A little gem...

I was reading my daily "One Year Bible" the other day...Once in a while, a "jewel of a Scripture" pops out in my reading that prompts me to ponder and treasure in my heart. (Luke 2:19 -"But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.")

Anyway today in my One-Year Bible I read....

2 Chronicles 30:8-9

New Living Translation (NLT)

^{8 "}Do not be stubborn, as they were, but submit yourselves to the Lord. Come to his Temple, which he has set apart as holy forever. Worship the Lord your God so that his fierce anger will turn away from you.

⁹ “For if you return to the Lord, your relatives and your children will be treated mercifully by their captors, and they will be able to return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful. If you return to him, he will not continue to turn his face from you.”

I have always been drawn to the Scriptures in the Bible that mentions family and children. There are so many... I am moved when I look back since I became a believer in 1990 in my mid-30s.  I was the first and only one to step out in faith and seek God at that time. I suddenly had a driving curiosity back then. I have always loved to read, and even before I started going to a church, I decided to just read the Bible on my own. Eventually, I did start going regularly to a church. I can't even say that I was a "good" influence to my husband and children back then. I even changed churches because later I found that I didn't agree with how some in that particular church were living out their lives and what they were teaching.  But the Bible itself has never let me down and has consistently been my life-guide. Now that my children are adults, I can look back and see how God has been gracious and merciful, and even utterly amazingly loving to our family, even before any of them became believers. One by one, my husband and children came to independent and personal decisions to become Christ-followers.

So, for any of you out there who feels "alone in their faith"... I encourage you to step out in faith and nurture that germ of curiosity and check out for yourself just what kind of man Jesus was and is today. If those around you aren't interested, go read the Bible, pray and visit a church that lives out the Word. Don't give up, because God blesses those who seek!