pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: presence


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Constant

Reading: Psalm 118: 21-29

The passage for today opens with thanks for answered prayers and for the gift of salvation.  A couple of verses later the author writes, “This is the dsy the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it”.  When we are in a personal relationship with the Lord, we know we are saved for eternity and our view of the world and life is much different than the view held by those living without God.

Once we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God is a constant presence to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit.  On good days we can joyously lift our praises to God.  The light and love of God easily flows out of us and into the lives of those around us.  We live with a constant sense of verse 27: “The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine upon us”.  We daily enter his gates with praise.

Then we have times that are a struggle.  We feel as if nothing is going our way.  In these times we may not feel like joyfully singing praises, but we do have a definite sense that God is still near, always remaining present.  We know our salvation is still secure because nothing in the world can take that away.  It is a different way to walk through a trial.  Without God it is indeed a hard road to travel through the storms of life.

God’s constant presence throughout all of life, in both the good and the bad, is a gift worth sharing.  In verse 26 we are reminded that those who come in the name of the Lord are blessed.  God goes with us, blessing us as we go.  A bit later in the passage we read, “I will exalt you”.  In our day to day lives we exalt God by living like Jesus lived, loving others as a humble servant.  When we live this way, we live as a witness to the true cornerstone.  In this way others see the light too and begin to see a life for themselves is possible, one built upon the Rock.  Christ to all, Christ in all!


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Worship the Lord

Reading: Psalm 145: 1-5 and 17-21

Psalm 145 is a song of praise to God.  In our worship we call out to God, singing to an “audience of one”, as the saying goes.  Verse 18 reads, “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth”.  As we call out in worship, we offer God our thanksgiving and praise in song.  We also call out to draw near to God, to be in God’s presence.  When we call out to God, God draws near to us.

Some years in Youth group we are blessed to have a young man or woman who can play the guitar or piano and can sing.  These gifted young people bless us by leading our times of worship.  Other years we do not have such an individual and by default I lead.  Although I do not always maintain the same tempo and play an occasional wrong chord, I can provide the guitar to lead worship.  The vocals are another story.  I cannot count how many times on of the youth singers has looked at me with the “what are you singing?” look.  I smile and we keep on going.  I wish I could sing.  But I am simply not a good singer.  So I make a joyful noise to the Lord.

God does not require our perfection.  God desires our presence in worship.  God desires that our hearts be fully present in worship.  God would much rather have our off key singing with love and passion than our reverent silence.  God does bless many with the gift of a good voice.  Accordingly, they should lead the worship of the Lord whenever possible.  And even the best is not perfect.  This matters not either.  God desires our joyful worship.  God wants us to offer all of ourselves in worship.  Each time, as we seek to draw near the Lord, may we offer our audience of one all that we are and all that we have, for it is pleasing in God’s sight when we worship the Lord.


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God is There

Reading: Habakkuk 1: 1-4

Habakkuk begins by voicing what many of us have voiced as well: “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen”?  Sometimes our prayers have been for a loved one, sometimes for a friend, and sometimes they are for a far away someone or a group of people that we do not know personally but are somehow connected to our heart strings.  We see hurt and injustice near and far and we bring it to the Lord.  But is seems to persist anyway.  Like Habakkuk, we cry out, “How long?”

Sometimes we come to a place where we feel we cannot bear the pain or hurt any longer.  Our cries turn to anger and we express our frustration with God’s apparent inactivity.  We hear this cry in Habakkuk’s words.  In our mind it makes no sense why our living God would ‘allow’ it to continue.  In our anger we may even want to turn away, to just forget the situation.  But we cannot.  Deep down we know that God does not ‘allow’ pain…  It is part of the world, just as joy is part of our world.  The Spirit reminds us of Jeremiah’s words, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (29:11).  We may not be able to understand God’s plans, but we still hold onto the promise.  There is comfort in this as we walk through the midst of a time of suffering or pain or injustice.

Even as we cry out, “How long?” we know that God is right there.  Our God of love seeks to bring us peace and strength and comfort and reassurance and whatever else we need right in the midst of our trial.  “I am with you” says the Lord.  In our trials, may we always trust into God and hold tightly to the hope we profess.  God is faithful.  God is love.  May we cling to the Lord our God in the storms.


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Let It Rain

Reading: Psalm 65: 9-13

In our Psalm, we are reminded of the many ways that God blesses the earth with the rains.  The rains nourish the plants, crops, and animals.  The waters flow over the earth and level out the ridges and furrows.  The rain produces a bounty.  The joy of fields full of cattle and valleys brimming with grain bring praise.  Water is the source of life.  When the rains pour down, it is God’s gift of life.

