To Walk as in His Presence

Some men desire greatness in the eyes of others or fame and fortune.  But that is not so with many believers in Christ.  As Christians, our greatest desire should be a personal relationship and communion with God.  That is what Nicholas Herman believed ... so he set out to live his life exactly that way.

He wasn't a Bible scholar or even a highly educated man as far as I know.  But he knew Jesus.  Ah ... he was a smart man wasn't he.  The following statement about this man caught my attention the other day.  For me it's a simple but profound statement  ... "Theological and doctrinal debates bored him, if he noticed them at all."

He didn't want to just talk about God or listen to men debate their opinions of Him  ... that would be wasted time that could have been used ... as he put it ... "To love and fellowship with God more."  Communion with his Lord was so important to him that he didn't intentionally waste a moment doing anything else.

Understand ... Nicholas Herman wasn't a lazy man.  He worked in the kitchen of a French monastery in the seventeenth century serving others as cheerfully as if he was personally serving and cleaning up after the Lord. 

Of his time laboring for others he said ... "The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament." 

He didn't work at communion with God ... he had communion with God while he worked and did for others.

Because he endeavored ... "to walk as in His presence" ... wherever he was, and whatever he was doing, the peace and joy of the Lord was there.  Wherever he walked he considered it as hallowed ground because God was present with him.

So how does someone in today's world come to believe this way?  I found this to be one of his suggestions ... "That you should establish yourself in a sense of God's presence by continually conversing with Him."

But even during our conversation with God, as he put it ... "Useless thoughts can invade our mind and spoil our communion with God."  And when they do, he said ... "I expel them immediately  from my mind." 

This humble man believed that we needed neither, art nor science in coming to God ... only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to know more about the love and mercy of our Lord.  He said that ... "We need only to recognize that God is intimately present with us; therefore we can address ourselves to Him every moment of our day."

He knew there would be some days when we need His assistance for knowing His will ... "in things doubtful," and for rightly performing those things which we plainly see He requires of us, and even "giving Him thanks" for allowing us to do them.

I believe Nicholas Herman's personal motto for life as stated by him was this ... "We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed."

He also said that ... "All things are possible to him who believes ... that they are less difficult to him who hopes; that they are more easy to him who loves, and still more easy to him who perseveres in the practice of these three virtues."

At the end of each day, he examined himself as to how he had discharged his duty.  If he found it "well" ... he returned thanks unto God.  If he found it "otherwise" ... he asked pardon, and without being discouraged, he set his mind (in his words) "right again" ... and "Thus" said he, "by rising after my falls" ... with a perfect confidence upon the infinite merits of Jesus Christ, he proposed to himself again, to become the most perfect worshiper of God that he could possibly become ... as he hoped to be throughout all eternity.

In closing this essay about Nicholas Herman, I found this statement he made somewhat curiously interesting.  As I leave it with you, I find my heart wishing I could feel the same.

"I have no pain or difficulty about my state, because I have no will but that of God, which I endeavor to accomplish in all things, and to which I am so resigned that I would not take up a straw from the ground against His order, or from any other motive than purely that of love to Him." 

Oh ... to walk as in His presence.

Blessings ...

Have You Prayed

Peg posted this on her Blog called "Peg's Thoughts" a few weeks ago.  I thought it was so good that I decided to repost it so that those who don't read her blog have a chance to hear about how God cares enough about our small problems to answer us when we pray.

We recently had a "Celebration of Life" service for Peg's Aunt Wanda who went to be with Jesus at the age of 91.  Our daughter Tara lives in Minnesota and was unable to come to Southern Illinois for Aunt Wanda's service, so she sent the following letter to her sister Teresa to read during the "Celebration of Life" in her place.  Peg had forgotten all about this incidence but was so glad to be reminded of it and she wanted to share it with all of you.

Tara wrote ...


"I am very grateful for the legacy of faith that Aunt Wanda left.

I don't have a lot of personal history with her as we have always lived a long distance apart.  But the history I do have, I cherish.  Aunt Wanda, unknowingly touched my life in such a way that caused my faith, which at the time had grown complacent, to become completely renewed.

My mom & I had traveled to her house one weekend about 12 years ago to use her shop to recover an old recliner of mine.  (For many years Aunt Wanda had an upholstery shop in her home.)  Aunt Wanda stayed mostly in the house while mom & I worked on it.  She would come out from time to time to see if we needed anything or to chat for a bit.
 
On one of her trips out, she found my mom & me struggling, and very frustrated, over a screw that we could not, for the life of us, get to turn.  We had tried everything we could think of ... multiple screw drivers, pliers, a hammer ... nothing was working.  IT WOULD NOT BUDGE.  And until we could remove this particular screw, we could not go any further with the project.  Adding to our stress, we were also on a timeline.

