Hi Kathy,

I want you to know that I will be praying for your safe move to another state and for your new job to be very successful and fulfilling.  I'm hoping that it will be the best thing that's ever happened to you.  This very likely will be the case if you maintain a close and daily relationship with the Lord.

Unfortunately, it does not seem like a natural thing to do for many people, including a lot of Christians, to carry on a meaningful relationship with God when we cannot see Him with our eyes or hear His voice with our ears.  The fact is, His Holy Spirit is with us all the time.

God not only knows everything we do, He also knows all of our thoughts and motivations.  He loves us more than anyone else we know does, certainly more than any other person on earth does.  He wants to guide us in the things that will benefit us the most on a daily basis and for the rest of our lives.

Without faith it is impossible to please God; those who come to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)  When He is pleased with us, He puts into our minds beneficial things to do, on a regular basis, that we would not have thought about doing on our own.

Jesus is our best Friend, and friends like to be acknowledged for the things they do to help us.  When we recognize that He is helping us in the things that we do, and then thank Him for guiding us in the right direction, it demonstrates our faith in Him.  As our faith increases, He becomes more pleased with us, and He makes our path through life to be increasingly positive and productive.  We also become progressively aware of even little things that He does to help us or to keep us from encountering evil and harm, and this perpetually increases our faith in Him.

There are no "coincidences" with God.  The more we depend on Him, ask Him to help us along and show thankfulness when we recognize that He has helped us, this encourages Him to assist us in other aspects of our lives where we did not even realize that we needed help.  It also motivates us to show others how He can help them as well, and we all grow closer to God together.

When Jesus healed ten lepers, only one of them returned to Jesus to thank Him and give Him glory.  Jesus asked where the other nine were (those who did not return to thank Him and give Him glory), and He blessed the one who had returned and said that his faith had healed him. (Luke 17:11-19)

All of this does not mean that we will not encounter difficulties in life, even if we maintain a strong faith and trust in God.  Sometimes He tests our faith and allows something to go in a way that we do not expect, perhaps causing us to feel that He has abandoned us.  At those times, some people get angry with God because they feel that He should have caused something to work out the way that they had in mind was the best way for it to happen.

The proper thing to do in those cases, though, is to speak to Him and tell Him that we know He is in control of everything, acknowledging that His thoughts and ways are far above ours. (Isaiah 55:8,9)  He knows the future, and we do not.  We need to tell Him that we love Him, which He loves to hear, and that we know He works out things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)  Then we can ask for Him to guide us through those circumstances and to work them out for our benefit.

In virtually every instance, after the situation has run its course, we can look back and see that the best way for it to have worked out for us is the way it actually did.  This causes us to want to demonstrate increasing love, faith and appreciation toward God.  Then He moves even close to us and wants to help us even more through the circumstances that we encounter in life.  It is a win-win situation, and we learn that He is able to encourage us and help us along more than any other supportive, nurturing and reassuring people that we have in our lives, as well as to help us avoid situations that would be harmful or injurious to us.

So the test of real faith is not how sincerely we might cry out to God in the heat of crisis.  Rather, real faith is demonstrated by the way we put our trust in God, even if the outcome of a situation does not result in what we wanted or expected.

Basically, God knows us better and more intimately than anyone else does, since He created each of us.  Thus, He is the ideal one to help, assist and give us the best advice and counsel that we can have as we go through life.  He also is the only one that we need to approach, in prayer, to ask forgiveness for our shortcomings, transgressions and sins.  When we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful to forgive us of our sins and to purify us from our day-to-day unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)  There is no one else that we need to go to for the purpose of contacting God on our behalf, since He knows us personally, hears from us directly and loves us intimately.

Your eternal friend,

Ted
www.tedmontgomery.com