“Did You Get My Message?”
Good Morning Friends,
Let us consider this morning how Jesus communicates with us in a way that astounds us with His amazing greatness that gives us the peace of a soul anchored in Him when we face life’s storms. Let us consider how God is involved in our lives and is personally present in every wonderful experience of grace and mercy. David the writer of today’s scripture was amazed at how God was so intimately involved in all aspects of his life…that in every circumstance there is God… connected and communicating both expressively and receptively. We too should be amazed by a God who knows our every thought and hears our every prayer. If we are listening routinely and intently we might get His response. So how will we answer when God asks us, “Did You Get My Message?”
Scripture: O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. 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, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them–they are more than the sand; I come to the end–I am still with you.
Psalm 139:1-18 (NRSV)
Message:
I wonder at and about people a lot, as much if not more so than the nature of this world. I marvel that we have been fearfully and wonderfully made. When I encounter others on the journey I observe them and try to discern their spirit and experiences, then I look them in the eyes and smile involuntarily as a sign of comfort and warmth. Here as I look into another’s eyes I somehow understand that if I speak, God already knew the words before they were on my tongue. At the moment of our conceptions and births we have no memories but we do nevertheless have the assurance that, from those moments on, God is gloriously omnipresent in our lives with a sight into our very being…a vision that is unstoppable.
We can know a lot about God and not know Him. We can know He is eternal, we can know He is holy, all loving, all wise, all powerful and everywhere at the same time. We can even know that He knows everything and still not know Him. Ultimately we must realize that to know Him is to love Him. To know Him is to know that He knows us and still loves us. To know Him is to feel His penetrating gaze when we have done something wrong but gain insight in how we might do better…how out of obedience to love we can discover the truth…the truth that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us so that we might be freed to love God and one another.
Pray that God gives us the power to live a life of love…a life lived to the fullest in understanding of His purpose for us. Pray that in our loving of others we gain knowledge of how God loves us.
Pray we fix our gaze on the penetrating purity of the holiness of God. Pray we find His holiness in those places we think have been separated from God. Pray we abide in Christ and in repentance experience victory over sin. Pray His brightness burns into our lives in such a way that the image never fades from our vision. Pray we find His holiness irresistible. Pray we believe He has designed us with a unique purpose in mind. Pray with praise that we rejoice in the gift of life. Pray God will finish the work he has begun in us.
Pray that we realize we are to be woven together into a fabric of community that shows forth God’s love. Pray we never try to hide from God and His penetrating look. Pray we keep His commandments. Pray we feel the penetrating gaze of God but also his love. Pray that in God’s grace and in our repentance we get His wink of approval that he still loves us and we too are to love each other.
Pray that others learn to know of an invisible God through our witness of Him. Pray we have intimacy with Christ and that Christ really takes form in us. Pray we rejoice in the mystery that in Christ we too are being built together to become a dwelling in Christ. Pray that we appreciate that God loves by his Spirit. Pray that we are a visible community that represents Him to the world as His creative breath…as a Spirit melding together in His new Body…no longer fearful of intimacy… or the shared presence of Him in us…no longer fearful of being united to Him and to each other. Pray we get the message.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 