Skip to main content

Basking In Love


          Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night. Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. (Psalm 139:7-12)

          Have you heard the old idea that young children apparently believe, that if they cannot see you, you cannot see them? There are some people in our society who seem to believe that their ideas about reality are binding on reality. If they cannot see God, God can’t see them or doesn’t even exist. It used to be that if someone believes they were someone or something they clearly could not be, they were generally consigned to an asylum. Granted, the asylums often didn’t help, but there was an understanding that reality was fixed, and that those who rejected it in favor of a personal reality we in need of help, not accommodation.
          And today’s passage deals with some of that fixed reality. God is omnipresent. There is nowhere that can contain Him, and nowhere that He is not present. He even fills Hell, though I believe His presence is not manifested there in ways that those living there would recognize or accept if they knew it.
          The key is that there is nowhere safe from Him, and nowhere unsafe without Him. This is comforting because I live in fear of making wrong decisions. It’s not that I’m a coward. I’ve made some big decisions and been confident that they were the right decisions. There have been times when I wandered in rebellion, and times when I thought I was on the right road and ended up in hell. Sometimes, I made that hell. Other times, others made it for me. God was not excluded, even when I wanted Him to be.
          As an aside, this is what irritates me when people claim that God has been kicked out of schools, or the White House, or wherever. He can no more be kicked out of those places than He can be kicked out of Heaven. I understand what they mean, but it’s still bad theology.
         Once we have given up our rebellion and put an end to our flight; once we are content to stand in His presence and turn our faces to His, like the flowers mentioned in yesterday’s entry, we can blossom and stand in His light and warmth. As noted before, there’s great freedom in that, and we don’t have to go anywhere. Wherever we are, we can bask in the love we cannot escape.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...
1 comment
Read more

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Pure...

            The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (I Timothy 1:5)   I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16) I’m probably cheating - or mishandling the Bible, but earlier I was thinking about love being pure and purifying. And hatred being pure and purifying. And anger…joy…patience… fear… jealousy… courage…lust… and other strongly felt feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Today’s verse brings purity and love together, so it’s the verse of the day, but it’s not really the focus. That means my motive for sharing it with you probably isn’t pure. As you read through my list, you   probably thought, “Yeah” about some, and “What’s she on?” about others. But consider how much hatred, a...
Post a Comment
Read more