Discovering Who I Am, Doubt, Healing, Hope, Words of Endurance

What marvelous love the Father has extended to us!
Just look at it—we’re called children of God!
That’s who we really are.
1 JOHN 3:1 (THE MESSAGE)

On my journey of discovering who I am, I have come to one profound and simple realization: I am a child of God! But what exactly does that mean as we stumble through life with the afflictions, failures, and losses that we all experience?

I think about when my own kids were little – when they were just starting to walk. They would get up, stumble and fall and I would help them back up. I delighted in watching them learn to walk.

Now they are grown – they can walk just fine but they still make mistakes – they still stumble and they sometimes fail. Yet I still love them. I want the best for my children and I will do whatever I can to help them find their way. When they falter I pick them up and put them back on the right path.

That is precisely how God sees me – sees you! We are his little children. He directs our steps and picks us up when we stumble yet He still delights in us.

The Lord directs the steps of the godly.
He delights in every detail of their lives.
Though they stumble, they will never fall,
for the Lord holds them by the hand.
PSALM 37:23-24

Along my life journey I had stumbled plenty and every time I failed I was ashamed. I had a hard time believing that God would be delighted in my stumbles. But then I was encouraged greatly to read this quote by CS Lewis:

If we only have the will to walk,
God is pleased with our stumbles.

I knew I had the will to walk – God knew I had the will to walk. God knew I wanted to trust Him and so I kept taking the next step – trusting that He is holding me by my hand. And now if I stumble I get back up and move on as a child of God – God’s chosen!

So, what do you think?
With God on our side like this, how can we lose?
If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us,
embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst
by sending his own Son,
is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God
by messing with one of God’s chosen?
Who would dare even to point a finger?
The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!
—is in the presence of God at this very moment
sticking up for us.
Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge
between us and Christ’s love for us?
There is no way!
Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger,
not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing,
not even the worst sins listed in Scripture …
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us.
I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—
nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic,
today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable
—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love
because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
ROMANS 8:31-39 (THE MESSAGE)

On the journey with you,
Dave Dravecky