Our theme for this month: “Mistakes”
Our Bible verse for today: “Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?” Psalm 139:7 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “It’s a mistake to take the presence of God for granted.”
How often do you think about gravity? If you’re like most people then the answer is “Not very often.” And yet, gravity exists and if it didn’t, we would all float away into outer space. How about air? How often do you think about air? Again the answer is probably “Not often.” However if all of a sudden there wasn’t any air you’d sure think about it then, at least for the last sixty seconds of your life.
The reason we don’t often think about gravity or air is because they’re invisible to us and therefore we take them for granted. They are always present, and our very lives depend on that presence, but because we can’t actually see them they are usually far from our thoughts.
The presence of God can be like that too. He is always with us but because we can’t actually see Him He is often far from our thoughts – to the point that we take His presence for granted. That’s a mistake. While being numb to the presence of gravity or air is really of little consequence, being numb to the presence of God is tragic.
Nicholas Herman was a Carmelite monk who lived in France in the mid to late 1600’s. He’s better known to modern Christians as “Brother Lawrence”. In his famous book “The Practice of the Presence of God” he describes how it was that he learned to develop an ongoing awareness of God’s presence at all times. Although he spent his days in the monastery’s kitchen preparing meals and washing pots and pans, Lawrence wrote that God’s presence with him there in that kitchen was usually more spiritually profound than anything he ever experienced during his most devoted times of prayer in the chapel.
Brother Lawrence’s relationship with the Lord was so personal, so real, and so obvious for everyone to see, that it became legendary even in his own day. People from all over Europe flocked to that monastery to spend time with him and to receive counsel from him about how they too could develop that kind of deep and real awareness of God’s presence with them. For more than three hundred years since then, his book has been one of the best selling Christians books of all time.
That awareness of God’s presence is also what King David was writing about in Psalm 139. This Psalm is well worth some extra devotional meditation for anyone who wants to become more aware of the ongoing presence of God.
God’s presence is real and we can train ourselves to remain aware of His presence. Psalm 139 and Brother Lawrence’s book will both help us to do that. It’s a mistake to ever take His presence for granted.
God Bless,
Oak Hill Baptist Church 