http:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/articles.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Because you believe in My goodness, you experience My goodness.” God spoke those words to me during a song at church. For the rest of the service, I was caught up in the implications of that statement. I wondered if the inverse were true. If I didn’t believe in God’s goodness, would I not experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Hhvw-2n","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":155,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/a-working-definition-of-faith\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":0},"title":"A Working Definition of Faith","date":"January 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"What is faith? Most would say that faith is a strong belief in spiritual things. I think that faith is something entirely different. Belief is a product of the mind. Faith emanates from the soul. Belief determines what we think and choose. Faith determines the extent we experience spiritual reality.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":250,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/trust-versus-fear\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":1},"title":"Trust Versus Fear","date":"December 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The opposite of trust is fear, and fear causes us to make wrong choices. Trusting in God frees us from desperate actions because we believe God will take care of us. When we don't trust in God, we are left to rely on ourselves. But when we doubt our ability\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":331,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/creating-an-opening-for-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":2},"title":"Creating an Opening for God","date":"October 31, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Among those who believe in the power of prayer, some seem to have better results than others. Why is that? No formula exists that can force God to do what we want. God is not manipulated. But we can take steps to make us more receptive to His generosity. Preparation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Openness to God"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":159,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/when-faith-doesnt-work-targets-versus-outcomes\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":3},"title":"When Faith Doesn’t Work: Targets Versus Outcomes","date":"February 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"If you\u2019re like me, you want a magic formula to guarantee that God will answer your prayers every time. When God doesn't come through, you think that maybe you did something wrong. I didn't have enough faith. My intention wasn't pure enough. My heart wasn't right. I should've prayed more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":253,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/good-enough-for-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":4},"title":"Good Enough for God","date":"January 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Are you good enough for God? How good must one be to please God? How do you know if God is pleased with you? Does going to church earn us points with God? By the way, going to church isn't one of the Ten Commandments. We are commanded to keep\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Righteousness"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":162,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/guest-columnist-for-local-paper\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":5},"title":"Guest Columnist For Local Paper","date":"February 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The Martinez Tribune In October, I started my free subscription system for people who wanted to read my inspirational articles. In November, I contacted my local paper, The Martinez Tribune, about submitting these articles for their Faith section. After reading some sample articles, they were delighted to publish them. Since\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}