His hand in the journey

 What if all along there was a hand guiding your every step along this journey of life? Would it make us feel more secure, more loved, knowing that this hand would only guide us into everything for our good? Not that all that happens to us is good but all that happens works for our good. Well, this is a great and precious promise from the Lord. In his Word he tells us in Romans chapter 8:28, that in ALL things he works for the good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. 

So, I have heard about Jesus and stories about God the Creator of the universe, been taught the Bible and went to church as far back as the second grade. I remember a teacher asking me if I would like to accept Jesus into my heart while sitting at a desk. I remember her excitement as I said yes and I remember feeling like I just did a very good thing. But for most of my childhood and teen years, this decision didn’t seem to change anything. I went to church, sang gospel songs, every altar call I felt as if I had to be saved from myself and choices all over again. I knew right from wrong because of my own conscious telling me so but it was obvious that sometimes my conscious didn’t keep me from always choosing right or even feeling right. A disconnect. This mind, body, soul connection  felt fragmented. Knowing the right thing and doing the right thing should always seem like a no brainer, like they should always go together.. well… they don’t. Truth bomb! Like, for instance, knowing I should be patient and actually being patient. To know something doesn’t make you able to actually do it. Reading scriptures like, the heart is deceitful above all else, out of it flows the wellspring of life, started to make sense to me in my mid twenties. The things I want to do, I don’t do, and the things I don’t want to do, I do, so as Paul says in Romans, who will save us from all this? Jesus Christ. So the search began. I didn’t want to feel like I was a slave to my emotions, they had me up, down, sideways and under. Feeling all the feels made me exhausted, sometimes even before I stepped out of the house. I needed my inner self to be stable. I needed peace. I actually wanted numbness, if only I could stop feeling like such a wreck all the time. The funny part is, this storm going on was internal, it only escaped to the outside when I just couldn’t hold it in any longer and it usually was with the people who were closest to me. God bless them. 

The search… what is wrong with me? And who can fix me? These were the words I asked myself and also asked God in prayer. The answer was loud and clear! Sin, sin is what’s wrong with you and your Creator, I am who can fix you. Well this started the most precious and intimate relationship in my life. But first let me tell you what I have come to know in this journey , God is not interested in fixing but transforming us into who we are created to be and sin is everything that separates us from him and his power in our lives to make this transformation possible. As I stepped out into believing the promises of the Bible, which really is God’s love letter to us, I began to know personally a God who is full of grace, mercy, and compassion, and the deepest love I’ve ever known.  My forever friend who will never abandon or forsake me. In reading and learning about who God is, I found myself in his story. Every time I would open his Word it was like looking into a mirror for my own soul. He would tell me of his love, we would in prayer and petitions work out together my salvation or at least my understanding of it. Friends, it is God who saves us, heals us from wounds sometimes too deep to share,  who invites us into beautiful relationship with him. He has already paid the debt for all our offenses against him, for going our own way and doing the things that separate us from his love. Even death. He conquered it all on the cross through his Son, Jesus. When we believe this, we have crossed over from death to life. What that means is that we don’t get to die but rather live, we live in this body that will surely pass away but our soul will live forever with the Lord. How is this possible? His Spirit will raise us up, and this same spirit is in you when you first believed , so this is the power in you right now that is working to transform you, to transform us into who we are created to be. 

So this hand of God, that has faithfully guided me all the days of my life has made himself known to me, not by any choice on my part, he called me into relationship with him and friend he is calling you too. Do you not hear him? And when he calls you to himself you can’t help but love him because what he has done has loved you first with an unfailing love  and nothing, not anything in all creation can separate you from this love. 

This hand that holds and guides me all the days of my life is showing me that no matter where I go or what my day looks like, he is present and waiting for me to communicate with him about everything and anything. So let it be for me that in everything his love will compel me forward into all he had planned and may my response be in return love, for God, for myself and for others. 

With you and love you!

Tracey Hanko.