It is May in any college town in America and a young girl is sitting in the library studying for her finals.  She looks up from her book and notices a boy looking over at her.  He is kind of shy and looks down as they make eye contact.  She remembers him from before and sees him quite often.  She figures that he has his favorite spot in the library to study just like she does. 

 

With that she turns her attention back to her books as she prepares for her last final.  Tomorrow it will be all over, she will have finished her last class and completed her first year of college.  Oh how great that will be.  It was hard at first being so far from home and meeting all these new kids.  Living in the dorms was definitely different, it was always noisy and that is why it drove her to the library to study.  With this brief reflection on the last year she lowers her head back into her book.

 

The next time she looks up that boy is standing in front of her table.  For the first time she notices how cute he is and what a nice smile he has.  He is standing there and says, “I am going back to my dorm now and was wondering if you would like to walk with me.  It is late and we may be safer if we go together.” 

 

“How do you know where I live?” she asks, now starting to wonder about this guy.

 

“Oh I live in the dorm next to yours.  I see you all the time in the commons with your girl friends.  I am sorry if I scared you, I just wanted to see if you wanted a walk home.”

 

She looks at her watch and it is after midnight.  Since her final is at 10:00am she thinks she better get a good night’s sleep before her final.  Besides, she is pretty much done studying and he seems nice enough.  It is not like he is a complete stranger; he lives next door, eats at the same commons and is just as common a fixture in the library as she is.  With that she gets up and leaves with him.

 

It is Thanksgiving Dinner and the girl is sitting at the dinner table with her mom, dad, and little brother.  They are all having a great time and she can see all the love they have for her.  Everyone has missed her being away and it is so great to be home.  She helped her mom cook the turkey, her little brother did nothing to help as usual, and her dad has been watching the football games.  Oh how great it is to be home.

 

“So tell us honey, who is this person who has called you four times already,” her mom chirps out, only half expecting an answer.

 

“Yeah honey, who is it, a boy, and when do I get to meet him” Her dad is always a bit more direct than her mother, but then again he is a dad and is always looking out for his little girl.

 

She tells them his name and that they met at the end of last semester and just traded a few emails over the summer.  When she returned to school in the fall, it turned out they were both living in the same dorm and they got to know each other and started to go out.  He was really nice, had curly hair, and a great smile.  She told them he was kind and treated her with the same gentleness her dad treated her mom.  He was really a great guy and when she was with him, she was the only person in the world to him. 

 

Since she opened up a bit, her mom gets a little braver with the questions, “it sounds serious.” 

 

“He treats me like a queen and shows me all the kindness and respect that dad shows you.  Why would I not like him?”  After hearing this; her dad gives an approving smile and asks if they would meet him this week end or maybe over Christmas break.

 

It is Thanksgiving and the young man comes down from his room and walks into the kitchen.  “Don’t touch a thing honey, we will be eating in five minutes,” his mother says with a smile.  “And oh, by the way, who is it you have been calling all the time?” 

 

“Yeah, do you have a girl friend?”  What a pain a little sister can be, still digging into his life, but she is sweet and was always there for him as they grew up.  Funny thing about little sisters and brothers, they don’t have much important input to give you in life, but it is nice to have them around, even if they are pests at times.

 

His dad cuts the turkey and they all sit down to eat.  Dad says grace and thanks God for taking care of him while he was away at school and thanks God for all the blessing he had given their family.  They eat dinner and of course the main topic of dinner was who he was calling so much.  He tells them, he met the sweetest girl in the library last semester. 

 

She lived in the next dorm over and she was so cute that he was always afraid to go over and talk to her.  He told them how it was his last night at school and it was late and they were in the library.  He realized it was late and no one was out, so maybe she would not be safe walking back to the dorms alone.  It was about half a mile from the library to the dorms and the campus police always told them to use the buddy system.  Besides mom had always told him to be a gentleman and dad had always insisted he be a gentleman.  Dad was always there for mom and looked out for her safety as well as the safety of the whole family, so this one time, he was going to overcome his shyness, be a gentleman and offer to look out for this girl who lived next door.

