"Illusions......................................."

The road just outside my front door, early this morning, bore witness to at least some rainfall over night; and then, when I left church a little after ten, the sky was smeared with a grey paste mixed with an all-day off-and-on drizzle. In spite of all that, driving out to the first service I was blessed in experiencing a few minutes of a cloud-free, bright sunshiny existence. It was like the world around me was just waking up for another face-to-face encounter with the source of life. My mind was on Him, turning over questions, dealing with the veil around all of us, the mystery of Christ “in” me, me still a mess in many ways; when, halfway up the hill that takes me from river level to higher ground, something connected in my “belly”. There was no small inner voice, no tongues, just a touch of His presence in the depths of this old man; and, with a tear in my eye, my spirit offered thanks…. During worship a bit later, the choir would lead the congregation in several rounds of a popular contemporary chorus that declares how God “surrounds” us in our walk “everywhere that we go”. Leaning toward my niece sitting there beside me, I whispered in her ear and asked if she believed it possible to sing, albeit in ignorance, a lie. The lyrics sound good. The melody is catchy enough to draw us into it. There’s little truth, however, to the claim that a believer’s journey is encased in a Holy Ghost bubble. Divinity is in the well. While it may be that nature and events can speak to us of His reality, it is not until a man is “born-again” that he can begin to “see” or “enter into” the kingdom. Semantics? Possibly. It’s just too easy in our humanity, though, to build an image, a theology, out of words and then fail to return to the oasis, content with the god we hold in our heads…….