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Knowing God
I sit here with a blank sheet of paper in front of me hoping I can write something that will help people to know God. With all my years of having a relationship with my Lord, it seems it should be easy to communicate this feeling and this knowing about God. The more I think and the more I write, I realize you can’t define God or know God through words. Knowing God can only come by faith, and faith can only come by believing.
I think the best way to move toward this feeling and believing is experiencing. Experiencing opens your mind and starts you thinking of the possibility of something bigger than self. If you’ve never had a spiritual experience, I can promise you it will be the most wonderful experience you’ve ever had. Life will take on new and meaningful directions. Hope will lift you up and love will be your ever-present guide.
I am a praying man. But how do I suggest to people who don’t believe there is a God, to talk with a spirit that doesn’t exist. Although you don’t feel God exists, God knows you exist. God is watching over you and loving you. This is called prevenient grace. Simply be still and God will talk to you. How will you know it is God’s voice? You’ll know … you’ll know.
Agape, Kimball
God is There
My Brothers and Sisters,
Photo by Martin Sanchez
Never could we have imagined our world as it is at this very moment. We miss the hugs of humanity and feel a sense of hopelessness encroaching our homes. We’ve been made aware that as senior citizens, we’re the most vulnerable to the Corona Virus, therefore we’ve been directed to stay inside our home.
“But Lord”, we pray, “how can we be vessels of your love if we can’t witness hope to your people.
Photo by Cristian Newman
But the Lord tells us to take this time to pray and listen. He invites us to intercede for those who also feel hopeless and alone during this unprecedented time of social distancing.
Pam and I can’t help but feel the need to get out there and minister to those of you affected by this virus. But here’s a better option, let God minister to you. Instead of dwelling on fear and worry, put your mind on the Lord. When we spend time on our knees, we are reminded that God is with us.
That’s the message of a song I wrote called Still Be Still. I hope it’ll bring encouragement and comfort to you right now.
Silently, still be still
Bow your head, no words said
Silently, still be still
Take the time and listen
Clear your mind, just listen
You will find if you listen
God is there, God is there, God is there
Deep within lives a friend
Silently, still be still
The Awakening (A Parable)
A man was in an automobile accident and was taken to the hospital in a coma. His pastor rushed to his bedside. Although the doctors told the pastor that his church member was in a deep coma and probably could not hear him, the pastor took his hand and prayed.
After a week of daily visitations, the pastor entered the hospital room and found the man was awake and sitting up in his bed. Overjoyed, his pastor put his arms around him and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving.
He told his pastor he couldn’t remember the accident but he did have a dream. .. a dream that he was sleeping and couldn’t wake up. There were doctors and nurses around him but there was nothing they could do to wake him.
“Then God came to me,” he said, “and told me the reason I was to wake up. I felt the warmth of sunlight on my eyes and they began to open. I could see a road to follow and a mission to accomplish.”
God got through to him, and God is trying to get through to us. God needs us as His presence here on earth to be alert – alive – aware – awake!
Still Be Still
Having grown up in large churches in Memphis, Tennessee, Kimball and I were about to embark on a most wonderful journey. It was June of 1967. He was appointed to serve as a student lay pastor of two rural churches in Kentucky. My goodness, we had never even been in a country church. Yet, it was exciting to think he could really serve as a pastor while going to college, and that our young family of six would be a parsonage family. We loaded our station wagon with four children (7, 5, 19 months, and 3 weeks), hitched on a U-Haul trailer and headed for our first appointment and parsonage in Water Valley, KY.
With Kimball going to school full-time, serving our churches full-time, visiting, preparing sermons and being a daddy, I sometimes found myself overwhelmed with a sense of insecurity that I could not do all that I expected of myself. I’d throw up a prayer ever now and then, but I was busy… I thought I didn’t have time to be still and pray, and just as important, listen.
One day after a hard morning with two crying, sick babies, I began to cry. My 7-year-old son came to my rescue. “Why are you crying, Mama, what’s the matter?” I hugged him and said, “Son, I’m tired, and I just need a place to call my own when my spirits are down.” He wiped my tears with his shirt tail, gave me a hug and disappeared. I thought he had gone to play with his little brother, but he had another idea. After awhile he came back to me, “Mama, I found you a place you can call your own. Come see!” He took me by the hand to the large closet in my bedroom. He had taken most everything from the floor and piled them on our bed. He couldn’t reach the hanging clothes so he just grabbed the bottom of them and scooted them from the center of the closet. He had put a little table and a chair from his table and chairs set, in the center of the closet. He put a Bible, paper, pencil, and flashlight on the table for my use. When his Daddy got home from school he asked him to help him make a sign for my prayer closet. When I was in there, I was to hang it on the doorknob…”DON’T BOTHER MAMA…SHE IS IN THE PRAYER CLOSET!”
I loved that little prayer closet and I used it. I used it a lot! I smile when I remember the day when our 3-year-old, Kathy, came down the hall from her nap, yelling, “Where’s my mama?” “Shhh, she is in the prayer closet,” her brothers told her as they took her back to their room to play. I finished my prayers refreshed and renewed to be a mama, a minister’s wife, and ME once again. I learned from my thoughtful 7-year-old the importance of finding a place to call my own when feeling overwhelmed with the noise of the world around me. I did not know how to be still. I did not realize how much I was missing in my life. My ‘still be still’ times saved my sanity, but also refreshed me for living a life with meaning and purpose. I didn’t have a name for those quiet times like I do today, but I do know I am who I am because of my times in prayer. I believe in its power, especially when praying with heart and soul for others, as well as myself.
In these days of Lent, I hope you will find a place to call your own, and have some ‘still be still’ times to find hope for the living of these days.
As we journey together,
Pam
Kimball Boyd Coburn 