An Encouraging Word

God still feels removed most days. Not Jesus or the Holy Spirit - they feel close. But my thoughts of God the Father tend to future tense: I will see Him in heaven. Or as the distant Calvinist director of all humankind. God in glory and splendor, pillar of fire, blazing throne room. Holy. Holy. Holy. Father doesn't feel like an accurate moniker.

Then that brilliant light breaks through. Reveals Him on the earth. Him, big God, universe-in-palm creator God right here, intimate and invested.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 1 Peter 5:10

God himself. The one I assume has better things to do. The one I don't bother with my sufferings. God himself.


Restore. Confirm. Strengthen. Establish. Reminds me of the girls: trip and crash, goose eggs and scraped skin, looking to mommy to kiss it and make it all better. Teary eyes pressed into my shoulder.  Nothing removed and distant about that. All access. All present.

All through Christ.

Elijah and Jesus {!} weren't tended to by God. The angels ministered to their needs 1 Kings 19:48, Matthew 4:11. God's open arms come through grace and the cross. A gift when the veil is torn.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; 1 John 3:1

Children who suffer and fall and cry, only to meet the arms of the Father himself.

My words fall short. Overwhelmed by gifts of grace.