The Power of Presence

The 'power of presence' is terribly undervalued in our society.  I think this is so because we desperately want to be fixed, healed or delivered.  For moments requiring (or desiring) deliverance or repair mere presence seems simply insufficient.  As a husband and father I have learned the value of mere presence and the power it provides in life's most difficult moments.  There are three moments that stand out as the most difficult in my life; listed below in order of the difficulty:

1. March 2007.  The moment Melissa was not only told that she had cancer, but also experienced an excruciating extraction of bone marrow (taken from her spine) to see just how wide spread the cancer was.
2. July 2002. The moment Melissa was rushed to the Emergency Room as a result of a wreck on an ATV that I had been driving.  The impact collapsed a lung.  I was privy to the insertion of a tube designed to heal the lung.  They drove this two-foot long tube through the side of her body without the benefit of anesthetic - not fun.
3. Yesterday, April 2012.  The moment my daughter cried my name, 'daddy, daddy, daddy' as her badly broken right arm had to be 're-set' in order for it to heal properly.  She simply stared at me with tears streaming down her face.  Her eyes telling me what her mouth could not express: 'please protect me, please deliver me, please take me out of here so I don't have to endure this pain.'  AUGH!!

Painful moments.  In each instance I would have rather endured the pain myself.  In each instance I desired to do something to remove them from the experience; to take care of them.  In each instance I would have picked them up, wrapped them in my arms, and left in defiance.  In each instance I could do none of those things.  No.  All I could do was be with them.  Powerless.

Such experiences tend to mark a man.  But not as one might think.  I could easily be marked as impotent and insufficient in the greatest moment of need.  I could be marked as a weakling.  I could, in fact, be dogged at every turn by my lack of ability to change the situation and to deliver my loved ones.  Yet, by God's grace, I have been marked in a different way.  Upon reflection I have seen that my presence was the most valuable gift I could give.  It spoke volumes that my action could not speak.  In a world where doing is everything, these moments have reminded me that being provides much hope and surety in life's most difficult moments.

Yes.  Being with them enabled them to take their focus off of the situation at hand.  Being with them allowed them to squeeze my hand until it was purple.  Being with them allowed them to cry freely and to do so knowing that one was crying with them.  Being with them allowed them to know that they would not face this moment alone.  Though I did not do anything, being with them demonstrated love, loyalty and commitment.  Being with them demonstrated that I would not forsake them in their time of need (of course, fainting was not out of the question).  Being with them revealed that though I felt inadequate and weak in that moment I would not allow such feelings to imprison me and cause them to fear.  No.  I would be with them no matter what.

This experience of being with them elevates my awareness of and desire for He whose presence is so much more powerful than my own.  Even when He would not to change a situation or remove me from a situation, it is enough to know that He is with me in the midst of the situation.  I ask you the question this experience has caused me to ask myself . . .

"Is His presence enough? If not, why?"

The signature theme of Scripture can be summed up in three words: God With Us!  God with us is the experience of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the forefathers of our faith. God with us is the experience of  Moses and the Israelites as they journeyed through the wilderness.  God with us is the experience of those of us impacted by the incarnation; the birth of the Christ who is called Immanuel (God with Us). 

Through the ages this has been the message God has most longed to share.  Through the ages this has been the message we have been most eager to change.  Rather than God With Us, we have cried out, 'God Work for Us.'  When God doesn't work (as we define work) for us, then we cry out, 'God where are you'.  What bitter irony occurs when we confuse doing with being.  As such we are unable to see that being is the most important doing ever offered.

I speak from personal experience.  Desire being.  Desire His presence.  All other desires are off kilter and wrongly directed.

By the way.  When I tucked my daughter into bed last night she said, "Thanks, Daddy.  Thanks for being there with me today."  Moments like that provide the coal that fuels desire!

the shape of desire
Biz