Get Real!

Have you ever had a “real” conversation with God? I’m not talking about the flowery, verbose entry to a prayer wherein  you give a greeting like an Old Testament prophet! (Not that there is anything wrong with that!) I mean brass tacks, rubber meets the road, “God, we need to talk!” kind of conversation? My son turns 24 today! But, I remember distinctly the day I took him to the doctor when he was 8 months old for what I now know was croup. He was having a hard time breathing, his cough sounded like a barking seal and he looked absolutely miserable! After examining him for a few minutes, the doctor looked very seriously at me and told me to immediately take him to the hospital where he was to be admitted and placed into an oxygen tent. As I got my son back into the car and started to drive towards the hospital, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember like it was yesterday me saying (very loudly), “God! Do not take my son from me!” As the words left my mouth I somewhat expected a bolt of lightning, but what I actually felt was the absolute love of the Father!

Sheila Walsh had a similar time and states, “Have you ever simply gotten alone with God and let Him have it all, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly — whatever it is you’re thinking and feeling? Doing so will change your life. Trust me; I speak from experience! But it took me years to open up to God. I’d lived much of my life filled with shame, with the profound sense that no matter what I did, I would never be good enough for God or for anyone else. Clinging to that falsehood, I kept a wall around my heart so that no one could hurt me. The wall kept me safe, but it also kept me lonely. One night when I was alone in a hospital, alone in the dark, I spoke out loud to God everything I felt. It wasn’t pretty… but I wasn’t struck by lightning. Instead I actually felt closer to Him than ever before. Truth does that.”

Psalm 145:18 tells us, “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” John 4:23 – “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”

Father, thank you for being real to us and for us! Thank you that we can come to you in the realness of our peaks and valleys! Thank you for being The Father and our Abba (daddy)!