Turning To God

Sometimes events or tragedies enter our lives and as a result of this we feel confused, frustrated or lost, this is the time when many people turn to God for help. Other people are curious. Some want more from life. Some are just plain unhappy with their existence. Some feel that they want to move forward spiritually. For whatever the reason, the reason is personal for you and it is to be only shared between you and God. You are reading this because ‘you have a reason’, and I hope that I can help you find what it is that you are looking for. I hope when you read of my efforts to find out more about this mysterious spirit (soul?) that we call God, that you too, will feel the need to step further ahead and learn more about a simple and happy life which turns a blind eye to the glory of mankind and looks to the heavens and within ourselves for the glory of God and Gods children – mankind – You!

Because of the frustrated lost feeling, we are seeking guidance and love, we want help from above and also answers to events and results that we don’t understand. Once we make the decision to look further into religion we find that we have many, many questions about things that we do not understand. I had a large amount of questions mainly because I was a fan of science and technical studies. I felt that I was a logical man. As a home schooler I gave my children many lectures on science, the latest discoveries, electronics, computer programming and technical computers studies. I never told my children that God did not exist because I simply did not know the answer, and I felt that it was wrong for me to make a direct statement about something I did not know.

I knew that it was not going to be easy to convince me that God existed or even that Jesus existed, but things had been happening in my life that showed me that there was obviously more to human life than what science was suggesting. I say that science was “suggesting” because there is so much that they have no proof of, so many of their statements are mere suggestions.

First my family brought the Good News Bible and the Family Bible and then we finally got the King James Bible. I tried to read them and struggled with the text. I was never a fan of Shakespeare and all those “saith”, “thou” “”gavest” and comments like that had me confused and wondering what the Bible was all about. Still I was keen to learn more about this faith that had billions of people addicted to it since Jesus died many centuries ago. This was going to be hard, but at this time life was very hard for me in many ways anyway. I felt that I needed something to believe in because I was failing to believe in myself or the world at large.

First I told myself some things:

Billions of people cannot all be chasing a book of fables.
There was obviously more to faith than what was visible on the surface.
There was obviously more to the Bible than what was visible on the surface.
Life cannot be just a fluke of nature for humans.
I didn’t fancy being a descendant from an ape.
Everything being taught in the Bible was for our own good and for the good of mankind, this was obvious to me.

Okay I knew that some religious people abused their positions for their own selfish greed in a very worldly way, but I also reasoned that people in all walks of life do this. Look at the corruption often found in politics, the police force, school systems etc. So I put aside any thoughts about dishonest priests and the like. This faith thing obviously was not about abusing faith or positions of power it was more than that. But what, I didn’t know.

Most people can “feel” that there is more to life than what the school system teaches us. If we want to know, the school systems fail at this point because they expect that you should be happy with a good career and a family and have a total and complete trust in simple scientific statements. Schools sadly lack information about faith in yourself or in God. Life seems to be a track that we hope to conquer (and some people do) or we just wander through it hoping things may go our way.

The next step was obvious, I had to pray. I knew this but I came from a family that did not pray or believe in God. As a child I went to Sunday School briefly. My mother went to a Convent School when she was young but she had nothing but bad things to say about that experience. Dad showed no interest in the subject and appeared to only believe in himself. Both of my parents lived a very “worldly life” and my sisters and I were brought up in this atmosphere. So here I was in my early forties trying to learn how to pray. I didn’t go to a church and at that stage I wasn’t to keen to go to one for many reasons, among them not having a car that was road worthy, and there were too many churches to choose from where we live. Many churches cause confusion, I thought “If they all work for God then why is there not just one church?”, “Why so many?” It just didn’t seem to make sense to me.

So at that point I was on my own. I was shy of anyone seeing me pray, I wasn’t sure what I was doing and felt embarrassed getting down on my knees to pray to God or and I hoped that someone was listening to my prayers from Heaven. But I didn’t even know if God would listen to me, I figured that I wasn’t very important in the depth of things and to expect the maker of all things to listen to my little problems no matter how big they were to me seemed a bit too much. But still I got down on my knees and prayed. The first few times were a strange experience.

At this time in my life my world was falling to pieces, I was confused, very unhappy and very desperate. I blamed myself for my families pitiful position in life and felt self destructive. These were desperate times for me, to say that I was unhappy was an understatement. Life had very little meaning for me, my state of mind was shaky and so was my life. I had no friends at this time because my closest friends had left town so I felt truly alone and struggling to look after my children and survive.

At first I asked God for help, I told him that I was confused, lost and lonely. I shed more than a few tears during this period of my life. Tears are not easy to hold back when you feel that you have lost your pride and self worth. At this time I tried goal setting but I just didn’t have the heart for it. Chanting to myself how great I was going to be and the great things that I was going to do just didn’t seem to cut it anymore. I needed more, my heart and soul needed help.

As time went by I started to pray more and read bits and pieces from the Bible. Its was still a struggle trying to figure out what it was all about and the stories looked to me to be very much in the line of a great big fairy tale, especially the bit about Adam and Eve etc. But I kept at it hoping to learn more. I knew that others had learnt to have faith and I was determined that I would as well. I had tried to live for myself and my family and it didn’t work out. In many ways I had made great progress by myself but where it counted financially I had failed.

One of the things that I did to get a better idea about what God is all about, was to use the entertainment media. I searched the internet and found many very good web sites with free Bibles and other religious information. If you decide to use the internet I strongly suggest that you keep an open mind about what you find. The internet is a huge database system that holds billions of articles and information about many subjects. The misleading part of this huge database is that anybody can put up articles, and some articles don’t have to have any foundation of truth, and some are just downright misleading. Many of the web sites are just opinions of the writer, the writer need not have any experience in any field. Always be careful when getting data off the internet, use your common sense and logic to help you determine if the information on the web page is worth reading.

At this time of my life I was proud of all the information that I knew, and I still am. I had studied electronics and computer electronics and repair. I was an expert at using the internet and creating web sites. I could write computer software with reasonable ease. I had created many educational tutorials for the internet or with software. But still with all this knowledge I was desperately broke and unhappy. It just wasn’t working out and my mind was unhappy. Like many people before me I had a great need to find out more about this mysterious soul, God, and his famous son Jesus. I wanted to know whether they could help me because it was obvious to me that I had failed.

