In the Room – ChurchEdge

It’s been a while since I’ve picked up a dictionary, literally at least; I do most of my looking-up online. But my computer was already shut down for the day and for once it seemed faster to use a book for the task. I can’t remember the word I was hunting for now, in fact, I think I stopped hunting. As I pulled the giant book off the shelf and opened its pages to the general vicinity of the S’s, I was stopped in my tracks by a piece of paper that fell out.

In his familiar mechanical script (block lettering and always in pencil) my dad had carefully scratched a word on a torn off corner of paper. His handwriting immediately caught my eye, but it was he himself that seemed to leap off the page. I had forgotten the dictionary was even his, landing on my shelves posthumously. But I was immediately filled with a sense of mystery: What was he up to? Why was this word on his mind? Did he hear it somewhere and quickly scribble it down to look up later? Was he researching something or was he just curious? His thoughts, however ordinary they may have been, seemed wonderful, fueled by the sense that I was somehow on his trail. The word was one I’d never heard before. As I looked it up, it felt as if he was peering over my shoulder.

I have been stopped in my tracks similarly by the presence of God. Like a forgotten slip of paper that lands in my hands, his handwriting has appeared in unlikely places, reminding me of his presence, his hand in a difficult situation. These are the kind of moments that wake us up. Stumbling across evidence that He is in the room, spaces in our minds long anesthetized by sin and self are given a sobering thought: He is here, and I didn’t know it.

As Jacob rested midway on a long journey, he saw in a dream a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. The Lord was standing above the stairway, and he said to Jacob: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac… I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (28:13,15). It was for Jacob a dream that woke him to the possibility that though far from home, by himself in the wilderness, kept company by thoughts of a brother who wanted to kill him, he was not alone. The account in Genesis continues, “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven’“ (vv. 16,17). In a desperate place, the faith of his fathers’ was made his own.

God is on our trail. The psalmist knew what Jacob discovered in the woods: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (139:7). He is here though we were not aware. When we stumble across the evidence, we are moved to praise. “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (139:17).

In one word, I was reminded that my dad, whose absence is often the mark I see most clearly, has left his signature throughout my life. How much more God moves through our lives, engraving us on the palm of his hands, pursuing us through sin and selfishness, longing for us to see the evidence that He is in the room.

________