“I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.”
– Psalms 63:2
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever gotten lost? Getting lost can be easy to do. Have you ever been found? Finding out where you are can be more difficult. When your grandmaa and grandpaa were first married, they would go for long rides on Sunday afternoons. Your grandmaa and grandpaa – the first five years after they were married, lived in Delaware. After traveling the same winding southeastern Pennsylvania roads when your grandmaa and grandpaa began to go on Sunday afternoon rides, your grandpaa began taking different roads that would sometimes lead to your grandpaa getting him and your grandmaa lost. Your grandmaa and grandpaa sometimes would invite your grandmaa’s ma and little sis – your dad’s Aunt Baily, to go with them on a Sunday afternoon ride. After going with your grandmaa and grandpaa on a couple of Sunday afternoon rides with your grandpaa getting lost, your grandma’s ma would tell your grandpaa that she would go with your grandmaa and grandpaa on a ride with them as long as your grandpaa did not get lost. Your grandpaa would still at times get lost. Your grandpaa knows that when he says that he got lost while going on a Sunday afternoon ride that he really was not lost. Your grandpaa sooner or later – if he kept on driving, would meet up with a familiar highway or come across a landmark which would help your grandpaa know where he was. Your grandpaa also learned that if he stopped at a place – like a gas station, to ask for directions, he would find out where he was and what road or roads that he needed to take to get home.
Getting lost while riding around in a car is one thing; to suddenly realize that you have lost touch with God is a whole another thing. Has God ever lost you? Have you ever tried to lose God’s presence? What would you do if you decided to go alone outside the townhouse where you are living in Newark, Delaware into a raging blizzard that is blasting snow everywhere and you suddenly realized that you do not know which one of the houses that you barely can see is your house? What would you do if you found yourself suddenly alone in a strange place and you had no place or no one to go to for help? What would you do if you had to suddenly flee your home because a guy seriously wants to kill you and the only place that you can think of to go to is a vast, arid wilderness? One of the several times when David ran for his life because of guys really wanting to kill him, David took off for the Desert of Judah. The Desert of Judah is a barren area east of the town of Bethlehem. The Desert of Judah is part of the Sinai Peninsula. While David was hunkering down in the Desert of Judah in a desperate attempt to escape the threats of enemies who really wanted him dead, David scribed a psalm song payer to God – desperately confessing his longing for God to help him out of his dire predicament. Psalm 63 is this prayer psalm song that David scribed while he was hiding out in the Desert of Judah. What would you say to God if you did not have any other choice to escape guys wanting to execute you for one reason or another but to hide out in inhospitable surroundings?
Instead of putting the onus on God for having allowed the grim quandary to happen that has him exiled in the Desert of Judah, David reflects on the number of times when he and God spent time together in intimate celebration times – when the presence of God had been very evident to David. Verse 2 has David reminiscing contemplatively and heartfully, “I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” Your grandmaa and grandpaa – during the less than two years that they were members of the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church that is in Aberdeen, South Dakota, your grandmaa and grandpaa had their personal relationship bar with God raised higher and higher. During the less than two years that your grandmaa and grandpaa were proactively involved in the Aberdeen Christian & Missionary Alliance Church, your grandmaa and grandpaa got to where not going to a church service was something that they would never consider doing. Your grandmaa and grandpaa knew that being in any of Aberdeen Christian & Missionary Alliance’s Church services or participating in any of the church’s sponsored activities meant knowing that they would be in God’s presence. Your grandpaa does not want to say that he or your grandmaa never sensed God’s presence in their two story house that they bought in Aberdeen – as they definitely did; your grandmaa and grandpaa would experience God’s presence in the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church that was in Aberdeen in a corporate way with the other guys and gals who would show up for whatever service or meeting that the Aberdeen Christian & Missionary Alliance Church was having. The guys and gals who attended or were members of the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church that was in Aberdeen earnestly pursued after God’s presence to be in their hearts, to satisfy their soul’s thirst and to meet the longings of their bodies – just as David said that he did in this psalm song that he scribed. Because David had come to know God’s unmerited love for him, David could do nothing more no matter where he was or what was happening to him but to praise Him. Because your grandmaa and grandpaa had God raise their relationship bar with Him to where your grandmaa and grandpaa sense a gnawing emptiness or a painful loneliness when they ‘lose’ having the presence of God in their lives, they are grateful that they can return to having the same kind of intimate relationship with God that they had in Aberdeen.
Psalm 63 (1058)