Jim May | living at His place

“He is to me one of the great mysteries of the Civil War.” [General U.S. Grant]

"Historians are still trying to solve that mystery. Life seemed to have prepared him for greatness."

Dear Father:

You know I grew up with a dad who was distant and silent. I realize now that this was true of many men who came out of WWII and he did the best he knew. But he never let me into his heart and I could never reach him. I never knew where I stood with him. I never knew if he loved me or was proud of me. The only times he seemed to like me was when I was doing a job for him—when I was useful.

Sometimes I find it hard to forgive until the offender understands the depth of hurt he put in me.

Every one of us is born with a deep need to know our Father. We can deny it with atheism, bury it with distractions, or embrace it by seeking, but it won't go away. Knowing our Father is food for our spirit, our hearts will cry out to know our Father all our lives. We hear the call in boredom, emptiness, anger, frustration, meaninglessness, trivial pursuits, and lack of fulfillment. We can wander through life "looking for love in all the wrong places," as the song says.

Knowing God makes us feel alive. "And this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" [Jn. 17:3]. Tolstoy said, "To know God and live are the same thing."

I was really ticked off—there are other ways to say it, but I will refrain. Let's just say I was really mad and had reached the edge of rage. That's right—smiley Jim was not a happy camper. Why? Let me explain.

Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, has raised the question again: "Who killed Jesus?" Fears of anti-Semitic hatred have surfaced in the media and among some in the Jewish community, in particular the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL expressed concerns that the movie would portray Jews as blood thirsty, sadistic Jesus killers, a charge that has come from uninformed Christian sources in the past. Long before the movie was released writer Christopher Nixon raised questions about Gibson's "Holocaust denier" father in a New York Times article.

Have you ever made a decision you thought was right and had everything go wrong? You were confident it was the Lord's will, but everything went south. Not only did you run into a storm of resistance, but wave after wave of bad news hit your boat. You feared your whole world was sinking into the darkness. You began to doubt you heard the Lord in the first place. The more things went wrong, the more distressed and depressed you became. Your family and friends looked at you as if you had lost your mind. Eventually, you faced a crisis of faith wondering if you ever did hear God's voice. It happens a lot. It happened to me recently. It happened to the men who had given up everything to follow Christ. Here's their story in Mark 4:35-41.

I am like a man sitting on a horse looking for a horse to ride.

God has given me everything I need for life, but if I don't believe it, it does me no good. My behavior follows my perception. If I believe lies, I live by lies. If I believe the truth, I live the truth.