All YOU Need

"Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, lean not to your own understanding.  In ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your steps." (Proverbs 3:5)

There is not one thing that this ex-prodigal is more certain about – except this… I NEED the Lord.  I need Him.  More than any other person, more than any materialistic item.  I NEED the Lord in my life.  If someone was to ask me what a life is like without Jesus – I would answer that it’s like a corpse.  The spirit of a person brings animation and life into a body, without the spirit a body is just a shell.

Without the Lord – I am lost.  Jesus said He would never leave nor forsake us.  But I believe that sometimes He sits waaaaaay in the back ground watching us to see what we would do without Him.  Do you know what I do?  I panic.  I feel like I can’t breath. like I can’t think.  No matter what my spiritual state is – prodigal, ex-prodigal etc. there is one thing I know.  I CANNOT get through life without the Lord.

Without Him I am a mere shell.

It’s the scariest thing in the world when you feel as though you are all alone.  Where pain feels your body and you feel like you just can’t go on.  I believe that people who experience this feeling are the ones that commit suicide, because the pain is just too much.  You want it gone.

Jesus is my peace.  He is the Way, He is the Truth and He is the life and I can honestly say that there is no one I love more than Him.  I CANNOT live without Him.  He is my ever present help in time of trouble.  He is the lifter of my head.  He is my Lord and He is my Savior.  He LOVES me unconditionally.

I think of John, when He was walking on water towards the Lord.  His steps were filled with confidence and not doubt.  He knew WHO he was walking towards and he believed He could do it.

It wasn’t until doubt and uncertainty and perhaps even worry or the words of this world filled his head that he slowly began to sink.  This is what the world does to us – unless we have our eyes focused on Jesus, we sink.  This weekend I sunk all the way to my nostrils where I could feel the water filling my nose and the burning sensation that comes with it.  I panicked. I thrashed.  I wanted to give up. I lost focus.

LISTEN – people will disappoint you all the time.  But our focus is not supposed to be ON people.  We are not living for THEM.  We are living for HIM.  I woke up this morning and realized I needed to anoint myself.  I needed to rebuke ALL those things that were moving me towards death.  Towards giving up.  Usually when we feel this way it is because God has a great plan for our lives and ol’ slewfoot steps in and tries to distract us – tries to make us take our eyes off of God and put it on our situation.  GOD IS BIGGER THAN ANY OF OUR PROBLEMS.  There is NOTHING that God can’t do.  We forget that sometimes.  All we need to do is call on Him.  Even if it is the ONLY thing you can say, cry out “JESUS I LOVE YOU!!!! JESUS I NEED YOU!!!! JESUS DON’T LEAVE ME!!! Save me Lord! Help me!”  And He will.  He is an EVER present help in time of trouble.

We need to keep our eyes on Him… We were not called to do things on our own.  We were not made that way.  We need Him – now more than ever before.

“Father God, I need you. Forgive me my sins; wash me with the blood of Jesus.  Don’t ever leave me.  Where I am weak – make me strong.  Where I am strong – keep me strong.  Hold me tight.  Without you I am nothing but a shell.  I don’t want to live in a Godless world without you by my side.  Please never let me go. Restore what the cankerworm has destroyed and help me not to walk in fear or doubt. But to trust that You have got me and that my life belongs to you.  In Jesus precious name I pray.  AMEN”