Life to me at this point was many years of struggling with the government paying my way until my children grew up or finding some job to try and cover my debts and struggle to get our lifestyle back up the level that the rest of the country was enjoying. I wanted to know whether God could help save me from this misery. I had read that many people fully believed that God had saved them. People had said that Jesus had died for them. Had I somehow missed the boat of knowledge about religion? How could these people feel saved while I felt depressed? Something was wrong and I wanted to find out for sure whether it was possible to get heavenly help from above.

Does God exist? Did Jesus exist? Was the world really created by God? Does the Bible tell the truth? Can Adam and Eve really have existed? So many questions and so few answers, I was going to need to do much homework if I was to even contemplate having total trust in God.

From the research I did I found out that the places in the Bible at Jesus’s time did exist. No actual proof of Jesus seems to exist, this adds to the faith theory. You have to have faith in Jesus and his existence. The people of the Bible did exist as far as billions of people are concerned. Am I to have faith in what science tells us? The one main advantage that the teachings of the Bible have over the “proof” of science is that the Bible states that humans are special, that we are loved by God. Not so with science, they state that we came from simple minded animals and that we have a history of brutality and animal instinct. The Bible talks of peace and love, living a healthy lifestyle.

I imagined that to know that God existed I needed to “feel” that God existed, what I mean by the word “feel” is to actually feel deep inside with conviction that God was the creator of all mankind and the universe as well as that he wanted to help me through my life and give me a chance to earn my place in the final Kingdom. How could I possibly do this and at the same time explain to you, the reader of this book how you could do this as well?

Getting a “feeling” from a book is not easy and that explains why many people read some of the Bible and then ignore it. I assumed that faith was like building a skyscraper, it would take time to build on the foundations that we originally feel and with time and patience we would “feel” the faith grow and grow.

I started to put lots of thought into the Bible teachings and what I knew about God and Jesus. There was also the often asked question: “Are God and Jesus the same person or soul?” Jesus calls himself the son of God or the son of man, and yet many people or religions think that they are the same person or soul. I don’t think it makes much difference what you believe where this is concerned, just that you know that God and Jesus love you whether they be the same or two different beings. The love is still the same.

I read a lot of different material about God from many different religions, I was trying to get more information from the many sources of information available today. I was not trying to proclaim to myself that one religion was greater than another. I had an interesting thought about all the different religions; “Could there be so many religions and churches because people of different walks of life needed different religions due to their beliefs and tastes?” Could all these religions and churches be blessed by God?

As I read I found that I was enjoying what I was reading. Persistence was the key. I found that the Bible has many answers to life. It is no wonder that it has been called the Book Of Life. As I read I gained a deeper sense of what the Bible was all about. I found that I was believing more and more in equal amounts to how much I read about religion. I concentrated on the Christian faith because its stems straight from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ taught the Christian faith and that was good enough for me. Parts of the Bible were beginning to make sense. I started talking to religious people and therefore gaining different views of the Bible and its teachings. At this stage I started talking “openly” about God and the Bible, I could feel that I was being “converted” or learning the secrets of mankind. I was converting myself without the help of others.

I started having some strong opinions about some things, for instance it was obvious to me that no one race was to blame for Jesus being crucified. Some religions and some religious people have made statements or given hints on this subject, in my opinion this is dangerous territory to get into. It is far better to believe that mankind was primitive thinking in many ways back in the time of Christ and the results showed that. Jesus Christ had his own unselfish reasons for dying the way that he did, its up to the individual, no matter who they are, to believe this. Its clear that Jesus Christ would have held no grudge against anybody, then why would some people or religions even consider that they should hold a grudge?

Many preachers are walking the world making many statements and offering answers to questions and often contradicting each other. All they are really doing is offering confusion to the public that wants to learn about God. The world at large seems to be very content in making idols of people, the movie industry is a great example of this as well as the music industry. People in religion face the same idolization. Whether a person is a Pope, a Bishop, a Priest, Reverend, Paster or whatever keep one thing in mind – They are human beings that are working for God. They do not need to be idolized, we were never meant to put them up on a pedestal and admired for the steps they have taken. They are human and with that no matter how Holy they try to be they will always fall short of perfection. They are flesh and blood, they struggle and make mistakes in many ways just like you and I. We can like them, we can love them – But we should never idolize them for that is not why they chose their occupation as a worker for God. Like all people in any form of authority they should be used to help each and every one of us to grow spiritually. They have a job to do for you and I and most importantly for God. We are to listen to them and let them teach us about God and the Holy Word.

When people are idolized like a saint then they tend to weaken in other areas. Their ego suffers, like all of us. You and I can remember times in our past when we were given a fair amount of attention and then we struggled with ourselves when we felt very special, we had to probably fight off vanity and arrogance. It would be hard for us to expect religious people to not feel that they are “special” in certain ways. Sometimes they use their trust and our faith in them for their own weaknesses, this behaviour must be stopped immediately and that person should be instantly removed from their position as Gods messenger.

Many people are ‘put off’ with all the different views of the Bibles text. I think a lot of our finding God has to be done within ourselves and not from other people whether they be a preacher or not. After all Gods temple is said to be our bodies, so the temple is within us and not to be found at a church. This brings me to believe that the search starts and finishes from within our very souls, not in the house of God – a church. Being with Christians obviously helps though. But a well run church can give us a greater understanding of Jesus Christ and why he was here on Earth. We can learn about God and his power and what he was trying to achieve here with people.

I found a church and started to go regularly on Sundays. Its was an interesting experience. I got to know many people and I enjoyed their company.

To become a follower of God we will need a (probably) long period of change. This is when we make a commitment to change our life path, change our lifestyle to suit the Holy lifestyle that God requests of us. This can take time depending on how you are before you decide to change your life in this way. I suggest that you define to yourself what it is that could be called a sin that you are currently doing. You know in your heart that there is only Good and Bad, no in between. Go with your instinct, not selfishness or greed. Read the Bible for hints and direction while you are deciding what sins are currently part of your life. Maybe you could write this list down and put it somewhere safe so you can view it in the future and tick off those changes that you have made. Read the Ten Commandments. Jesus does not tell us to change our life and follow his word (The Bible), he suggest to us that we should consider this change of lifestyle. The choice is yours.

