His love

My posts in this blog are usually about relationships, but more specifically they are about my relationship with my Heavenly Father.  The title isn't "Moments with Him" on accident, but today I was praying and thinking about other people's relationships with Him.  Generally speaking people there are three types of relationships with Him.  Your on fire for Him, you know Him and you don't know Him.  I think in most people's lives we have fallen under all of those categories at least once in our lives and not always in the order that would be the most obvious.

I know that in my life I have wavered in my relationship with Him and even for a while I ignored what I knew and forgot about Him.  I was convinced at one point in my life that I was so faulty and worthless, there was no way He loved me because He was the one that made me.  So I put 12 years of parochial school teachings out of my mind and went on my marry way.

The problem with relationships is that people have baggage from other relationships that hinder the new relationship and that is especially true about people's relationship with Him.  I know from my own personal experience that its very easy to imagine that He has or will abandoned you when it seems that everyone else has or that its easy to think that just because someone was vengeful or hurt you that He will too and its especially easy to believe that because other people judge you He will too.

In a recent post I talked about baggage, and how carrying two many suitcases through the airport is quite a hassle, but deciding what to bring and what to leave at home is a tough decision.  What are the important lessons we bring with us from each past relationship and what hurts are best left in the past.  I don't know if I can answer that question because I certainly don't leave much behind but as we learn about anyone, but especially our Heavenly Father our walls start to break down.

At least for me, there is a specific moment that I remember the walls coming down.  I don't know the exact date but I remember that I had all these conditions about going back to church after years of being away.  I remember the conversation I had with Him about all the things that needed to happen before I would stay in church.  I don't know if I would have called that a prayer but it was definitely a contract.  If these specific things happened, then I promised to immerse myself in church life and get back on the right track.

I thought I would jump from place to place waiting for all the signs and wonders that I was looking for.  I was sure that it would take many months of Sundays for the planets to align, the weather to be perfect and my heart to be in the right place to receive, but it didn't.  In fact it happened so fast that my head literally spun.  He had met all my conditions all at the same time and that's when I knew that He was listening and He knew better then I did about what I needed.

Last night at church I saw a young man that looked like he had the same experience I did.  Here he was just a long for some fun with some other people his age, and his whole life change in just a moment.  I remember the chill bumps and the warm fuzzy feeling I had at that moment.  In fact He still uses that feeling to remind me that He is at work in my life.  It was a sense of complete calmness, something that most of us never feel in our busy, stressful lives.  I felt held, comforted and at peace and of course I cried.  They were happy and sad tears all at the same time and they were happy and sad for all the same reasons.

That young man from last night had those same tears.  He realized that he was worthy of His love, not because he was perfect but because he wasn't.  He now knew that all the anger he had in his heart wasn't enough to make Him be angry at him and he had figured out that nothing he had ever done was bad enough for Him to not love him.  The planets had aligned for him just as unexpectedly as when they did for me.

Don't wait for aligning planets or signs and wonders before you look back up towards heaven.  If your carrying a lot of baggage, just start this new relationship like any other relationship.  Meet with Him and learn what He is all about.  That would be the first step in any relationship, right?  You would probably go to coffee because its to hard to escape during dinner and over coffee you would chat.  Maybe that's simplifying things but I think you get the point.  Just don't wait to do it, do it today.