Chapter 29 - God's Absence

Chapter 29 illustrated the illusion of “God’s Absence” in 7 Bible passages, as follows:

2 Corinthians 1:1-11
Deuteronomy 7:1-9
Hebrews 12:1-13
Job 19:1-27
1 Peter 4:1-19
Job 23:1-17
Isaiah 40:12-31

Prayer:

Rest your prayers in the love of an ever-present God. Remember that he is not present because you feel he is present nor is he absent because you feel he is absent. He is always present because he has promised to be. Speak to him because he is there.

Hymn:

The hymn for Chapter 29 was “Under His Wings” by William O. Cushing. (If you are not familiar with the song, just Google the hymn name and you will get multiple sources to read and/or hear it, as well as its history.)

Benediction:

“Almighty God, you are ever present in the world without (outside of) me, in my spirit within me, and in the unseen world above me. Let me carry with me through this day’s life a most real sense of your power and your glory. Hallowed be your name. Amen” (John Baillie in A Diary of Private Prayer)

Meditation Selections:

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Thomas R. Kelly, Paul Tournier, Richard J. Foster, Tilden H. Edwards and Hannah Whitall Smith. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)

Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:

• “Either the world is holy or it’s not. Either the creator’s work is a sign of himself or it’s a sham. …We try to hedge in the holy… we take the big black crayon in our hands and draw these little islands where we will let God live in the world. …We draw more lines around Bibles and sanctuaries, thus adding a few more islands to this archipelago of the holy, and there you have it. Little concentration camps for Christ.”
• “If we are really listening, we shall know that the one who is eternally young never passes (comes) in the same way more than once. He is inexhaustibly inventive.”
• “It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. …What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain…?”
• “I can never say, ‘God is there and I am here,’ as if I were separated from my Source. For God is the core of my being and the core of all beings.”
• “Adam sinned and, in his panic, frantically tried to do the impossible: he tried to hide from the Presence of God. …If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive of a place where He is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated act of the world?”
• “There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. …like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it only comes to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them …patience is everything!”
• “The truth is this: He wants to make us in His own image, choosing the good, refusing the evil. How should He effect this if He were always moving us from within, as He does at divine intervals, toward the beauty of holiness?”
• “…the scientist-philosopher Pascal said ‘All things are the veils which cover God.’ If that is the case, and everything masks God, then everything also speaks of him….”
• “One of the experiences of prayer is that it seems that nothing happens. But when you stay with it and look back over a long period of prayer, you suddenly realize that something has happened.”

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 29 not quoted) mean to you?

Please post your responses to the blog site:
(http://lhcndeeperlifeclass.blogspot.com/).

Thanks for your participation.
John