That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

COMMENTARY

The Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire
There is no question that at times we feel very far from God. And it is important for us to acknowledge that this is a very real frustration and to admit that it weighs us down.
But though every emotion we feel is real, the facts that we base them upon are not necessarily so. So yes, we feel God’s absence, but that is not proof that He is, in fact, absent. It might be that we are just as the servant of Elisha, not yet having had our eyes opened so that we can see the presence of God all around.

Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see
He be not far from every one of us
For in him we live, and move, and have our being
The more I look for God, the more I find Him. Once I did not see Him anywhere, but now I know that He is everywhere. I think part of what makes recognizing Him so difficult is that very same prevalence. Does a fish even know that it swims in water, or is it so ubiquitous that it does not discern it?
God’s presence in our life does not change, only our capacity to perceive it. Once the change is made inside of us, then we see that He is in “all life, and breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25). Or as Martin Luther put it “God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”

*What’s this? Didn’t Abe already finish the “Divided from God” study? I could swear he posted the Summary for it already.
Yep, I messed up and posted the Summary for everything yesterday, when I should have posted this other entry instead. So now you get this one today, and on Monday we’ll start with the next study topic 🙂