 

His mom squeezes his arm and tells him how sweet that was of him and his dad said, “That’s my boy,” and gives him an approving smile and a loving pat on the arm.  With the mystery solved the family continues their dinner, eating and laughing and catching up on all the current events of the last four months since he had gone back to school.

 

It is Thanksgiving Dinner and the girl is sitting at the dinner table with her mom, dad, and little brother.  They are all trying to have a good time, but the atmosphere is a bit tense.  The girl looks at her dad and she can see the anger in his face.  She still does not know if he is angry at her or just angry over all that has happened.  Anyway she looks at it, it is sad to see what her loving father has turned into.

 

Mom is trying to make the best of things.  She is keeping the small talk going and asking how the football games went.  She never cared about football; she is just trying to keep dad in the conversation.  Since all the attention has been turned to her, her little brother has gotten a bit quieter.  He was always a noisy little guy, and now she misses all the energy he used to have, even though most of it was directed at her.

 

Her dad finally looks over to her with a concerned look and asks her if she will be returning to school for the spring semester.

 

“Gee dad, I don’t know.  I don’t know if I am ready to go back there yet.”

 

“It has been half a year since that happened, don’t you think it is time to get your life back in order?”  She could tell that her dad was on a mission now and as usual he wanted things resolved and resolved quickly.

 

“Oh leave her alone.  She will go back to school when she is good and ready.  The University said her seat will be there whenever she is ready to come back.  Besides the counselors said, it could take years for her to get over this and get her life back to normal.”

 

“Years, good God woman, is she going to stay home and wait for her brother to grow up so they can go together?  What happened was terrible, but at some point in time you have to get on with your life and it is time she gets on with hers.  The broken bones have healed, the scars have just about cleared up and she was getting great grades in her classes.  It is time for her to take her life back.”

 

She sits there and watches her parents tear into each other.  She looks at her little brother and she can see he is shutting down and closing this all out.  What irony, it is Thanksgiving Day dinner and they are all fighting.  Fighting about her, and she just did not have the energy yet to face her demons by herself.

 

Finally she snaps, “Shut up, just shut up all of you.  That bastard raped me; he punched me so hard so many times I don’t even remember them all.  He busted my jaw, he broke my check bone, knocked out my teeth and instead of leaving me there to rot, he waited until I woke up and raped me one more time, before he left for his summer vacation.”

 

At another Thanksgiving Dinner a family is sitting at their table.  But on this particular occasion their son is not there.  It is only the dad, the mom and the little sister.  Things have been strained for the last six months.  The mom had to go back to work to help pay for all the attorney bills and the little sister had to go to day care after school instead of coming home.  The little girl is sad, she misses her big brother not being around, her mom is always tired and doesn’t have that much time for her, and her dad always seems a bit mad at her mom.

 

“How do you like your dinner?” the mother asks her husband.

 

“Its great honey, you’re the best cook,” is his toneless reply.

 

Both of them speak, but there is no reflection or emotion in their voices, it is just chatter to keep the dinner going.  The mother is so sad, as she looks to her right at the empty chair.  Her son is not there and he will not be home for a long time.  The dad looks at his family and has this look of failure on his face.  He always provided for them all, kept them safe and gave them a home, and now he wonders what went wrong, what did he do to let this tragedy fall on his family.

 

“I think I am going to make up a plate and go over to the prison and see our son.  Do you want to come with me honey?”  The mom looks over at her daughter because she knows how much she misses her brother. 

 

The daughter smiles and tells her mother she would love to go.  She misses her brother and it would be great to see him.  Sure he looks a bit different, his head is shaved, and he has a few new scars on his face, but it is still her brother and she loves him.  She doesn’t understand what happened or why he went to prison, but that is her brother and she is going to go see him.

