I WILL COME TO YOU
"I
will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.”
I hadn’t seen Mary Hartford for 20 years
and couldn’t believe the change in her!
When we were kids, Mary was the one we
all went to when we were in trouble. She always had time for us, always helped
us find our way.
Mary was sitting at a table in Tim
Horton’s, beautifully dressed and gracious as ever. But when my eyes met hers
I could see that her quiet joy had given way to deep sadness.
“I couldn’t hack it any
more,” Mary said, when I asked her how things were going at the
church. “For years we’d been going
through the motions, but the life was gone.
So I decided to take a break from church until
I can find God again amid all the ‘Christian stuff’ they’re peddling these days.”
I was no encouragement to Mary, since I
lost my way long ago. I’m just trying to
get by like everyone else.
To me it’s a spiritual wasteland out there, for all the Christian media and
Christian politics and Christian lawyers and Christian car salesmen.
What happened to integrity?
Where is God in all the noise?
Is Jesus fading into oblivion as the
world stumbles on?
In the main-line churches, it’s gray
heads and dwindling numbers. And, for my
money, those mega churches are too cozy and comfortable to be the
_________________
So who was Jesus talking to when he said…
"I
will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.
Yet a little while, and the world will
see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also.”
John 14
Was Jesus
talking only to those eleven disciples?
Was he talking
to Mary Hartford?
Was he talking
to me---to you?
“I
will come to you.”
“You
will see me.”
“And
because I live, you will live also.”
Those words
came true for the disciples. But when
will they come true for Mary Hartford? For me?
For you?
Let’s be
honest:
Has
Jesus come to us?
Have
we seen him?
Are
we alive with his life?
If this isn’t
happening, then all we have is quiet desolation and an empty religion.
Mary Hartford
is “waiting to find God again.” Most of
us are waiting for something to happen when we go to church, or when we get away
by ourselves to pray.
When Jesus says,
"I will not leave you desolate; I
will come to you,” he’s not talking to the world at large. He’s talking to people who have drawn near to
learn from him---to disciples.
“He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who
loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to
him."
John 14
If I love
Jesus, I’m going to do what he tells me to do. And he is going to manifest himself to me.
“I
will love (you) and manifest myself to (you).”
So why isn’t Jesus
manifesting himself to us? Is he holding
out on us? Or are we holding out on him?
The voices we listen to
Long before
there was Fox News or CNN or Facebook or Twitter, there were voices calling out
to us. Since the dawn of history there have
been prophets and priests in every land to tell us “how
it is.”
We gravitate to
the voices that appeal to our proclivities.
These voices give us hope. They stoke our anger. They
fan our fears. They arouse our curiosity
with juicy conspiracy rumors.
But these
voices have an agenda. They have an axe
to grind. The more we listen to these voices the farther we drift from the
truth. As we drink in the “gospel” of our choice, our ears become deaf to the
voice of heaven.
We will not
hear the voice of heaven until we tune out the noise and begin to soak our
spirits in words that are true.
Soaking up the truth
The Bible is
like
But there is
one place in the Bible which is pure gold.
We don’t have to dig. We don’t
have to refine the ore. The gold is right there for the taking.
Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John contain the pure gold of the words of Jesus. Jesus’ words are vastly
different from what we find on Fox News, CNN, Facebook or Twitter. Jesus’ words
echo with the ring of eternity.
When we allow
the words of Jesus to take root in our hearts and act on them, we find
ourselves in the presence of the Lord.
“I
will not leave you desolate. I will come to you.”
Calling, texting,
googling.
It’s how we
stay on top of things. We cling to our
smart phones day and night so we can call for help, see how things are going,
find out everything we need to know.
Never
before has it been
so easy to get the answer we seek with the touch of a finger. Pretty soon we’re at it all the time, swamped
in a sea of google searches.
But
have we escaped our desolation?
Calling on his name
“If
you ask anything in my name, I
will do it.”
John 14
In
other words, “Talk to me. Call to me”
We don’t need a
smart phone to reach him. We just lift up our hearts and start talking to the Master.
It’s
simple. Just start communing with Jesus. Tell him what’s on your heart. Pour out your soul. Tell him what’s going on with you.
Even if you
have trouble believing that Jesus is there, do it anyway! You won’t be talking to the empty air, you
will be talking to the Lord of heaven and earth, whether you realize it or
not. And you will get an answer no
smart phone could ever give you.
“I
will not leave you desolate. I will come
to you.”
Guided by my GPS
Where would I
be without my GPS? It tells me when to
turn right, when to turn left, the next street to look for. It’s my amazing guide from somewhere out there
in space.
And yet I still
don’t know where I am or where I’m going.
My GPS just can’t seem to find the path my soul is seeking.
Walking in the light
To find our way
through the desolation out there and especially
through the desolation in our own souls, we need more
than a GPS. We need light from above. Just enough light for the next step. And if we walk in that light, we get more
light.
“I
will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go. I will guide you with my eye.”
Psalm 32
_____________________________
That chance meeting at Tim Horton’s must
have been arranged by heaven. As Mary Hartford and I sat and talked, it was as
if the Lord himself joined us and gave us hope.
"I
will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.”
It’s a promise
to all who are disenchanted with the noise of this nervous world, who seek the
gold of heaven, who listen to the words of the one man that consistently spoke
truth, who is Truth Incarnate.
"I
will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.”
If we’ll put down our smart phones for a while, and call on the
Master, we won’t be disappointed.
"I
will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.”
And if we’ll give our GPS a rest and start walking in the light that
comes as the Master speaks to us, we will begin to know where we are and where
we’re going.
"I
will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.
Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me;
because I live, you will live also.”
REB December 2020