Fr. Dale Matson
05-11-2011
“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.” (Psalm 139:7-10, NASB)
A mysterious quality of God is His omnipresence and it is of great comfort to me as I better understand how God is ever present. While His presence and involvement in our lives is not always evident at the time, upon reflection we can see in the rear view mirror of faith how God was orchestrating a host of seemingly unrelated events toward an obtained goal we may not have even striven for.
Increasingly I see the manna laid daily before me. It is not difficult to see the incremental aspect to professional progress. Look at any curriculum vitae and you can see how the educational and experiential history is directed toward a particular career. It is also not difficult to see the incremental aspect of training to run a marathon. No runner attempts a marathon without the perfunctory races at shorter distances. It is the career counselor or coach who can see the goal of a career or a marathon more clearly than the individual caught up in the activities of daily living. God the Holy Spirit is our coach and counselor.
It is in knowing that God is in it with us and that He is willing to share His perspective with us. He has the long view in mind; the eternal view. He is underneath all of those things we do; all of those things that happen to us. So much of what we are doing in a life committed to the will of God requires reflection on how the activities are leading in a particular direction or toward a particular goal. God is in this. God is orchestrating this for us.
Prophesy is as much about a better understanding what has gone before as it is about the future. I now know that God always was and is present in my life and this knowledge has positively reconstructed negative memories and provided consolations. It also makes suffering in the present tolerable and provides meaning for this life lived in a world hell bent on destroying itself.
God is a master builder. Reexamine what you have done over the last five years. Are there incremental aspects, seemingly unrelated that when assembled, are a goal accomplished that you had not even considered? As an example of this, I had always wanted to write a book and knew that there was a book inside of me. One day I was reviewing many of the blog articles I had written over the last two years and realized that if combined, they would constitute a book. Additionally, they factored into two groupings. They had to do with comfort and exhortation. What a revelation that was for me in and of itself.
There is a famous story about a single set of footprints on a beach. The individual complains that God is not with her only to be told by God that the single set of footprints is when He had carried the individual.
“…and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20b).
2 comments:
"Blogger" was out of service for a time and when it returned, my latest post became a part of cyberspace. I have re-posted it.
"Reexamine what you have done over the last five years. Are there incremental aspects, seemingly unrelated that when assembled, are a goal accomplished that you had not even considered?"
Boy did I need to read this... sometimes in the throes of the 'sanctification process' there is so much pain, noise, fear, etc. that I cannot see much progress or good in it...despair is tempting...then comes a time, maybe a few moments, when I see can the mountains and valleys I have climbed/crossed, ways of thinking and responding that have changed and I am encouraged. It is His sweet presence and strengthening word that I find in worship and koinonia through all of the struggles of this journey that is the great consolation.
Post a Comment