Let’s Be Honest
Many people go from day to day living with an inner awareness that this is not how life is supposed to be. You may have experienced a loss, a tragedy, a rude awakening, personal guilt or shame to such a degree that you want to stop the train and get off; you’ve had all that you can take. This is where the mask comes off, no more phoniness or pretending. This is when we get real honest with God because we have come to realize the world doesn’t have the answers we need, and is not able to help us, leaving us without any hope in sight.
Having gone through a traumatic experience, I needed to know that if God was really real, and He was love, and He really cared, then where was He through it all? I had to put aside all of what I knew of God
from my traditional religious upbringing and my perception of Him, so I could let Him be real honest with me as well.1 I was so spiritually and emotionally destitute that I had nothing to lose by stepping over the threshold of the formalities of religion that kept me distant and fearful of what seemed to me to be a conditional God; by moving forward, and going by the prompting of my heart to not settle for anything less than what the Scriptures actually say about Him, what we desire to know to be true deep inside, that He is a real, relatable, and compassionate God. The most wonderful thing you will ever learn on this earth is that His love is unconditional, and therefore, He is approachable no matter how terrible of a person you may think you are.
I am sharing these pages from my journal that expose years of searching for freedom that can only be found in the only one true living God who is sovereign over all things. You will find all of your answers to whatever issues or questions you have in life in the Bible, and when you come to learn of the reality of the Holy Spirit, He will lead you into all truth and teach you all things if you can handle it. It’s all elementary and it’s all spiritual, so it requires faith. Are you desperate enough to want to know the truth and be set free? Because “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (I Corinthians 2:14).
My relationship with God is an amazing journey; I am always learning something new. My purpose of sharing my journal writings with you is not so much for the content, they are my honest thoughts at the time as I was searching for real answers, but rather I want them to be as examples of encouragement so that you may see how utterly open, honest and fearless you can be in communicating with God, and to see how He can influence you by responding back with His love, encouragement and wisdom.
I hope you realize that when it comes to interpreting Scripture, there is no one who is without fault, including myself. I read the Bible and the Holy Spirit gives me discernment of what it means, and that’s not always going to be perfect because God’s truth and perfect wisdom has to pass through the imperfect filter of my mind that has become subject to the worldly wisdom of our fallen nature. That is why the Bible tells us to search the Scriptures ourselves and let the Holy Spirit guide us into all truth as best as we are able to discern. My understanding of the scriptures is a continual growth process, subject to change at any time, progressing in my knowledge of God’s Word the more I read it as I grow every day in my relationship with the Lord, as you will be able to see from my journal writings.
Man’s attempt to produce the land of milk and honey we all long for in our hearts is nothing close to the real thing God has provided for us. If you are really desperate and at the end of your rope, you will be more willing to have the faith to live by the power of the Holy Spirit, and things will become clearer for you the more you grow in the true knowledge of God. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
It is my hope that through viewing my relationship with the Lord, you may be encouraged to also develop your own relationship with Him freely and without fear. May you be blessed and come to know the truth that can set you free (John 8:32).
Notes
1. The trauma I experienced was of a spiritual nature which I did not realize at first. Part of the truth I needed to come to terms with is the reality of the Devil’s existence. That may turn some people off because they think it is foolish to think he is real, or it may strike some people with fear because they do believe he is real but have yet to learn the truth about his nature, the purpose of why God allows him to exist, and that he was defeated by Jesus Christ on the cross. If you don’t know the truth then you probably have a false, exaggerated, unrealistic ideal of who he is. Jesus came so we would know the truth and be set free, from what? If you have gone through a similar experience as I have, I would encourage you to keep on reading and learn about this freedom.