God is Love

Do you ever enter a contest thinking this could be the time I win?

You know, like Publishers Clearing House, or the drawings at the mall where you can win a free car or a shopping spree.  I even laugh at home parties, there may be only 11 people in the room, but I never win. I know before I enter the contest I will not be the taker of the gift, but I shoot my information in anyway, just hoping.

This got me thinking today as I cried out to the Lord.  Tears were falling from my swollen eyes and I labored to breathe as I wondered if I was 1 of 25 million people weeping their needs to a God that loves us all, but doesn't have time for me today.  I mean would this be just like the contest I never win? Do I continue signing my name on the dotted line and leaving discouraged? Do I throw my prayers up to Jesus and leave with the belief that he will not answer? 

 Does God really hear and care about my life when there are so many others struggling with even harder situations.  

I pray because there is this hope inside me that just maybe God will hear me and say, "Today Jen I will answer your prayer because you have been bugging me for 2 years now." Today Jen because you have entered 2,000 contests you will finally have your chance.  

Is this how I look at my God? 

Is this how my God looks at me, like a number?

I get into the word because I am needing comfort and love.  I want to know that I am more than a number and I do not want to live by my feelings. 

If we look at the all familiar verse John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his 1 and only son..."  Most of us know this verse, but what does it mean for the Child of God?  

God loves us so much that he allowed his 1 and only son to die the worst death so that we could live with God in Heaven.  That is a Huge amount of Love for his children, for me.

1st John 3:1 "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.  The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Romans 5:8 "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

1st Peter 2:24 "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed."

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends."

John 16:27 "For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God."

John 14:23 "Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."

John 14:21 "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." 

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him." 1st John 5:14-15

James 1:5 "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him

The Bible is full of verses about how much God loves his children if we keep his commandments and follow him.  I feel blessed that I get to be called a child of God, but if God loves his children this much why would he not answer our prayers? 

Why would he say, "Jen, I just cannot make time for you today, or you are just not important today?

When my 3 children come to me, even if I am busy, I try and listen and give them my attention because I love them and I want whats best for them.  I may say no, I may say wait, or even yes, but I will answer.  They may not like the answer I give, but I will give one.  

In the same way God is not ignoring his children, he loves us and wants what is best.  He may say no or wait instead of yes, but he always answers, it just may not be what we want to hear.  So like my children, I keep asking and asking and asking, and unlike me, God does not get impatient, unloving, and angry.  He keeps loving me. 

As for the number, Oh I am not.  The Word tells me, God is Love and I am in Him so I can enter the throne with confidence and freedom, not discouragement, that my prayers will be answered!