Imperceptible

Dry moments such as the one David suffered in Psalm 22 have plagued the followers of God for millennia. I dare say that they are the way of life for many Christians far more than they like to admit. For some these times when God seems far away are a source of guilt for some possibly unknown offense. Others find dry times as a source of doubt in God, but there are those who choose faith over the emotional sight that we so desperately desire. The article on the front page of CNN.com about Teresa's Crisis of Faith brought to mind my own current dry spell. Certainly the woman we knew as Mother Teresa was a follower of Roman Catholic doctrine, and so it is possible that she never knew God in the first place. I personally find it difficult to believe that anyone can find God through the tools of pride that the Roman Catholic doctrine provides, but I want to suppose that somehow God did reach Mother Teresa with the truth in His Word about salvation by faith alone. Supposing that this loved woman was truly a child of God in the deepest sense is it possible for her to suffer fifty years of silence from God though seeking Him with a pure heart? I think it is.

This is a big deal because we want to experience God today more than ever, and when we don't we feel a deep sense of failure or hypocrisy. We call this life in Christ a life of faith for a reason. As believers in Christ we are ridiculed by outsiders for our stupidity, our gullibility, and our intolerance, but we want to say "I have seen Him and He is real." Unfortunately we do see through a glass darkly and that means that we cannot see the Subject of our faith, but our sight is not only that of photons perceived, but of the touch that we associate with God's presence. Our life here is incomplete. Just because we don't feel God we can't just assume that He has rejected us or that we have deep rooted sin, but we should remember that God is greater than our condemning hearts and is able to forgive and lead us to repentance.

So don't despair if you can feel God's presence. It is possible that you have to learn to sense Him in a new way, or that this is an extended time to develop your faith. My parting shot comes from First John 3:2-3 "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears [1] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure."

As Written

We often hear in church the importance of giving a tithe of our financial income. I also feel that it is important to give a portion of my time in service to my local church. One of these forms of service that I give to my local church is teaching Sunday School, but even when I don't have time to teach because of school I find that I have time to sing on the praise team. Our church has four teams which serve every fourth Sunday during the three services. Each team generally consists of the same people, but on occasion one of us trades Sundays due to a schedule conflict. This week I swapped with a tenor on another team so that I sang with a team I don't know well. For the first time in quite a while I was singing harmonies with which I was not familiar. My alto partner kept pointing to the music saying "It's right there." In other words she wanted me to sing as it was written rather than by ear. I am not whining. It was fun rising to the challenge, but as I was working on sight-reading I recalled a Challenge that God gave me as I drove to Church this morning. The Holy spirit brought to mind a small decision I made the day before that turned into a source of conflict between my wife and I. The Lord "asked" me if I followed His Word in that decision and suddenly my self- justification in my part of the conflict deflated. While I was sitting in the beginning of the service under conviction one of the leaders quoted Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV Online) and it was as if the Holy Spirit pointed to the Scripture and said "Live this as written." If I had lived according to God's Word I probably would have experienced special harmony with my wife rather than the conflict we had. It is so easy to say "It's ok God, I got this one." He points us back to His Word and motions us to study it and live it as written.

Torture

Now I am not an expert on kids, but I do hold the opinion that children have lives that are far more stressful than adults. Think about it- they have to learn a new language while they are also expected to learn social rules, and they are expected to engage both in constantly increased complexity. Adults have to worry about money and keeping their romantic relationships intact while kids have to worry about keeping at least two adults happy while learning a language and other technically difficult tasks as their little minds develop. Then school hits them. I am witnessing this with my three dear ones as they ready for school's start this week.

My older two are incredibly tense as they contemplate their first day of school with Wonderful and myself tied up in knots for them. We met their teachers on Friday, but we don't know what being in the classroom will be like for them. It is like the first day of a new job with all new bosses and co-workers. Ladybug is starting kindergarten on Tuesday and she really doesn't have a clue, but her siblings know what it was like last year and they also know that the material in this year will be more advanced. Wonderful and I have repeatedly reminded our second-grader and first-grader that they had a lot of fun last year, but right now all they remember are the hard times.

So now we all wait as our worst fears and most sincere hopes all wait to be realised. As we wait Middlesweet and JR cope as best they can which means that the eldest is upset by things that he normally shrugs off, and his sister constantly rehashes all her fears. At this moment all we know is the torture of the wait.