The first of these realities declares “God is always at work around you.” Almighty God is everywhere around us every day. There is no hiding from God. Jonah found that out when he tried to run away from God by taking a ship from the port of Joppa to Tarshish. There is an uncertainty as to how far this was, but clearly, from the book of Jonah, there was a sea voyage involved. Jonah went down in the hold of the ship to sleep, thinking God would never find him. We know the story. A great fish swallowed Jonah and he realized there was no hiding from God.
Once in a while we feel His presence close by, but if we aren’t actively seeking to know Him as He knows us, we’ll miss a true treasured moment. There’s nothing like feeling the Presence of the Almighty nearby. It’s freeing and captivating all at the same time.
Another of the seven realities is that God is at work all around us and He invites us to work with Him. He wants us to know Him and to experience the joy of a relationship with Him, and then He wants us to share that experience with others by loving others as He loves.
Of course it’s impossible for us, but with God, nothing is impossible. With God, each of us can come to love those for whom our natural humanity would turn away. People come to be more than annoyances when we let God love through us, we begin to get a glimpse of the love God has for each of us. When we experience His love for others, we soon overlook that which would annoy us without God helping us.
There are so many needs around us. As the song Mighty to Save says, “Everyone needs compassion, love that’s never failing…”
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”