When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

This is so true for me. Ever since I have been a christian, even at the times when I feel far away from God (Which has been quite often of late) I know there is still nothing that I truly want more than I want God.

I don’t know how I got to feel like that, I don’t know how it was so much embedded in my life. I know that I have tried pretty much everything the world has got to offer, yet it all still comes down to God and the knowledge that nothing brings satisfaction or fulfillment than being in the presence of God.

Sounds spiritual, or even superspiritual to some, but unless you have been close to God in His presence, you cannot relate to what I am talking about.

There are only 2 things in my life that I know are right and, perhaps a strange word to use, but permanent. My son is one, and God is the other. Although I have found myself in a situation which has possible caused confusion and perhaps rebellion because of the confusion, (I know, confusion comes from the devil) God has, and always will be there. Senseless and ignorance seems to have run with me for a time now, but my heart is still steadfast for God – and I really thank God for that. It basically means my roots are in the right place and they run deep.

When I became a Christian, I had never really understood the concept of what a Christian was, lets face is, the term is just a label to help people understand where your faith is. I didn’t know anyone who was a Christian, except for my teacher at school. None of my friends or family were Christians, infact, when I told my family I had become a Christian, they laughed. They thought it was amusing because of the sort of kid I was.

Because of this, and because I was new to finding out about Jesus, I think Jesus kind of took me on in the sense of He was going to teach me and draw me close to him. It was an amazing introduction to my new life.

I remember in one of the Christian Union (yes, that’s what they were called)  meetings we used to have at lunchtime, our teacher telling me the story of Samuel and Eli, where God was calling Samuel and Samuel thought it was Eli who was calling him. Eventually Eli told Samuel, next time you hear your name being called, say speak Lord, for your servant is listening, God then spoke to Samuel.

I was sat listening to the story and thought to myself, “Well, if Samuel can do it, then so can I”. That night, I went to bed and I laid there and I said “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” I didn’t know how God was going to speak to me, but I listened, I could hear my thoughts going round and round, I kept listening, then, a voice came into my mind which was louder than the other sounds which said to me “One to be baptised”. I knew I had just heard God speak to me.

At that time, because a few of us had become Christians at the same time, I thought God was telling me that one of my friends needs to be baptised in the Holy Spirit. So, the next day, I went to my teacher and I told her what had happened. She told me that God was telling me that it was time for me to be Baptised in water and went on to explain what that meant. So, in obedience to God, I was baptised, it was a wonderful experience for me.

I also used to read my Bible and I would have questions about what I had read, these would be answered, not by me asking anyone, but usually by the lunchtime meetings we had at school. This was Jesus answering my questions.

Years later, because of my relationship with God, my teacher told me she used to envy the way God would speak to me, because she could clearly see the journey I was on, and how my relationship with God was developing, this was all because I thought that if I was going to get to know God, then it would be Him I would learn from, and this is how it happened. This was my grounding – and although I am as human and sinful as the next person, I cannot deny God in my life.

When I talk to people who know me about Jesus, I just say to them, look at me, do you really think I would be telling you about Jesus if he wasn’t real, if he was fake, do you really think I would make a fool out of myself like that? They couldn’t argue with me because they know me and they know I’m not a fake person.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to say all that, but it happened anyway 😀

So there you go…Praise God hey?

Actually, I’ll just add a little more to this – When I said about God teaching me, this did not mean that I didn’t need other people to teach me.

I listened to a sermon last night which explains why it is important that we have leaders to guide us in our walk with God. These are the guys who have direct lines to God (:D) yet God still uses other people to speak to them, yet these are the people God has anointed to “Feed His sheep”. So don’t ever fool yourself into thinking you can go it alone without a Church or without fellowship (Christian term there) because you will fall in your arrogance. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about – life gets very hard when you are not in a faith environment, we are all a part of the body of Christ, and basically, if you are not where your supposed to be, it would be like you are a limb that has amputated itself from the body which cannot function on its own.

So always have the greatest respect for the leaders of your church and hold them up in prayer and thank God for them, don’t fool yourself into thinking you know better than them. Dont envy their call either, you probably have no idea of what God has taken them through to get where He wanted them to be before He put that wonderful anointing on their lives that attracts you so much. 😉

Thank God your part of the congregation..lol