Closer to God

We went to church yesterday, and I'm 99.99% sure that the message was aimed directly at me! Right now our series is Distant: What if God is closer than you think? Well, yesterday Jason was talking about getting out of your comfort zone. God is right on the outside of your comfort zone. I have to say, I was intrigued. I'm always praying for God to help me be closer to Him, to show me the parts of my life that need to be changed, etc. Jason said alot of us beckon God closer with one hand and strong arm Him with the other. In other words, we want to be closer, but we don't want to deal with the things that God puts in front of us in order to become closer to Him. This was completely and totally me! I'm more comfortable where I am and not dealing with my issues than facing those things to become closer to God. I don't want to revisit abuse when I was a child, or my anger toward my mom for not doing anything about it. Who would want to face those things again? It was hard going through it the first time. So in the next weeks, I'm going to be doing a lot of soul searching. I believe I need to forgive a few people. The funny thing is, I thought that I had. I'm not entirely sure, since I'm so new to Christianity, but do you think it's possible that you can't fully forgive someone until you have the love of Christ in your life? I think I'm on to something here. I had a friend who I thought I had forgiven before I found Christ. Turns out, I was only telling this person what they wanted to hear. I was still seriously pissed off about how I was treated way back in the day. I even brushed this person off. The day I was baptized, I felt a strong urge to tell this person that I was sorry for behaving the way that I did and for treating her poorly. And lo and behold, I KNEW that I'd forgiven her because it just didn't matter anymore. I have no anger whatsoever towards her. We'll never be best buds, but it's nice to not feel that anger anymore. Imagine how great it would feel to TRULY forgive anybody else that needs forgiveness...I've realized that my forgiving someone doesn't condone what they've done. It's not my saying that it's ok how they've treated me. It's simply me letting it go. And suddenly that particular experience doesn't have a hold on my life anymore. I have a couple of people I need to forgive, and I pray that God gives me the courage to do it! Through God anything is possible!!! Remember that.