It is my belief that people hold themselves mentally responsible for the bad things that they do and have done in the past, even if they do not know it. Their shame and internal disappointment festers inside them causing deep unhappiness and self pity. Some are angry with the world because they believe that it is the worlds fault that they have had to behave the way that they have. We currently live in a generation that denies that they sin or do bad. Often stating that the word “sin” is outdated or nonexistent. One lady told me that she was told that the word ‘sin’ was added to the Bible many years after the Bible was put together in one book. This is a new belief, an obviously false belief, one that lets people believe that they are free from sin and they will always be forgiven for any bad thing that they do, which gives them an excuse to continue to sin and feel good about it. All you need to believe is that the word sin is used to describe activities that are bad for you, physically and spiritually. And like anything that is bad for you, you should avoid it because bad things give bad results and in the long run they will be results that you don’t need.

My own experience with the word ‘sin’ goes like this. At first I didn’t like the word at all. It seems like a put-down, a way to verbally abuse myself by calling myself a dammed sinner. It seemed to me that a person had to be sick-minded to accuse themself of sin and then praying to God to be forgiven. I figured that it was those who admitted sin who were the ones with the problem, I was alright, I was just trying to get through life and I could do that well enough (or so I thought) without putting myself down at the same time. Some religious groups don’t help when they point to people and call them “sinners” and like many people I had already run into them more than once. But I discovered that a word can get a bad name, even a word like ‘sin’ or ‘sinner’. As I went through life I started to realise that yes I had done a few things wrong and yes they did fit the description of the word sin. It took some time but I gradually realised that the word ‘sin’ is a word that described the bad things that people do to others or to themselves. These things are seen as unholy because they do not fit what God wants us to do or what we really (deep inside) don’t want ourselves to do. We all want to think that we are good and do not do bad things even while we are currently doing a bad thing. The human mind is a grand thing but it is also a good fibber to itself when it wants to be.

Once I got comfortable with the word ‘sin’ I then began to look at it in a different manner. And this was when I really changed many of the bad habits that I had. I used many different methods trying to find ways to beat my problems. Sometimes I would tell myself that I did not want to sin and that sinning was a bad thing to do and I would much prefer a happier life with lots of good love in it without the stress and unhappiness that I had before. Reminding myself that I didn’t want to sin helped me greatly.

The big advantage is that once you have turned from sin, you need not call yourself a sinner anymore. That is the past, the future is to come and the future is your chance to rewrite your life no matter how old you are. You are no longer a sinner, you are now one of Gods children working at being a nicer more loving person that God will be proud of. The past is gone and the future is here – go with it and enjoy your new existence. Let the power of Gods Grace and love lead you to a more meaningful life and happiness. Always be forever thankful that God is there and His love for you gave you this great chance to start your life over again. Take Gods gift to you with both hands and grow with it.

You may have noticed that really badly behaved people look worn out and unhappy most of the time. It is as if the sin in their lives causes them to wear out early in life, adding many years to their looks. In fact this may be the case. Physically and mentally people who do bad deeds often look the part, even gossipers seem to look the part. Many people spend lots of money finding cosmetics and other means to try to hide their early ageing looks, but they mostly look worse for their effort although other people are too polite to tell them this.

I have met some people who have changed their life from the moment they prayed and asked God to forgive them. Some have told me how they broke down crying and after praying for the first time felt relieved. Many have said that they feel that a great weight has been lifted off their shoulders and they truly believe that they are now free of their past sins and can try again to be better, loving people following the laws that God has set for mankind. Some people laugh and feel joyfully happy at the thought of having their past mistakes removed from their souls.

When a person prays to God for forgiveness for their sins, they cleanse their soul with Gods forgiveness and start a new life from that moment onwards. If a person is mentally suffering for their past this is the medicine that they desperately need. This is spiritual medicine, no chemical medicine has ever saved a persons soul from inner torment. This spiritual medicine works on a persons heart and soul, healing them from the inside outward and allowing them to move forward in a new attempt to start all over again. To clear your mind from past mistakes is a great thing and everyone should try it.

Be honest with yourself, make definite steps to remove these problem areas from your life. This may be hard and take time, but I know that God will not be angry with you for trying. You may lose old friends while you change your life. If you were like me and grew up in a home of worldly sinful behaviour, you will find that you could have a struggle on your hands. Old habits are hard to break. This is where praying can help you. You can pray and ask for guidance on how to stop yourself from a bad habit. Tell God that you need his help. Read this book and other books to try to understand what it is that makes you tick and why you behave the way that you do. It really helps to learn to understand yourself. If you feel that it is important that you need to change then let it be known in your prayers. Be honest with God and with yourself. Call for Jesus to be at your side and to take your hand and guide you.

I am going to tell you something here that some religious people don’t seem to believe in. People pray for Gods help or Gods guidance but they don’t look for clues that prove that God is helping them. Many people don’t seem to actually believe that God will help them while they are here on Earth. Many people seem to believe that all they have to do is be good, worship God and they will go to the promised land – The Final Kingdom. They forget that God can actually help them while they are here on Earth.

When you pray for help on a specific subject, look for those so-called coincidences that help solve the problem. Somebody who can help you with the problem may all of a sudden appear in your life. You may “find” something that could be of use to you in your search to solve the problem. Or you may feel that you are being led in a direction that will help solve the problem. What I am saying here is that, if you are not listening or looking you may not find the clues that are being given to you. Asking for Gods guidance and help will get you an answer, and help “will” come your way. So what I am suggesting is that you:

Pray for guidance and help.
While you are trying to find the answers to a problem, look out for helpful events or coincidences that will lead you to finding the answers that you are searching for.
Thank God whenever an answer appears.

Be warned, if you have any selfish prayers, you can forget getting any good results. Be honest, be good. Always tell the truth to God because God knows when you are telling fibs. You can fool yourself, you can fool your friends, but you cannot fool God. Sound a bit silly? How can it be, you prayed and asked for help. What do you expect God to do? Nothing? If you pray God will help you but it may not be obvious. God works in mysterious ways. Be open minded and keep a good lookout for those coincidences. Be prepare to be amazed. Sometimes God may guide you in a different direction than the one you were aiming for, this could be for many reasons. But one thing you can know for sure – it will be done in your best interest.