God also blesses us similarly.  God’s presence rains down upon us too.  God’s Word and Spirit are life-giving.  If we delve into the Bible, we find words of life, hope, love.  If we are receptive to the Holy Spirit’s whispers, we find the way to live a life worthy of God’s calling.  God’s presence is what fills us up so that we can go forth to share these blessings with others.

God’s rains flow down and the waters work to shape and mold us into who God wants us to be.  As God’s life-giving waters wash over us, they smooth out our rough spots as well.  The love and mercy of God’s waters softens our ridges, our prickly and rough areas, softened by God’s grace.  The waters are also present in our valleys.  God’s rain of love washes away our doubts, our fears, our sins.  God makes us clean and new every morning as mercy washes over us.  The rains can also lift us up.  As the waters rise in our lives, God remains present, bringing us peace, comfort, and strength.  Many times God simply carries us along like a mighty river, carrying us when we are unable to walk on our own.

Today, may God’s rain wash over us.  May God’s rain bring us all we need this day so that we too may shout for joy and sing of God’s love and power.  O Lord, let it rain.


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Be in This Place

Reading: Joel 2: 23-32

Our lives, our situations, our communities sometimes reflect the scenario of Joel’s writing.  Devastation and doom loom large in our lives.  A time of exile pervades our thoughts.  This can be in our personal lives or in our communal lives.  Yet Joel also brings us words of hope.  Joel writes words of hope that speak of God at work to bring healing and restoration.

The small community in which I live has been hit hard recently, losing many individuals.  There was a memorial service yesterday, there are two today, one tomorrow, and one more on Monday.  Each and every one affecting the family and wider circle of friends.  Each bringing pain and tears.  One involved a student and has touched the lives of every student and classmate plus the hearts of all in our community.  The exile we feel is maybe best named as grief.  But we too feel the shadow of loss hanging over our town.

In the midst of our brokenness and grief, we hang onto God.  Like in Joel’s writing today, we too know that God remains present to us, working to bring healing and wholeness.  God’s Spirit weaves among us, reminding us of His goodness and love in the midst of our hurt.  Our faith draws us to each other.  Through that faith we hug each other a little tighter, we tell each other we care a bit more often, and we turn again and again to God for comfort and strength.

Lord God, pour out your Spirit in this place.  Rain down upon us your love and grace.  Surround each with your arms of strength and comfort.  Draw us together as you draw us to you.  Touch each hurting heart with your unending love.  Dry every tear with your breath of love.  Be in this place.  Reassure us that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.  Be in this place O Lord.  We need you.  Be in this place.


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Praise

Reading: Psalm 65: 1-8

What a beautiful work we find in Psalm 65.  Read it slowly.  Let the words form meaning in your heart.  It speaks of how we praise our God who hears our prayers and forgives our transgressions.  It speaks of the blessedness of being chosen by God and the way we experience the good things of life with God.  It speaks of the hope we find in God’s righteous deeds and in God’s power.  It speaks of how the morning dawn calls forth songs of joy.

We find salvation, hope, strength, and joy in God alone.  We find all of this through a personal relationship with God.  In our personal relationship with God we find the salvation of our souls.  Through the power and blood of Jesus Christ we are made new every morning as we are washed clean from our transgressions.  In our personal relationship we find a God who hears our prayers, who has plans for our good, not for our harm.  In our personal relationship with God we many blessings.  True, some may be physical, but most are spiritual.  The goods things we experience are peace, comfort, and strength in the trials and joy, contentment, and happiness in the every day.

All if this indeed calls forth our praise!  Today may we praise the Lord our God for the many ways we will experience God in our lives.


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To All in Need

Reading: Luke 17: 11-19

Our story begins today with Jesus travelling along the border between Samaria and Galilee.  There is long-standing tension between the peoples of these two regions.  We see this tension revealed in several stories in the New Testament.  Some on both sides of this tension would travel many miles out of the way simply to avoid crossing the other’s territory.

Ten lepers called out to Jesus.  Ten call out in faith.  Jesus sees ten children of God calling out in faith to be healed.  Jesus brings healing to all ten.  He saw ten lepers.  Jesus did not see one Samaritan and nine Jews.  He saw ten lepers in need of healing.

Healing comes to all ten.  Jesus sees only the condition that has kept them isolated from society.  Jesus does not see ethnicity or age or gender or any other differentiating characteristic.  He only sees their faith that has led them to call out for healing.  Their faith is what Jesus responds to.

