the Lord, he fell in sin and weakness (2 Samuel 11). If you look and realize, that God did not abandon David in his time of weakness and need. God showed love and mercy to David by sending Nathan the Prophet. Repentance and forgiveness is love and mercy! God’s love is poured out when Nathan calls David into repentance and into freedom. When I’m in sin, God does not flee the scene, but he comes closer and He calls me out of my sin and into forgiveness/freedom. So, if God chose to draw near to David in his time of darkness and in his valley in life; who am I that God should do differently with me. The valley of my sin is all in your mind. We sometimes think that sin to be this vast valley that I have been dumped into. There is no way out and there is no way to God. We want to reach for God, but all the voices are telling you that you have no right. The sad part is, that those words never came from Gods mouth, and we still believe it. Remember this; because Jesus died a sinless death and sacrificed Himself in my place that we are able to approach the throne of mercy and grace freely. That valley is only you listening to all the other voices other than His. Even as Christians, we can sometimes get stuck in this valley of our sin. We dwell on the past and on our sin, which begins to eat at us from the inside. Instead, God is saying, focus on what I have said and on the truth. God has given me and you a way out of the valley, in just whether or not I’m going to take it. Remember the simple truth of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He died so you wouldn’t have to live in the agony of sin. Remember the truth of His words!
One Unified Family 