Never pray for somebody to be punished. Pray for your enemies to be blessed with love and happiness, the reason is clear. If your enemies are fill of love and happiness then they will not treat you badly or anyone else. And over time they will not be your enemies anymore because they will be more like you. Do not expect all your prayers to be answered all at once. Imagine what would happen in the world if all our prayers were answered at once, imagine if all the religious people world-wide got their prayers answered at once. Sometimes it takes time to organise things so that your good prayers and other peoples good prayers can be answered, you have to be patient and good. Waiting is not the end of the world and while you wait, do the best that you can to put your wishes in action yourself.

Some people say Submit Yourself To God. A long while ago I didn’t know how to take this sentence. Submit meant to me to lower myself, to beg, to weaken myself before someone else, to be a slave of, to suffer and not complain, to yield, to surrender and other thoughts of the same nature. I have since learnt that the word Submit means something else here. It is a good word and is needed to help you, not so that God can look down on you. First we need to get it into our thoughts that God is not evil therefore God would not want you to submit or lower yourself for any reason other than for your own happiness. God loves you and does not like the thought of seeing you crawl, cry, beg or be unhappy. God does want to see you succeed and be happy.

My daughter Rachel explains it this way:

If a person does not submit themself to God then they are more than likely the type of person who won’t listen when they are given advice. They will argue when they are given good solid advice. They are proud and stubborn. They love to argue even when they are wrong because they hate to admit it when they are wrong. This type of person has many barriers around themself to stop God from helping him or her. This is why God needs us to be humble, honest, trusting and full of goodness.

A humble person will submit themself to God. If you surrender (submit) yourself to God for help, love and understanding then you are obviously going to listen to what God has to say. You are in favour of receiving Gods help and guidance. There are many things that you could do that would be worse than submitting yourself to God. The best advice I can offer you is for you to submit yourself to God and let God guide you toward a happier life. Remember that God loves you and wants the best for you and your family. God did not put you on this planet to deal with the situations that will appear every now and then without help – God made you in such a way that you can deal with all the situations (challenges) that are offered to you during your lifetime.

Being At Peace With God

A person should be at peace with God, just as a person should be at peace with themself. To be at peace with yourself is to be happy with yourself, to be at peace with God is to be happy with God. For some people when they decide to believe in God they are looking for somebody to blame for the bad time in their life so they quickly blame God since He created all and everything. This is simply done because new believers are not sure who God is and what God is all about. If they new who God is and what God was trying to achieve with human beings then they would understand, unfortunately understanding takes time and patience. But the wait is worth it.

God is the symbol of peace, love, harmony and happiness. There should be no anger or blame thrown at God even in your most angry moments. The workings on Earth are done by Earthly people, not God. God is the sign of love and caring, therefore God should never be blamed for any of your pains or unhappiness.

If you are at peace with God you will feel that you are in trusting hands. So my advice to you when you pray to God is to show that you are at peace with God in your prayers. Let God know that you love Him and that you care. Show God how you can be a good person by acting out the part in your daily life. And always recognise Jesus for what He did for us as well.

Our Beliefs

Human beings need to build up their spiritualness as well as their physicalness to be complete. We are beings that “need” to be whole, to fulfil part of us is not to complete the full needs of our existence. It is like painting half a painting and leaving the rest blank, we would get a feeling that the painting should be finished, we would want to see it finished. It gives the impression of the job half done. How would you like to feel half done? This is the way many people feel, they just don’t understand the feeling and what it means to them.

Humans need to believe in something. We need to “taste” the joy of being complete and the only way to be complete is to have faith in ourselves and in God. To believe that Jesus gave his very life for each and everyone of us is to believe that we are something special, that we mean something to the creator of all the universe. We are not whole without this belief.

Those who trundle around this planet with a full and total belief in “the system”, themselves and scientific answers, can and possibly will do well on this planet, but they miss out of this wonderful belief of specialness. God wants us and we need God. God loves us when the world doesn’t love us. God is all forgiving even if the world does not forgive us.

To wake up each morning and know the feeling of being wanted forever, to be truly wanted for just being you, is a wonderful thing that only some people know the pleasure of. When our loved ones let us down God rises above all in a mist of pure joyful love that cannot be outdone by anyone or anything. This is truly “The Greatest Love Of All”.

To believe is to free your very soul of the mistakes of the past, there is no more self torture for mistakes that you have made, no more hating yourself, no more shame or disrespect for yourself, only love for yourself and for God. Your belief in God is total and the security from this faith is unsurmountable, it cannot be conquered by anyone, it is total and complete. Once you know that God is helping guide your life on a daily basis then you know that whatever troubles that you have are only tests. Test of your faith, tests of your love and tests of your courage to get through it all.

Your confidence will grow once you know that you are not alone and that God is within you. Who better to have at your side through the trials of life, who better to take you through the rough days ahead than the creator himself. You know that God will guide you in the right direction, all that is left for you to do is make the correct choices, if you fail then God will set it up (when you are ready) so that you will try again. When you pass each test you move on to the next test, all the while you are watched and guided by Gods helpers showing you the way to success. This love and guidance is beyond the love and guidance of this world, for it comes from the heavenly heights to you from the greatest one of all with pure untainted love to you, his child, all this from God.

You had the opportunity to take this love into your heart from the moment you were able to read the Bible, your chance is here. You have been shown by people, by the Bible, by movies, books etc. You have no excuse to pass up this wonderful opportunity.

Gods Plans For You!

In this world you have two real choices to take to base your life on. One is to live the life of chance, the life that scientist suggest by stating that we came from animals. This lifestyle is based on the thoughts that we were created by chance and obviously we try to make the best of life believing that luck and other features of this lifestyle like coincedances and the like will help us and guide us.

The other choice is believe that God has a plan for you. Many people believe that you (your soul) and God worked out the plan before your birth and it is your option during your lifetime to decide whether to take on the plan. With this system your life was not a chance creation but ordained by God. Your life has meaning and there is a job for you to do. Each and every person has a part to play in the running of the world whether the part be small or large it makes no difference, what is important is that the job that you have to do is for God and the world.

