Exploration and Expectation in the Presence of God

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

The first time I walked through the doors of the downtown mission chapel I knew I was searching for something. I was spiritually hungry. A man sat at the well-used grand piano at the front of the room. We stood as he began to play the first song. The singing was passionate. I looked around and saw people with raised hands and up-turned faces. Some had their eyes closed, some were crying. Spontaneous harmonies broke out. Between hymns and praise-songs the man at the piano led us through ancient liturgy. It was a seamless narrative of God’s sacrificial love, and our sung offering of praise and thanksgiving. I had never experienced anything like it before. The singing and prayer washed over me and I became aware of the presence of God alive and active in me and moving in the room. This was what I had been looking for but had been too afraid to ask for.

The pastor delivered his message with his arms thoughtfully crossed before himself, one hand on his chin. His gentle, meandering sermon was anchored by traditional liturgy, and testimonies of God’s miraculous power among the people within the congregation. At the end of the homily, one by one we went up to receive communion. After administering the bread and wine to me, he asked if he could pray for me. Reaching into his back pocket he produced a small vial of liquid. He tipped the small bottle onto his finger tips and I could smell the floral herby-ness of myrrh. He made the sign of the cross on my forehead and recited what I later learned is the prayer of Saint Brendan, the explorer: 

Lord Jesus, help your daughter to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown. Give her the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with You. Christ of the mysteries, she trusts You to be stronger than each storm within her. She will trust You in the darkness and know that her times, even now, are in Your hand. Tune her spirit to the music of heaven, and somehow, make her obedience count for You. Amen.

The words reverberated through my heart and mind. By the time I was back in my seat, the tentative, rumbling questions I had been turning over in my mind about the power and presence of God had turned to a deafening earthquake of confirmation. I knew by supernatural assurance there was more to God than just doctrine and tradition. There was also the presence of his Spirit, and this small first encounter made me weep with relief. 

One of the challenges of life in the body of Christ, particularly in an environment as distraction-rich as our current culture, is the constant battle to keep ourselves tuned to the presence of the living God. Christ is alive, right now while you are reading these words– the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. Stop and consider this for a moment. The one who made you, who made all of us– is with you right now.

Many of us show up to church on Sunday morning, our minds filled with lists, responsibilities and worries. The school year is starting. We have shopping to do, and bills to pay. We’re thinking about news headlines, and so many other things out of our control. Sometimes our worship, and service to the church is more of a ritual re-enactment of religious culture than it is an offering and an encounter with the Creator of all that is seen and unseen. The dilution of Christianity with worldly culture, and the modern embrace of the un-enchanted worldview often means the presence, power, and active voice of God is slowly strangled into silence within a church community. Without the Holy Spirit to lead us and teach us the wisdom and desires of God’s heart we inevitably fall into the trap of well intentioned pragmatism. Isaiah 55: 8 says, “ ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.”

The Lord has funny ideas about the way he thinks things should be. Leading means serving; meekness is powerful. In Matthew 10: 7- 8 supernatural healings, casting out demons, raising the dead are on the same to-do list as preaching! We can add making-disciples to this list thanks to the mandate in Matthew 28: 19-20 when Christ says to make disciples by “teaching them everything [he] has commanded.”  The fact that these tasks are all grouped together indicates that we’re not meant to make distinctions between work we accomplish naturally, or out of our own strength, and work we can only do by God’s hand. All work in the Kingdom is accomplished by God’s power and from the overflow of his presence within us, including what we bring and expect in worship. 

We must not define God according to the limitations of our lived experience, whether that’s our experience of worship, our understanding of the miraculous and the mystical, or how we preach and make disciples. We are meant to be explorers within the faith, detectives who seek the mysterious treasures of God’s heart. We are meant to be vessels of God’s power, and led by his Holy Spirit. When we bring the light of his Spirit and truth everywhere we go we will see miracles and discover more what he cares about and loves. The grace of all of this is we need not try to earn, or strive to manufacture anything. All he asks is that we sit with him and abide in his presence. He is a good Father who desires to give good gifts to his children. 

We can take all of our questions and simply ask: Father, will you show me more?