Taking stock (reviewing your relationship)

You know it's amazing how we shop has changed over the last decade or so. Online amenities have seen to that.

I was looking for a new watch the other day.

So I was reading through the reviews of the particular watch that I was searching for.

They read something like this.

"I purchased this watch last year. I wanted it to go swimming, and being a businessman I travel the world so wanted a watch that read world time across the various time zones. I wanted a watch that was functional in the every day but looked good in the business meeting. I've got to say this watch has not let me down. Water proof to 200 meters, and has endless futuristic functions that keep me on time wherever I am. A brilliant time piece!"

Reviews!

Reviews on the Internet have become a seemingly normal way of life for many. They can be benchmark information that actually lead us towards clinching the right deal for us.

I know what you are thinking, Gary does think of some weird stuff!

But thinking about this the other day lead me down another path.

I've wrote a lot lately about some tough times I've been experiencing, times that I'm pleased to say that at last we seem to be coming out of right now. And after reading these reviews on the Internet, I felt really strongly in my mind a question drop in.

Gary, what if you were to review your relationship with Jesus so far? From the day You met him right up until now?

What would the review look like?

What would it read like?

What would it say?

Would it help someone who was looking to maybe clinch a deal?

So I just opened my notebook, gripped my pen and just wrote.

Here's what I wrote.

I do love you God. You've been there through the tough times. You've helped me to change my character if I look back, I'm not the same type of Gary as when I first met you that's for sure. The best thing is if I really look is that you have harnessed my nature which naturally is to love others and see them Okay, but you've shaped it so the compassion is shown where as before I'd keep it hidden. You've given me a hope and a reason to live that just wasn't there before. I was just kind of groping at life in the dark and it wasn't getting me anywhere. You've given me an eternal hope but also an abundance of real life while I'm here. I can testify that you have saved me from evil. Sometimes, like recently, even at the eleventh hour! You have honestly rescued me from so many situations. You only know where I was heading before I met you. The amazing thing is there is never a time when you are not there. I can speak to you anytime and have long dropped the religious pretence in our conversations and I am so grateful you want me just to be me with you. I love our late night conversations they help me to keep focussed. When my focus is drawn away from you (and sadly that's quite a bit sometimes) and I try to make it on my own, or I decide to do something that's not in line with your will, I'm astonished that you just patiently wait with open arms for me to come running back to you. I really don't like it when you discipline me but have never known a time where that rebuke has not put me back on track with you. You have given me gifts I wouldn't have believed. You have put your words in my mouth to take to the world, and because of that I've been to places and people that I would never have dreamed of. Even in the times I have thought you were nowhere to be seen, you've showed up somehow. You've showed up through the most unlikely people and the most unlikely places. Your provision if I look back has been truly breathtaking. You've managed to sustain me practically, physically, emotionally and spiritually through both the joyous times and the ridiculously hard times. Your love has sometimes put the biggest of smiles on my face and has literally brought me to tears. I actually couldn't live without you, without our relationship. No way. I love you, words can't do you justice really. But I say that I long for the world to know you, because it would never be the same again.

In terms of what Jesus means to me that's not much of a review.

But from my heart I could write a million words and it still wouldn't express how much my relationship with God has changed me, has saved me even.

For those reading this today.

It might be a good time to review your own relationship with God.

It may be that you haven't even got one going on. Maybe it's a good time to start one!

Maybe you've let go of God a little or a lot.

Maybe you just need to go deeper.

Never the less.

Maybe spend some time writing down your review and see where you are right now?

Blessings.