How can you find out what the plan is for you? Well it is obvious for me to suggest that you believe in God, Jesus and the Bible. And you would have to become a good Christian and lead a good life. Then you will find that the plan will become a part of your life because you will be guided to it. If you have trust in God and His plan it will all come to be as it should. Since God represents good your plan will be based on the good of all including yourself and those that you love. You have nothing to lose and plenty to gain. God rewards those who ask to do Gods bidding.

I want you to seriously consider what I am saying here. I am not asking you to do the impossible, I am asking you to consider doing the job that was intended for you by yourself and God. God would never ask you to do what you are not able to do. God is your friend, He showed us that when His son Jesus died on the cross. Gods plan for you is designed to help you as well as help others.

If you have a weakness then God will find ways to guide you to overcome those weaknesses. Once you have overcome these weaknesses God will guide you to your plan so that you can carry it out with courage and strength. You will be fully prepared for the job at hand. You will also have the greatest help available to you in the form of Gods guidance. The going may be tough for a while, while you learn how to cope with the new changes in your life, but you must be patient with the process. The struggle is part of your learning and growing spiritually and finding ways to get over your weaknesses. No one that I ever heard of said that being good was going to be easy. It is much easier being a failure than being a success, that is why the world has its fair share of failures.

By completing the plan that has been set aside for you, you will gain plenty. You will be a stronger more assured person and God will lead you onto other events which will help you during your life. Gods will is only for good and with you being part of that good you can only benefit from it. This is one of the reasons that you will find many happy Christians during your lifetime.

If you have doubts about yourself then God will help you feel like a natural person. A person with meaning. A person who has a reason to be alive. All you need to do is pray for God to help you and ask to do His bidding.

Trust In God

Why can it be so hard to learn to trust in God? With the teaching we get today, all based on science and practical things we all want to believe that we can trust ourselves. What even complicates the issue more is the push for people to trust in themselves and believe that they have the power to do anything that they want to do. “You can be whatever you want to be” state the many who are trying to motivate millions of people to do what they can for themselves. Some call this the “Me, me, me” era where everyone is trying to satisfy their own needs in an effort to give themself all that they can. You shouldn’t be surprised to see that the family unit is suffering when it tries to live alongside the “Me, me, me” era.

It can be hard to trust in God not because God is not worth trusting or because we don’t believe in God, but because modern schooling and teachings are based on each individual looking after each individual. How can you trust in God if you have this deep desire to try to trust in yourself first and foremost? When many people lay academic awards and compliments on your head it is hard for you not to believe that you can trust in yourself, you are obviously proving yourself. Why would you need God? Why would you need anyone? When people fail they believe its because they are a failure and not because they did not trust in God.

We are told that if we succeed then we deserve the results of that success, all good things come to people who succeed and who work hard for what they personally desire. Sadly there is an if in that sentence. The other side of the coin is if we don’t succeed then it can logically be stated that We Failed! Hows that for motivation! So what are people telling us is – if we don’t succeed then we deserve the results – failure? Ouch that hurts. Its hard to pick oneself up after one falls, and to be told that even before I try I am pre-programmed to know that if I fail it is my fault and I deserve the results of my failure. No wonder people are desperate to succeed. But sometimes we fail not because we made a mistake, but something happened beyond our personal control that caused us to fail, and mentally we still feel a failure. Many people tend not to care, they are only interested in the fact that we failed.

A certain amount of people fail after doing motivational courses and reading motivational books. This can be devastating for them, they know that the books work for other people, but not for them. Does this mean that they are simple minded and couldn’t follow the instructions? These people suffer the failure of trying, this can be a very negative experience for them. To be told that you can do anything and then fail puts all sorts of negative pressure on the human mind. It also makes it harder to try again.

By trusting in God we put all the pressure aside and know that God is at our side helping us on a daily basis. We can read books or attend courses that help us but with God at our side we can rest assured that everything will eventually work out alright. A constant belief in God means that we don’t need to keep pumping ourself up with motivational statements because God will show us the way. For me it took time for me to trust in God, mainly I believe because I spent so many years reading motivational books to try to tell myself that I would succeed and to trust in myself. But when I failed oh did it hurt? My pride was dashed, my heart deflated. What I needed was a plan that was worked out by somebody else, a foolproof plan that would succeed no matter what.

God has a foolproof plan for you to follow, but you obviously have to trust that God can and will want to help you. By believing that God loves you, you can then believe that the strongest power in the world is helping you. How could you fail? God has the resources to point your into the right direction to success.

You go to school and you try hard in the beginning. As the years go by you watch other people doing well, you struggle with the subjects. This confuses you, you wonder why you are not as smart as the other students. Over time a negative feeling comes over you, this feeling is created by watching other students succeed while you flounder on the shore hoping you will one day get a grasp of school work. Finally you give up and turn to the lifestyle that you think will suit you. You leave school early and become a single parent or a labourer, money is hard to come by and you feel that the system has let you down. But you have friends, many friends who all have the same beliefs and lives, you may not talk about it but you know that you are the same in this special way. But you know its not good enough.

The Power Of Prayer

The art of praying can be studied in many different ways, lets look at some of them below. We all know that the aim of praying is to get in contact with a higher being or to many The Creator, God.

We have seen earlier in this book that we can state positive sentences to ourselves and expect positive results from this continuous effort. This is goal setting and affirmations. When we pray to God we actually do the same thing, but with the added benefit of getting help from heaven. If a person prays the correct way then they are only praying for good things, not greed or evil wants, so a good prayer session with God will definitely not do you any harm. And it will confirm the good things that you want in life, to yourself and God.

For instance you ask God to bless the neighbour next door, this is a good thing. You ask God to help you in a task, this is another good thing. Lets say that the task is to finish a project before a certain date. By constantly praying for help and the ability to do the deed in question, then you are constantly reminding yourself that you must do the job and get it done before the date mentioned in your prayers. This is the same as goal setting with a positive attitude. But the real advantage to you is that you are also asking for Gods help. This is the most important reason for praying.

