https://vimeo.com/59776198

I'm Wayne Jacobson and this is Engage. I get emails from time to time from people who are wanting to start their own journey. I'm hopeful as we work through some of these videos you'll add your own emails and questions and comments so we can help you explore what's valuable for your journey. This one's from Janie though. She said, I've been reading, he loves me and I'm struggling to reconcile it with my life. What does one do when you've lost all sense of God, when the story of the fall fails to make any sense at all? I just don't get why it's played out like it has and God does not intervene. Even if he showed us just to put me in my place that would be better than his cold silence. Why doesn't he speak and if he does then why doesn't he make it obvious it's him and not just my head or make it so I have to believe in something that took place thousands of years ago or make it so I have to believe it by what I see in nature or relationships or other people's testimonies. Why doesn't he do something obvious? And why does he seem not only unfair but seems so unequally unbalanced in his lack of fairness? That's a lot of pain. Janie, I'd have to say to you, you're not too far from where the psalms often were. We get the same thing in the Psalms, God why are you ignoring us? Why we plead our case with you and it seems like the heavens are quiet and you don't do what we expect you to do and if anybody's serious about engaging a relationship with God those are going to be the honest questions they have because no, life doesn't go the way we hope it would. And particularly if God loves us and if God's involved in our life then certainly he would make sure the painful things in our experience don't happen. The reality is God's making himself known in a very broken world. And I think God is obvious in the way he's obvious. Not necessarily the way we want him to be. Even the Pharisees, they wanted signs in the heaven, they wanted stars to fall from the sky or miracles to happen that would prove to me God exists and occasionally God does those kinds of incredible things and I love it when he does. I think God's wanting to make himself obvious in our heart and the simplicity of his whispers as he draws us into a relationship rather than spectacular signs and wonders we think would finally solve it for us. God had a better way in mind. He had a better way that would invite us beyond the pain of this age, beyond the things we've been told about God, some of which may be true, some of which may not. So if you want to start this journey, I think one of the things that will help you do it is kind of suspend your disbelief about all kinds of things. Maybe just start fresh, which is perhaps what repentance is. Just to start fresh and say, God, I really want to know you like you are. I may not know what that is. I may have a lot of expectations of you that you've disappointed. I'm upset that you didn't fix this thing in my life or keep cancer away from people I love. I mean, it's fair to say all of those things to God. That's fine. When they challenge, though, the fact that God loves and cares about us, that's where it becomes problematic. It's hard for us to overcome the idea that God's distant, cold, and will not engage us in a way that causes his love to be made known. But I've got hundreds, thousands of emails from people who've started out in the same place Janey has and yet came to find the reality of a relationship. So here's how you start. You start by waking up tomorrow morning, whenever you wake up. Some of you night people may not wake up until three in the afternoon mentally. But whenever you wake up during the day, tomorrow, just say to God, if you exist and if you're real, would you show yourself to me? Now, the hard part is not to have any expectations about what that might look like. Don't expect the sun to move back 10 degrees. Don't expect the rain to suddenly fall at your command or lightning to flash across the sky. Let God make himself known to you the way he wants to. But here's what's happened. And even if you're not even sure that God exists at all, that's a great place to start. It's to say, God, if you're real, would you show yourself to me? And if you already believe he exists, but he's just somewhat distant from you, then what you want to begin to believe is maybe I've gone about this wrong. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. And that opens you to be able to say, okay, God, what's next? How do you want to make yourself known to me? Would you show me your love today? And these are just things you need to explore if you're going to even have a desire to go into this kind of a relationship with him. Many people don't start there. We try and give our hearts to God and we get involved in the Christian rituals and we think that's going to do it. But really, until you're convinced he's real, you don't have to go any further. And if it takes time for God to make that known to you, let him make it known. If it takes months or weeks, as I've said before, this is not something you have to rush. Find that quiet place every day, maybe even 10, 12 times a day. Not what you're spending an hour or two. I'm not encouraging that. I'm encouraging just that brief breath and prayer that says, God, if you're real, make yourself known to me. God, would you show me today how it is that you love me in the very real experiences of my life? He's up for that challenge. He loves to do that, give him the opportunity to do so.