There was a man many years ago who found the answer to the question, “What should a person seek in her or his life?” Here is what he declared. “One thing I ask from my Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord to seek him in his temple.” I found this in Psalm 27:4.
What does this mean for us? How could we possibly go and live in a church all the days of our lives? I doubt if we would be allowed to do that even if we should want to. How can we gaze upon the beauty of someone we cannot see? Impossible, huh? None of us living today has ever seen the beauty of the Lord, even in church or a temple. What in the world was King David talking about?
I had an experience last night that I think explains this great passage. Sherri and I have been meeting with a young lady whose husband has decided that he no longer believes in God. The two of them moved to Wake Forest a few years ago to enter seminary for the purpose of preparing for ministry. Her husband wanted to be a preacher and become a pastor or a missionary. She will be graduating at the end of this semester, and her husband is no longer attending seminary. There is a fear that her dream to serve with her husband as a pastor’s wife or work alongside him on the mission field is lost forever.
When Sherri and I meet with our young friend we try to encourage her and give her good counsel. I told her last night to hang on to her dream, that God still has a wonderful plan for both she and her husband. To give her an example to still hope for her dream, I told her a story about my situation, almost twenty years ago. I had reached a point several years prior to that I did not want anything to do with God. In my opinion, he was dead to me. For several years I did not go to church, pray, read my Bible and even distanced myself from my Christian friends. I made a big mess of my life and in doing so I hurt the people who I loved most. But God had not given up on me. He still had plans for me to minister for him. The week of 9/11/2001 God got my attention, showing me in a powerful, loving way that he did exist.
At lunch, on that terrible day when so many lives were taken from our nation, as I entered in on the conversation going on in the teacher’s lounge, I asked, “How could anyone have so much hate inside them that they would do something so evil and cruel?” Almost immediately I had heard the Holy Spirit speak to me about what was inside me. I heard him say that the hate and bitterness I had held in my heart for so many years toward the people who had hurt me, was the same hate and bitterness those terrorist had in their hearts and that it came from the pit of hell. As I indicated above, that got my attention. Finally, in that teacher’s lounge my heart was broken, and I wanted more than anything to seek my Lord, to experience his presence and to gaze upon the beautiful things that he wanted to give me each day of my life. I went home and I did seek Him. I prayed, but I did not sense His presence. I cried out to Him to forgive me, but still no word from Him. I fearfully and earnestly prayed the next day, still nothing.
Our church was having a prayer service, like other churches around America, to seek hope from God, and to mourn what had happened to our great nation. I took the day off and went to that service. On the drive over to the church I asked God to give me some assurance of His presence and I prayed, “Lord, just send me someone, a friend, who can help me.” As I pulled into the large parking lot I noticed a truck coming across the lot from the other direction. The driver pulled into the space next to mine. When we got out of our vehicles I saw that it was a very good Christian friend who I had not seen in two or three years. We were glad to see each other. We walked to the chapel and sat down. People were gathering and finding their places. The piano began playing softly, and suddenly tears began running down my cheeks. Then I began to sob uncontrollably. My friend put his arm around me and a lady, who I had never seen before, began patting my knee and handing me tissues. In that moment the heavy burden on my heart began to lift, and somehow I knew that the arm around me was the arm of my Savior. The hand patting my knee was His tender loving touch.
As I told this story to the young lady last night, tears began to fill my eyes, and then a couple of them ran down my cheek. My voice cracked and my heart once again was filled with joy as I was reliving that day when I discovered that my God whom I thought I had been lost to me, had not been lost at all. He had loved me always and had never given up on me. You may ask, why this was such an emotional moment for me? Until that moment that I was telling our friend that story, I had lost my ability to cry. I had not shed a tear for many years. I had prayed that God would restore my ability to cry once again. The doctor that is managing my depression medication said that one of the side effects of the medication I’ve been taking is emotional blunting. So my ability to cry may have been lost because of my medication for my depression. That medication has been cut back so maybe that is the reason for my tears last night, but just maybe God has finally answered my prayer so that when I weep I can better gaze upon His glorious beauty as I daily seek His lovely face.
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