10-26-03
Why do you go to church? Does anything really happen there? I mean, has God ever
really showed up? I'm not talking about some pleasant feeling in your mind or some
excited feeling in the pit of your belly. I don't mean you felt good or guilty or the
sermon made you think, or the music enthralled you. And I'm not talking about any
kind of manifestation that your particular group identifies as meaning: if this happens
then God is present. I mean has God ever been there? In a way that you could say
without a doubt, "Yes, He was here."
I have experienced all the things I listed above and many more, as I'm sure you have.
I've been in everything from almost out of control Pentecostal services to almost
comatose Baptist services and heard people afterward say something about feeling
God's presence. I'm afraid, though, that we usually experience what we have come to
define as God presence, and it may not be that at all. If it's not then it seems we are
calling something God which is not. That cannot be good.
There are churches that still say they are "waiting on God", but they are waiting on the
experience they have decided means God is there. And there are the rest of us who
don't even pretend to wait anymore. We just do our thing and say God was there - we
felt Him - and we move on. We might say we know He was there 'by faith', if pressed
about it, but if pressed further we'd probably add, "well, God is everywhere."
Somebody better wait on God Himself to show up. He may get tired of showing up
after the show is over and we've gone to the house.
Dale Huckabay
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