“LORD, show me your love, and save me as you have promised.” (Psalm 119:41, NCV)
“God did not choose us to suffer his anger but to have salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus died for us so that we can live together with him, whether we are alive or dead when he comes. So encourage each other and give each other strength, just as you are doing now.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9–11, NCV)
Come Thou Thyself, with Thine angels, into our temples and homes, as once Thou camest unto Abraham and Sarah. Let them accompany us upon all our ways and journeyings as they did unto Tobias. Let them save us from dangers and death, even as they saved the three men in the fiery furnace, a Daniel from the mouths of the lions, and a Peter from prison bonds. When we go upon paths of unrighteousness, cause them to hinder us, as they once hindered Balaam.
321 Apostolic soul, that intimacy between Jesus and you—so close to him for so many years! Doesn’t it mean anything to you?
As I think about my devotional time this morning, interrupted as it was, I have to start with St. Josemaria’s words,
What does the intimacy I have with God mean? Or as St. Paul points out, we were chosen, not to receive the wrath that is hell, or the reward of a paradise of our choosing (which I would argue is hell,) but to live with Him together. The intimacy that is described in Loehe’s prayer, the confidence that God will be with us in and through every trauma, leads us to be assured of our eternal home–with Him.
It is that confidence in God’s promise that can lead us with the Psalmist to cry out for help to beg for God to show us our love, whether it is to save us from our sin, or to save us from whatever life is throwing at us–again see Loehe the Lutheran trainer of pastors, who documents this in his prayer.
This is what will sustain us, what will empower us, what brings us to where we can serve the Lord our God. To know Him now, to be aware of His presence, to rejoice in His revealing us to himself, both generally in HIs creation and specifically, in great detail in the scriptures–this is that intimacy, to commune as we partake of Bread and Wine, Body and Blood, to know the presence of His Holy Spirit–this is what makes the difference.
Even when He or His angels have to hinder us from some horrendous sin, as the ange; did to Balaam.
This is our God – who loves us, who responds to our cries for help- to our cries for proof of His love.. who planned on it, well before the cross,
He is with us!
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Lœhe, William. 1914. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Translated by H. A. Weller. Chicago: Wartburg Publishing House.
Escrivá, Josemaría. The Way (p. 54). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.