THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN A CHRISTIAN'S LIFE

THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN A CHRISTIAN’S LIFE

                                                Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

Psalm 139:7&8

I grew up being taught that God is “omnipresent.” It meant that He was everywhere all the time. 
Throughout much of my younger years, I lived unaware that He was present and at times it seemed like he was nowhere to be found.  It's not that God was hiding.  I just did not take the teaching about his presence seriously.  I was not interested enough to be aware.  My antenna was down.  My reception was turned off.  I wasn’t tuned in to God.  Most of the time I was ignoring God.  By this default position I remained in the dark regarding who he truly was and how accessible He could be.  I was not alone.  Many Christians remain unaware of the presence of God in their life.  Unaware, they miss noticing God's grace and live life struggling from one challenge and problem to the next.  It's difficult to maintain a strong faith when we ignore God or live like He is absent.

When we don't sense God's presence prayer becomes an exercise of calling for a lifeguard while treading water hoping somehow to stay afloat until He throws a life line.  Doubt prevails that God hears, cares, and is near enough to respond.  The truth remains.  God is near.  He is not an absent landlord.  He is Lord, ever and always present in every Christian’s life.  If you are unaware of God's presence in your life, here are four ways you may grow in an awareness of God’s omni-presence:

1.     Thanks and Praise – Read Psalm 100:4.  It speaks of gates and courts referring to the Temple in Jerusalem and its many gates and courts.  The temple gates are associated with thanks to God and the temple courts with praise.  The Temple itself is a metaphor for progressive intimacy with God and holiness.  Thanks spills over into praise to God for the gift of his presence and grace. Thanks and praise are an appropriate responses to the Giver of all good gifts.  Together they occasion a profound awareness of God's steadfast faithfulness and presence in our lives.

2.     Means of Grace - John Wesley was fond of teaching and preaching about the presence of God experienced through what he called the means of grace.  In a more modern expression we might call means of grace our “habits of the heart.” They are habits of piety - love of God (ie., worship, prayer, Bible reading, fellowship) and habits of mercy - love of others (ie., feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned, helping widows and orphans).  Wesley taught that through the means of grace we mature in our understanding of God’s identity and in our awareness of his presence.

3.     Christ at the Door – We read in Revelations 3:30, “Here I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”  Once you responded to his initial knock on your heart's door.  Now you may consciously consider Christ at the door each day, inviting you out into his day, his agenda, and his plan.  As you walk each day in His presence, he engages you in fellowship.

4.     Practicing God’s Presence – Brother Lawrence was a 
seventeenth century monk who practiced the loving presence of God. He spent years disciplining his heart and mind to yield to God's presence. He wrote, "As often as I could, I placed myself as a worshiper before him, fixing my mind upon his holy presence, recalling it when I found it wandering from him." Lawrence did the mundane chores of the monastery continually mindful of God’s presence so that even the lowest, most humble work was completed in a spirit of worship.

God is always present.  We aren’t always conscious of his presence and proximity.  Yet he is so close.  He desires even greater proximity.  He desires to be more than near.  He desires intimacy, the ultimate in proximity, the infilling of his Holy Spirit in us.  You can’t be closer to God than being filled to the measure of fullness of his very Self. (Ephesians 3:19). 

 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

James 4:8

Since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus 
 . . . Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full of assurance of faith.

Hebrews 10:19&22

TIPPING OVER THE MINISTRY PYRAMID

True Christian ministry is  not what you think.  You may think that it's a matter of becoming a priest, or pastor, or Salvation Army officer.  That may be God’s calling on your life.  Ministry is much broader that those roles and responsibilities.  It is not bound by age, nor does it stop with retirement.  Too often ministry is avoided.  It is passed over being delegated to professional, career ministers.  Step away from the conventional stereotype of ministry and look at it from another perspective.  We do so with the help of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He tips over the ministry pyramid.

Bonhoeffer was martyred at the age of thirty-nine, a month before the end of World War Two at the hands of the Gestapo for a secondary participation in an assassination plot against Adolf Hitler.  He left a legacy of writings that are inspiring to generations ever since.  He may be best known for two books:  The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together.  It is in his book, Life Together, that Bonhoeffer offers us a remarkable discourse on ministry.  He wrote this remarkable little book while establishing and leading a clandestine, underground seminary during the Nazi years.  His discourse is simple, biblical, and provocative.  Bonhoeffer offers a very different, yet helpful perspective.  The sequence of his depiction of ministry is surprising.

