God is Almighty, yet He is as intimate as the most loving Dad and Mom.  How can this be?  I am beginning to hear God say that only in man’s thinking is this a problem.  In His Spiritual world it is a given.  In our spiritual realm it is simply known.  I certainly don’t have a good handle on this yet, but I’m so glad to be awakening more and more to this it.  I’m also loving the journaling to Him.  Hearing His voice is humbling and (I’m trying to find a word here).  Hearing God’s message as I journal with Him is somewhat like a stark reality.  Let me give today’s example.

Last early evening I went to the juvenile correctional center in Nampa where I had spoken a couple weeks ago to 35 teenagers incarcerated there.  I was asked by one of the teens to talk with him so last night was that chance.  He asked me some startling questions, one was:  “When do you know God was taking you away?”  I asked what he meant by that.  He said he wondered when I felt God pulling me out of the sin.  I was able to only tell him that I had learned enough by being the 10th child to not go into the sin my older siblings had.  Other than that, I didn’t know until my more current years that God was taking me away.  I’m learning that being taken away from sin is started by not entering into it.  I did tell him that choice is the ugliest and kindest gift God gave us as humans.  When we fall into the choices of man in sinfulness it becomes the ugliest bondage there is.  Yet, God gave us the chance to choose Him and find loving kindness.  I had to also learn that the sin of my brother and dad was not mine–it was there’s.  He acknowledged all of this.

I left the center having prayed for this teen and talked briefly to the chaplain completing the paperwork necessary.  My mind was filled with the bondage children are given when man abuses rather than protects them.  I asked God this morning while journaling about this.  His Words were:  “You’re right Earnie–this is ugly and confusing.  You see hellish things done to you and your senses, your body by the very ones who should protect you.  You are right in wondering about this.  It is sin, Earnie–it is sin.  There is no freedom in sin–it is bondage.”  I then asked God where a child’s freedom is found?  His response was, “I’m sorry Earnie.  It is not there as you would like it to be.  It is there for you in choice as you can begin to choose for yourself.  These are hard realities but I use ones like you to show these kids of today who are hurt and abused that they can find a different path.”  He then asked me to join Him in this and of course, I told him yes.

This journey has hard realities in it.  For the first time I am seeing God within the picture rather than picking up the pieces afterwards.  This teen asked me last night why the people in our churches don’t reach out and help when they know these things are happening?  We did talk about this, but the reality we agreed upon is that almost all people are scared to death of this and don’t have a clue what to say or do when they find this out.

Well, today’s entry is a stark one (as I stated when I started it) but it is exactly what God wanted me to know and write.  I’m waking up and going to stay in this arena for a while.  God has an assignment here that may last the rest of my earthly life.