 

“How about you dear, let’s all go and have Thanksgiving Dinner together as a family.”

 

“Thanksgiving -- that’s cute,” he scoffs.  “What are we giving thanks for, the fact our son is a criminal or the fact that he is still alive after four months of living in hell?”

 

The dad looks down at the table and begins to cry.  “I just can’t take it to see him that way.  What did I do wrong that he would do that to that poor girl?  Every time I see him, he has a new scar, a new tattoo, or is missing one more tooth.  I can’t imagine what those animals are doing to him in there and I can’t protect him.  There is nothing I can do to help him, or stop the horror he is living in.  No, I just can’t take it anymore!”

 

So which Thanksgiving Dinner do you want to have?  Personally, I would like to enjoy the love and happiness the two families had in the first story.  I think we all would like to experience what both families had at the first dinner. 

 

Life can be going along great, you can be enjoying all the love and happiness God has to offer you, and then tragedy can enter it, through no fault of your own, and it can become a living hell.  Any of us can become a victim of evil.  Evil is out there and it is growing at as rapid a rate as cancer is growing in the lungs of a 66 year old man who smoked for 50 years.  Evil is out there and it is looking for victims and it does not care if you are a “good” person or a “bad” one.  Hopefully evil will pass you by and you will enjoy the first dinner the girl’s family had.

 

In boy’s case he had some control over the outcome of his life and his family’s.  In the first case, he honored and respected human beings.  In the second case, he clearly did not live by the word of God, nor did he live his life by God’s Ten Commandments.  You can look at his evil acts and start to add up all the commandments he broke.  Had he believed in living his life according to the word of God, his life would have turned out much better.

 

How is your life going to turn out?  You have control over your acts, just yours, so what are you going to do about that?  You can live your life in a way that is pleasing to the Lord, or you can live your life in a way that is pleasing to yourself.  You may not be able to control the evil which comes into your life, but you can control the good that comes out of your life.  You can change your world by following the word of God.  The lives of your immediate family will change as well since all of you are living under the same roof.

 

How you live your life will be seen by others and emulated by them.  If you have children they will look at you and see how you live your life and follow that example.  Children only know what they are told, see and experience and they are taking in everything you do.  If you go to church, they will go to church.  They will think, that is what people do.  If you do not go to church they will not go to church.  How would they get there?  If they are not going to church then they will not know about God. 

 

Their only point of reference on how they should act as human beings will be based on what they learn at home and what they learn on the play ground.  Are you going to allow their value system to be formed by what they learn on the playground or in public school by their liberal teachers, or are you going to have some input?  If you want them to get some positive input, then go to church and take them with you. 

 

There are plenty of Sunday school teachers like Bruce and myself who are teaching the word of God, based on what our church told us to teach, not what we think we should teach.  Rest assured, the lessons in Sunday school are directed by the church.  If your church is promoting God and Jesus (and not themselves), then it is a pretty good bet, the lessons being taught to your children are based on the same principles.

 

If you are single then it is much easier.  There is only one moving part -- you.  If you look at God’s Ten Commandments you can see how following them will make your life a better, happier place.  If you are single and you accept God’s word then it will be reflected in the way you live.  People will see this change and they will either embrace it or reject it.  So how is it a bad thing, if you are single and a woman or a man is attracted to you due to the fact you are a kind person?  Having been single once, I would view that as a good thing. 

 

Some people will reject you or try to change you if they see this good in you.  By default, people who enjoy doing bad things will drop you from their favorite five.  So once again, how is that a bad thing, if people who are only going to drag you down and add misery to your life walk out on you?

 

Living your life in the Lord will clean up your life for you automatically.  If you enjoy God’s grace and Holy Spirit you will probably be kind and happy.  This kindness will be reflected in your outlook on life and how you live your life.  People will be attracted to you because they want to share in the joy that radiates from you.  I also want to enjoy my days on planet Earth and if you look at the Ten Commandments you can see all of the pitfalls in life you can avoid by following them.  James 1:25 (1a) states, “But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does.” 

