Posts Tagged: the presence of god
“The Empowering Presence”
“11Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 And the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” 15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” 16 And the LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” (Judges 6:11-16, English Standard Version)
Sometimes I like to have a soak in the tub. It feels good to my back and various other parts of my anatomy. We were staying in a Comfort Inn last night. They do have a handrail in the tub/shower, but it is not low enough for me to grab hold of. So there I was. I enjoy a soak in the tub now and then, but I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life there.
So, I did whatever any non-self-respecting man would do: I called my wife to come and help. She walked in the bathroom and moved my smartphone. I immediately got up on my own and got out of the tub. My wife’s mere presence wasn’t so mere. Her presence empowered me to do what I couldn’t seem to do seconds earlier. I was stunned.
At a time when the Israelites were being severely oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon was called to deliver the Israelites. To say that Gideon was not filled with self-confidence would be quite the understatement. Gideon asked “. . . how can I . . . ?”
And God answered, “. . . But I will be with you . . . .” The presence of God would be enough. The presence of others in our life is very empowering. How much more the presence of God?
“LIVING WITH THE PREPOSITIONS IN THE RIGHT ORDER”
“Today, LORD, I want to live in and through and for you. Help me to live with the prepositions in the right order.”
I tend to think (and even feel) grammatically. That doesn’t mean that my grammar is always good or appropriate.
Take prepositions, for example.
Prepositions are the workhorses of every language I know anything about. Along with conjunctions, they connect and divide. They prioritize. They are, I would argue, the most important parts of speech and thinking—more important than nouns, or even verbs. Prepositions are the unsung heroes of language.
“She gave her love to me,” versus “She took her love from me”—that sort of thing. “I ran toward the dog,” is a very different statement from “I ran from the dog.”
So, this morning, I wrote in my journal the words that begin this post: “Today, LORD, I want to live in and through and for you. Help me to live with the prepositions in the right order.”
The prepositions are crucial in this desperately longing short prayer.
First, I need to live in God. Indeed, I believe that there is nowhere else to live.
The Apostle Paul, speaking to some of the intellectuals of first-century Athens, said, “For in him (that is, God) we live and move have our being” (Acts 17:28).
We live in God! Does that seem a bit “new-age-ish” to you? Well, it’s in the Bible!
Of course, if we live in God, that means it is going to be terrible difficult to recognize God’s presence, or even God’s existence. If God is the medium in which we live, we will probably take God for granted. Expecting us to be aware of God would be like expecting a fish to be aware of water. Water is all that the fish knows. Therefore, awareness of water is, I suspect, not easy for fish.
And yet, though living in God makes it very challenging even to be aware of God, it is a wonderful prepositional truth. (No, I did not mean “propositional truth.” I meant “prepositional truth!”) There is a sense in which I need to “seek” God. There is another sense in which I simply need to pay attention. God is, in fact, all around me, inescapably present. This non-negotiable presence of God might invite me not to take myself quite so seriously. It might help me to relax.
But even when something or Someone is inescapably present, I do need to pay attention to that fact. Unfortunately, paying attention is not one of my strong suits.
Then, there is the preposition “through.” “Through” means that I don’t try to do life apart from God. Living through God means that I recognize my intense need for God’s help in order to live well. Otherwise, I will mess things up. A friend of mine said years ago, “The Christian life is hard to live without God.” In his usual ironic way, Marlon nailed it. What he was really saying was that it is impossible to live the Christian life apart from God.
And then, there is the preposition “for.” To live for God means that I seek to trust and obey, to glorify God, to make God look even a fraction of how good God really is. To live for God requires my very best intentions, will, plans and actions.
So prepositions matter, in my opinion. The order matters as well. If I start with living for or through God, I’ve already messed up. I need start with the in—God’s everywhere presence. Then, I need to continue with through—God’s every-when empowerment. Finally, I need to live for God—recognizing that I am not the center of my universe; God is. It is in, through and for God that I need to live! Only in that order does my life find its proper order.
IMPORTANT UPDATE!
I just got an e mail from a friend who had read today’s blog. He had some excellent suggestions for making it even better.
“. . . [Y]ou forgot WITH, which is my favorite preposition. God uses WITH more than any other preposition when describing himself and us, n’est ce pas? On another note, I think of prepositions as VERBS. Gives them more CLOUT, if you will.”
Both points are well taken, and will be the subject of future blogs, I hope!
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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