Presence.
A concept that I have been reflecting on heavily as of lately. What does it look like to be present in today’s world?
This past month, I’ve had the opportunity to go on tour and play music all around the east coast with some of my best friends. It’s everyone's dream. It was our dream come true. I spent three intentional weeks with 5 amazing guys playing music and sharing God's love with anyone who would listen. That time we spent being present with one another cultivated life long friendships. Thing is, we really didn’t have a choice to NOT be such a close knit community though. 5 dudes, 1 van, and over 4,000 miles. There was nowhere to go. I learned something somewhat unexpectedly through this time. I learned that even in “dream-like” scenarios it is so easy to look ahead to the next big and better thing. It is so easy to be disengaged and not be present in what’s actually going on right in front of us. To not be present with one another, to not be present with fans, with other bands. It is actually something that we as a band talked about frequently. We talked about living in the now and not looking to the next show that was sure to be a better one, or the city that was more spectacular than the one we were in. We had a lot of things going on back home that could have easily robbed us of our presence. Not that those things were bad but we allow them to distract us beyond what is necessary. Minimizing the distractions and being together is not easy. Fighting the “parenthetical life” as my Theology professor puts it. We have a tendency to put present moments in brackets of insignificance, chunks of life that aren’t as essential as the next part of life. Whether that be looking ahead to the weekend, Christmas break or summer time, we have the tendency to believe life will really start then.
God has a lot to say about presence. In fact, the God of the Bible is a God who cannot stand the distance between Himself and His people. He deeply desires to be present in our everyday. We see this play out through the entire God story. Starting in the garden he longs to walk with man closely and intimately. With Israel, He longs to dwell with His people in the tabernacle. The temple is a place where the presence of God is known and people from all nations were meant to come and see. Then we get to John 1:14 where “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. God could NOT stand the distance so much that He came, took on humanity, and was present with us. What kind of God does that? And when I look at the life of Jesus I see a man who was present wherever he was. He wasn’t looking ahead to where he needed to go or what he needed to check off of his to-do list. We often see him stop what he was doing and sit with a beggar, sit with the tormented soul, sit and eat with the outcast. We are a distracted people today, even with seemingly good things. We are giving life half of our attention most of the time. Why is that? I believe Jesus was able to do this because he realized that in order for us to be fully present and engaged with every moment of life we have to remember that we serve a God who is present with us every moment of our lives. That’s what Jesus came to fix. He came to restore what we in our sin destroyed, and that’s the all joyful and all powerful presence of God in our lives. Jesus came near to us so that we can draw near again to Him.
So when I look ahead to these next 11 months on the World Race my prayer is that I learn to walk with the presence of God in my life. I have the opportunity to be on purpose, fully committed to just simply being present. It’s not going to be easy though. We are beyond distracted these days. I am beyond distracted. We forget that as Christians we have the honor of carrying the presence of Christ into places, into dark and broken places. This is the heart of Jesus, to carry the presence of a loving and powerful God into a world that longs for such a presence. So I go with a heart ready to be mended. Ready to be shaped into the heart of the Father who longs to be present with a broken world. Please pray for me. I have the honor of being the leader of an amazing team. Five people who love Jesus and want to see amazing things in God. The words of Moses resonate with my soul deeply right now. “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” (Ex. 33:14). Without the powerful, paradigm shifting, world saving, life changing presence of the true God, I am nothing. We are nothing. We go with faith in a God who is present and more than willing to show up and show us His glory.
11 months. 11 countries. Thank you to those who are journeying with me. Thank you to those who are praying. Thank you to those who are helping me with funds. I’m still $400 short of my August deadline. If you feel inclined to help me click the Support Me! tab on the left. Thank you thank you thank you.
– Joe