 

I do not try to live my life by the Ten Commandments because it will earn me a ticket to heaven.  It won’t -- the grace of God will.  I try to live my life by the Ten Commandments because I want to.  God is my father, and I am his son, and like any child, I want to please my father.  I still want to be a good son and honor my Father.  Not so he will give me stuff, but because I love him and want to live my life in a way that is pleasing to him.

 

I think one of the hardest things I tried to understand in the Bible is God’s grace.  It is something that he gives you, not something you can earn.  Ephesians 7:8 (1a) states, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

 

God’s grace is something we cannot earn; it is a gift He gives us.  He just gives it to us because he loves us.  All you have to do is ask for it and accept it.  You cannot pay him back for it, so it is not a loan that you will pay back later, it is a gift, so great a gift we humans could never pay God back for it; that is why it is a gift, given freely with love.

 

I used examples of my life, because as I reflected on my life, I can see how subtle sin can have a huge affect on our life.  I could say I obey the Sixth Commandment because I never killed anyone.  I could have said if you kill someone you will go to prison and your life will be a living hell so God is trying to protect you by telling you not to kill anyone.  This is one hundred percent true, God owns all our lives and it is not your place or mine to take a life that belongs to God.

 

Then I looked a bit deeper into my life and saw how my anger killed parts of my sons’ spirits over the years.  Anger is a killer and maybe no one’s heart stopped beating, but some of that anger killed some of the little boy that was in each one of my sons. 

 

We all have a choice in life.  If God wanted loyal puppies he would have made us all dogs.  He has way too much love for us to do that.  Part of being human is we have a choice.  We have a choice to accept him or reject him.  Accept his grace or reject it.  Fill our lives with his Holy Spirit or fill it with worldly things.  Accept his word as truth, the only truth or reject it and ignore it.  Accept his Son Jesus Christ as our Savior or reject him as just a guy with some good ideas or a myth passed on from generation to generation to give us hope for a solution to a broken world.  The choice is yours, what are you going to decide?

 

In Matthew 7:7-8 (1a) Jesus states, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”  In the book of Revelation Jesus tells John in Revelation 3:20 (1a), “Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.”

 

Imagine you are in a real physical place in your life where you spend time.  This could be your home, your apartment, your bedroom, your office at work, it can be anywhere but it has to be a real place in your life and it has to be the one place where you really feel you are the “master of your universe”.  Now that you are here look around and familiarize yourself with all your things and look at the door.  That door is the door that separates you from the rest of the world and right now it is shut, since you are busy.

 

On one side of that door is the place you thought of, your world, and on the other side of the door is God and his world.  God loves us so much he will give all of us the option to open the door or not.  It is up to you.  If you seek him, if you realize you want him or need him all you have to do is knock and he will open up the door and let you into his world.  If you just listen, he is there every moment of your life knocking.  All you have to do is open the door and he will come rushing into your life.  The door swings both ways, not in an ominous way but in a good way.  Either way it opens, it opens into a world with God and an eternity with him. 

 

This door they speak of in these two verses is a portal in your life which opens up to a life with God.  In Revelation God is knocking on the door.  He is calling out to you to open up the door, open up your life and let him come into it.  If you do not hear him knocking then Jesus is telling us in Matthew 7.7 that all you have to do is knock and God will open the door and let you into his life.  This is a door, a portal to eternity with God.  On one side of the door is God asking to come into your life and on the other side of the door is you and your life.

 

The door will open from either side.  God wants to be part of your life so badly he is just standing there and knocking on the door of your life.  Open the door and let him in.  He will never stop knocking because he loves you so much, and he will continue until you hear him and open up.  As usual, God is a gentleman and he will let you make the choice for yourself.  He will always be there knocking hoping you will hear him and let him into your life or listening for your knock so he can let you into his life.

