I am a God who is everywhere and not in one place only. Jeremiah 23:23
“Our search for God through narrow straits has brought a sudden revelation, like an explorer who has just come out upon a limitless sea. It is not any particularly new idea but a new feeling, which came almost of itself.
Today God seems to me to be just behind everything. I feel Him there. He is just under my hand, just under the typewriter, just behind this desk, just inside the file, just inside the camera. One of these Moro fairy tales has the fairies standing behind every rock looking at the hero. That is how I feel about God today.
Of course this is only a way of symbolizing the truth that God is invisible and that He is everywhere. I cannot imagine seeing the invisible, but I can imagine God hiding himself behind everything in sight. For a lonesome man there is something infinitely homey and comforting in feeling God so close, so everywhere! Nowhere one turns is away from friendship, for God is smiling there.
It is difficult to convey to another the joy of having broken into the new sea of realizing God’s “here-ness.” This morning our theme was “Jesus’ view of prayer.” It seemed so wonderfully true that just the privilege of fellowship with God is infinitely more than any thing that God could give. When He gives Himself He is giving more than anything else in the universe.”
Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Symbolizing the truth.”
Yesterday evening, from Lviv, my wife sent a message to our “Forever Family” chat (to our grown children and their spouses): “Could really use some prayer covering!”
We are experiencing God through our service while feeling exhausted by the realities of war. We got little sleep Tuesday night because of the air raids. It’s so hard. Again, I could not fall asleep last night.
Air raid sirens coupled with the sounds of explosions in Kyiv kept me awake. My phone alerted me to find a bomb shelter. I just got away from windows. It was my second hard night in a row.
I was talking to a chaplain who visits the frontlines yesterday. He said he goes every month and has to remind everyone that God has not forgotten them. I understand how they feel this way.
I recall vividly speaking in the church in Chornomorsk on Tuesday night. I counted about 40 women and 4 men. Most were much older than me. You see very few young people anywhere, except Sophia, displaced from occupied Khersonska.
After my sermon, this sweet, young 18 year old girl came up to me. She started to speak and could not say anything. Eventually, I learned that her dad stayed behind in occupied territory to care for his aged in-laws.
That was over 3 years ago. She and her mom have not seen him since. One of millions of separation stories. And they are lucky to get one message a month. So hard. God is everywhere but for Sophia, but it seems like He is nowhere.
The Ukrainian people are against the wall but their gratitude has touched me. In a way, I don’t want to leave. God is everywhere holding them together, and yet they feel like He is nowhere. Pray with me for them to not lose heart.
Pray with me that God will give His loving presence to every person in this war-torn nation in some mystical and abundant way. That’s the generosity I am praying for today.