Christian theologian, C. S. Lewis, once noted:

“Creatures are not born  with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.  A baby feels hunger: well, there’s food.  A duckling desires to swim: well, there’s water.  If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is … no earthly pleasure was meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it — to suggest the real thing.[1]

         Philosopher Albert Camus confessed to a Methodist preacher, Howard Mumma, in a conversation one time:

“The reason I’ve been coming to church is that I’m seeking.  I’m almost on a pilgrimage — seeking something to fill the void that I am experiencing — and no one else knows.  I’m searching for something the world is not giving me.  There is something that can that can bring meaning to my life.  On Sunday mornings, I hear that the answer is God.”[2]

         We live in a world where people are seeking.  The amount of time people of all ages spend on their electronic devices is evidence of that.  We search Google, Safari, and Wikipedia.  Many spend time on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and other social media platforms trying to connect in a meaningful way with other people.  And yet, perhaps what we’re really searching for — because we’re missing it in our lives — is not a what but a who — God.  Could it be that the emptiness we feel and the desires we have that can’t be satisfied is our inner desire to find God, who is real, and desires that we be engaged in that Spiritual relationship?  Are you satisfied with your computer, your television, your handheld device that keeps us distracted and searching endlessly for that which does not and cannot satisfy?  Or can we release ourselves from our distractions just long enough to search for the One who is real and can satisfy our every needs?  I believe the answer is obvious.  We should seek the Lord while He may be found.  He will satisfy us in ways nothing else can.

[1] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Harper Collins, 1952)

[2] Christian Century, ( June 7, 2000), p. 644

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, keep me from endless searches for things that neither satisfy nor fill me. Open my heart that I may daily search to build my relationship with you, the only real thing that satisfies completely.

         It surprises some people that our spiritual guidebook — “The Holy Bible” — mentions the reality of other “gods” and many “lords” in heaven (where that is, I can’t say) or on earth (a real place for many).  It’s an acknowledgement that the human family has been willing to embrace — not just the idea of many gods — but to accept their existence as normal.  And yet when asked to represent their reality as valid, the gods of other belief systems fall short of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  And so, because we have come to accept the presence of God living and working in and through Jesus Christ based on the works that Jesus performed and upon his resurrection from the dead, we can accept the reality of Jesus Christ based on historical evidence.  But more accurately, the activity and presence of God’s Holy Spirit alive in us, confirms that what we know of God’s reality and Jesus Christ are one and the same reality.  Add the third layer — the witness of the Holy Spirit — and we have confirmation by two witnesses (excluding that of our own) that “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

         And so, for us, God is neither a figment nor a creation of our imagination.  God is a reality who speaks to us and through us, who acts within us and upon us, who leads us and guides us in ways that are designed to represent and give evidence of God’s reality in the world.  And it’s our response to God’s activity in our lives that is the concrete evidence and proof that God is real and that Jesus Christ has called us as believers to manifest the reality of God alive and active in our world.

• To what extent does your knowledge that there are other “gods and lords” influence your belief in the reality of your God?
• If there are (in fact) “other gods and lords in heaven and on earth” how do we express the difference between our God and the Lord, Jesus, over the other gods and lords?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God empower me to cling to the understanding of my faith in You as God and the Lord, Jesus Christ as evidence that You are real.

         If we’re honest with ourselves, most of our lives are based on someone’s need for us or our need for them.  The poet, John Donne once wrote, “No man is an island — no man (or woman) stands alone.”  It is a powerful statement identifying our human need and dependence upon one another.  We have — because of our human connection — become so dependent on each other that our dependence has developed into an interdependence, further complicating the nature of our relationship with each other.  Someone supplies water to us, farmers help to maintain the food chain, doctors, nurses, lawyers, take care of our health and legal needs.  There’s someone in our family that is dependent on us for their needs, however small or large.  And so, by virtue of our relationship with each other, we can easily drift into the idea that God needs something from us.  And sacrifices, while honored by God, can be misunderstood as a way of believing that we are supplying God with something that God needs from us.  It lends itself to the old idea of “providing food for the gods” as if God needed it.  Yet if we acknowledge that God’s life and existence is not dependent on our physical need for food or shelter, that in fact, any sacrifice made to God is symbolic, then we come to the point of realizing that the God of all creation could — if it were necessary — provide God’s own sustenance, God’s own shelter, God’s own food, God’s own self-reliance.

         That we depend on God and not the other way around is sound evidence of God’s reality.  It is our praise of God who sends the rain, offers sunshine that speaks to God’s reality.  It is God who provides for us when we can’t provide for ourselves that elicits that praise.  And the fact that God often is present providing what we need at just the time we need it is proof that our God is alive, that God cares for us, watches over us, provides for us when we are unable to provide for ourselves.  These events are more than coincidences.  They are God-incidences giving us evidence that God is alive and moving within God’s spiritual world while meeting the needs of those of us in this physical world.

• Can you recall a time when just when you needed God, God provided what you needed at just the time of your need?
• How does the mystery of God’s timely provisions in your life continue to reinforce your faith that God is real?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, enable me to live within the certainty of my faith that Your care for me is based on my need of You and not Your need of anything from me by praise for all you do.