There is definite power in prayer as long as the prayer is for good reasons and you are not wishing ill on some person or wishing something bad to happen.

Praying also gives you somebody to talk to when the chips are down, even when family members don’t want to talk to you. God will always be listening and you can talk to God whenever you want, you don’t need a phone number, you don’t need an appointment, you don’t need to pay any money, and you don’t need to beg for the opportunity to share your heart with God and the worthy souls of heaven.

All you need is a quiet place to get the connection to God that you need and that quiet place is inside your mind. When a person is stressed and has nobody to talk to then they can set aside some time and pray for as long as they want, but the real joy is that after you have prayed you would be amazed at how good you can feel after ‘getting the problem off your chest’. So take a load off your shoulders and pray!

Some people pray to God and ask for help and they complain when the help is not forthcoming immediately. This is a sad impression that misguided people get when they are impatient. God needs to see that you are putting in a good effort, trying to achieve what it is that you asked for.
It is amazing that some people expect God to do something for them that they would not do for others. Here is an example of this. Parents won’t give something to a their own teenager unless the teenager earns it, yet the same parents may expect God to give them something for nothing, just because they prayed.

One way to think of God would be to see God as a parent, and that you are a child. No matter how wise or old you are here on Earth, God is older and wiser, therefore God knows what is really best for you and you need to be humble enough to realise this and accept this fact. Depending on your ‘real feelings’ toward God you will be rewarded or helped.

Your prayers may seem to take a while to be answered but before you come to this conclusion take a good honest look at yourself and your activities. If you are as honest and good as you suggest by praying then good things will come your way, but if you have dishonest thoughts or activities then you will surely have to wait until you have mended your ways and improved yourself in the eyes of God.

It stands to reason, God is associated with holiness and good, so then God will help those who, like God, are holy and good and believe in Him and Jesus Christ.

Many people go through life doing whatever they want, stepping on peoples toes, doing mischief and the like and then suddenly they notice that they are in their declining years and they panic and finally decide to put some serious thought into whether God really exists. I have witnessed this throughout my life and it always amazes me whenever I see it happen again. These people really are shallow minded enough to think that God doesn’t notice that they have started to pray in their later years as they get closer to their mortal end. They start to panic and hope that God will help them into heaven even after a lifetime of ignoring Him and bad behavior. These people must pray with total honesty and love God truly with their heart and soul.

So be good and honest and pray for Gods help and be amazed by the results. God will accept you at any age, just be sure that you want to go Gods way because you really believe in God with all the love in your heart.

Some people pray as they go through their day without really starting or finishing the prayer. They just ask questions of God like “God what should I do about this?” “Please God help me find the watch that I lost this morning?” This is actually very comforting knowing that God is there with you all day helping you do whatever it is you have to do. The choice is your how you pray but always remember you are praying for help, friendship, worship and love. The greatest power of all is with you as you do your daily chores, why not make the relationship a worthy one and get to know God better.

I know a preacher that prays all the time and he prays for everything that he needs. He was telling me one day of how he prayed for a new church van. He wrote down all the items that he wanted the van to have. He wrote the color he desired, the size of the van and how many seats it needed to have. And then he prayed for it and within a period of time he got exactly the van he wanted. This man told me that he did this everytime he needed something. This is goal setting with prayer. This is a powerful method of getting what you need through prayer. This preacher fully believed that God was with him and that God would help him get what he needed.

What To Say

You can say anything when you pray. Here are some examples:

You could pray for

for Gods guidance in all places in your life
for Gods protection from bad and evil
how you would like Gods guidance for a particular thing
your days events and the hope that the day will be a good one
things that you want in life
how you want to improve yourselves
how you want to improve the life of others
people who need help
people who are helping you
people you would like to be blessed
how you wish the world was a better place, how and why
your hearts desires
how you love God and all those in heaven
how happy you are
how grateful you are for the things that you have, worldly and spiritual
how much you love your family
how much you love your husband or wife
how grateful you are to have children
how happy your life is
for other people who are currently having a crises
for a sick person or persons
for strength and patience
for the ability to wait for betters things
for Gods love
for Gods help and forgiveness

To pray is to converse with God and yourself at the same time. By praying you reassure yourself of what you want in life. Praying is also a safe way to ensure that the things that you want or ask for are good, you would never pray to God for something bad now, would you? Praying helps keep your thoughts pure and on the right path because the things that you will pray for or about will always be of a good nature, you will extinguish all bad thoughts and thoughts of selfishness.

Praying and asking for a person or persons to be blessed is to wish them happiness or good fortune for now and the future. It is a great thing for somebody to say to you “God Bless You!” and “Bless your soul” or “May God Bless Your Soul” or any suggested or asked for blessings from God.

The Heavenly Problem Solving Formula

If you have a problem that bothers you and you cannot seem to find an answer, or you know the answer is there in your mind but it just won’t surface, a good way to deal with this is to pray for the answer. Let God know that you have a problem and that you need an answer. And as the day goes by you will find that the answer will pop into your head. After you have the answer be sure to pray to God and say “Thank you!”

This is one of the greatest secrets to living Gods way and having God help you. So many people ignore this simple method that can be used to help solve their problems. You have the power of God at your fingertips when you hold your hands in the position for prayer. Remember “God wants to help you.” You wouldn’t turn away help from a good friend would you? Billions of people have used this method with great success and many billions will use this heavenly problem solving formula in the future.

Sometimes it may take a while for you to get the answer because you may be being given a chance to find it for yourself or you are being pointed in a direction that will help you grow as a person while answering your question at the same time. Many people believe that God tests us in many ways to see how we do in awkward situations. This is nothing to worry about, all you need to do is keep trying honestly and good will come to you.

Always keep in mind that in order to get the best from Gods help you must be living a good lifestyle and help your fellow humans. When you see your child or any child helping another child it makes you smile, the same is true when God sees you help other people. Be sure to use the greatest power in the universe and be blessed by your heavenly Father – God.

Nothings Happening

Sometimes when we pray it appears that nothing is happening and it appears that your prayers are not being answered. This could be because you have something to do to get things going. Remember your life is about you and the activities that you are active in and your thoughts, everything must be good for your prayers to be answered and if your activities and thoughts are not good during your day and night then you must work hard at changing those activities and thoughts. You will be helped while you attempt to improve your lifestyle and thoughts. When you ask for Gods help you are never alone and are always being helped even if it is not obvious to you. This is one of the reasons that you have to have faith. To believe, is to receive.

