Good Morning to you! and greetings in the name of the One who loved me enough to die for me, Jesus Christ – THE Risen Saviour! Another lovely summer day is coming toward us and we will “rejoice and be glad in it!” I trust that you are keeping healthy and well-rested and at peace. Today I will be praying for you, asking Father to release to you the quiet power of the Holy Spirit that gently and persistently comes alongside.
I am going through one of those times when devotions, articles, and study material that I am reading seem to be focusing on the same topic…and at the same time I am observing what I am reading in the lives of people around me. Now to add another dimension, at the beginning of the year God gave me a ‘word’ to focus on and it was – “restoration”.
Okay, let me put everything together just a little bit. First, in my reading, the topic of having an “orphan spirit” toward God has been addressed. An ‘orphan spirit’ is simply when we know-believe-accept that God is God but aren’t experiencing the warmth and intimacy of a Father-child relationship like we somehow know we are supposed to. This ‘orphan spirit’ is often created and nurtured because of a breakdown in a significant relationship in our lives. Someone we care about and thought cared about us has let us down or betrayed us or disappointed us or hurt us. We may have forgiven them and say we trust them at some level but ‘basic trust’ has been shattered. If that has happened with people we can see and interact with then our relationship with God is affected and we lose the warmth and intimacy of Father-God and child. It can be and is more complex than that but I am being very simple.
Can you imagine for a moment what your faith-life is like when you are out of step with a person or people in your life and you have lost the basic trust in God as Father at the same time? You can have a sense of being an orphan – a knowledge that God is there but the Father-child intimacy is gone…prayer time begins to suffer, reading the Bible lacks its comfortableness, and worship seems a little empty. In fact, you begin to avoid gathering with other believers or if you do, everything seems superficial. We sometimes think that I can isolate myself from those people who should be part of my life and I can simply go on with my walk with with God…but something is missing.There is so much “restoration” needed in the lives of people around us…especially in relationships.
I suppose that is why from beginning to end the Bible addresses the subject of relationships and forgiveness and forbearance and restoration. God somehow knew that if we are not right with each other, if we are carrying bitterness or resentment or grudges…then we aren’t able to be comfortable as His child. In fat, in the Bible it asks the question…how can say you love God, whom you haven’t seen, while hating the brother or sister you have seen? how can you be at peace with God if you are at odds with a person His son died to redeem? God does not want us to feel like ‘orphans’!
Something to ponder…be blessed!