When is the last time you saw the onset of trouble on the horizon and all you wanted to do was run the other way? It is interesting how troubles of life quickly make us feel isolated from the comfort of others. One of the most important areas of life is starting fully believing that you aren’t in the life alone. You may be excluded from the empathy of others at different points of your life, but you are NEVER without the consistency of the Lord Jesus Christ’s love, comfort, and support. Where we falter is by applying restrictions on what this love, from Jesus, should look like. Too often we think that the exclusion from difficulties is a sure sign that Jesus’ love is faithfully available for us. Yet the Bible counteracts this thinking by trying to pre-warn us that troubles are a part of this life, but that this trouble NEVER defines His thinking over you. I know the hollow feeling that can creep into my heart at points of life where I would start to feel as if there was no hope for comfort with the onset of a problem. Yet Jesus, more than anyone else in the history of mankind, has tasted the bitterness of separation, abandonment, betrayal, gossip….. We cannot allow ourselves to apply others failures onto the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. He loves us not out of an obligation more rather because He would settle for nothing less. He placed His body upon the cross and spilled His blood in order that there would never again, in all of history, be a time that we couldn’t reach out to Him. So come to Him, no matter the trouble on the horizon, come to Him. If you are confused how to start coming to Him, start first by realizing that Jesus is big enough to handle all that you need to throw at Him, so if you need to dump a life time of hurt on Him by communicating all that you feel is wrong and painful in your life, then dump it! He’s big enough to take anything you need to say. Stand/sit/walk/run/drive/swim….whatever position you need to be in, just start talking with Him. That ABOVE ALL else is what He is looking for…that daily contact within you. It is out of this constituency that you are offering Him, that you will find the comradery you are seeking and due to this…the next time that troubles face you, you will start to feel more will come out of your praying with Jesus than will your running away from the troubles. Pastor Daniella