Don’t worry, if you have faith and the willpower to keep trying your life will get better. Never give up and always keep in mind that you have the greatest power that ever was helping you. Have patience because some things take time, you have to earn your new place in the world of good people. Gods guidance will help show you the way.

If you are taking mind limiting drugs or lots of alcohol then things will be much harder for you, you really need to remove these influences from your life to get the best help from God. If you cannot think clearly then you cannot be helped so the choice is yours. Many people make the sad mistake of believing that all they have to do is pray and wham, God will do some super miracle and all will be well. That is often not how its done, you have to work for your new Godly life here on earth and you have to remove all your bad habits for it to come to pass. In other words you have to prove that you are worthy of Gods help and it takes time and patience on your behalf for your prayers to be answered and when your prayers are answered your life will change for the better.

This world is full of so many amazing events happening all the time and it is often hard to see the improvements that are happening in your life after you have asked for Gods help. This is one of the reasons we need to look at all the things that we are grateful for. If you were to list all the things that you are grateful for, you will see the changes that are happening in your life as each month goes by. God will not let you down, but you might let yourself down by giving up. You have to stick to it, day after day, month after month.

If you fail and do something wrong, you have to keep going. God knows that it will take time and effort for you to change and God is willing to stand by you until you do change no matter how long it takes. All He asks is that you don’t give up.

If you feel that your prayers are not being answered consider that you may have sinned in some way and that you have separated yourself from God. Always remember that it is your actions that separate you from God. God never separates Himself from you. In these instances you need to pray for forgiveness, even though you may not remember what you may have done that day that could be considered as bad. Ask for forgiveness anyway. When you make a mistake or sin say a prayer in your mind asking for forgiveness immediately. Let God know that you have recognised the mistake that you made and that you are humble enough to ask for forgiveness once the mistake has been discovered by you. Your actions tell God that it was a slip-up and not your real character as you forge forward toward being a good Christian.

Pray With Power And Depth

Pray with your feelings, let yourself go and pray with earnestness and desire. Pray with depth and feeling straight from the heart, let God know why you are praying and what you expect to get from the effort of your prayers. Encourage yourself to pray often. Pray as if you expect to get something from the energy that you put into your prayers.

Let your emotions show when you are praying. If you feel sad and desperate and you have a strong desire to cry then do it, cry. Tell God your hopes and dreams, be truthful and faithful in your prayers.

Never curse God or blame God for anything as this would be a desperate mistake on your behalf, I am not saying that God will strike you dead or anything like that. I am saying that you shouldn’t hurt those who love you and that includes God and the angels and the souls of Heaven that love you dearly. They want to help you get through whatever is hurting you.

Make A List

You can make a list of the things that you would like to pray for. Such as praying for people who are ill, praying for the goodwill of mankind, praying for people that have helped you. And don’t forget to pray that your enemies will change and go Gods way in the future.

Pray For Your Enemies

I have met more than a few people who struggle with this one. Praying for your enemies is a good thing to do. When somebody hurts you need to clear it from your mind to keep your happiness and sanity. By praying for that person you are asking God to help that person because you have no hatred for that person (you have forgiven them for their folly against you) and you are “big enough in heart and soul” to know that to forgive “is to forget (forget the issue)” and its time to move on.

You can pray and ask God to bless those people who try to harm you physically or mentally. You can ask God to show them the errors of their ways. You can tell God that you forgive the person that has hurt you and you can ask God to forgive them as well, also asking God to please help guide that person in the hope that the person will not make the same mistake again.

Kindness is the key here, remember Jesus showed us the way. He showed us how to be kind and to forgive those who know not what they are doing. Many people would not do harmful things to others if they knew the results of their efforts before they started. I have seen many people genuinely shocked when they have inadvertently caused harm and then fight defiantly to keep their pride even though they know they caused it all and they actually regret the entire event and the harm that it caused. But once accused they believe that they must defend themselves to the utmost, it’s a very sad and misleading reaction to a simple mistake.

Take your frustrations out in prayer. Let God know how you feel and what it is that is bothering you on this day. Explain the problem and ask for help and Gods Guidance. Let your heart go, let the words flow being careful to keep to the subject of the problem and explain the hopes that you have that God can and will find a way to help you solve this problem. Prayer is a time when you can let your feelings go, especially when you feel so helpless or your heart is broken. Show your love and kindness when you pray, blessing all those people that you know, good or bad.

Never let human weakness through when you pray to God as this would not be seen in good light, but instead show your courage as often as possible to let God know that He has great humans walking the walk on Earth in His heavenly name. Pray often for other people, pray for their salvation, pray that they will be happy, pray that they will be forgiven for their sins.

You should pray for all people everywhere and not just those who help you through you daily life. Pray for those people who are victims of nature or accidents. Pray for bad people, or people who have hurt or harmed you. Think of how much you would please God if He were to find out that it was your prayers that helped a bad person become a good person.

Start looking around you day by day looking for people to pray for. Search the streets, your workplace, family and friends. Look everywhere for people or even animals to pray for. The worlds people need your prayers, because your prayers are love. And when you pray for other people you are showing God that you care for His people, that you love them, and that you are sincere in your beliefs and love for everyone – Love Thy Neighbour.

The power of prayer is incredible and those people who have seen the direct results of prayer will easily agree with me on this subject. You may not be a millionaire. You may not have many material items to your name. You may be lonely, shy and timid. It doesn’t matter what you own or who you are, you have the power to change peoples lives with prayer. You have the power to make things happen, so please do so. You will never regret your efforts in prayer.

Your concern for other people must be true. Love Thy Neighbour is about your love and concern for all of Gods people. There is no choosing of one or the other, all of the world is Gods creation and all of the people of the world are Gods people. Some are those who have chosen to be Gods children, but all are to be loved. So pray for all people on this planet, no matter what race or type of person it is, pray for everyone.

Trusting Jesus
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away;
behold, all things are become new.

