LIVING IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD

One of the mistakes I make most frequently is forget that i'm living in the presence of God. As a matter of fact, I have filled my phone wallpapers with icons of the Christian faith to remind myself of this fact all the time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work.

We tend to live life in a dualistic fashion; God is up there in the sky, sometimes interfering in the affairs of men, but essentially absent. Meanwhile I’m down here living my life, doing the "mundane" things; gong to work, eating, drinking, and occasionally loving those around me. The only times that these two realms intersect is when we are in the mode of worship or prayer, when we feel a presence or heightened emotions.

In actual fact, we serve a God who fills all things and encompasses all things. We learn that Jesus sustains all things by his powerful word and all things exist in him (Colossians). We are perpetually swimming in the ocean of the divine, we are drowning in the presence of God.  There is a scene in Erik Guzman's beautiful book "The Seed" where the Man is dying of thirst and hunger, while surrounded by clear beautiful water flowing from the root of the Christ figure. But his mind has been so warped by the distortion of Sin that he doesn't see this water, All he sees is this black soot. So while the woman is scooping the water and literally drinking in the Holy Spirit, the man is disgusted and cannot bring himself to drink the water/soot. That is the predicament of the Human race. Even we who believe are not always aware of the presence of God. We are too weighed down by the darkness, too invested in our self dependent life that we have forgotten to refresh ourselves in the waters of the Holy Spirit. We have even forgotten that the Holy Spirit is present, that we are in Jesus and he is in us and that we belong to the Father. In actual fact, as much as we would like sometimes, nobody can escape from the presence of God; not even the dead

“if I were to climb up to the highest heavens, you would be there. If I were to dig down to the world of the dead you would also be there” Psalm 139:8

.   And why would God be absent? He is the one who provides us with our emotions, gifts and the activities we like.  We like the things we like because he first liked them. We enjoy the company of our friends because he enjoys the company of friends. This is the beauty I try to remind myself of at all times. That in all activities, he is there with me. I don’t have to beg and scrape for him to come down. I don’t have to drum up spiritual energy on my own in order to do the work of God. Neither do I have to perform some rain dance or debase myself in a fashion that impresses him enough to come down and give me his blessing. He is always present, always blessing and always supplying everything we need for every challenge and every endeavor.

THE SEED A TRUE MYTH BY ERIK GUZMAN

The story of the Bible and the Gospel can be summarized this way:. God creates all things and it is good, man believes a lie and seperates himself from God plunging himself along with all of creation into utter darkness; and God becomes man in order to rescues him and all of creation from the darkness.

In “The Seed-the True Myth” Erik Guzman uses that backdrop and creates a story of eternal love and the triumph of Love over every darkness. The book portrays how in our brokenness and helplessness, we see the hand of God extended to us in Love with suspicion and fear. We are so lost that we saw the light of God’s love and viewed it as utter darkness. While we worshipped Satan and his principle of self-centeredness and fleshly indulgence. In the book he portrays how we view God as the taskmaster who expects us to work to the bone and who is never satisfied. He also portrays how many of us are so willing to serve this god and our feeble attempts at pleasing this god, in spite of the constant voice in our heads telling us we are not doing enough. We build bigger and bigger temples, doing more and more acts of service, offer bigger and bigger sacrifices and pray longer and longer but it is never enough. In reality, this “god” is Satan, using the madness we fell into at the fall to superimpose himself as God. In other words, he is filling the vacuum of the false impressions we have about God and gaining great power from it. Satan is the first and ultimate being that fell into the madness of flesh, and by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we joined him in his madness

But it’s not all gloomy, because Erik also shows how God who is Love came and shattered the power of Satan in a way he never expected or even understood, because it was through Love and Divine sacrifice and self-giving; A way Satan had abandoned eons ago. And God calls us to join him in that way again, his Holy Spirit is like a river flowing over the whole world beckoning on all mankind to drink of him and fill themselves with the light of his love. Halleluiah

This is a wonderful novel that wraps the Gospel in a beautiful fantasy story, much like C.S Lewis and portrays its beauty so wonderfully. I don’t agree with a few ideas in the book, but so what, he doesn’t agree with me too. In the grand scheme of things, the story is compelling and can be enjoyed just as a novel. But it is also a great portrayal of the Gospel.

Disclosure of Material Connection:

Now I have to say this (seriously, I do): I received this book free of charge from the publisher and writer via the Speakeasy network, I'm not under any obligation to write a positive review and the views I have expressed are entirely my own. I'm writing this disclosure in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255