Do you ever feel like your life is just in a mess, and you need some mercy? Nothing seems to go right, and you can't seem to catch a break? Life seems to be just one trial and tribulation after another.

You are not alone. We all have times where things aren't going so well for us. At those times, it's good to stop and ask ourselves where we are in our relationship with God. Too many times, we want God's blessings, but otherwise we have no use for Him. We either do not have a personal relationship with the Lord, or if we do, we have wandered away from Him.

As always the unchangeable answer is found in the eternal truth of God's holy Word. The key to being receiving God's mercy and His blessings is to return to God, our Creator. He created us to have fellowship with Him. This fellowship was broken after man's fall from grace, that very first sin committed in the garden of Eden. We need to restore that fellowship with our Divine Creator in order to be receive His mercy and be blessed.

There is only one way for sinful man to restore our relationship to a holy God. We could never do it ourselves, so God himself made a way for us to return to Him. God proved His love for us and to us by sending His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for our sins, so that we could be reconciled to God. (see Romans 5:8)

To restore that fellowship, first we have to admit that we are sinners, and cannot get back to God on our own. We have to place our trust in Jesus Christ to save us, acknowledging that He paid the price for our sin. This can only lead us to repentance, or a return to God. That's the true meaning of repentance: we were moving away from God, but now we are sorry for our sin, and we are turning around, returning to Him.

God does not force us to return to Him. We are perfectly free to live a life of self-centeredness, in total disobedience to God's word. However, there are consequences for turning away from God. We cannot expect to receive mercy and blessings while continuing to live a life of disobedience, separated from God.

It's up to us to return to God. We are the ones who sinned, we're the ones who wandered away. God never left us, we left Him. He is the same now as He always has been and will forever be. We are the ones who went astray, and the responsibility for returning to God rests on us. He made the way, but we have to take it. We must accept Jesus. There is no other way.