Devotional Thought of the Day:

¹⁸  “But will God really live on earth among people? Why, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this Temple I have built! ¹⁹  Nevertheless, listen to my prayer and my plea, O LORD my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is making to you. ²⁰  May you watch over this Temple day and night, this place where you have said you would put your name. May you always hear the prayers I make toward this place. ²¹  May you hear the humble and earnest requests from me and your people Israel when we pray toward this place. Yes, hear us from heaven where you live, and when you hear, forgive.
2 Chronicles 6:18-21 (NLT2) 

¹⁴  So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
John 1:14 (NLT2

You can fool others about the relationship you have with God. A pious posture, a liturgy held with angelic face, the breviary opened and handy when someone enters the room are masks which have stuck so well to certain persons whom they really believed to be respectable and pious.

Pope Francis. (2013). A Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections from His Writings. (A. Rossa, Ed.) (p. 366). New York; Mahwah, NJ; Toronto, ON: Paulist Press; Novalis.

We too often treat God as if he the cable we plug into our cell phones at night. We go to church on Sunday, and maybe Wednesday night, and plug in to get “recharged”.  Not a bad illustration in a way, because that is what God’s word and the sacraments do, they revive us, and they help us to remember God’s presence.

They help us to remember that God is showing us mercy, that when we pray, God forgives, restores, heals us of our brokenness. That is why our time at church should be such a great moment in our lives, and a blessing we know we can’t go without.

The problem is that we take this “recharging” and then it is as if we “unplug” from God, and walk out the door. We act and live as if God lives at church, and stays there, waiting for us to return next week.  During that week, having returned to our brokenness, we find ourselves drained of power, unable to overcome the sin which easily ensnares us, and our piety and holiness become an act, a facade which is easily seen through…

and does fool God for a moment. 

No matter what we believe, whether we believe in God or not, He is here.

Full of mercy and truth, ready to hear our prayer and forgive, ready to restore and heal what is broken, and comfort us in the process. 

God isn’t our recharging station, God is more like our battery, and the charging station doesn’t restore the charge in the battery, it simply restores our ability to realize He is there, and He is our life.  

And as He reveals our brokenness, as we stop playing games and trying to hide it, a wonderful thing happens.  We realize He is with us, dwelling with us, dwellin in our midst.  AMEN!

Pope Francis. (2013). A Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections from His Writings. (A. Rossa, Ed.) (p. 366). New York; Mahwah, NJ; Toronto, ON: Paulist Press; Novalis.