If you feel far from God today —
He’s okay with that. You can draw near Him and tell Him, “I feel far away from You.” Jesus welcomes your doubts, confusion, frustrations, and questions. He invites you in any and every condition.
If you’re mad at God today —
He’s okay with that. He made you an emotional being, and more than that, a human being. You can vent to Him and He won’t bite your head off. He doesn’t want you to pretend your feelings at Him.
If you’ve messed up on God today —
He’s still rooting for you. He still wants to work on this together. He will receive you the very second after you mess it up. Your moment of defeat matters less than the moment right after. He has grace to pick you up, to dust you off, to keep you moving towards Him. Choose grace.
If you haven’t spoken with God in an embarrassingly long time —
He’s okay with that too. You have right now. He’s given you this moment to talk to Him. Don’t wait another second. Find the endless well of joy that’s waiting.
If it’s all gone upside-down and life has been unfair —
Please don’t write off God just yet. You will need more grace and not less. You will need more help, more strength, more wisdom, more truth, and not less. Go to the source. Please don’t let your life throw you around into a lesser version of you, but let God say who you are amidst your surroundings.
If you don’t like yourself today —
God loved you before you stepped into the room. God pre-approved of you before you did a single thing. God will love you when no one else does. There is nothing you could do to change His heart towards you: and it’s His unchanging heart that will change you.
If you’re not sure that God loves you today —
See the cross. See Jesus. All our fears, worries, hurt, injustice, and rebellion are answered there. Jesus knew what we would do to him: but He set this plan in motion before time to be with you for eternity. The cross has removed every single obstacle between us and Him. Jesus achieved the cosmic victory of demolishing sin, Satan, and death, for your good and for His glory. Know this love, and everything else will be okay.
— J
J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain, Skeptical Christian 
Captures the Love and Grace of God in a way we all can relate- thanks for the encouragement!
LikeLike
Thank you my friend!
LikeLike
it’s because God is like this, as you describe, that I’m still a Christian today. Because my God is big enough to take on my doubt, anger, questionings, frustrations, ungodly behaviour, sarcasm, habitual sinning, because he understands what it is like to be human, I can hang on to him.
it’s why I love the Psalms of David so much. He doesn’t hold back but is real, grittily real with his God.
LikeLike
Definitely. Not only Psalms, but Jeremiah and Isaiah and Habbakuk and pretty much all the prophets had some major beef with how God was doing things. They all come to terms with God in the end, each in their own way.
LikeLike
Needed this today. Thanks!
LikeLike
You’re welcome my friend!
LikeLike
“He will receive you the very second after you mess it up. ” This truth is still one of the hardest for me to believe. I used to punish myself – go a day or two days or three days without praying or reading my Bible after messing up “big time” (in my mind) because I didn’t believe I deserved to go to God after sinning against Him so badly. He has been working on my wrong thinking for years. I never, ever deserve to go before God on my own. Ever. No matter how “good” I’ve been. But because of Jesus, like you said, the second after I spit in His face and punch Him in the gut and choose my own way, the SECOND after that, I can go right to Him humbly confessing because He knew I was going to mess up in that particular way and He still died on the cross and hunted me down and won me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve always done the same thing, and still do sometimes. I mean, it makes sense that we run. When we mess up with a friend, we do everything to avoid them until it “blows over.” The same with our parents, sort of just sweeping it under the rug. But I hate it when friends do that to me, and there’s no healing in that sort of runaround. Even more so, with God who is perfect, I’m learning He wants nothing more than to reconcile and move forward again. There’s no awkward weirdness with Him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re right! It’s always better to just get it all out in the open, work it out, figure it out, and move on in grace and forgiveness with God and our friends. Why do we drag things out? But grace abounds. 🙂
LikeLike
I still had more to say after leaving this comment so I ended up writing my own blog post inspired by your blog post. 🙂 https://tattooedmissionary.wordpress.com/2016/04/03/moving-forward/
LikeLike
A wonderful post, Suzanne. You got the perfect mix of wit and insight.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is a great compliment! Thank you.
LikeLike