 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
Of all the human feelings that beset us - from joy to sorrow, from ecstasy to despair, the one that seems most pervasive is loneliness. We do all we can to avoid being lonely. We fill our lives with activity. Yet times of loneliness overcome us. That loneliness, we come to realize, is not just being alone for sometimes we want to be alone. It is a sadness perhaps. We are haunted by feelings of failure of some kind - of not being famous, or rich, or beautiful, or any number of "failures." But even then in our hearts we know that all those things are superficial will not make us less lonely or more sure. What we come to realize at some point is that we are lonely, or perhaps more accurately sad, because we are not holy. We long for holiness. We long to be a Mother Teresa or an Esther who said nobly, "If I perish, I perish," and bravely stood before the king to be used by God for a mighty cause. We long to be a Daniel who dared to stand firm in his relationship with God whatever the consequences. We long to be a Paul who found great joy in prison because four walls could not keep his love for God from reaching God's people throughout time. We want to draw closer to God and have a relationship with Him that will help us live lives like great people we have known in history. The call to holiness comes to us because God created us to be holy. Until we answer that call we will have sadness, longing, and emptiness in our hearts. Until we respond to the longing that God has for each and every single one of His creatures, we will be not be satisfied. It's not hard to answer the call. An Indian saying says, "If you take one step towards God then God will take ten steps towards you." Take that step. The Word of God tells us that God loves us not only with a father's love but also with the longing of a mother for the child of her womb. "This is love," said the apostle John, "not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." 1 John 4:10 --Norma Osborn (5/22/02) |
 |  |
Welcome
| Who We Are
| Sermons
| Ministries
| Resources
| Worship
| Contact Us |