 

If you are seeking him, then just call out to God and he will show you the door, knock on it and he will open it for you.  Just say, “God, I want you to come into my life and be part of my life.”  That door will fly open and God will be there with a big hug.  The choice is yours, to open that door or not.  I opened that door about 17 years ago, and God has blessed my life in so many ways and given me gifts I never even dreamed of asking for.  God is here for everyone, God has no favorites, he is infinite, and so is his love for all of us so just go open that door.    

 

Let me tell you about my universe and the door in it.  On December 24, 1969 I went to midnight mass at the Catholic Church across from our house.  It was crowded so I stood in the side hallway, which entered into the church.  I stood there for 45 minutes waiting to leave and thought about tomorrow when I could go surfing and try out my new full body wetsuit I had gotten for Christmas.  I really was not too concerned about Jesus.  When the service was over I thought about what a waste of time that had been.  I stood in the hallway (I didn’t bother going into the church) and didn’t even listen to the message.  I just did not care anymore and I thought if I stopped going to church, I would make room for someone else who wanted to be there.  With that, I stopped going to church.

 

Now I did not stop believing in God, I just stopped going to church.  When I was a kid I would go to catechism every Friday and Sunday and the nuns taught us a little prayer.  It goes like this, “oh my God I believe in you, oh my god I hope in you, oh my God I love you, I am sorry I ever sinned against you.”  They told us this was the perfect prayer since we covered all our bases with a very short prayer we would never forget.  We acknowledged our belief in God, our hope was in him, we loved him, and we asked for forgiveness for any and all sins we had committed that day. 

 

Every night when I would go to bed, I would get down on my knees and say this prayer.  And I said it with reverence.  I truly loved God, and never stopped believing in him for a second, I just stopped going to church and openly worshipping him.  I did not go to church, never even thought of reading the Bible, but every night, I thanked God for the life he had given me.  I admit, there was not a lot of thought in the prayer, but I prayed every night to God.

 

Spring of 1977, I was laying in my bed in my room out at a construction camp in Saudi Arabia.  I was an equipment accountant out on a job in the middle of the desert.  It was cold, the night was black, and the wind was howling.  It was a lot like one of those nasty nights in a Moses movie.  I laid there alone listening to the night as this incredible feeling of dread came over me.  The air got so thick you could cut it with a knife. 

 

I realized how scared I was as this fear and feeling of dread and total helplessness came over me.  I was so scared I could hardly move.  In my mind, my heart and my soul I felt like the devil had shown up in my room and was pressing me into that bed.  I started to pray to God.  I remember putting my hands together and pushing them off my chest.  It was like trying to bench press 300 hundred pounds.  I pushed and prayed, pushed and prayed, and after about 30 seconds I had my elbows locked with my hands together over my chest praying for God to make this thing go away – and it did!  I knocked on God’s door; He opened it, came in and saved me.  I thanked God for saving me and then I closed the door behind him.

 

In the winter of 1981 I developed a nasty cough.  Cough medicine did not cure it and I wound up going to the “Doc in the Box” and getting cough medicine with codeine.  After the first bottle didn’t help I went back and got a second.  When that didn’t work I went back for a third prescription.  The doctor told me, “no more”, the codeine would become addictive and I had to go back to the over the counter cough medicine.  Well he wasn’t the only doctor in town so I just went to a new one.

 

By now, I was coughing so much I started to bleed slightly.  That constant coughing was starting to break up tiny blood vessels in my body and I was bleeding out my bowels.  I realized that the cough medicine was not the answer and if I kept on taking it, I was only going to get addicted to the codeine.  I needed help.  As I told you, I never stopped believing in God or praying to him, so I realized this was a human problem I could not cure and needed his help.  After I said my nightly prayer, I asked God to help me with my coughing.  I told him it was starting to break me up and I couldn’t take any more of the medicine, and I needed him to cure me.  The next day I stopped coughing.  I knocked on God’s door; He opened it, came in and saved me.  I thanked God for saving me and then I closed the door behind him.

