Days of Healing, Days of Joy...............................................Nov. 24th

"When we lose God, it is not God who is lost."......................Anonymous

At times any of us can fall into the trap of trying to make deals with God. The thought seems to be, if I can make a deal with God, then I can control the outcome that God alone seems to determine.

We cannot make deals with God - not because God is so hard-nosed, but because we don't need to bargain with God. The good we are trying to bargain for is already precious in the mind of God. We don't need to bargain for the benefit of others because God already loves those people and wants only good for them.

Yet at times we hear ourselves or others say things like, "Why doesn't God come through for me? I put my money in the offering tray every week, and I do things for my neighbors and friends. I volunteer for good causes. Yet I still feel insecure and scared. Why doesn't God answer my prayers?"

Perhaps the task is not to overwhelm God with all our effort but to quietly listen and discover that the gift was outside our door all the time. We were just too busy to pick it up.
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Today I will be open to fresh insights about the God of my understanding.

I wonder how many times I've tried and tried to do good things, and I've prayed until I was exhausted --but still didn't get an answer.

And then lo and behold I realized I hadn't listened. What a concept! If we aren't quiet and listen, we won't HEAR God's answer. It's always there if we're quiet enough to listen. What we hear may not be what we like, but it's what we need.