Brown's Daily Word 6-9-09

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for His Majesty. He is upon the Throne. His grace is sufficient for every need we have. Today I will begin my treatment, which I will receive at Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton. Thank you for praying for me fervently and faithfully. Our Lord forgives us all our sins and He heals all our diseases. He redeems our lives from destruction. He crowns us with His tender mercies and loving kindness. Blessed be His glorious Name. In Psalm 139 David writes, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast” (verses 7-10). Praise the Lord for His faithfulness and His trustworthiness. CS Lewis wrote that in spite of God’s silences we have a marked advantage over non-believers in that we know that we live in a fallen world. Many things fit into place when we understand how Paradise became polluted. This world is not as God originally made it. A truck driver expressed it best: “Man, the world ain’t supposed to work like this!” The world has been corrupted by sin and death. God is not hidden; people have simply forgotten and forsaken Him. The ancient Greek philosophers viewed God as impersonal, remote and indifferent. The Bible paints a different picture, revealing God as intimately involved…yet at times He is distinctly silent and seemingly absent. Pope Benedict has written that “God’s silence is part of His revelation.” When we are leaning on God’s promises we can bear His silences. God has not abandoned us. Even though we cannot understand His ways, we trust Him. It has been said that “the direct presence of God would overwhelm our freedom, with sight replacing faith” (Phillip Yancy). God wants us to find Him with the eye of faith. The irony is that He is with us always; He is our Emmanuel, God with us. To search for Him is like hunting for our eyeglasses while wearing them. Oswald Chambers wrote, “Has God trusted you with His silence, a silence that has great meaning? God’s silences are actually His answers. His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself." God is never really silent--we just are deaf to what He has to say to us. Like Job, but we sometimes judge God before the final sentence is completed. On a wall in a cellar in Köln, Germany, where Jews had hidden from the Nazis, an inscription was written by an anonymous author, stating, "I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when he is silent." We must prepare ourselves for times when God seems absent. Eugene Peterson has written, “The story in which God does His saving work arises among a people whose primary experience of God is His absence.” Jeremiah 32:17, 26-27 (King James Version): 17Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee: 26Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah, saying, 27Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?
In Him,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o1wEevo2Y0