SEMNov04

I am reminded this month of the continual battle we do to deny self and cleave to our Salvation. Recently I engaged in a communal prayer for God’s Spirit and blessing for a specific occasion. God in His mercy honored our prayers. It made me realize how much I “go it alone”. Even when I am in the Word and in prayer consistently, the surprise of answered prayer may still jar me. How near He is. How little I act like this is true.

It seems God becoming the center of my life is not day-by-day, but rather moment-by-moment. A day is too long. Life is measured in the strange, joyous and terrible moments that arise and change us forever. We hear awful news, or a diagnosis, or a child falling down the stairs in just a moment, not over the span of a day. Each day has enough trouble of its own, but each moment can be a world of its own.

My day may begin well; focused and centered. I may read and pray and mentally prepare for it. Then, one intentional grinding of crackers into the carpet, or one full out smack to my son from my little daughter can send those intentions to flight. It is as if the compartment of God’s abiding has been shut, and mundane or harried life floods in like water into a damaged submarine section.

In those moments, I may cry out in prayer to Him and my children hear, “God help me.” But it is as if I tried to suit myself up with His words only to bear it alone. Surely I am not at all alone.

I have set out Beth Moore’s book, Praying God’s Word on my table so I can look at His Words closer to the everyday moments in my life. He is in fact very, very near. My non Spirit-filled emotion is the illusion that I am unaccompanied. I hope that the book won’t collect dust or seem ordinary like the salt and peppershakers. I suppose I’ll have to keep relocating it to carry out this process. It is all my means to open each compartment which is each moment of my day to the One who created and numbered all my days.

C.S. Lewis said, “He cannot bless unless he has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all. There’s no bargaining with Him.”

How much are our ordinary moments fill with Immanuel, that is to say “God with us”? I think for each moment that is, it is one more moment of peace. Abiding with our God is ceaseless. How much more mindful can we be to Him who desires to have us and protect us. Let us walk with Him.