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Connect with God
by Terry Powell
I cannot remember a time in my life when I questioned the existence of God. The idea of God seemed to be hard wired into my being by some invisible wisdom which connected me link by link back through my lineage to my Creator. The idea was reinforced through my early years by family and friends. I had no reason or desire to doubt. It was natural to me to accept God as factually as I accepted the sun and the moon. It was logical even in my small mind to think that everything had to have a Creator, and that God was the name given to that Creator.When doubts did come, it was not about the existence of God. It was about the nature of God. I could not figure out how God worked. God seemed to be as distant and untouchable as the sun and moon, and I had no idea how to reach Him. Perhaps He was just too big for me to comprehend, I thought, or perhaps I was too small and insignificant to arouse His attention, or perhaps He had better and more important things to do than to entertain my trivial curiosity. Whatever the reason, I wandered along for years with these casual thoughts occupying my mind and serving as a poor substitute for a personal relationship. Occasionally, I would meet God at a crossroad, share some intimate thoughts, and be on my way, only to meet Him again after awhile at the next crossroad.
In 1999, things changed. I volunteered to teach a Bible study with men my own age. Most of the men in the class had walked with God much longer than I, and most knew far more about the Bible than I did. I often wondered why none of them volunteered to teach. I fully expected to be fired for incompetence at any given moment, but they were patient with me as was God. As I began to dig deeper and deeper into the Scripture to learn to communicate God’s Word, I soon found that what had began as an intimidating duty was transformed into an awesome joy. I began to meet Jesus more often, and my walks with Him became longer and longer. We were no longer simply meeting at crossroads; now we were walking together from one crossroad to the next filling each moment with conversation.
The secret to connecting with God is really no secret at all. We find Him in His Word. He is always there waiting on us. I find Him most often in the “red letters”. When Jesus said, “it is the sick who need a physician,” I found the answer to why I volunteered to teach. For me, it is in the bright red letters that I find His answers to all my questions.
