‘Free Range’ God

It was just the other day that, as we were preparing for a morning gathering at my local church, the idea that we could welcome God into our gathering struck me as a little odd. For years I’ve known that the truth of the matter is; God will be there when He is invited. God will show up when He is allowed to be there. He will not force his way in, there is no foot in the door or scratching at the window. It just isn’t in His nature.

“But You are holy, O You Who dwell in [the holy place where] the praises of Israel [are offered].” (Psalm 22:3 AMP)

The God that I know created the Heavens, the Earth and everything in-between. Now, I made dinner tonight and that was hard enough, so I will forever be impressed by creating the Heavens and the Earth, especially in the time frame that He completed in. Kevin Mcloud should get in touch for a extra special edition of Grand Designs…

“so you’re going to build this on your own, without an architect or a team of builders or planning permission and you want to do it in…a week?”

I’ve always thought of God as quite…well, free range really. When you consider that God is omnipresent, omniscient and doesn’t have any problems getting around, He can go where He likes, yet He chose to be with us.

So as we were gearing up to go on stage on sunday morning, I had this overwhelming sense that God could have been anywhere in the world. Personally I would have chosen Auckland, Pismo or The Scottish Highlands, you get the idea, somewhere with stunning natural beautiful, rather than in rainy Preston.
But yet, on Sunday morning God had chosen to be with us. The God of all nations, higher that any other deity or god, my God, had decided to join us in Preston. It was a real and maybe quite personal message that He had decided to be there, because He wanted to be, because I wanted Him there and He wouldn’t have missed it for the world. God who occupies the Heavens had chosen to be with us, under our 180 year old roof.

It meant so much. I will not soon forget it.