HELP! JESUS.....where are You? I'm not supposed to be doing this. I'm not supposed to be acting this way! What happened to the old days when I could just walk away from a bad situation, or just keep my big mouth shut? What happened to being able to say "no" to temptations? What about being able to get the victory over sickness? This just ain't supposed to be happening! So, wuz up, Lord?

Ever had one (or ten) of these moments? Well, don't feel alone and without hope. Jesus said that He would never leave us nor forsake us, and He won't (because He is not a man that He should lie). We can get down and wallow in our problems, which can be fun for a while until we, like the prodical son, realize that we are in the mud with the hogs. Or, we can get up out of the mud, and head home to our Heavenly Father, Who is there waiting to feed us the fatted calf, and clothe us with the robe of righteousness, and to place His ring upon our finger.

After more than twenty years of walking (sometimes stumbling) with Jesus, I have come to the conclusion that most of these times of confusion and temptation can be summed up in one line from the movie, "Cool Hand Luke." "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

Getting out of communion (or daily two-way communication with the Lord) will cause you to feel separated from Him (even though He is right there just waiting for you to talk with Him). And what would cause us to get out of communication with the Lord? "The cares of this world, the deceiptfulness of riches, the lust of other things." Or, you might say, unrepentant sin. (When we do something wrong, we tend to run and hide - just like Adam and Even ran from God to hide their nakedness.)

Notice that I said that we need two-way communication. It's not all about our talking to Him - making our requests made known. We need to hear from Him - through that still, small voice; through prayer; through the written Word; through our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Relationships cannot be healthy if only one person is doing all of the talking. We have to keep up our ends of the relationship and give Him the time He so richly deserves.

We don't want to wait around long enough to hear from God because we are afraid that if we do, we will hear something we don't want to hear - even though we know in our hearts that it will be the answer we are seeking..........(to be continued)