 

When my oldest son was born in 1982 he had a wandering eye.  A lot of babies get them and there is a surgery to correct that, but for a little person it is very scary and I am sure hurts a lot.  I remember before I left for work that day (I was in my suit), I got down on my knees and prayed to God.  I asked him to fix Jason’s eye.  He was just a baby and I hoped that God would straighten out his eye. 

 

My wife called me that night to tell me his eye was cured.  She told me her father had put his hands on Jason’s head and prayed and sometime during the day his eye was cured.  That ticked me off, because she gave all the credit to her father.  I never told anyone that I had prayed for him that morning.  Regardless of who prayed, it was God who answered the prayer.  Once again I knocked on God’s door; He opened it, came in and saved my son.  I thanked God for saving him and then I closed the door behind him.

 

As you can see, God never stopped knocking at the door (to remind me that he was there) and he never stopped waiting at the door for me to open it and let him in.  Everytime I asked him to help me he did.  Once he did, I thanked him and closed the door.  I didn’t ask him to stay; I just thanked him and closed the door.  Oh how much love does God have for us, that after we use him and close him out, he waits until the next time we open the door?

 

When I was 10 years old my best friend, Donald, was having a birthday party.  I remember to this day how excited I was riding my bike to his house with his present in my rear basket and thinking what a great day it was.  I was going to my best friend’s birthday party and all our friends were going to be there.  Donald would be the king, and I would be the prince, and all of us were going to have the greatest time.  And we did.

 

I was driving in my car in 1994 and this incredible feeling of joy came over me.  I felt like the way I did when I was riding my bike to Donald’s party 32 years ago.  How strange it felt to have that same euphoric feeling that I had when I was ten, but now I was 42 and instead of riding to Donald’s house I was driving to church. 

 

This was the moment in time in my life when I heard God knocking, opened the door and let him in and have kept that door open ever since.  I wasn’t going to church anymore because my wife told me the boys needed to learn about God.  I was going to church because I wanted to, I wanted to worship God and hear his word.  I was going for me, and I was excited about getting there on time.

 

I feel like this every Sunday as I drive to church.  I am truly excited about going to church and hearing Gary (on Sundays) and Kenton (on Saturday nights) speak about God.  God kept knocking every day of my life, he never quit on me, and I have opened that door, kept it open and let God into my universe.  Every morning I look forward to being with him and experience his peace and love that he brings to me through his Holy Spirit.

 

So you see, it is a door that opens both ways.  God will always be there waiting for you to let him into your life.  For years, I only called out to God when I needed him to fix something and he was always there for me.  Then I would close the door and call out for him years later.  Today, I wake up in the morning and hear him.  I go down stairs, make a cup of coffee, lie on the couch and open that door.  I lay there and enjoy the peace and tranquility, then I pray for a while, and finally I open the Bible and read it.  Before I start to read I ask him to help me read and understand his word.

 

I remember watching Jeopardy (11) once and when Alex asked the contestants what was the one unique thing they did, one woman said she read the Bible from cover to cover.  I was really impressed with that, because every Bible I have ever seen seemed so big.  I am not much of a reader, so for someone to read the entire bible was a big deal to me.  My bible is a total of 2198 pages (1a), but the fact of the matter is, the top half of each page is the word of God and the bottom half is them explaining the word to you.  This has been very helpful, since I am not that good of a reader either.  So it is really not that big of a book. 

