From the President: Presence and Provision

By Dr. Chris Seiple on 05 July 2007

“Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His presence continually.”
— Psalm 105:4

It is a difficult for me to truly grasp what it means to “seek His presence continually.” My mind recognizes that a right relationship with God provides me with the opportunity to conduct all other relationships rightly. But my “deceitful heart” (Jeremiah 17:9) finds it easier to pay mere lip service to His presence and instead focus selfishly on His provision—what He has done for me lately.

I am not alone. Too many American Christians continue to consume far too many of the resources God has provided for His world. Not satisfied, we daily pray for more signs of His provision: more money, a larger house, a better job, a closer parking space, a bigger church. Indeed, our churches are so inwardly focused sometimes on the self-provision of buildings and member services that they have little time to serve the local and global communities around them.

Insidiously, we begin to entertain the notion, as Ananias and Sapphira did (Acts 5:1-11), that what we have belongs to us. As our preoccupation with provision deepens and expands the rampant consumerism that is the American experience, we leave little to distinguish us from non-Christians.

Worse, this focus on provision separates us from God. Our hearts become hardened, unbreakable to the things that break the heart of God. Contently cocooned, we become irrelevant to a world desperate for God’s presence, stultified in our status quo, indifferent to a devil that “prowls” (1st Peter 5:8). As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote of the racism he experienced in Birmingham: “The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people."¹

It seems counterintuitive that we as humans can be in the presence of God. We are tangible and frail vessels that pass from Earth and He, seemingly, is intangible, a mighty, jealous, and eternal God. From Adam and Eve to today, we do not deserve to be in His presence, to have a relationship with Him, precisely because of our sinful use of His provision. How can we be certain that He would even want us in His presence?

Augustine was well aware of this dilemma. Writing of God, Augustine’s wish was “not to be more certain about you, but to be more stable in you.”² That stability, Eugene Peterson suggests, will only result if we are ready to become fully human. “If we are going to be complete human beings…we will have to expose the life of self-centeredness and proclaim the truth of God-centeredness.”³

To continually put God and His teachings at the center of our thoughts and actions, is to seek His presence. It is to worship Him. Worship acknowledges with amazed abandon the Creator of the universe. N.T. Wright says it best: “Worship makes you more truly human.”⁴

Crazy, isn’t it? The more you worship the intangible of an unseen God—the more you continually seek His presence by making Him the center of life—the more tangible our humanity becomes. How is this so?

Paul writes: “Anyone who loves God is known by Him” (1 Corinthians 8:3). More precisely, Psalm 25:14 teaches us that: “The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He makes His covenant known to them.” By continually seeking His awesome presence, we enter into a relationship. And through that friendship, His desire becomes known to us.

His desire is simply this: that we be in relationship with Him, that we return His love for us. To do that, we must finally and daily realize that God’s love for His creation is so great that, through His son, He made Himself fully human as the tangible demonstration of His presence and provision among us.

Jesus Christ not only died for us, restoring our relationship to God, He literally and spiritually gave us Communion at the Last Supper. Celebrating the Eucharist is the opportunity for His disciples to come into His presence, and be provided for—as a group of individuals now transformed into His body, His ongoing presence on earth.

Jesus is quite clear in this regard. “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added onto you” (Matthew 6:33).

By liberating us from worrying about what we need so we can seek what He wants, Christ positions us to provide for a hurting world that desperately seeks the tangible presence of its Creator. And in so doing, we provide an opportunity for someone else to begin seeking His presence.

Last updated 29 November 1999