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Job 23:8-12 (NASB95) ⁸ "Behold, I go forward but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; ⁹ When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him; He turns on the right, I cannot see Him. ¹⁰ "But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. ¹¹ "My foot has held fast to His path; I have kept His way and not turned aside. ¹² "I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.

I would like to take some time in the wake of all the recent national tragedies and with all the ones in the world and in the personal lives of people everywhere, the loss of fathers, mothers, children, husbands, wives and other family and friends to share with you a deep conviction. Friends I am not going to say that things are easy or supposed to be, but we must come to a place in our lives where we will praise God when life is good and even more, praise Him when times are bad. Look at Job, he lost it all and never spoke sinfully against God and he did not turn from God, he did as this article suggest, he clung to the feet of God, in adoration and worship and praise, and that is a powerful lesson for us today.

Turn back today and praise the King of Kings

May what you read be a blessing to your soul, and a comfort in your heart.

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Clinging to the feet of Jesus

What a week of tragedies, many times these tragedies can be means that crack the stone heart, other times people use tragedies to reinforce the wall and add another layer of height or the depth of the wall.

Though we look at life choices as many, but the truth of the matter there are generally two choices to any situation. One we can rebel, turn and haw at God claiming that He is not a God of love or justice. When we do this we set ourselves up in judgment of God, imagine, the created judging the Creator. I suspect that some who will read this will not agree and will go on their merry way, for those very people I ask one favor, please read on.

There are a few facts that we need to get clear, when Adam sinned, death and tragedy were introduced into this world.

God had given man a wonderful place to live and dwell and meaningful work to do, more importantly, He gave man a relationship with Him, He loved him enough that He walked in the garden where he dwelled. He loved man so much that He knew it was not good for him to be alone so He made him (Adam) a suitable partner/helper (Eve). Being that God is Holy and Loving and Just, He had given them one rule do not eat form the tree in the center of the garden. The day that Eve ate form the fruit and gave to her husband who was there, began a downslide that continues to this day. Tragedy and death entered this day into the world this very day. In talking about death, it was not physical but rather spiritual.

The eviction from the garden came with some harsh realities, the earth would no longer just produce, it would be by intense labor and on that note, and the woman would feel increased pain, in giving birth.

Over the history of man, we seem to come repeatedly finding ourselves staring at our own rebellion to the God who gave us life and loved us enough to give us a perfect place to live and a relationship with Him. Through all this, man continued to rebel and God continued to love. Being a Holy and Just God there were times when God had to hold us accountable, which is proper. If we are honest, we have to agree that God has always been just in His dealing with us. Actually He has been far more just than we would have been if we were able to sit on His throne.

Through it all God was willing and determined to provide for us something we were not able to and in some instances no longer interested in, a relationship with Him.

That brings us to the very means by which God would ultimately give to us as a means of relationship with Him, His very Son Jesus. It is through Jesus, through our belief in Him and by confessing Him, and following all that He commanded. Jesus taught many wonderful and inspiring truths, but one of the best for our condition and the pain that comes into our lives as a result of the nature of a fallen world is found in Matthew 11:29. It is here that Jesus instructs us “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Clinging to the feet of Jesus? When tragedy comes into our lives we will choose one of two Reponses, and  as discussed earlier, we will either turn our hearts from the one who truly loves us or we will turn and cling. I do not mean to minimize anyone’s lose or the magnitude of any tragedy on ones life. My prayer is that if you are not the one who clings to the feet of Jesus, that you will.

Many people wrongly blame God for every wrong that happens in their lives, parents who lose a child, a child who loses a parent. As a parent, I cannot imagine the pain that must accompany losing of a child; I can however understand the pain of losing a parent, I lost my father at age 14. Life has taught me many things, very few were all that great, for in the eyes of the world we must rely on our own selves to get our comfort in our times of tragedy. Drugs and alcohol were then and are still the worlds antidote to suffering. This led me down a horrible and even more tragic existence, than that of a fourteen year old boy who would have just grown up without a father.

I am forty-one now, and came to truth late in life, but it is so very important, for me to convey the power of these truths.  Where I came to find the most comfort and relief for my pain, the pain of a child, who turned to drugs and alcohol and who had to lived the hardest part of a child’s life without a dad, I came to this relief at the feet of Jesus.

My friends we cannot change the days passed by, we can only live today and change tomorrow. If you are at a place in life where you are dealing with the tragedy of a loss, please know that the one true God of the universe feels your pain and He shares your hurt and sense of loss. See, if you do not know the story, God knows the story of loss and of tragedy. He created this place, created two people, asked only two things, that we get to know Him, and asked us to obey only one rule. The result of that as we seen from above, the two failed and this broke His heart, several thousand years later, God sent Jesus, so He would die for us, so we could once again be able to dwell with Him. God loves you and I so much, that He sent His only Son to die for us, that is love in the highest degree. I know many do not understand or cannot equate this to love, but think about this would you send your only son to be brutalized and to die for people who do not even care? The fortunate part for us is that He did and we have a chance while we are still here to learn and apply that knowledge to our life.

If you have lost someone, especially a little one, a parent, or maybe a sibling,  know this truth, you can know that God loves that child, and He is taking such wonderful care of that child. The child will experience no pain, no scrapes or boo-boo’s, never a tear to be shed. However, one does still grieve and shed tears, that one is God, He loves us so much and He does not want us to miss an opportunity to be with Him, and experience a hope in this life and in the life to come, a hope that is liberating from the may pains of this world.

We all live in this world, the same world that Jesus left Heaven to come to, so we could have the ability to come to Him in faith and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Without Jesus, there is no hope, for us or for those little ones.

Therefore, if you know Jesus, do not let the devil get a foothold in your times of tragedy, Cling to the feet of Jesus. If you do not know Jesus, I urge you, know this, we are not guaranteed one day on this planet, do not let another breath proceeded from your lungs, please turn today and ask God to forgive you of your sins, ask Him to save your soul, go and be baptized. Get into a bible believing and preaching church and get to know Jesus, and you can know the peace, He so wants you to have in Him, and you can be confident that He is not alone in wanting to see you in Heaven. Turn my friend and cling to the feet of Jesus.