“I am not anxious to know the why, but only the where, of God...." Part II

In all their affliction He was afflicted,

And the Angel of His Presence saved them;

In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them,

And He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.

Isaiah 63:9

The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Exodus 33:14

 Nothing is small!

No lily-muffled hum of summer bee

But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;

No pebble at your foot but proves a sphere;

…Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

But the Angel of His Presence cannot mean anything to us unless we realize what kind of presence it is of which the prophet speaks. It means, first of all, a gracious, friendly, loving, sympathizing presence. God is with us in our troubles, not merely because He has to be there, since He is everywhere. He is there because He wants to be. Just as truly as you desire to be near your friends, your children, when they suffer, just so truly does God desire and choose to be near us in our afflictions. He would not be away from us even if He could. He is not present as a mere spectator, looking at us curiously while we suffer. He is with us as one who has the deepest interest in it all, feels all that happens to us, cares infinitely for us through it all.

         His Presence must save us, first of all, from the sense of meanness, littleness, unworthiness which embitters life and makes sorrow doubly hard to bear. The Presence of God must bring a sense of dignity, of elevation into our existence. It was a great king who once said, “Where I sleep, there is the palace.” The life that has the Presence of God in it can neither be trivial nor unworthy.

         The Angel of God’s face saves us from the sense of weakness, ignorance, incompetence, which overwhelms us in the afflictions of life. We feel not only that we are powerless to protect ourselves against trouble, but that we are not able to get the good out of it that ought to come to us. We cannot interpret our sorrow aright. We cannot see the real meaning of them. We cannot reach our hand through the years to catch “the far-off interest of tears.” We say to ourselves in despair, “God only knows what it means.” And if we do not believe that God is with us, then that thought shuts us up in the darkness, puts the interpretation of the mystery far away from us, locks us up in the prison house of sorrow and leaves the key in heaven. But if we believe that God is with us, then the word of despair becomes a word of hope.

         The Angel of God’s face saves us from the sense of loneliness, which is unbearable. Companionship is essential to happiness A solitary Eden would have been no Paradise. The deepest of all miseries is the sense of absolute isolation. In this painful solitude the present friendship of God is the only sure consolation. Nothing can divide us from Him—not misunderstanding, nor coldness, nor selfishness, nor scorn—for none of these things are possible to Him. Nothing can divide us from Him except our own sin, and that He has forgiven and taken away and blotted out by His great mercy in Christ.

         “I am not anxious to know the why, but only the where, of God. It matters little to me for what purpose He walks upon the storm, nor is it of deadly consequence whether or not He shall say, ‘Peace, be still.’ The all-important thing is that the feet upon the sea should be His feet—His, and not another’s. Tell me that, and I ask no more. There is all the difference in the world between a silent room and an empty room. There is a companionship where there is no voice. Is it not written, ‘In Thy presence is fullness of joy’? In the very sense that my Father is there, though He speak not, though He whisper not…there comes to my heart a great calm.”(George Matheson)

JAMES HASTINGS

Isaiah

We know that the divinest thing in this world is love. That in God which is greatest is not power, not the shining splendor of deity, but love, which shows itself in plain, lowly ways. When the disciples came to the Master, saying, “Show us the Father,” they were thinking of some brilliant display, some revealing of God which would startle men. Jesus replied, “Have I been so long with you and yet have you not known Me?” He meant that the truest revealing of God to men is not in great theophanies, but in a ministry of gentleness, helpfulness, and kindness, such as Jesus had wrought through all the years.

         Mrs. Browning tells us that nature is full of the glory of God. Every common bush is afire with God for those who have eyes to see the brightness. But the truth is that most of us have no eyes for the splendor. Here and there is one who in the presence of God’s revealing, takes off his shoes in reverence. But people in general see nothing of divine glory, and only “sit ‘round and eat blackberries." We all rob ourselves continually of untold blessings which might easily be made ours if we knew the Christ who is always so near to us.

J.R. MILLER

For the Best Things

~This post is dedicated to Naghmeh & Saeed Abedini as they walk apart during this trial of separation.

"We are so dear to Him as His children that He feels both with & for us."

In all their affliction He was afflicted,

And the Angel of His Presence saved them;

In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them,

And He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.

Isaiah 63:9

Lord, Thou dost look and love is in Thine Eyes,

Thy heart is set upon me day and night,

Thou stoopest low to set me far above:

O Lord, that I may love Thee makes me wise;

That I may see and love Thee grant me sight;

And give me love that I may give Thee love.

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI

         It is one Person all along the line, one character of patient loving-kindness and mercy that is revealed to us in both Testaments—more obscurely in the prophecies of the Old, more abundantly in the fulfillment of the New. “In all their affliction He was afflicted.” Wonderful are those words. The more carefully they are studied, the more surprising do they appear. It is only gradually that their meaning grows upon the mind, either filling it with increasing wonder or, where faith is strong enough to receive it, awakening overpowering feelings of gratitude and adoration. It must be understood at the outset that God’s suffering is sympathetic. He shares in our afflictions, inasmuch as He has sympathy with us therein. We are so dear to Him as His children that He feels both with and for us.

         Love is the glory of God, as it is the goodness of man, and love is essentially sympathetic. There was never a being on earth so deep in His peace and so essentially blessed as Jesus Christ. Even His agony itself is scarcely an exception. There is no joy so grand as that which has a form of tragedy. We are never so happy, so essentially blessed, as when we suffer well, wearing out our life in sympathies spent on the evil and undeserving, burdened heavily in our prayers, struggling on through secret Gethsemanes, and groaning before God, in groans audible to God alone, for those who have no mercy on themselves.

         When Jesus came and lived among us the heart of God was laid bare, and every one can see in the Gospel that patient wistful love which inhabits the secret place of the universe. As the father sits upon the housetop, and watches the crest of the hill, that he may catch the first glimpse of the returning prodigal…we learn the expectation of God. As Jesus takes into His arms little children whom superior people have despised, and casts His charity over penitent women whom Pharisees cannot forgive, and mourns at the tomb of Lazarus over a friend whom He cannot afford to lose, one learns the graciousness of God. The Cross is not only the heart of human life, it is also in the heart of God. He is the chief of all sufferers, because He is the chief of all lovers.

         “The Angel of His Presence”—This singularly beautiful expression carries with it associations which must be dear to every heart….how the mind loves to linger on the music of those words, and how near they seem to bring us to high and holy things, things unspeakably precious and helpful to our souls!  No one can stand in much doubt as to what they mean, strange and unaccustomed though the phrase may be. The “Angel of the Lord” is an expression often used in the Old Testament to denote a special manifestation of God Himself; it does not denote a messenger coming from God; it frequently signifies a coming of God into human affairs. The still stronger phrase, “the Angel of His Presence” certainly denotes any form under which God chooses to make His immediate presence felt by His children….it is always a means whereby God Himself comes right into human experience to help and heal and save.

      Our Lord Jesus Christ has become to the world in which we live the Angel of the Presence, the Presence that saves. In Him God has laid bare His own heart and shown us the Divine that indwells.  Never again can we think of God except in terms of Jesus.

JAMES HASTINGS

Isaiah