I watched a Law and Order episode just before going to bed, and a 70 year old woman attended the trial of a well-to-do man accused of a recent rape that he was denying, but he had raped her when she was very young. She had never married, she carried the shame and the guilt, and she never told anyone because he was the son of a friend. Her story wasn't the same as mine, but it was one of those rare times I strongly related, and I went to bed with my own memories. I had been asking God too in the previous weeks to make the resurrection very real to me -- not just a fact, but a passionate knowing. Laying in my bed, struggling for both sleep and a quieting of the memories, God brought the words to me again, "He is not here. He is risen!! He is alive!!" and I was strongly reminded of the power of the resurrection, a power I share in, and a power that has brought healing to my own life. The words and the truth came again and again to me through the night, and I was powerfully reminded that God meets us, always and faithfully, and He meets me in my need, but the how and the when, I cannot prescribe. Oswald Chambers says the same thing when he said, “Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical connections. The only way a worker can keep true to God is by being ready for the Lord’s surprise visits.” I am that worker, and so are you. We are God’s children. We are His friends. But, we are also His workers.
Praying for the reality of God to be almost tangible is not something new for me. I long for, and I pursue, a faith that is strong and vibrant, pulsing with life, and contagious. I pray with fervency, Father, when the doubts taunt, let them take me to You, so You can meet me there. Let me trust the facts and not my feelings. I know the unreliability of feelings, and I know the facts cannot be disputed. Facts relay truth, absolute, uncompromising truth – the essence of what has been, what is, and what will be. Truth can be distorted or even misunderstood, but the heart that seeks God finds Him and that heart finds too the reality of truth. But even truth can seem distant, and in the busyness of life, my calendar, my hours, my energy, my pursuits – consumed with the good and the necessary, intent on accomplishing the potential God has for me, and even intent on how God wants to impact others through me – even in all of that, the presence of God, the reality of God, can become foggy and distant. And I am so aware that apart from the reality of God pulsing through me, I too am still His child, His friend, His worker -- but, the fog surrounds me. It is then the questions and the doubts can most easily come. It is then I can watch a TV show and be thrown back into memories that in some ways, will still heal for a lifetime, but God has already given a miracle of grace. It is then the complexities, the difficulties, the tragedies of life, can consume and cocoon. And it is then that I most need to be ready, to be watching, to be asking, for God’s surprise visits. And sometimes, it will be when I least expect Him, and it may even seem illogical, but He will come, and the reality of God and the reality of truth will pulsate.
– Bev
(Related Bible reading: Psalm 31:19-24)