Trusting Jesus seems at first to be an easy thing to do and for some people it is. But for some others their trust has to grow with time and Christian study. All those items in the last sentence point toward reasons why most people struggle with Christianity. Believing and having total faith in something that you cannot see, can be a very hard thing to do and this is why many people go to Christianity when they are desperate and all else has failed. They want to believe in something because life and they themselves have let themself down. When times are hard and we have nobody else to turn to, Jesus Saves.

So how can we trust somebody who is not physically alive and who we cannot see? For some people it can take a fair while to get to know Jesus by reading many books about Jesus Christ and Christianity. For some people they have to “grow” with Christianity. When a person wants to learn a new subject they obviously have to study that subject, they also have to do the ‘”practical” side of the study and that’s where praying is so important. Praying, worshiping and talking about Christianity is the practical, physical side of religion.

Fellowship – is mingling with Christians and this is good because it gives you a chance to talk to people who do trust Jesus and will talk openly about God, Jesus and Christianity. Doing this will help you enjoy other Christians enthusiasm, they will try to offer explanations to questions that you may have. They will tell you how they have been blessed by God since they became Christians. You most often will not get this positive feedback from non-Christians.

Worship God Always And Do All Things to His Glory
While you, as a good Christian worship God, the creator of all things, consider doing all things in Gods Glory.

A good Christian friend told me of this wonderful way to honour God. He said that when he works he says to himself that he does it to the glory of God. This makes him happy even when he does those mundane boring chores that we all have to deal with during our life. This is a wonderful way for us to motivate ourselves. After hearing this I decided to do the same.

While you, as a good Christian worship God, the creator of all things, consider doing all things in Gods Glory. Doing this can give you relief and feel good about your role in Gods creation. God created all, so therefore all that you do should be in Gods honour as He has given this wonderful gift – your life and all good things that are available to you.

When you start one of those boring chores say a short prayer to God telling Him that you are doing this chore in His honour. Explain that you will do the best that you can to show how much you care for His plan and to show your love. Then get on with the job knowing full well that the creator is watching you, His loyal child doing all things in His honour – to His Glory.

Make every breath of your life count for the life that you have had gifted to you. Carry each breath to do Gods will and you shall never regret the sacrifices you make in His honour.

The Simplicity Of Prayer And Worship
God kept it simple so that no matter where you are you can be in contact with God in this special spiritual way.

Prayer and worship. When we pray we don’t need any props to help us pray. God saw to it that contact with Him would be in a manner that is very simple and easy to use. No church is needed (although it is a wonderful thing to worship God with fellow Christians), no ornaments or special structures made. Special garments will make no difference in your effort to get closer to God. Many people today decide to use some form of equipment to help them ‘see’ God, but what is misunderstood here is that we are not able to see God. But we can worship God in spirit. We must remember that God is not the same as us and that He and Jesus Christ are only here in spirit, not in physical form. We need to pray and worship from the heart.

God kept it simple so that no matter where you are you can be in contact with God in this special spiritual way. Nothing is required except your faith and belief that God will hear you, because He can and wants to hear from you. If your church uses elaborate equipment, special clothing (garments), crosses’s, always remember that this in only how your particular church deals with worship. It is not required by God for you to worship in this way.

All additional physical equipment and other similar items are only used to make people feel better, they are not really useful at all. The Holy Spirit and the Bible are what are available to help you guide your life. You can worship and pray to God from the back of an old car, in a forest, on the top of a mountain, anywhere at all. Worship does not have to guided by any rules created by mankind. The whole process is simple and basic, and that is how God intended it to be. Likewise you can pray wherever you are. There are no special books needed, just love for God and your honest want to be closer to Him.

Conclusion

Once a person reaches a certain stage of improvement or growth in personal inner strength in their life then this is the point at which they can come close to God. When a person grows personally and spiritually in harmony, then you will find that this person will finally reach a state where they feel calmer and can deal with life in a manner that sets him apart from his or her peers. This condition is what I would term as being as close to the standard that God wants us to be in because God can help us best when we are like this. Like this we are eager to listen and eager to learn. Your aim during your lifetime should be to reach this stage of development as soon as you can so that you can enjoy your life and enjoy Gods help along the way.

If you prayed to God and asked for something, you must realise from that point on it could very easily become a reality. There can be many factors that affect the outcome. One is whether what you want is really viable for you and your family? Will you have to get more skills to get what it is that you wanted? How long could (will) it take before what you want can become true? Are you willing to totally trust God? Do you really believe that God will help you? Are you praying for something that God wants? Are you being selfish? Are you a good Christian?

Next you have to be able to go with God – Go with total trust in God. Let yourself be guided in the direction that you wanted to be guided in. Let yourself be guided in the direction that will lead to your dreams to coming true. Let the river of Gods love float you in the direction that is best for you. You need to have faith in Gods help. Let yourself be guided without resisting or fighting the flow. Sometimes you will be guided in a direction that you won’t understand but eventually that direction will help in some way. It may get you to your goal faster, it may solve some of your financial problems first before your are shown the right way to go. You may have to take a drop in wages for a while, but that particular job that you have may teach you something else that may help God, mankind or you in the future. God may want you to dump a CEO job to become a preacher or missionary, the choice is actually yours.

You may find that you are guided toward people (work mates, new friends, sports clubs, community groups, church membership etc.) to teach you more about human behaviour and how you should behave when in the company of other people. Its all about growth and about love and personal development. Always remember that with God at your side, even if the going looks terribly rough, you can only succeed if you keep believing, although success may come in many ways and in many different forms.

Always remember that when you work for God you are working for the people of the world – all of mankind. God works for all of mankind with His great love and want to see us do well for ourselves and He is more than willing to do all that He can to help us get going in the right direction. Remember to always have your heart (your love) in the right place and all will be well.

Come back to this chapter in the future if you feel that you need to understand more about God and Jesus and what they have done for you and what they can still do for you now. May God Bless You With All Good Things That You Do!

We must pray all day. Maybe for some it is good to pray as if in one long day lasting prayer, and for others it is good to stop and pray over and over again as if in short prayers all day. To be with God all day is to be in His company all day and this means to be with Him and pray with Him at all times during your day. If you choose not to do this, does this mean that you have something to hide or that something God does is not what you want to do?