Jericho, Light, and You
October 5, 2023: Edit (Original Post: September 2023)
My advice to everyone, believers and unbelievers, is to find a good church and attend their main service each week. If God is involved, and I think He is, you really do not know what can happen - when He moves.
On a Sunday morning early in 2023, I sit in the audience enjoying the worship music. Regardless of how you explain worship music, it can direct our hearts and minds toward God, - - and - - lead to an authentic experience of God that is best described as worship.
It is during the music; it could have just as easily been during a spoken presentation. But not this time.
The morning songs had nothing to do with the Old Testament City of Jericho. Additionally, there is no recent Bible reading nor recent presentation from the pulpit on Jericho. So here is what happens.
Unexpectedly, because I was focused on God, I imagine a picture of Jericho in the OT. In the picture, the walls are tall, they are thick, obviously strong, they are formidable. The people inside the walls kept doing what they had always done.
God’s children are outside the walls. God speaks (communicates somehow), they hear, and they obey.
In the final segment of how this unexpected story played out in my mind, God’s children march, shout, and blow horns. The walls come tumbling down.
The end.
My feeling is that this is a gift from God. I really could not explain it another way, not one that made much sense. If God wanted those thoughts in my mind, He had a purpose. The story had associated with it a very pleasant essence, I wanted to retain memory of it. Perhaps it was nothing more than a gift from God. Let’s think about this. Perhaps God is saying, do not keep doing things as you always have. Something about that did not click for me; it did not feel right. But I had nothing better to learn from it. So, at the very least, it was a sweet gift from God.
Time passes, one or more Sunday mornings later, the same setting, yet again the music is incredibly effective at directing my attention to God. The story about Jericho briefly flashes through my mind, and then the following emerges.
The Third person of the Holy Trinity,
through the musicians,
make music,
essential to victory,
and the barriers melt.
Here, Sunday mornings.
That’s it! That is it! That describes Sunday mornings. That is the takeaway from the story of Jericho’s collapse. Thank you, God. Now I know.
A few Sunday mornings pass, and I make an observation.
So that you know I know this is unique, I will state it plainly. In the next paragraph we deviate from what I was expecting and would think what you are expecting.
Here is the interesting part: Sometimes, based on body language and facial expressions, I observe people performing tasks around the church on Sunday morning, and from facial expressions, it appears to me that it just feels like they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Continuing, I have no explanation, but I felt blessed, blessed greatly because I was near them. Huh? As I thought back to many Sundays, I recalled this happened again and again. Perhaps you could say a subtle vibrancy that I felt the circumstances did not explain.
I also recalled a Thursday morning in February of the same year, when I had a sense of being near greatness. Never happened before, or at least I would not describe it that way. A group of people gather to worship like many other Thursday mornings. But this time, I know that I am near greatness. I look around, nothing different. I can’t explain it.
As I ponder these, I recall that every Christian has been given the presence of the Holy Spirit. I think about verses on letting your light shine to others, and God is the Father of lights. Light is a symbol, or symbolic of something that is real but may not be of this world. This qualifies as a reason to suspect the following.
Sometimes, like taking care of chores near other Christians, when it feels like you are just doing what you are supposed to be doing, there will be people who receive blessing because you are there. Where you go, there, that is where the divine presence is.
That Thursday morning in February, and in a different way May 4th (writeup probably in Blog section later), is like the light from one person helps another negotiate the turbulence of life. It is as if when we get together, we are in a room full of lighthouses—light (light, being a metaphor, will be discussed another time), from one, guiding, encouraging another, and so on.
With so much light present, when we gather to worship, perhaps we can say, where two or more are gathered in my name, Jesus said, and then continues, there I am.
Final remark. I know how parts of the above fit with other parts, but not all of it. So what can I conclude from this report? The only conclusion I have is that experiences above would not have happened if I had not gathered together with the saints in the name of Jesus. So, perhaps it is reasonable to say, this is about you.
Notes
Moved “Here, Sunday mornings.” It’s exact location in the sequence is somewhere between the middle and the end.
“This is about you,” is an expression of emotion. I felt humbled by the only conclusion that fit all of the above content.