God’s Presence Series - My Encounter

As I mentioned last week, the anchor word “God’s Presence” is still resonating with me as it was for couple of years and of a truth I enjoyed the “wraparound presence” of my Father as much as He strengthened my confidence in His Word in and out of trying periods.

On this wise, the most part of this year, I will be delving into encouraging Words that are focused on God’s presence especially looking into verses where God’s presence occurs and learning from it.

Today, I feel I should talk about one of the encounters I had with God that has helped established me in God and His Word for many years.

So, in 2005, almost a year after our wedding, my husband and I had an argument, which was supposedly settled.

The particular night, he was sleeping peacefully like a baby whilst my mind kept wandering about like a loosened cloud. Right there, my mind was playing a re-cap of the “supposedly settled argument”we had that fateful evening and I found it difficult to clear the hurtful feelings and thoughts off my mind. I was tearful because this man did not even know how hurt I was, and there he was sleeping!

I tried waking him up with bouncing my body on the mattress, coughing out loud and with noisy sounds but that trick did not wake him up.

I left the bedroom for try sitting room, sitting on the sofa, my heart cried out to God. know when you're just short of words and all your spirit could say is 'help me Lord!' I did not know what to do! And lo and behold the Lord spoke to my spirit- He said ' When you hurt My son; you hurt me'.  

When I hurt Your son, I'm hurting You!

All my spirit could say was "Help me Lord, how do I go about it", asking in sincerity, the Lord replied me with

' Don't Leave My Presence'.

I heard him clearly, in what the prophet Jeremaih called 'still small voice.  

The message sank in to my soul and it got me thinking. Does that suggest that I am the one hurting my husband not otherwise?!

I was the one who hurt him! To my understanding and perspective, I believed so much that it was my hubby who caused the row!  

God justifying my hubby, was a thought-provoking and correcting time for me.  Also being able to see from God’s lens, where I was wrong was thought-provoking.

The thoughts of "God hurting" baffled me until one day I stumbled on the biblical perspective of "God hurting" while studying, and the moment I read the actual passage, my mind went back to that statement- "when you hurt my son, you hurt me!"

There are examples in the Bible where God mentioned being hurt when His people are being hurt or hurting.

For instance, we learnt from Acts of Apostle, how Saul was persecuting the Church- hurting, killing and putting them into prison.

We learnt how Saul had an encounter with God in Acts of Apostle 9

“and he (Saul) fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: …”

CEV - Contemporary English Version says

“Saul! Saul! Why are you so cruel to me?””

‭‭Acts‬ ‭9‬:‭4‬ ‭CEV‬‬

EASY translation says

“…Saul, Saul, why do you fight against me?’”

‭‭Acts‬ ‭9‬:‭4‬ ‭EASY‬‬…