Live long and prosper!

Warning, Nerd Alert!!!  I loved watching Star Trek as a kid.  Every episode started with the Enterprise crew encountering a very traumatic event.  The crew was always facing intense drama--whether it was the Star Ship Enterprise being attacked by an alien race intent on the destruction of mankind, a plague that caused everyone on board to age rapidly or Captain Kirk being transported to an alien planet where he was forced into a “battle to the death” with a crocodilian creature called “Gorn.” The crew of the Enterprise always had some pretty major hardships to overcome and every week I watched that show, captivated to find out how they would deal with the latest hardship and how things would resolve themselves.  And things always did resolve before the end of that episode. 

    I used to always wish life worked out that way.  No fear or panic just the anticipation that everything is under control and things will eventually work themselves out.  In my personal life however, I would panic when things would get really hard.  I would often times feel like life was spiraling out of control and God was nowhere to be found.  My fear of abandonment would always project itself onto my perception of both God and my circumstances and I would feel anxiety and panic.  That fear would push me into trying to “pray harder” somehow feeling like I had to work to get God’s attention.  When I would eventually calm down and start to seek God in faith, He would give me peace.  Yet inevitably when that latest crisis would resolve itself—I would put God back on the shelf and continue with business as usual.  That was, until a little more than a year ago when everything was collapsing in my life with no resolution in sight.  All the things I depended on and looked to for strength and identity seemed to completely disappear.  And I was left standing with no one and nothing --except for my loving heavenly Father.  Like a man caught in the darkest of nights looking intently for a light in the distance-- I searched for God amidst the rubble all around me.  Something different happened this time around however as I finally began to understand that God had always been with me.  He never left me (even when I left him).  Like the writer of a Star Trek script, he was always there in advance figuring out how to resolve my life traumas in my best interest.  When I finally started understanding that fact it has revolutionized the way I view life.  Now when I’m facing hardships in my life I have the assurance that “the one that loves me the most” is working out all things for my good in Christ Jesus.  Now I have the assurance that just like a Star Trek episode, the “screen writer of my life” has already planned a victorious ending to my latest trials. 
    If you are currently facing hardship or loss, I encourage you to take your pain and hurt to your heavenly Father.  He loves you and wants to use the hardships you are facing to draw you into a closer relationship with him.  He is also the one that you can call on for help when no one else can help you.  Whatever your situation is, don’t lose hope because your creator longs to intervene in your life and show you his affection.  God’s passion for us was at the core of the message that Jesus taught.  God loves you and has created you with a plan and purpose.  God sent his son, Jesus so that we can live in a right relationship with the creator of the universe.  Not as servants, but as dearly beloved children.  So that we can truly “live long and prosper”. ;)      

1 Peter 5:8-10 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”

Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”