“From my heart to His”, Love letters to/from God.”
My Foundational Scripture:
Psalm 34:1 I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
3 O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.
During the course of the past 23+ years of this Kingdom Christian journey as a Christian business man I have experienced tremendous ups and terrible downs in my life. Since 1997 when this journey in earnest began, I have grown to take a somewhat journalistic approach to this life.
In the beginning was the word
In the beginning of this journey that truly began at my 40th birthday, January 6, 1957, I began many days journaling in an effort to chronicle my life’s journey.
I did not do this with the perspective of the future benefit for my self or others but simply as an exercise in recording my thoughts. What began as a way to take sermon notes as well as record my thoughts /progress for the day grew over the years to become what I now see as love letters to God and a record of His answers to me.
Then I heard him say “I’m going to destroy you”.
A great deal of my writings began as a gripe session to God about the current affairs of my life. As a newly wed and father of teenagers the tone and tenor often shared just how hurtful my life had become. Understand that 1997 was the watershed moment that saw me give my life to Christ this shedding my former unrighteousness lifestyle to becoming totally sold out to Him
You can see a journal entry early on where I spoke about hearing a voice tell me he was going to destroy me. First thinking it was God speaking I came to understand it was the enemy speaking and it served as a warning to what lies ahead in my life. This helped me to form a determination to keep my mind disciplined to the fact that there was a war for my soul and the enemy was not going to just give up and go away. This is when the concept begun that I was actually writing letters to my Heavenly Father and at times He actually wrote back. This was truly amazing to me!
So let the holy fun begin!
All while developing a heart for God I began to also develop a heart and understanding as well. Journaling was a result of my effort to keep my mind regulated during my 3am wake up times.
Early on in my sinful life I developed a really bad habit of waking up at 3am and could not go back to sleep. This nightly occurrence brought on great anxiety in the I’d finally go back to sleep an hour before having to get up to go to work or school. So I had the great idea to get high and watch TV.
BAD IDEA!
But the good news is when I was converted I still had the 3am issue_ So I realized that what an old gospel song was true -“Maybe God is trying to tell you something” So I listened and wrote down what I heard.
The journaling was greatly influenced by my difficulties in developing a coherent prayer life. This is at the time a heard a teaching by my then pastor, Dr.D.V Proctor to follow an acrostic in prayer.
This acrostic A-C-T-S helped me tremendously in gathering my thoughts in prayer.
A- Adoration- Lord I love you.
C- Confession- Lor you are… to me, Lord forgive me for I have sinned….etc
T.- Thanksgiving- Thanks you Father
S- Supplication- Father please……
As I grew in this prayer journey the most significant thing I noticed is I always followed at least the first 2 A-C blessing and -praising His at the beginning of each entry.
If you love me feed my sheep
So here in lies the reason and purpose of this blog – Letters to & from GOD and ultimately a new book “From my heart to His”, Love letters to/from God.”
In the beginning 80% of all of the journal entries appear to actually be from the perspective writing to God to complain, lamemt about a current trouble or an in-depth study of a word and how it relates to and reflects upon the current age. You will notice I always begin with a word of Praise that leads to worship.
As I read back through the years of journaling, I find a consistent tread. Through all of my praying that often resembles writing a letter, God sometimes responds with insight, direction, warning with words of comfort and love. Actually, isn’t that what the promise of Holy Spirit is? To comfort, direct and guide in love?
All this brings me to the essence of this effort. If my Heavenly Father is taking the love time to instruct me through His written and engraftment word, why would I keep it to myself only to let it die in the dust after I am gone? What good is that? Where is the glory in that?
The Conclusion Of The Whole Matter
In Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. King Solomon sums up the essence of life as he saw it. It was for him and for me as well the crucial, final element of a life that has been blessed by Almighty God.
My takeaway and giveaway to you is to honor my Father in “From my heart to yours”, Love letters to & from God.” is to bring to the forefront the loving reality that we are to present ourselves to our Father and bring our whole hearts and minds to Him and He will show us great and mighty thing we know not. It is my duty as a minister and journalist to encourage you to grow in Christ and share the Good News with whosoever will receive.
But know that this isn’t a conclusion for me but a new beginning in which I seek a closer walk and dialogue with Him and look forward to my heart burning as I walk along the road of life listening to my Saviour listening to me and responding “thus said the Lord!”