What is the Answer?

What is the Answer?

I remember when I was in school I had many a wonderful teacher, but one was a bit more difficult then the others. He would ask questions  but not divulge the answers easily.  He would make us work for them. We would beg, "Please can you just tell us the answer?" He wanted us to work for it and connect the dots. He wanted our minds to go on a journey and understand the big picture. God seems similar sometimes. We want answers but often we want solid concrete answers right away. God can answer with a tap on the shoulder or a slap in the face, or so it seems. I remember once I asked God for help and I thought he would never answer. At the time I had job that I didn't like. I worked to care for my family, but I hated my job. On one particularly tough day everything seemed to be going wrong. With a spot of privacy I raised my head and begged,"Please God can I please work for you?" Time passed and nothing. Finally months later I was asked to teach a Sunday school class. I thought about it and it was. It something that I wanted to do, but then in my mind I heard a clear voice, "Didn't you ask to work for me?" I taught the class and continue to teach to this day. Teaching the class was very challenging. I remember on one particular morning I was at the end of a really hard week. Trying to figure out how and what I was going to say and teach I noticed that the trash in our room was full. Taking the trash out to the dumpster I looked up and begged, "Dear Lord please loan me a little bit of talent today, actually I need a lot." Nothing changed, no words came into my head. I had no idea what to say but when I stood to begin class an entire lecture and discussion unfolded. God loves you and is ready to help you but he doesn't just give it away to anyone. He loves you so he wants a relationship with you. Love and praise God and you will be amazed with what he can bring into your life. Will you become rich and famous? Probably not, me I don't want too either. Each week I see stories of the rich and famous fall from grace. I often speculate that those with much get so confident with their status that they feel that they don't need God. If I was able to be happy on my own I wouldn't have looked for my wife, and in turn I would not have known the amazing loving relationship I have. Like with God if I was rich and had all I needed it would be harder to open my heart up to him. God wants love and he wants you to give all your love away, to him and to everyone you meet. Like the most perfect father he wants all his children to love one another and to get along and he wants the love he gives to his children to come back to him, but it's our choice. God will deny no one. God will not make us do anything, so the choice is yours, are you ready to ask God to come into your life no matter how he decides to answer.


Judges 6:11-24
11Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Jo'ash the Abiez'rite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Mid'ianites. 12And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor." 13And Gideon said to him, "Pray, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this befallen us? And where are all his wonderful deeds which our fathers recounted to us, saying, `Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Mid'ian." 14And the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Mid'ian; do not I send you?" 15And he said to him, "Pray, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manas'seh, and I am the least in my family." 16And the LORD said to him, "But I will be with you, and you shall smite the Mid'ianites as one man." 17And he said to him, "If now I have found favor with thee, then show me a sign that it is thou who speakest with me. 18Do not depart from here, I pray thee, until I come to thee, and bring out my present, and set it before thee." And he said, "I will stay till you return." 19So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them. 20And the angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them." And he did so. 21Then the angel of the LORD reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and there sprang up fire from the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight. 22Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD; and Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face." 23But the LORD said to him, "Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die." 24Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it, The LORD is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiez'rites.

Psalms 85:9, 11-14
8Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints, to those who turn to him in their hearts. 10Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. 11Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. 12Yea, the LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. 13Righteousness will go before him, and make his footsteps a way.

Matthew 19:23-30
23And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." 25When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" 26But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 27Then Peter said in reply, "Lo, we have left everything and followed you. What then shall we have?" 28Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. 30But many that are first will be last, and the last first.