David Thompson, Secretary of PCI’s Council for Congregational Life and Witness, reflects on whether our experience of the period of the pandemic and living through lockdown may have prompted us to know more of God’s presence and know him more fully.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17

Where are you?

Even as those who love God and are trying to follow Jesus in our lives, it’s not unnatural when faced with times of great trial, suffering or news of the latest disaster to find ourselves asking ‘where are you God?’ Perhaps that’s a question we have found surfacing as we reflect on wave after wave of the impact of pandemic, lockdown and ongoing disruption to some of the most basic things of life. It arises from a feeling of the seeming absence of God. However, maybe we have also discovered a more positive answer to that question over the last 18 months as we have come to experience an awareness of God in unexpected places in our lives.

We are used to approaching Sunday worship, Bible study and meetings for prayer with an expectation of meeting with God. It’s right that we anticipate experiencing God’s nearness in those places in which we gather with others as a church family to praise, learn from and pray to him. It’s good to be able to be gradually getting back to that, even if it doesn’t quite feel as it did before as we continue to wrestle with the ongoing impact of social distancing and irritation of the necessary wearing of masks for at least some of the time we are together. However, the prolonged interruption to our ability to be in those natural settings in which we are accustomed to knowing God’s nearness due to the pandemic, has perhaps opened up a whole range of other places and moments in our lives in which we now have a greater sense that God is to be found there as well.

As we think back over the last year and a half, are we better able to meet God regularly in our personal reading of Scripture in a still place with a quiet heart? Have we developed our capability to seek and talk to God throughout the day, so that we now enjoy a deeper prayerfulness? Most of all, do we have a firmer grasp on the reality that God is at work and can be worshipped as we take a walk on our own, while away time with our family, work on something as a hobby, lose ourselves in our favourite pastime? Perhaps in our health, work or educational circumstances we also developed antenna for God’s presence and power at work when we needed it most, or the stilling of his Spirit when our minds were whirring with so many challenges all coming at the same time. Perhaps we have discovered a fuller, richer possibility of encountering God 24/7 to complement our expectation of meeting him in the regular rhythms and activities that centre around our church life. ‘Where are you God?’ Maybe present a lot more in our everyday lives than we realised before.

Who are you?

As we stop to reflect and take another look at God in light of our experience of the pandemic and living through lockdown, have we also enlarged our appreciation of who he is? It’s so easy when life is running smoothly and without disruption to allow our relationship with God to slip into something that is like having a long standing and treasured friend who we have begun to take for granted because they are always there for us when we need them.

Did the extra time and space provided by the extended restriction to our normal busyness of life allow us to take something in about God that really left an impression on us? A passage from the Bible? An image on social media? A thought shared in a blog? A book we read? Something still lingers with us. It’s a particular impression that God wants to make on us so that it leaves the deepened imprint of his encouragement or challenge. Let’s not lose that. Let’s treasure it, carrying it with us knowing that really absorbing it into mind, heart, soul and life will change us forever and enable us to know God more fully going forward.

What word best captures you?

How on earth would you sum God up in just one word? Which of the finest theologians or Bible teachers would want to take on that task?

John the Apostle might be having a go in 1 John 4:8 when he writes ‘God is love’. The love of God is such a huge theme in all that John writes, including on the lips of Jesus in John 3:16-17, ‘for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.’

This verse, that is so familiar to us, fills out what it looks and feels like to experience that love. We receive it as an amazing gift at no expense to ourselves, but at enormous expense to God. It gives us the most amazing confidence in life and death. It leaves us feeling free from guilt about all the wrong things we have done and all the right things we know we didn’t do. At the bottom of it all, in the love of God we find ourselves safe.

Another look at God?

Even now, knowing that it’s not all over yet, it’s easy to want to just close our eyes to the deep and disturbing disruption of our lives that occurred as a result of Covid-19. All of us feel an urge to just try to get things back to the way they were before and forget it all happened. However, that won’t allow God to do his deeper work in us. To expand our experience of him. To train us in trusting him more. To give us a greater glimpse of his glory.

So, take time to take another look at God. Where do you now know his presence in your life that you had never noticed before? What in particular has he shown you of himself? How has your appreciation of the love of God been filled out by experience?

Prayer:

God help me to better know and appreciate you, your presence with me and love towards me.

Amen

---

Rev David Thompson is Secretary of PCI’s Council for Congregational Life and Witness.

ANOTHER LOOK

As we emerge from our personal experience of the period of the pandemic and living through lockdown, it’s good to take another look at how we see things now and how that might have changed as we go forward into the future.

Purchase Another look? in booklet format to use and share with others here.