 

The Ten Commandments represent less than 1/10 of 1% of the entire Bible; they are a tiny fraction of all God has to tell us.  I calculated this by taking 2198 (total pages in my Bible) and dividing by two.  My Bible is a study bible so this takes into account half of each page is God’s word and the other half explains it.  I rounded up to 1100 and divided that into the one complete page for the Ten Commandments.  I then divided 1 by 1100.  If you can see the gift God has given us in them, and they only take up one page in his Bible, just think of all the other gifts has in store for you if you read the whole book.

 

I look at the Ten Commandments and see what a positive effect they have had on my life as I try to follow them.  There are only 10 of them so they are easy to remember.  The little stories I have given were just examples of how following them or not can have a positive or negative effect on your life.  God loves us, and will always be there to help us, but he will not change the outcome of our bad decisions.  You may embezzle money from your work and God will forgive you for it, if you confess your sin to him, but he is not going to give you a “get out of jail free card.”  God will forgive us of our sins, but we will still suffer the earthly consequences of them.

 

I would suggest you read his book with an open mind.  It is a history book of man kind, an adventure story, there are tons of great stories in there, not just David and Goliath, or Samson, but many adventures of God’s people.  It has funny stories in it as well and some of them will make you laugh.  You will realize early man needed help, and God was there for him, as he is here for us today.

 

God did not drop us off on planet Earth and abandon us.  He left us here and left us with a road map.  That map is his word, the Bible, and it is here to lead us to him every day.  Gods walks a certain path and when we seek the Lord we come onto that path.  What we see, our eyes can not register, but what we feel is the Holy Spirit of God.  He will be with us when we seek him out and we can feel his Spirit in us. Unlike Moses we will not see a burning bush or see his glory pass by, but we will feel his presence in his Holy Spirit.

 

I try to seek out God in the morning when I wake up.  I am the only one awake early so I make some coffee, pray to God and then read my Bible.  Sometimes things just jump off the pages at me and I feel good about reading.  Sometimes I am preoccupied and not much happens so I try to refocus and concentrate on what I am reading or praying about.  I do know that when this happens it is because I am distracted and put something there, not God.

 

I try to ride my bike about four times a week.  I have a 19 mile circuit which takes about an hour and a half.  I seek out the Lord then also.  This is a great time to be alone with my thoughts and pray to God.  I usually ponder my problems and pray to God for help.  Sometimes when I ride this great feeling comes over me.  I am happy, full of energy, and just feeling fine.  I look down at the speedometer and I am moving right along, and then I look at my heart monitor to make sure I have not maxed out my heartbeats.  I am just cruising along with the Spirit of God in me.  It is the greatest feeling in the world.  I just eat up those miles and don’t even notice if I am working at it or not.  It is just grand!

 

As the day goes on we begin to sin and fall off the path that God would have us stay on.  We are human and God knows we sin, but it is nice to know he is still on that path.  And the next time we seek God he will be there for us, he will put out his arm and say, come here my child and let me be with you again.  He is not going to stray off that path, as we do, but he will always be there, just like the sun will rise in the East and set in the West.  He gave us his word he will always be there for us.  The choice to be with him is ours to make and all of us are welcome. 

 

I would like to close by thanking you for reading my book.  I hope it encourages you to listen for God’s knocking, open the door and let him into your life.  Just listen, he is there waiting for you to let him in!  Opening that door every day has changed my life in so many ways and it will change your life as well

 

I would encourage you to pick up a Bible and read it.  Don’t be afraid of it, read it with an open mind.  It is an adventure story, a history book and it is true because it is the word of God.  I also encourage you to find a church and go it.  As Wayne Anderson said, “come as you are, God will take care of the rest.”  If they are promoting God and Jesus and you like it then go back, if they are not, find another church.  

 

I would like to thank God for always being there for me.  Opening the door every time I needed something and knocking every moment when I had forgotten about him.  He has always been there for me, and he will always be there for you as well.  Just listen, open the door and let him in.  Let God fill you with his Holy Spirit, bestow his grace upon you, pour his blessings on you and give you the love, peace and happiness that he has instore for you.