09/28/2019
God looks down on us and loves us each individually. He deals with nations, and peoples, but His heart and attention is focused much deeper than that. There is no place within a vast country, or crowded city that we can hide from Him, because our God deals, and dwells, with each of our hearts. No canyon deep enough, no forest dense enough, no desert so desolate, and no fortress strong enough to keep Him from us, or us from Him.
“The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.”
Psalms 33:13-15 ESV
My youngest son was a boy scout when he was in grade school, and on one occasion we spent a weekend in a vast underground cave complex in Tennessee known as Cumberland Caverns. This cave system is magnificent, and has an enormous open cave with a stage at one end where shows are performed for television and such, it has a tour of a another portion of the cave that contains many underground features, and is majestically lit by colored lights as the story of creation is performed, but as amazing as these and other attractions are within this cave there is one that awes, frightens, and amazes me most... the “wild” tour.
Before you can go on the wild tour you must squeeze through the small opening in a wooden box. This represents the tightest place in this part of the cave that you will be entering. In fact it is a long and tight adventure in which you must crawl, twist, and turn for it’s entire length... which is considerable. So after several attempts, and after popping several buttons from the front of my shirt, I was able to squeeze through the box, and join the scouts on the tour. Well, we crawled and crawled deep into the earth, and for much of the trip I could only see the soles of the boy in front of me’s boots lit by my dim headlamp. The cave was so tight that my shoulders were rubbing the sides of the cave, and my back was barely sliding along the roof above me, but I was making it. Then, just as I was beginning to think I was going to survive this trip without becoming stuck in the cave forever, the boy whose soles I had been following arched upward and followed the tight tunnel straight up. This really frightened me because I was not very young and limber, so as near as I can tell the adrenaline that was racing through my body was all that helped me through this tightest of squeezes and contortions. Miraculously I made the bend, and there was a small room waiting above us that we were entering; it was just large enough to hold all of us who were on this tour.
I was relieved to be in a more open space, and as we sat there, with our guide, the headlamps from our helmets lit the room up so that we could easily see the entirety of it. It reminded me of what I had always imagined the tomb of Jesus to have looked like... cold, dark, forbidding, damp, and not a sound. To make this point more poignant, the guide asked us to turn off our headlamps, sit perfectly still, and not say a word. When we did this the dark, and silence, swallowed us. It were as if our souls had suddenly been lost, and if not for convincing myself that there were actually others there with me I might have panicked. Yet even in this, the bowels of the earth, of what felt like hell, God was with us, and we were with Him. Had it been His desire He could have opened His eyes, and lit the room, or spoken where there was only the foreboding silence and void surrounding us... filling the room at once with His Word. I realized at that moment that there is no place we will ever be that God isn’t there with us, and no prison or cave so deep, that we cannot find Him there. It comforted me.
“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.”
Psalms 103:13-14 ESV
We continued our crawl through the tight rocky tube that wandered through the mountain, until at last we reentered the expanse of the larger cave once more, but I knew something about my God that I had only felt as a mist before. I was never alone... not in place, nor event, was I ever alone.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:35-39 ESV
God deals with countries, peoples, churches, but He lives in each of us individually. His only interest concerning these other things is in that they are comprised of our souls individually.
“Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?”
1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV
And thus, God inhabits us, and we Him. Jesus reassured us of this with these words...
“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
John 14:20 ESV
So in our darkest hour God is with us. In the moment of our most vile sin He is there to witness it. Yes, even in the shame we feel concerning our complete nakedness, He is there. But do not dismay, for when our heart is breaking in contrition He feels our remorse, and in the moment of our death His Son Jesus weeps for us as He did for Lazarus... then calls us from the grave to receive God’s grace. God is with us always, and forever.
So here you are... somewhere between your first breath, and your last. Know right now that God is with you, and is waiting to dry your eyes, forgive your sins, and to love you. The question becomes this... are you ready to acknowledge His presence? Are you ready for him to open His eyes in the darkness you are sitting in, and bring light into your life? Are you ready for Him to speak His Word into you and bring truth into your heart and soul? Are you ready to be rescued from disbelief?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for being ever present, and knowing our hearts. Thank you for sending your Son Jesus Christ to redeem us, even though you knew we lived in sin. Help us Merciful Father to open our eyes to the fact that there is no place we can run from you, or hiding place where you are not there also. Thank you Lord for knowing each of our names, and every breath we have ever taken. You know the hairs of our head, and every tiny bird that falls... how great you are, and yet how personal is your nature. You love the world because we are in it, and you love us because we are in you.
Father, hear each of us sinners as we pray these words and accept, or renew, you in our lives...
“Hear my cry of contrition today as I ask you to forgive me Father. I have broken your heart so often, and disappointed you in so many ways. Lift me from who I am, and make me new in your Son Jesus, who lived, suffered, died, and was raised again from the dead to sit at your right hand... that I might receive forgiveness by His blood sacrifice. Hear me Father, dry my tears, and help me through your Holy Spirit to understand your Word, and know what you would have me do in my life. Great is your love Holy Father, teach me to love as you love. Take the lots from my hand, and instill in me the power of the risen Christ.
AMEN!”
“And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And they cast lots to divide his garments.”
Luke 23:33-34 ESV
Rich Forbes