An elderly neighbor decided one day to vacuum her parakeet’s
cage. Just then the phone rang. She reached for the phone, but accidently
lifted up the vacuum hose. She sucked Chirpy all the way through the vacuum
tube and into the dust bag. Frantically tearing open the bag, she pulled out
her beloved companion and rinsed him off gently under the faucet.
Dissatisfied, she turned on her blow dryer and carefully
blew Chirpy dry. Later, when a friend inquired about Chirpy’s health, she
admitted, “Well, he doesn’t sing much anymore!”
Would
you wonder? Sucked in, washed up, and blown dry! That is enough to steal the
song from the stoutest of songbirds. Can you relate to that? Just when you
conclude that life cannot get any worse, a sudden Katrina washes away your
neighborhood, an Ebola virus strikes down a neighbor, threat of an Islamic war
with Isis seems obvious.
This is
about how the God of the Bible often appears on the horizon. He comes in an
unexpected place that has a strange name, like Bethel, or Peniel, or Sheckem.
Sucked into a dirt bag of crippling circumstances, you find yourself washed in
the waters of a paralyzing flood; only to experience the gentle winds of God’s
Holy Spirit tenderly blowing you dry. That was life for Jacob.
Jacob
began his adult life by leaving home armed with only a limited knowledge of
family and friends. It was a long day by the end of that first day out, but he
barbequed his goat and lay down to sleep. There quite unexpectedly, he met God,
in a dream of all places. God revealed to him, in a way that he clearly
understood, that God occupied more of the world than he had previously believed
or experienced.
“Surely,
the Lord is in this place” concluded Jacob upon awakening, “and I did not know
it.”
Encouraged
by this new Bethel experience, Jacob vowed promises and commitments to God
based upon his new understanding. Bethel became his new house of God. Bethel
became the place and time where he and God met in a new and personal way. We
all need such times and places where God becomes personal to us.
We leave
our cocoon of family and friends and we launch into a fresh new, but sometimes
raw, life, where we discover that God far exceeds our awareness. Consequently,
we renew our commitment. Bethel becomes our house of God experience and God becomes
intensely personal.
I never
knew a time in my young life when God was not real to me. I first sensed Him
speaking to me in worship as a nine-year-old. When I was approached by my
Pastor at the age of twelve, I accepted his invitation and he and I talked to
God at the prayer altar. There, I felt a heavenly touch that impacted my life
for the decades that followed.
By the
time I was thirteen or fourteen, what had once been my fondest wish to become a
professional athlete with the Chicago Cubs, now slowly flared up in a new flame
of aspiration. A call from God into church ministry flickered within me, slowly
becoming a lighted flame. That was nearly seventy-five years ago, but since
that time I have experienced Him in strange places, both far from and near to
the stained glass windows of a cathedral.
Sometimes God finds us with our heads pillowed on a rock,
like Jacob, beneath an open sky. Occasionally, God finds us wading about in a
stinking sheep pen. At other times, He appears out of nowhere to reveal Himself
in a burning bush, as with Moses. He also comes in the silence of the soul,
where no one sees or hears the battle that rages while we wait in ICU for the
verdict of life or death during a health crisis.
Sucked in! Washed up! Blown dry! Somehow God always comes
through. Across the years I have found his Blessed Presence in the pardon of
sin, followed by enduring peace and fortified with strength for the day.
Sunrise waits on the morrow, bringing further promise of His blessings—all
mine.
Such is the faithfulness of God! Thus, I sing:
“Great
is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning
by morning new mercies I see;
All I
have needed Thy hand hath provided—
Great
is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!” 1
_______________
1 The Worshipping
Church, A Hymnal. Carol Stream, IL: Hope Publishing Company, 1990); pp. 60-61,
“Great Is Thy Faithfulness” by Thomas Chisolm and William Runyan.
I am walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com
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