In this episode, I share more about how this truth has played out in my own life — and the steps you can take to make it real in yours.

👉🏻 Back in 2018/2019, I allowed myself to drift away from God.
Like a lot of major mistakes or sins, it happened through small choices over time.
1️⃣ I stopped seeking true biblical teaching.

I was living in an area where solid, biblical teaching was hard to find.
I didn’t make a point of finding a source of biblical teaching online to keep me immersed in the truth about God and His character.
This left me more prone to make poor choices and drift away.

God had used her to help me come to know Him, and I had relied on her knowledge and experience for several years.
However, something was changing within her.
She started to turn away from God, doubting His character and eventually His existence.
Unfortunately, I let her words have too much weight.

I quit my job without securing another one.
I had been working in an exceedingly toxic environment, and it had been starting to affect my physical health.
I had tried to find another job, but without success.
So I decided to quit, take my pension money, and rely on the fact that the side business I had been building – but hadn’t made any money with – would somehow start to work.
Nothing happened with the business. The pension money ran out. And I faced the reality of possibly becoming homeless.

💯 In summary, I had turned my back on God and made a royal mess of my life to boot.
But God didn’t abandon me.
💖 He did the exact opposite of what one might expect: He rescued me. In every way.

And it was a loving rescue.
God didn’t show up with a furrowed brow, arms crossed, scowl on His face, and give me a tongue lashing before reluctantly keeping me from becoming homeless.
He then:

Told me to stop working on the business.
Put me into a season where He guided me back into relationship with Him.
Supplied a contract job that allowed me to pay bills.
And then eventually gave me instructions on how to pivot Relate Escape into being His mission/business.

I’d turned my back on God, created a huge mess, and sinned in a major way. Yet, God and His love remained.
💘 Why? Because God’s love remains secure because of who He is – and the grace He’s bestowed on us.

👉🏻 When Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, our close relationship with God was fractured.

God is holy – which means He’s 100% without any sin, evil, or wickedness.
Thus, anything that is sinful, evil, or wicked cannot co-exist with God. Including us.
It looked like sin would forever keep us from being in that close relationship with God again, and in His presence for eternity.
And there’s nothing that we can do to fix that situation. No amount of perfection, works, or performance can change our predicament.

✝️ Which is why God – in His love, goodness, grace, and mercy – created a way: through Jesus and the cross.

God sent Jesus to be born into human history; live as both fully divine and fully human; and die in our place, for our sins.
👉🏻 By accepting that Jesus is our Lord and Savior who died for our sins, and rose from the grave thereby also defeating death, God then views us through Jesus’ sacrifice.
We’re still human and sinful. But our sins are forgiven, and God sees us through Jesus – thereby removing the fracture and distance in the relationship.
🎁 And all of this is a loving gift – not something we can earn.
John 3:16-18 (NLT): "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.”

👉🏻 This is why, no matter the sin, His love remains. We haven’t pushed God away, lost His love, or “sinned too much.”
In fact, it’s during those times that God wants us to draw closer to Him so that He can help us, heal us, and free us – like only He can.