You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, Who remembers You in Your ways.

Just because God is invisible, does not mean that you cannot experience Him! This was brought home very clearly to me, at the time of my conversion. The desperate circumstances of my life, had become severe enough that I was willing to try anything, even God! I have always said that He would not have held me if He had not been real. What was real, very real was that although my circumstance did not change at all, my ability to deal with them did. I received His comfort, no longer did my loneliness, paranoia and intense emotional pain threatened to undo me. And while at some level some of the pain remained, I did have joy, and peace and hope.

I’m not saying they were not times when I did not wrestle with these things, but I was learning to flee to Him at such times. In fact I was very teachable back then. Like most of us, I had developed appetites that demanded to be satisfied, ungodly appetites. But again like most of us, I had convinced myself that what I was doing was not wrong. In fact I still had desires for things in my formal life. And as the enticement of these things started to draw me away from His presence (James 1:14), as I started to walk towards them, the old negative feelings would start to return.

It was as if He was saying to me “You can go there Phil, but you can’t stay close to Me if you do.” And I would run to Him saying “Show me what it is, and I will change it.” And when I did this, the peace would start to return. And the Lord brought these things to my attention this morning in my quiet time, as I sat here meditating on this verse from Isaiah 64:5.

Father, I thank You for the reality of Your presence, and how the subjective nature of this so clearly matches with the objective nature of Your Word. It is a powerful combination. Thank You Lord that You have taught me, at those times when this does not feel so real, to pray “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxious ways; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23, 24). Thank You that You continue to teach me Your ways. In Jesus Name Amen