Pastors' Weekly Message: From Pastor Pat

“When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart,”
Jeremiah 29:13

Have you ever seen those three dimensional images where the longer you stare at them, the more you see? Where in one image you see both a tree and a human face? Usually one image is more easily detected than another. It is only after you invest your full attention that you are able to see all that the image offers.

Some of us are more familiar with the verses of Jeremiah that precede verse thirteen; verses which remind us God does have a plan for us, spoken to God’s people in the midst of a wilderness journey. 

They are the words Jeremiah proclaims from God that assures us that not only is God with us, but there will be something beneficial, something we can add to our spiritual wardrobe that we will glean from this experience. For most of us, just knowing this might cause us to adopt a posture of waiting for God to show up.

But God invites us to look deep into our experience to “find” our Creator’s presence.
Just as we have to stare intently at those multi dimensional images to see all the image provides, so we have to search intently for the presence of God in the midst of life’s challenges and celebrations. We have to put on our “God glasses” the spiritual lenses that allow us to see beyond the obvious to God present with us. To look deeper than what is closest to us, to see God beside us. When we do that we are able to see the many ways God is and has been present. God has been with us all along!

Thanks be to God!

-- Pastor Pat 
pallen@stpaulsk.org