I had been running on battery power for too long and the warning light had changed from orange to an unwelcome blinking red. The reserves in my soul were finally running down to near empty; I was lost and hope of a miraculous turn of events was fast fading.

In April of that same year I had bought a Bible. Owning a Bible is one thing; opening and reading it is another. I did not have a mentor. I was not part of a Bible Study. Basically, I was a formerly proud member of a vast new class of biblically illiterate Americans. Up through my teenage years I had attended church; I had been baptized and confirmed as a child but what little faith I had, I freely abandoned for the far more popular religion of self reliance and self indulgence.

So I looked down at this brick of a book and asked myself why bother to read it? How can it provide relevance to my own sorry situation? If I were to decide to explore its pages, where do I begin? Where so many of my contemporaries had rejected the faith of their youth, why would I turn to the pages of the Bible for answers to my own self inflicted crisis? How could it help?

But I did open that Bible and I did begin the long journey of coming to know it and love it. Years later, the answer to my many question became apparent and it came to me from one of the Bible’s best know psalms. For even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death; I came to realize that I am not in fact alone. When, early on, I choose to walk through this life on solo power, I inevitably lost that power and found myself without the resources to get to a safe place. As with so many of my contemporaries, I end up as little more than spent fuel.

The stories and accounts in the Bible speak to another source of power: the Holy Spirit of God that wants to abide within the heart of each one of us to restore our soul to the vibrant life God intended for us from the beginning.

As I began to engage the pages of the New and Old Testaments, I slowly learned to listen to what the ancient words were telling me about my own condition here and now. And as I began to absorb what I was hearing, I started to experience the cracking of my own shallow assumptions about the world and my place in it. I began to move from believing I could live a good life without God to believing I could not survive even one short day without Him.

Who, at some point in life, has not experienced a bad thing? And who, if you probe deep enough, does not think of himself as a genuinely good person? So why should it be surprising when an afflicted person cries out against the injustice of God?

At first glance, Job would seem to fit this description perfectly, but throughout the time of his suffering, he never claims to be a man without sin. In fact, it is God who claims that Job is “…blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (v8). While terrible things come to afflict Job, including the deaths of his children, the loss of his wealth and the pain of disease, the core question is whether or not Job will lose patience with God, blame Him and forsake Him.

Loss of faith and betrayal are central facts in the Old and New Testaments and understanding Job’s crisis is crucial to understanding our own response to crisis. Will we remain faithful no matter what? Will we humble ourselves before God no matter what the circumstance? Or will we turn our backs on God, rejecting Him in anger because we have come to believe that He has not been faithful to us?

Is God hiding from you…or are you hiding from God? The common complaint is that God has left each of us to fight our own fight. It is as if we are claiming to be like lost children who frantically search everywhere, but cannot find our parents anywhere. We are the abandoned ones, betrayed by cruel and unloving parents who have exposed us to a harsh and dangerous world because they have left us to fend for ourselves. Our assumptions are shattered. Our parents are gone forever. And this is how we feel about God, too.

But how hard are we really looking? Or are we just repeating in our own time a pattern that was set in place from the very beginning. In the Eden story, found in the Book of Genesis, the man and the woman transgress and immediately feel shame and, as a result, go into hiding. God calls out to them, but they hide from Him at the very time when God is searching them out. In the time of the prophets, Isaiah identifies the intractable persistence of this problem of who is seeking and who is hiding: “We all, like lost sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way….” (Isaiah 53:6)

What causes us to hide from God? Is it us or is it Him? And what might cause us to hide in the first place? In the Genesis story the man and woman flee from the presence of a searching God because of shame and fear. If they had nothing to hide, they would not have taken cover. But they did have something very real to hide which was an act of utter unfaithfulness. After the man and the woman are cast out of Eden as punishment for their original crime, they seem to pass on to their own child Cain the same inclinations of faithlessness and rebellion. Cain murders his brother, and when he is caught, he cries out that his punishment is more than he can bear. He rejected God and became not a seeker but rather a “restless wanderer of the earth.” From then until now that is the condition of despair that many of us suffer from day in and day out. Perhaps it is time to find out what it means to be a seeker rather than a hider.

“God is everywhere.

There is no spot in heaven or in earth where he is not present.

From the first moment of my existence to the present moment, I have been in God’s presence. Everywhere. At all times.

Often I forget this truth.

Often I go on in the actions of life without a thought of God.

