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The Awesome Presence of God
by Jerry Ousley Early one morning before daylight, I sat on the couch awaiting Deb's arrival home. She worked a third shift job and normally came in around 5:45 AM. Suddenly the entire house began to shake. I could feel it under my feet and was about to get up to look outside to see what had happened when just as suddenly as it began it stopped. "What in the world was that?" I wondered. We never watch the news early morning but I had to find out what this was. Turning on the news I discovered that a small earthquake had taken place. Some of you live in areas that experience this phenomenon often enough that you wouldn't give it a second thought. But Southern Indiana is one of the last places on earth you'd expect such a thing to happen. It was big news. As it turned out the epicenter of the quake was in Illinois, but we felt it all the way in Southern Indiana. We've had floods, wind storms, tornadoes, ice storms, big snow storms and the like, but an earthquake? It really made one think, and I thought, "Wow!" Any disaster can be a horrifying experience. But in most of these disasters a person has options. They can choose to escape by getting away. I've never been through a hurricane but I've talked to several people who have. The thing about a hurricane is that there is usually several days warning that the thing is coming. A person can choose to get out of its path. In a tornado, although there is not as much warning, a person can run to their basement or to another place that is considered safe. In most floods a person normally has some warning and so they can make plans to move to higher ground. But in an earthquake you don't know when it is coming. I never felt as helpless while the very ground shook under my feet! There was nowhere to go and at that moment I really wished I had wings to fly because at least up there you wouldn't feel all the shaking going on! Maybe one could just keep jumping up and down Nahum 1:5 speaks of the awesome presence of God. It says, "The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt and the earth heaves [burns] at His presences, yes, the world and all who dwell in it." God is power and His presence demonstrates that. Although throughout the Bible there are those who claimed they had seen God, actually they had either seen an angel or what theologians call a theophany God in a physical form. But in all His splendid and wonderful glory, no man has actually seen him. We couldn't see His full glory and stand in His presence in our frail human bodies and live to tell about it. The only person ever coming close to this was Moses. Atop the mountain, Sinai, he had asked to see God in His glory. Knowing that Moses couldn't take this God only allowed him to see the back parts of His glory. Moses crammed himself in a cleft of a rock and God covered him with His hand as He passed by. He removed it only momentarily allowing Moses to catch a glimpse of His wonderful glory. His face shown so brightly after that encounter with the Almighty that he had to wear a veil for a period of time; the people couldn't stand to look him in the face. During the giving of the Law the top of Mount Sinai glowed with a bright red color and smoke rolled from its peak all because God was up there. It has always amazed me that a God so powerful, so magnificent would be so patient with a frail creature like me. It is because this most powerful force in the universe loves us. His presence is awesome, powerful, and death-defying to humans. But His hand is loving and gentle especially to those who come to Him. The questions that we must answer for ourselves are first of all, do we really believe in Him? Do we truly realize how wonderfully powerful He is? And, do we really, really, trust Him? Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |