Monday, April 25, 2005

GOD IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER


Incarnation: A bodily manifestation of a supernatural being.
Acts 17:22-31
22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed God is not far from each one of us. 28For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.” 29Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

Today this was the scripture for my morning prayer time. I did a meditative reading of it and the phrase that I left with was "God is not far from each one of us".

All day today I thought about the fact that no matter where I was- God was not far from me. Maybe God was sitting in the booth next to me at Arby's with her 3 children, or perhaps God was at the bank standing in line in front of me getting his paycheck cashed. God was definitely not far from me when he asked me to go out in the back yard and play with him this afternoon.

Today I was challenged to keep my eyes open and look for God in the most unlikely places. But I was also comforted to know that God was not far, keeping an eye on me.

shalom.

3 comments:

c said...

Good stuff. I enjoy the art on your site. This post made me remember Dorothy Day and what she said about meeting Christ in others. The discipline of being the Christ to others and seeing the Christ in others.

I look forward to meeting you, even though I'll probably not know anyone there. The Shins show is 20 bucks (plus a handling fee). Iron and Wine was last night but I just couldn't go.

gavin richardson said...

shall we call you jonathon of arcadia.. God runs into you and speaks to you all the time through other people.. maybe not like the show, but there are put in our way that we need to listen and be open too.

clark what you are talking about i understand from benedictine rule of life in hospitality. samething, different people, but powerful spiritual practice.

Jonathon said...

What if God was one of us.. la la la la... just a bum like one of us... la la la la....

thank you joan osborn.