But here today I will remember that I am in the presence of God.” From St Augustine’s Prayer Book

Check out Eric’s new blog!  It’s more of his personal read on life, relationships, and God.  Simply go to www.erickampmann.blogspot.com.  Get inspired today…You’ll be glad you did! 

by…Rev. Charlie Albertell, Associate Pastor – Grace Church NYC

I desperately want to see people who don’t know God connect with Him and people that do know God, re-connect with Him. 

Have you ever tried to build something from IKEA without instructions?  Sometimes the directions in Swedish make just as much sense!  God has given us a manual for life.  A blueprint, if you will.

Connecting with God starts with a sincere desire to know God….a longing for internal freedom and peace for your soul. 

Let me ask you a few personal questions…

• Do you have a longing for intimacy with the One who created you and is familiar with every cell in your body and with every need you have in your soul and spirit?
• Do you have a deep desire to fulfill the purposes of God for our generation?
• Do you have a desire to know the enemy and how he works so as to counteract his manipulations?

As a pastor and a father and a husband, it grieves me that I can’t give this passion away.  It’s hard to transfer passion from one person to another.  Passion is more caught than taught. 

Passion comes from deep within the soul and spirit of our humanity.  My hope and prayer is that this passion for God’s Word will be stirred in your soul as you read this.

The question I pose is, “Do you really want to know God?”  Not just know about Him, really know Him…His passions, His desires, His attributes, His love, His very essence…His being…

In order to connect with God…two components must work together with passion: discipline and obedience.

Joshua 1:8 “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

Discipline is needed to connect.  As in any relationship, in order to connect, certain things have to be done. Sacrifices have to be made and priorities have to be shifted.  There needs to be two-way communication… one on one, emails, letters, phone calls, text messages, faxes, etc. 

Hey I understand that we all face the pressures of time.  We are all under a lot of stress and have very busy schedules.  Unfortunately one of the first things we often squeeze out is our spending time with God.  We say we have the desire to be with God, but do we really? If we are too busy to spend time with God then we are busier than God intends for us to be.  Spending time alone with God is a privilege.  Our attitude should not be “I have to…” as if we were having root canal; but rather, “I get to….” as if we are excited about the possibility of meeting a star athlete or actor.

It is only as we seek God with our whole being that we can enjoy a connection with Him that will truly feed our souls.  Jesus said in Matthew 4:4 that ‘People need more than bread for their life; they must feed on every word of God.‘

Do we hunger for Him? (He said He was the Bread of Life) If we really hunger for truth…we will find God.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life….” Do we really want to be nourished? (He said come to him and drink.)

The discipline I speak of is the discipline of daily spending time apart for Bible study and prayer.

Here are some excuses I’ve heard from people over the years as to why don’t we spend time alone with God:  we really don’t have the desire; we’re too busy; we’re too scared; I’m doing OK, nothing earth-shattering in my life; I can’t can’t get alone… roommates, etc; or feeling overwhelmed by the Bible…

Without the discipline to communicate and connect, we start to lose sight of the enemy.  We become complacent.  And that is when we are most vulnerable to weaken and give in to our own design. 

If we are not nourishing our inner beings on a regular basis we become spiritually dry, empty, impotent…Our souls must be nourished on the word of God.

There is nothing more fulfilling, beautiful, and challenging than communicating with Jesus.  As we study and meditate, our hearts could be comforted, counseled, encouraged, warned, reproved, and instructed.  As we go through dark times, we see Him as the Light to our path.  When we go through the good times, He is there encouraging us to continue to press on!

This is what is so good about reading Trail Thoughts…It’s a bite-size portion that will challenge and entice you for more…a sort of spiritual appetizer that really doesn’t take much of a time commitment…all it takes is a commitment of the heart.

Our goal in developing this e-community is for you to have an outlet to share your thoughts.  

Loss of faith and betrayal are central facts in the Old and New Testaments and understanding Job’s crisis is crucial to understanding our own response to crisis. Will we remain faithful, no matter what? Will we humble ourselves before God no matter what the circumstance? Or will we turn our backs on God, rejecting Him in anger because we have come to believe that He has not been faithful to us?

The Bible speaks of our beginnings—of the tragic choice that broke our relationship with the one who created us—and of the long and arduous journey toward the freedom that would release us from the consequences of that choice. And as we come to know the epic story that ties the depth and breadth of the entire Bible together, the more we realize that we need to listen closely to what it is telling us about ourselves.