Aunt Wanda happened to pop her head into the door at just that time, and she immediately saw the exasperation on our faces.  She asked what was wrong & we told her the situation.  She paused for a second while thinking, and then asked very matter-of-factly, 'Well, have you prayed?'

I'm not sure what my mom was thinking, but I thought it was the craziest notion I had ever heard.  But I kept my mouth shut, and the three of us gathered around the chair, holding hands in a prayer circle, and prayed that God would make the screw turn.  While I listened to them praying, it was all I could do not to laugh, as the only thing I could think about was how ridiculous we must look praying over A SCREW!

After we finished praying, we tried it again & the screw turned, first try!

Aunt Wanda's simple statement of faith has played over & over in my mind so many times in my life since that day.  I will never again question or doubt God's interest, ability, authority or absolute joy in the most minuet details of my life.  That one simple statement that came so naturally from her lips, has become a staple in my everyday life.

Well, have you prayed?"
 

That's my Tara.  Like me, she is always open and honest about her faith.  Over the years, I have learned to listen when she shares her heart about God.  Well ... I guess that also goes with Teresa as well.  I am blessed.

The Life and Light of Jesus Part II

In my last post I was speaking about how the Disciple John perceived and understood the truth about Jesus which caused him to write about the Lord slightly different than the other Gospel writers did.

John didn't just have revelation knowledge about Jesus, he learned who Jesus was as he walked with Him.  He got to know Him intimately as he rubbed shoulders with Him.  And I believe like any other young men in their thirties, they had to have horsed around with each other.  I have often said of these two ... if they would have had a basketball they would have shot hoops together. 

Look how John puts it in 1st John 1:1 ... "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled ..."

This man Jesus, who from before eternity was invisible as the Word of God ... now becomes visible when He was manifested in human form, and was seen and handled by John and others as He passed thru thirty three and a half years of life on this earth.

One theme John pursues in his writings, is this one ... there is life in Jesus.  He doesn't just speak about the life of Jesus ... but that "Life" itself resided within Jesus.

John 1:4 ... "In Him was Life, and the life was the Light of men." 

The Life that was in Jesus, the true heart and soul of the young man John knew and loved, also said that Jesus ... was the Light of men.  Notice that John did not say that the Word was the light, even though Jesus was the Word and the Word is light … but rather that the "Life" that was in Jesus … was the light of men.  His breath, His spirit, His soul, His whole being, His … Life Force ... is the "Light."

The fact that men are fallen by nature and are "in the dark" about sin and the evil there is in the world has bound man in ignorance and unbelief.
 
The fact that they are "in the dark" and do not know what or who they are, where they are, or where they are going, is one reason God sent Jesus into the world so that the "Life" within Him would become the light of the world.

John 8:12 … "Once more Jesus addressed the crowd.  He said, I am the Light of the world.  He who follows Me will not be walking in the dark, but will have the Light which is Life."
   
John is explaining one of the things that happens when a person begins to follow Jesus and His teachings ... he is no longer in the dark just wandering through life.  Why is that?  In his first letter to the Church he writes in ...

1st John 1:5 ... "This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."

Since God is light, He must be the source of light.  What can be said of God ... must also be said of Jesus.  If God is light, then Jesus is also the light now shining in the believers soul.  This Life in Jesus that John said was the Light of men ... is the source of wisdom, knowledge, holiness and peace that Jesus brings to the heart and soul of Christians.  You know ... Christians ... sinners saved by the grace and mercy of God through the blood of Jesus.  

Just as God is not the author of sin, He is also not the cause of darkness in the world ... He is the cure for darkness.  Are you in the dark?  You don't have to be ... turn on the light.  Turn on to Jesus.

His "life," the Spirit Being within Jesus, meaning His inward man, His heart, His purpose, His will and the desire of His Soul, the hidden part that made Him who He was … the love and "Life" of God resident within Him … was the Light of men.

The Life and Light of Jesus is to the human soul, what natural light is to the world.  Without it, the world would be very uncomfortable, cold and dismal, and the terror of evil, and it's companion, the fear of death, would universally prevail over all men in a dark world.

Is it any wonder that the Apostle John lays down first this most important principle which he learned personally from observing and listening to Jesus for three and a half years.  How ever Jesus did it ... He somehow filled John's soul with the Life and Light that He carried with Him as they lived together those three short years.

And what did John receive from Jesus?  Here's his words again ...

"This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."

If the Sun was an example of the Trinity ... the Father would be the great ball of gas burning without end ... the Holy Spirit would be the heat and energy we feel ... and Jesus?  He would be the sunshine.

Sunshine brings a smile ... sunshine brings healing ... sunshine brings warmth ... sunshine brings a rainbow after the rain ... and sunshine brings Life and Light.
 
So ... as I asked in Part I ... do people see any of Jesus in me?  If not Lord, let them at least notice a small flicker of light from your life in me.

Thank you Jesus ...