by Kathy Merkle-Raymond
When you feel far away from God, guess who moved?
When you feel far away from God, guess who moved?
Romans
8:28-39 (The Message)
26-28 The moment we get tired in the waiting,
God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what
to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer
out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we
know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.
That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is
worked into something good.
29-30 God knew what he was doing from the
very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love
him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line
of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives
there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like,
he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he
set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them
established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had
begun.
31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our
side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on
the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by
sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do
for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen?
Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised
to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for
us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and
Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred,
not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even
the worst sins listed in Scripture: “They
kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us
off one by one”.
None of this fazes us
because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or
dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or
unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because
of the way that Jesus has embraced us.
===============
This passage from Romans 8
speaks volumes about God’s unending love and constant presence. In verse 39, “absolutely nothing can
get between us and God’s love”. Our
loving Creator is right here, inside and a part of us, all the time. When we lose God, it is certainly not God who
is lost! From Rumi, 13th Century
poet, theologian and Sufi mystic: “Each
moment contains a hundred messages from God.
To every cry of “Oh God!” God answers a hundred times: ‘I am Here’.”
[A
note about “Cathedral”, composed by Thomas Newman -- the words at the end of
the video are in Latin from Palestrini:
“Alma redemptoris mater tono solemni,”, translated in English:
Loving mother of the redeemer,
who remains the accessible gateway of morning
and the star of the sea;
Assist the fallen,
lift up, you who cure, the people;
you who bore to the wonderment of nature,
your holy Creator.]
you who bore to the wonderment of nature,
your holy Creator.]
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