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Hi, this is Pastor John from 1049 The River.  We pursue time and energy building our resumes, careers and portfolio’s.  Yet, if we don’t have the primary treasure as Jesus, —it all gets washed away.  If the ultimate treasure is Christ, we’ll not only spend time with Him, but those who He has specially entrusted to us – our family—husband, wife and kids.   So, every once in a while, let’s put down the golf clubs, turn off the computer and set down the remote.  The time spent building with our family will never wash away—

As always, if you’d like prayer or just someone to talk to email PastorJohn@1049theRiver.com

It’s funny because I don’t really notice a difference – I still feel as busy as ever with household chores, remodeling projects, and my involvement in church.  I would have thought they would have noticed a difference in the quality of meals I’ve been cooking, or the consistency in having laundry done, or something like that – but what they noticed was simply my presence, both physically and mentally.

Funny how the Lord gives us these real-life examples we can draw from.

Psalm 139:13-18 is often used as a basis for understanding the importance and purpose of those children who are in the womb.  We recently read it in the 5^th/6^th grade girls Sunday School class, who helped to create blankets for an event at our church to benefit Heartbeats of Licking County.  Verses 1-6 are used frequently in times of prayer and preparation – especially as this week our church body will be taking communion together.

But I’ve also been preparing a prayer guide for the Women’s annual Spring Retreat, and it was verses 7-12 that captured my mind and heart as I thought about our relationship with Lord – how we tend to perceive it versus how HE perceives His relationship with us.

 Where can I go from your Spirit? 
   Where can I flee from your presence? 
If I go up to the heavens, you 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. 
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me 
   and the light become night around me,” 
even the darkness will not be dark to you; 
   the night will shine like the day, 
   for darkness is as light to you.

The big word for what God is talking about is His Omnipresence – His ability to be everywhere and in everything.  This is a concept that we tend to frame in our own understanding of time and physics, but one that these verses throws out the window.  I’ve tried to envision what that means to be present everywhere, at the same time – and what I tend to picture is something that looks like an invisible fog, present everywhere, all the time.  But I keep getting knocked by the understanding that God is outside of our time and space as well.

It wasn’t until I read A.W. Tozer’s description of God’s omnipresence as imagining a bucket being thrown in the ocean and sinking 2 miles down did I start to get it.  Not that I understand what it’s like to be surrounded by ocean up, down and all around me (thankfully)…but I do have an understanding of what it’s like to have a baby in the womb.  Truly, that baby is surrounded – where could it run away from its mother?

And how might we respond if that baby were to say, “I feel so alone and far from my mother.  Sometimes I think I might hear her voice, but I’m not sure.  Yesterday I got really mad and yelled about something so I’m not sure if she wants to be close to me” ?

It’s when I think about God’s presence in this manner that I begin to understand just how close we all are to Him.  How if I’ve had a bad day (or year), or if the two financial ends aren’t meeting in the middle, or I’m left wondering where could God be in all of this mess?… He is still in it all.

And remembering this as a parent gives me strength.  Strength to bear under the weight of demanding teens and toddlers, problems that don’t seem to go away, character traits that I have to keep repenting of, and to look beyond what seems like insurmountable tasks.

Like laundry.