By J. Wayne Kilpatrick
Heritage Hills Church of Christ
God has graciously spared our lives and blessed us in more ways that we can count, and now He is giving us the beginnings of a brand new year. My prayer is that all who read these words will resolve to keep, or put, God first in your lives now and always. Maybe the following story will help you to see how important it is that God always occupies the most important place in our lives.
A woman called an Atlanta preacher and said, “I want you to go and see a friend of mine. She heard you preach once and said that she enjoyed it. Maybe you can help her.” So the preacher and his wife went to this lovely home. They were graciously received and had a delightful visit. As they left the home the preacher said to his wife, “There is something wrong here. I wonder why I was sent to this home. It’s a lovely home and they seem to be splendid people.”
The next morning the preacher’s phone rang and the woman with whom he had visited said, “I wondered why you came to see us yesterday, but now I know. I had planned to commit suicide. I hid the poison just before you came in. After you had gone, I told myself that maybe God cared after all. I would like to talk to you. May I come to your study?”
The woman came to the church and told the preacher a sordid story. She and her husband had been active in a church in Texas before they moved to Atlanta. He became very busy and had little time for her and no time for the church. She joined a club where everybody signed a pledge that they would not go to any of the meetings with their own husband or wife, but with someone else’s. She started going to those meetings and now she confessed that she had been untrue to her husband and didn’t want to live any longer.
The preacher said, “You have a wonderful background. How did all of this happen? What was the cause of it?” The woman answered, “I believe that there is one major cause for my trouble and I wish that I could tell every unfaithful Christian in the world about it. I attribute my trouble to the fact that we were so foolish as to try to live our lives in a great city without a church home and without God.”
Oh, yes, sin and sorrow come when we leave Him out. So let me urge you to not to try and live your life away from God and the church. During this New Year you will want Him to be with you. And He promises to be with us always as long as we walk in His way and follow His will.