so the Lord surrounds his people
from this time on and forevermore.
Psalm 125:2
• Five Minute Friday :: Pursue Linkup
Whether it's family, career, comfort, or a longed for yet unknown future, we humans all have our pursuits; at times it feels as if pursuing that goal or dream vacation consumes us. But a full and healthy life mostly is about being with the God who pursues us. The God who chooses us as temples, as a dwelling place, as a place to be at home. And what is homecoming? What is home?
When you love someone you want to be with them. You want to converse with them. You want them to be there for you; you want to be there for them and with them forever. God pursues us now and to the end in order to be with us; so we will be there with God.
In baptism we receive the gift of God's Holy Spirit so that everywhere we go, God is with us, and we will be the presence of Jesus Christ—the presence of God. In 1 Corinthians 3:16 the Apostle Paul reminds us, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" Later in 1 Corinthians 6:19 he tells us, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?" That's the essence God's presence now assumes: embodied in a human person, in each of us, just as God became embodied, enfleshed, incarnate in Jesus Christ.
What a gift and what a challenge for God to pursue us and trust us during these turbulent times!
In Alfred Fedak's anthem A Song of Paul, John Bell paraphrases 1 Corinthians 13:10 ("when the perfect comes, the incomplete will disappear") "Love expects tomorrow." In Jesus' death and resurrection, God gifts us with all the tomorrows we can imagine. We live in the here and now and in the not yet, but as God keeps pursuing us, our lives will be complete. Endlessly. Forever. Eternally. God at home with us. Our homecoming with God.
The psalmist sings:
From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
Psalm 90:1-2
Amen!
ReplyDeleteBeautifully stated.
ReplyDelete