Seriously God?

by Smith, Jenny

• ISBN13: 9781449740269
• ISBN10: 144974026X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-02-22
• Publisher: Westbow Press

Summary

"Our house was going into foreclosure, we were moving into a rental house, and God didn't seem to care. We had thought he would come through. He didn't." Like so many others, Jenny's family faced foreclosure, job loss, the anxiety of no health insurance, and having to learn adapt to a different income bracket. Seriously, God? is not just a book title but the question our hearts are struggling with in these uncertain times. Join Jenny as she shares her journey of discovering who Jesus said he is and the impact this knowledge had on the early church. Believers like us, who were on a roller coaster that jerked them around and pushed them to dizzying heights, only to plunge them to the depths, over and over-that's what this journey is about, a depth of relationship with God that, even as we stand smack-dab in the middle of life, we have a faith that stays steady and strong!

Excerpts

I walked through the house one last time I knew I had to pull myself together quickly. I paused looking in the girls' bedrooms, painted exactly how they had wanted. I walked through the living room smiling, remembering when my friend had spent days painting those walls with me. The front door beckoned me to open it one last time. As my hand grasped the knob all of a sudden I couldn't do it. I couldn't open that door and walk to the truck piled high with our belongings. My head rested on the frame as tears filled my eyes. How did we get to this place? Oh, I remembered all the mistakes we had made, but when we finally began to wake up, we immediately turned to God. We had thought he would come through. He didn't. Our house was going into foreclosure, we were moving into a rental house, and God didn't seem to care. No time to rehash this again, Chad and the girls were waiting. They needed me to put on a smile. It could be worse. As I walked down those steps I didn't know it was about to get much worse. Over the course of two years, like so many families, we faced foreclosure, job loss, the anxiety of no health insurance, and having to learn to adapt to a different income bracket. Somehow, adapting to a higher one had never been an issue. I struggled with how God had let me down, where was he? Why didn't he provide a job where we could maintain our standard of living? My whole Christian life had been built on this understanding of God being our provider, the one who when we had a need we went to and he provided. What happened? We were doing everything we knew to do and it wasn't working. As I stood in our garden months later, I realized if I didn't turn to God's Word I was never going to understand why my reality wasn't lining up with my view of God. I began searching in the book of John and discovered the seven "I Am" statements of Jesus. Don't feel bad if you don't know them, neither did I at first, but as I studied them my thinking completely changed, causing my heart to transform as well. As we begin out journey, I'm praying God will do the same mighty work in your heart. That's really what it comes down to, our hearts. We can find plenty of resources to help with some of the practical needs, but our hearts may be empty. As I started considering the phrase "in the name of Jesus," my mind started reciting all his other names: Deliverer, Savior, Emmanuel, Lamb of God, Son of God, Son of Man, and others. While every one of these names is true and worthy of our consideration, in the book of John, we find seven distinct times Jesus said, "I am"...