Captain Obvious...

I'm going to play Captain Obvious with you guys. I'm going to say things to you that you already know to be obvious but I am going to elaborate a bit. I am beginning to notice that as time moves along that the words and sentences that I have spoken in the past start to sound different and begin to have more significance now and so I want to rehash a couple of statements commonly delared over the years.

So here goes my first declaration as Captain Obvious. God is with you. God has always been with you. He's been with you when you were in your mothers womb. He knew you at conception. That is not so difficult to grasp when you look at all the intricacies of His creation and how He orchestrated our whole existence. God is with us on the earth today in the person the Holy Spirit. During the time of the Old Testament God was for us and we kept disobeying Him like a bunch of spoiled children. His Father image was more prevalent in the Old Testament. In the New Testament God was called Emmanuel the Christ which means God was with us in the person of the Son. When the Son left, He promised us the Holy Spirit and that he would be with us and that we would not be alone. We presently live in the time of the Holy Spirit. He is with all of us and searching the depths of our heart. Keep your ears on the alert and listen to what's blowing in the wind. The Spirit is always wooing us to a rebirth or a refreshing.

John 3:8

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Here is my second declaration as Captain Obvious. God is for you. This is difficult for many of us to believe and especially those who have experienced tragedy in their lives. It's much easier to understand God and what He's all about when we look at ourselves as created in His image. We think like God thinks about our children and so we should be able to empathize with God's longing for us to acknowlege Him as our heavenly Father. Most of the fathers that I know are for their children but sometimes their children make decisions that cause themselves harm and alienate themselves from their dad. We cannot force our children to do all the right things. They eventually go out into life and begin the process of reaping and sowing from all the decisions they make. This is the way it is with God the Father. The liberty that He gives us to choose freely is the essence and beauty of God's life for all of us. He wants us to choose Him and acknowledge Him but if we don't He is still for us just like we are for our own children. Perfect love is love that is given out of choice. God has always been for us and he has made it all possible for you and I to love and to be loved. The search for loving relationships often consumes our being because love is the center of God's motivation. For God so loved......

1 John 4:19

We love because he first loved us

Even though I know these two things are obvious and true, I will never understand the magnitude and depth of what they really mean to our merciful God. I do understand one tiny thing. The earth and the life inhabiting it still exists because God is with us and God is for us.

Captain Obvious