... Just livin' life with God

THE REV. JERRY ROGERS
GUEST COLUMNIST

The other day I was asking someone how he was doing. The reply I received from him was something that I have heard time and again, “…just livin’.” But this time it was different. It was not in the way he said it nor anything else that he did that made this reply any different than other times I had heard it. Yet this time it was different. But it was I who “heard” it differently. As a counselor I hear this reply very often. So what was the difference that I “heard”?

It was the “still small voice” in my spirit that made me realize that this man as with a few others with whom I had spoken, shared a common reality of which I found troubling. The reality was the fact that this person, along with the others, were professing Christians, and I, as a Pastoral Counselor, “heard” the sounds of Christians who had lost “sight” of the embrace of Jesus Christ and his provisions for their lives.

The one thing that I hope to do is to encourage all of you, who are professing Christians to know that in Jesus there is fullness of life. The fullness of life does not mean that everything is going to be smooth and that there will be no bumps in the road. The fullness of life that a relationship with Jesus Christ brings is really almost too hard to even begin to explain but yet easy enough to live.

As Christians we are told in scripture that Christ has come to give us life and a life more abundant. According to John 10:10 Jesus said, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Life is, for most of us, a struggle. That in itself is not bad but what I mean is someone else does not hand us everything we need. We must toil and work for those things, which we have, and in this effort we can lose the focus of this gift we have … LIFE.

We are not alone in this life no matter how dark and burdensome times become. As Christians we know that God our heavenly father is well aware of where we are, we know that Jesus is our Christ, our redeemer, our savior, we know that the Holy Spirit is our comforter. Living this life as a Christian is a life of dependence, a dependence on God, on Jesus, on the Holy Spirit. When we get our eyes and our faith off of God and begin to lean on our own understanding and strength, life will become so overwhelming that it will be very easy to say as with these counselees that we are, “….just livin.” But there is joy in this gift of life and wonders that we discover everyday. We are as Christians told in 1Peter 5:7, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” We are also told in Proverbs 3:6, “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

I know first hand how easy it is to become so involved in living that the joy and wonder of this precious gift is lost. But if we will just stop and take a few deep breaths and once again place our faith in the hands of the God who does care, into the love of the Son who went to a cruel cross, and the Holy Spirit that is waiting to comfort us in our times of darkness, we will once again know the peace and joy and fullness of life that is ours for the asking.

The Rev. Jerry L Rogers is the pastoral counseling minister of sure HOPE Christian Assembly in Middletown, Ohio.