First, he talks about the ministry of holding one’s tongue.  This is an unusual place to start.   We often think of ministry as preaching, of verbal persuasion, having a pulpit for proclamation, and an audience to hear our case.  Instead, Bonhoeffer exhorts us to exercise the discipline of silence.  We think of ministry as particular forms of activity, but the inactivity of silence is a form of activity that sets the stage for other forms of ministry.

The ministry of silence (holding one’s tongue) is coupled with the ministry of meekness.  This form of ministry compliments silence and is exercised through self denial, not putting one’s self forward and upfront, not in the spotlight, and without conceit.  It is a ministry of humility toward the service of others.

Then Bonhoeffer introduces us to the ministry of listening.  This is the natural progression of the stage setting of the first two ministries – holding one’s tongue and in silence stepping back in humility ready to pay attention and listen to the other.  Love listens.  Often love that listens is a greater service than speaking.  While he does not comment on these three together, I think of these three ministries as making up a combined ministry of presence and preparedness for other forms of ministry yet to come.  How often in times of sorrow and loss do others merely need the presence of a friend?  In the circumstances of the unimaginable, as in the loss of the life of a beloved child, words seem superficial. Just the presence and silence of mutual sorrow is comfort enough.  Holding ones tongue and in silent humility just listening to the angst, need, and struggles of another sets the stage at the right time for the ministry of helpfulness.  Having listened we then know better just how to be helpful.  

This was the genius of The Salvation Army’s ministry at the site of the 9-11 tragedy where and when the Army was responsible for ministry at the morgue. Families went through the ordeal of identifying the bodies and body parts of loved ones.  They were required to do so  not once but twice by protocol.  It was one of The Salvation Army’s finest hours.  It called for the ministry of presence (silence, meekness, and listening) as Salvationists accompanied families through the painful ordeal at the morgue. It is a ministry often repeated every day around the world at times of natural and human disasters.  When we listen to understand, we are often given wisdom of how to help.

The ministry of helpfulness follows.  It is exercised in active engagement when God interrupts us on behalf of others.  He provides wisdom, insight, and grace to help.  He works through our human agency.  As we continue in Christ, even in the most difficult of ministry circumstances, God provides all we need in the service of others.  As we walk and work with him, by the Holy Spirit, Christ is our sufficiency in the ministry of helpfulness.  Look at how the ministries build, one foundational for the next, preparing and equipping us in life for ministry so that when the time comes to help, we are of the mind and spirit to partner with God in the provision of his grace to others.

Then there is the Ministry of Burden Bearing – forbearing and sustaining, going beyond the episodic moment of giving help.  Burden bearing is sustained help over a long period of time.  As Bonhoeffer states, “Some things we cannot change.  We can only carry.”  This includes things like helping a loved one carry the burden of pancreatic cancer, the loss of life or limb (We think of the victims of the Boston marathon bombings), and even shame and the loss of face, so important in some cultures.  Helping and burden bearing are ministries of service.  Together with ministries of presence, they continue to build from one to another and lead to two more ministries in Bonhoeffer’s framework.

Bonhoeffer then presents the ministry of Proclaiming the Word of God.  Here, proclamation is preceded by ministries of presence and service.  Verbal proclamation is made possible because its forerunner is the Word become flesh by Christ living in and working through life already lived in love.  Sharing the word of Truth becomes natural and credible in light of grace of the other preceding forms of ministry.  Here the grace of presence and service precedes the proclamation of truth.

Finally, Bonhoeffer presents to us the ministry of authority.  Authority reflects mature leadership in loving others.  This is not positional authority dictated by one’s position in the church hierarchy or organization.  It is not based on status or rank.  It is authority that is grounded in the ministries of presence and service.  It is recognized as such by others.  Authority in which the life of ministry is lived out in any and all walks of life on a daily basis is a life that reveals the living Christ.  In its maturity, ministry leadership is sought after, embraced, and respected because it is the authentic mix of competence and character after the likeness of Christ. 

What Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes as ministry is a form and framework that reflects the life and ministry of The Salvation Army at its finest.  It describes an ideal not only of officers, but of all who identify themselves as Salvationists.  Such escalating ministry is occasioned by fidelity to continuing the journey by continuing in Christ, setting out each day to walk and work with him, enjoying the high privilege of authentic ministry, and understanding that life is ministry if our ministry is grounded in our life in Christ.