The Obvious and the Invisible

 Your way ran through the sea; your path cut through great

 waters, yet no one can spot your footprints.  This is how you

 lead your people:  obviously and invisibly.  Psalm 77:19

So many are searching. Christians often live in a continual awareness of seeking the leading of God. He gives us his Word—solid, trustworthy, life‑giving—yet the movement of his Spirit within us can still leave us wondering. How do I know the “voice” I hear isn’t simply my own? How do I distinguish God’s way from the world’s way, beyond the obvious sins we know to avoid? What should my career be? Who should walk with me in life? Where does ministry fit in a world overflowing with need?

This metaphor from the Psalms steadies me. A path through 

the sea? Footprints in the ocean? I’ve seen something like that

in real life.

I come from an area where there are many gravel pits, the digs

 of the mounds of fill and silt dropped by the glaciers during the

last ice age.  Before conservation laws came into effect, gravel

Was often dug right up to the riverbanks, swallowing sections 

of the river into the widening pit and leaving behind a lake 

where land once stood. It looked as if the river had vanished.

But I learned something: if you stand in just the right place, at just the right time, you can see the river’s path running straight through that man‑made lake. Invisible from most angles, but unmistakable when you know where to look.

That’s the key—knowing when and where to place myself so I 

can catch God’s truth. That becomes the work: searching for 

that vantage point, positioning myself with intention, waiting for

the moment when the hidden becomes clear. Just like an 

eagle who must put themselves in the right place to soar and 

catch the wind, so must I.  And when I do—when I wait, 

observe, and ready myself—God’s leading becomes 

astonishingly obvious. The revelation comes, and with it, the 

action that follows.

Prayer:

Lord, teach me where to stand.

Quiet my striving so I can see the path you cut through the waters.

Help me trust your leading even when your footprints are hidden.

Make me ready for the revelation—and the obedience—that follows.

Amen.

 

Emmanuel - God with Us

 Look! The virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son and he will be called Immanuel, which means "God with us."  Matthew 1:23

"With" in the Greek is "meta," which simply translated means "among."  It has other intonations, though, that includes participation, proximity, association and union.  It signifies a personal union of the human and divine, symbolizing a symbiotic presence of the divine with humanity.

Do you remember the definition of symbiosis from biology class?  Symbiosis is the interaction between two different organisms, denoting a mutually beneficial relationship.  This really usurps ideas about "it's all God" I have heard.  God intends a give-and-take.

This raises a huge amount of questions.

How does this mutually beneficial relationship develop?  How are God and I impacting each other? God benefits from being in relationship with me?  

I think about the very definitive description of "God is love."  With him, love is not a one-way street.  Love is God's way of being with someone.  To return the gesture (symbiotically), how do I "be" with God?  How do I place myself into God's desires?

So, how about this comparison (and expand it for yourself):

God "with" me                                Me "with" God

Presence - availability                    Seek out his Presence

Offer of the Holy Spirit                Be aware of the movement of                                                                       the Holy Spirit

Purpose                                           Seek out his purposes

Triune-nature:  community             Seeking community of others

I'm not trying to fit the eternal and expansive God in me, but rather find my place in Him, his presence.  I am not going to confine God to a "God-shaped-hole" in me, but rather find, live and grow into the space in God's presence and creation that he has for me.

God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth...so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each of us:  for in Him we live and move and have our being..."  Acts 17:  26-28b.

I love the metaphor of water: submerged, I find I am in the water and it is in me.

Lord, submerge me in you, your ways, your presence, your movement. Let me bear no resistance to the full presence of You!  Carry me and sustain me.  Amen

Psalm 74

 Psalm 74

A lament during the exile to Babylon

What is our exile?

It feels as if the democracy “experiment” has failed.  It is crumbling from within.  Its one success was that it spawned an ideal of self-governance and liberty around the world, but now it fails to protect itself.

Though it did not hail from religious beginnings, it was from the faith of men wanting self-rule.  A flawed beginning held together by a construct/a mythology that slowly spread, sporadically and imperfectly, to all people within the boundaries that freedom mattered.  That mythology did not hold, though, because forces of old – greed and power – used an inherent hierarchy to reinvent a system of control over the masses. Freedom and equity (whether of power, sustenance, health, opportunity…) would no longer exist, if it ever did.  

Maybe the Republic was just a false front.

Did we invest too much in the man-made structure of democracy?  Is that our torture now?  Did we make freedom and self-governance a sanctuary that only served those who thought to sequester the power, pretending it was for all? 

We claimed our identity around the altar of democracy.  Did the Republic even define our “religion”?  Self-governance took you, O God, out of your rightful place among us.  We valued freedom and happiness as first pursuits when You should have been our first pursuit – then you would have defined and given freedom and happiness in a more encompassing way.

Is this what the Republic has done?

·       Was it a lion that claimed the inner sanctum (of being and import) in each of us for itself?

·       Did the Republic rip to shreds culture groups’ and people groups’ purpose and protection? (Ask the American Indian, African slave and the immigrant.)

·       Did the democracy “scorch” all the places where God can meet His people?  (In the name of advancement and financial growth, did earth pay the price for settlement and expansion?)

And now the experiment of democracy crumbles.  Will it soon go up in flames with only ash and smoke remaining?

The deconstruction of the American Republic might be God’s effort to reorder the culture and bring people back to the right place of salvation on the land, with God in the lead.  What power is needed to finish off bad governance, misdirected ideology?  We are watching inherent evil do it for us.

Power belongs to God.  Can’t you see it in the cycle of life on the earth?  Even the cycle of the universe – day and night – belongs to God. 

Don’t forget that the enemy has taunted You and we, as a company of fools, have snubbed you, O Lord.  Bring back our focus and renew our spirits such that we turn again to You.  Don’t forget us and Your true intention for all. Put us again in a position to give You praise!

Lord, rise up and defend your cause.  Reveal and remove our foolish pursuits. 

#34

 

I dare not say what I might write

if just left to pen and light.

I dare not think of what I’d do

if bereft of love and thought of you.

I’m overtaxed with sight and sound

And filled with dread of greater wrongs.

 

So, I move my attention

         give attention

         pay attention

pay the price by moving my thoughts into the debit column of your offering.

 

It’s in your hands now

and with head bowed,

divested of being in the center,

I lay at the edge

no longer in torment.