When i was a young boy I knew God very intimately. I constantly felt good and my nickname was smiley. I bounced through life playing.
But at about 11 all boys become emotionally aware of the world around them. I did. I remember the agony I felt when I saw people in pain. I personally felt no such pain. I may have already been through some things, but I didn’t feel troubled. I had my best friend God to talk to and I felt wonderful inside myself.
But this awareness of the pain of people around me troubled me incredibly. I asked for many creative things to help people, but nothing I tried seemed to provide a solution. I felt terribly guilty at having such joy in my life while others didn’t have that. Once I asked that He would take some of my joy and give it to them and let me carry some of their pain. (I was very naive and very childlike in my thinking.)
Eventually I asked to be used by Him to help people. I asked many times and He accepted. I didn’t know what I was in for. He made me several promises… and then gradually withdrew from my life. BUT He never forsook (forsaked) me.
I went from feeling full of Gods love, to experiencing so much emptiness that I wanted to die. I tried to find warmth and love anywhere – and that included looking desperately in all the wrong places. I searched desperately for the warmth and connection I had once known with Him. I had a chronic hunger. I searched high and low until I found what *I* was looking for. What we are all looking for.
I now have a growing amount of warmth and connection again. I am beginning to prosper in every way, in every part of my life. How? It is only by living life *His* way – and that is by respecting myself, loving others and loving Him. I call that “the 3 lovings”. Love combined with a hope and combined with real faith in Jesus Christ, is what changed my life completely.
I think there can be 3 sources of warmth in our lives: God, other people around us and from ourselves. Each of these connections can give us warmth in our lives. To have all three is to really prosper.
I now have this growing warmth inside me, a connection and I feel warm inside again. I feel more and more fulfilled in my life.
I have been to 22 countries and talked to anyone and everyone of most religions and none of them can restore a life so fast, none of them give manifest freedom from EVERY type of evil in this world, by practical experience I can say with confidence that none of them can provide such inner warmth and connection as the God in Heaven who came to earth to walk amongst us and then went back to Heaven, but yet actually lives in those who believe wholeheartedly in Him.
When I say to people that God can restore them, no matter what they have been through, no matter how empty they feel, no matter what they have done… I am speaking from experience.
In all my time talking to people who believe other things, I consistently found wonderful people who wanted good things for the world and good things for the people around them. Please do not misunderstand me. I found good people in the USA, Nepal and Thailand and wherever else and in all religions.
But in my personal experience… Jesus is the way, He is the truth, He is the Life. All who (deeply and sincerely and with commitment) come to Him will be saved. This promise is not only for the next life, but in fact speaks of release from the consequences of sin in this life, here and now.
This is not guesswork, it is not fantasy or blind hope. I know this to be true from my own experience. 
Filed under: Healing