Through this story, Jesus is calling us to love in the same way.  He is calling us to love all people.  All people are God’s children, all need God’s love.  Jesus is calling us to look past ethnicity and age and gender and religion and socio-economic status and … “Love one another as I have first loved you”.  Fully, completely, without filter or limit or hesitation.

One came back to thank Jesus for His healing touch.  The one who came back was a Samaritan.  The one who most in Jesus’ audience would see as an outsider came back to fall at Jesus’ feet and to thank Him.  We too will encounter others who feel like outsiders, who feel unworthy of Jesus’ presence.  We too can reach out and offer hope and love and healing in the name of Jesus.  To all in need, may we offer Jesus Christ, the only one who can heal all.  To all in need, may we offer Jesus and His love.


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Remember and Recognize

Reading: Psalm 66: 1-12

Like the psalmist, there are times in our lives where God is present, when God acts on our behalf.  To recall these times is an essential practice of our faith.  When the Israelites remember how God turned away their enemies or when God led them through the sea or when God brought them into the promised land, they are reminding themselves of God’s love for them and, in turn, of their love for God.  This leads them to worship and praise God.

God is also active and present in our lives.  We too have experiences that we can identify and note as moments when God was especially near or when God acted in our lives.  These times are moments in our lives that we too must occasionally remember and be in the moment for doing so connects us to God as well.  Whether we record these moments in a journal or mentally store them does not matter.  What is important is that we periodically review when God walked with us in a time of need, when God carried us through a crisis, or when God blessed us with a child or job or healing or …  When we do this we are reminded, just as the Israelites were each time they sang a Psalm, of God’s love for us and of our live for God.  It keeps our connection to God strong when we regularly offer our praise and thanksgiving.

In regularly recognizing God’s presence and activity in our lives, we are also made aware of God’s presence in smaller things.  We sense God in the sunrise or in the beautiful song of the bird.  We see God in the grateful face of one we stop to help or talk to.  Soon we are thanking God and praising God for all of the blessings we have in our lives.  This day may we be attuned to God’s presence in our lives and may we offer many grateful responses.


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To God

Reading: Psalm 137: 1-9

In our lives we all have experienced loss and suffering to some degree.  Sometimes our loss leaves us questioning God and sometimes a tough loss can leave us angry.  This is especially true when our loss seems unjust or when we struggle to find any explanation at all.

The Israelites understood the root cause of their defeat at the hands of the Babylonians.  They knew their sin and disobedience had brought this upon themselves.  Being defeated and carried off into exile was suffering enough.  But to have Jerusalem, their beautiful city and the home of God, destroyed was too much.  Add to this their local adversaries cheering on the destruction and it was simply too much to bear.  Their tears of sorrow turn into tears of rage and vengeance.  We too can relate to times of suffering in our lives when that ‘one more thing’ pushes us beyond what we can bear.

In the midst of our own suffering, our grief and sorrow can also turn to anger and rage.  It is a natural part of the grieving process to be mad at God.  Our lesson from the Israelites is to bring these emotions to God.  Into God’s presence is the right place to bring our anger and rage.  God expects our honesty and can “handle” anything we bring before the throne.  It is only in God that we find the compassion and comfort that can begin to heal what is heavy upon our heart.  May we lay all of our burdens and sufferings at the feet of God and enter into God’s loving embrace.


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Dwell

Reading: Psalm 91: 1-6

The psalmist finds great refuge in God and wants us to do the same as well.  The pestilence, disease, evils that creep in the night, the snares – so much that the psalmist faced!  Our reality is that we too face much.  Children too often grow up on their own, young adults enter the ‘reap world’ often with a huge debt load or without the education necessary to earn a living wage, and our elderly are too often housed in a facility, largely forgotten by family.  It is no wonder people are longing for love, hope, mercy, justice, and a sense of security and belonging.  Life can be hard.  But into this challenging scene the Lord our God tries to make a way.  God desires to bring us thelove, hope, mercy, justice, and a sense of security and belonging that we all seek.

The psalmist reminds us that God seeks to be our refuge and our shelter.  But God will not force us into choosing to receive these things.  “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High” is how the Psalm begins.  He who dwells.  We have a role to play in experiencing rest, cover, a shield about us, and an absence of fear.  We must choose to dwell each day in God’s presence.  To dwell in another’s presence implies a long-term relationship, one with some commitment.  To dwell in God’s presence does not involve flitting in and out as it suits our needs.

When we dwell in God’s presence we are constantly in contact with God.  We turn to God in prayer throughout the day.  We spend time each day reading and meditating upon the Word.  Through these disciplines we come to know and trust in God.  It is then that we begin to find thelove, hope, mercy, justice, and a sense of security and belonging that we so desire.  May we each dwell in God’s presence this day and every day.