Psalm 63:2 NLT
'I have seen you in your sanctuary and gazed upon your power and glory. Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you!'
Declarations of love trip easily from the lips. However, they can depend on circumstances. I once relished in the beauty and power of declarations such as we have here from the psalmist. I found it much harder to feel any empathy with today’s verse when Katey, my first wife, was struck down with a neurological disease that would take her mortal life. Until then, nothing had seriously challenged my simple understanding of the Bible. Slowly I discovered that it was far more than having an understanding and appreciation of God’s love and acceptance. I required an encounter with the living God in each experience, every day. Somehow, my worship and faith, while sincere, had been a projection of my hopes rather than an experience lived regardless of circumstance. While I yearned to return to the undisturbed rhythms of the past, my new reality was here to stay. Would I find God in my chaos? Or would I cut and run from a God I partly blamed for my circumstances?
As I caught glimpses of others continuing to live the life I had lost and that I desperately wanted back, resentment, anger and confusion flooded in. I asked God, what purpose might be served through what I considered a callous destruction of a life and a relationship? Today I still have no answer to that question. But I am reconciled to the fact that God is present in every circumstance. I can say this from my perspective and must leave you to decide if this might be true for you.
Much of my gazing on God’s glory had been for my own benefit and to shore up hopes that I might pass through life unscathed. A simple study of scripture would have revealed that it is through “many hardships” that we “enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
QUESTION: How has your life experience influenced your view of God? Has the truth about God become the reality of God in your life and behavior?
PRAYER: May my journey of faith grow and my encounter with you deepen each day.

Released on 17 Mar 2020