Coffee With The Lord

I read about it this morning during “coffee with the Lord”… (Psalm 42-43 which many Bible scholars believe the two psalms ought to be read together)

“As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God!’” (It’ repeated twice in this passage – 42:3, 10)

And all of this can lead to spiritual drift… to straying from the faith… and finally even to backsliding! Tragically the sweet awareness of the presence of God, once enjoyed, is forfeited and lost.

And after drift comes “nostalgia” … Remembering better days… remembering what it was like when God was very real and His presence potent and present…

“My tears have been my food day and night while ‘they’ (the ‘taunters’) say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’ These things I remember as I pour out my soul: How I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise – a multitude keeping festival.’” (42:3-4)

And hopefully all of that leads to a renewed longing for God’s presence…

“As a dear pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for You, O God! My soul thirsts for God – for the Living God!” (42:1-2)

And that longing for the way it once was – for renewed, sweet, fellowship with God – ought to end up expressing itself in a good, straightforward, session of self-talk (even in front of a mirror, looking yourself right in the eye if necessary)…

“Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God! I shall again praise Him, my Salvation and my God! (Pretty important idea – repeated three times in the two chapters – 42:5, 11 and 43:5)

The result of doing this? A renewed awareness of the sweet presence of God – even in the face of the “taunts!” “By day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life! … Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God – to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God!”

Good medicine for harassed (sometimes drifting or straying) Christians, methinks!

He showed up just as Jesus got off the boat when He arrived in the Gerasenes. The guy came screaming out of the tombs and with multiple, creepy, demonically produced voices screamed, “What have You to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!” Imagine it! What a welcoming committee, eh?

Jesus spoke a divine word of authority… “Come out, you unclean spirit!” The demons in the man began to beg not to be disembodied and instead asked to be sent into a nearby heard of pigs. The destructive character of demonic power is clearly revealed in that when Jesus gave them permission to enter the pigs, they run down a steep bank and drowned themselves in the sea, nearby.

But the man was delivered – obviously cured and set free! When people come up to see him he was sane, clothed, sitting down, listening to Jesus in total mental, physical and emotional control!
As Jesus got into the boat, ready to leave the region, the man begged to go along with Jesus. But Jesus urged him instead, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you!” In other words, “Go share your testimony with others!” And the Bible says, he did, and “began to proclaim in the entire region how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.” (From Mark 5:1-20)

Your story may – or may not – be as dramatic as this story in the Bible. However, it is significant! Share it! Step out in faith as you have opportunities and tell others what the Lord has done for you! Your faith will grow and the lives of others will be transformed as they are encouraged to trust God to help them with seemingly impossible challenges in their lives.