3-24-2022

 Good Morning All!

                 Jeremiah 23:23-24; “I am a God who is near. I am also a God who is far away,” declares the Lord. “No one can hide so that I can’t see him,” declares the Lord. “I fill heaven and earth!” declares the Lord.”

   When the phone rings in our house, the question shouted out often is, “are you near that to get it?”  Yes, no, sort of, not really; are all acceptable answers. It is amazing how this distance changes when you have expectations for the call. When one of the boys plans to call home, Sandy is usually always near to answer it. When it is election time and we are getting the election year phone call, she is usually not near. When it is something or someone we want to talk to, we are near. When we don’t, we try to be far. The thing is we can’t be both.

    In our verses for today, God tells us he is both near and far. There are a couple of ways to read this. First, God is near. He is near you all the time. Through the Holy Spirit he speaks to you, reminding you of what he said, encouraging you to have faith. God is near to you when you fear or when you cry out. I was visiting with a lady who told me about her husband having some surgery. She commented on how calm he was going into surgery. He told her that it was all in the Lord’s hands. He knew what it meant to have God near.

    Sometimes we aren’t too sure we want God near. There are times when we don’t want God to see what we are seeing, to hear what we are hearing or to know what we are thinking. We often try to hide from God. Adam tried it and failed and when we try it, we fail. God is always near even when we don’t want him there. He is there calling us back to him.

    Sometimes we really feel that God is far away. We call to him, we cry to him, we pray in earnest to him, and we just don’t seem to hear from him. We cry that he is far away. The problem with this is that He isn’t far away; we are usually looking the wrong way. We too often pray for selfish reasons for selfish things. When we don’t hear the answer, we want we assume that God is distant from us and not listening. It is at these times that instead of speaking to God, we should be listening to God.

    There are times when we are glad that God is far away. When you are far away, you see the bigger picture. God always sees the bigger picture. We only see a small part of what our life entails. God sees it all and knows it all. When he is far away, he sees and knows what is best for us. When He is near, his comforting touch will give us peace and give us hope. Pray to the God who is near to hear and pray to the God who is far so that you may have confidence in your life.

Dearest Father, you are so near to us that we know our salvation is certain and our comfort and hope is true. Guard us from feeling far from you so that we may always know the peace that you give. Help us to bring others to know that you are near to them and that they will have comfort and peace in you as well. Be especially near to those who are in pain both of body and spirit. In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret