RUN TO HIM

2 Chronicles 7:14 (New King James Version)

¹⁴ if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

In this verse God is telling us something very important. All we as Christians have to do is three things. If we get rid of our pride and submit to God's will and confess our need for Him...pray and seek the Lord with all our heart, repent...turn from our sinful ways and come back to God...then God will do three things for us. He will listen to us...forgive us...heal us. He will always be there to take care of us. What I have found out is this: God doesn't leave us, we leave Him. Another word for leaving is forsaking or abandoning. There's a great verse in Psalms;

Psalm 9:10 (New Living Translation)

¹⁰ Those who know your name trust in you,
for you, O Lord, do not abandon those who search for you.

Since the Lord is God He will not ever abandon you. It is not in His nature. He is faithful to us and will never, ever, give up on us. No matter what we do He will be there for us. He will protect us and cover us.

Psalm 91:4 (New Living Translation)

⁴ He will cover you with his feathers.
He will shelter you with his wings.
His faithful promises are your armor and protection.

Sometimes we know all of these things but we still go our own way. When we have problems we try to fix them ourselves instead of turning to God and asking for His help. Unfortunately I am very good at trying to take care of myself without His help. Recently I have had things going on in my life that have been a little stressful. Instead of turning to God and talking to Him about these things I chose to go the other way. I stopped reading my Bible and praying which were the worst things I could have done. Because of that action I started having doubts about different things. Then I could tell I was starting to get very negative and basically I just gave up on doing anything concerned with God. I was leaving Him, abandoning Him. He was waiting for me to come to Him and I was doing just the opposite. All I needed to do was turn and run towards Him but I was running the other way. Thankfully God is faithful. He will keep at you, through whatever way He has to, to turn you back to Him. Satan is always there too. Trying his best to discourage you. He will use whatever he can to pull you away from God. He can be very subtle in his attacks. Once you know that he is the cause of your problems...Run towards God as fast as you can. Confess to God your need for Him. Ask for forgiveness for not doing the things you know to do. Pray and turn from your sin. Get into the word. Get any help you need. Just get back on track. The things causing you stress may still be there. Mine are. But since I did those things it doesn't matter what my life situations are. God is there for me. He listened to me, forgave me and the healing process starts. Search Him out and He will prove His faithfulness. He never gave up on me. God was there all the time wanting to take me under His wings. To shelter me from everything that was going on.

I think for me, just learning to trust God, all the time, is hard. I think if you don't learn how to trust you will be in a constant battle. For some of us, trusting people that we know and can physically see is hard. So putting our full trust in someone we can't see is really hard...even if it is God.There's a great verse for that too;

Proverbs 3:5-6 (New Living Translation)

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
⁶ Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.

I'm going to end this with one of my favorite verses;

Philippians 4:13 (New Living Translation)

¹³ For I can do everything through Christ,^a]">[a] who gives me strength.

Footnotes:

1. Philippians 4:13 Greek through the one.