“During the forty days after his crucifixion, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.” – Acts 1:3

I am ruined by His presence. It’s not always like this. Normally I’m consumed with thoughts about the coming day. I have a long list of things that I think I have to get done, that I’ve forgotten to write down, that I spend a lot of time trying to remember and hardly any time actually doing. I set my alarm extra early in the morning so that I can get up and spend time with God, but I rarely press the snooze button just once. I am rushed, hurried and can’t sit still for very long unless I’m really tired. However, “the wind (or the Spirit) blows where it wills; and though you hear it’s sound, yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it is going.” (John 3:8)

Despite my SELF, God remains faithful and true. Despite my lack of faith, God remains faithful (2 Tim. 2:13). It is Him who decides to refresh me, to breathe on me and to come and visit me “from time to time”. It has nothing to do with my efforts, as we learn so well from the example of the religious Pharisees, for most of them went to Hell having spent more time in the Scriptures than you or I ever will. This is not at all or in any way meant to devalue the importance or the absolute necessity of the word of God. Anyone who knows me or my husband knows very well our love of the word of God and our unbreakable and passionate commitment to lifting it up in the midst of a biblically illiterate generation. My point is simply this: God will show up when He wants, how He wants, and it has nothing to do with me. Today is one of those days. I’ve been consumed with busyness, yet here He is crashing through all of my thoughts and preoccupations.

Jesus had been with his disciples for 3 straight years. They were used to being in His presence. They probably took it for granted. Now in Acts we see him showing up only “from time to time”. As we can see from Thomas’ example in John chapter 20, it was easy to think that just because they couldn’t see Him anymore, He wasn’t there. Thomas expresses doubt in one of those moments when Jesus was apparently absent and says, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” When Jesus finally does appear to them, He confronts Thomas with the exact phrase that Thomas himself used and says, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

Jesus was teaching them (and you and me) that although we do not see Him, He is present. He is here. He hears all that we say, knows all of our thoughts and is closer to us than our very breath. Of all the things that we learned in this first part of chapter one of Acts, this is the one thing that is continuing to convict and set my heart ablaze. He is the Living God, and He is always present.

The same God who walked with Daniel in the fire, who split the Red Sea, who raised Himself from the dead, is present. Were I to go to the depths of the sea, I would not be able to flee from His presence. (Psalm 139) Even to the depths of the darkest, most frightening corner of the earth, He would be there. Whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. (1 Thes. 5:10)

It is in His presence that I talk and work and eat and go about my day. Do I fully comprehend this? Just like Thomas, every doubt I express, He hears. He knows it before it’s even on my lips. But because He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8), I can count on Him to continually show up in my life just like He did with Thomas, and with Moses in the fire of the burning bush. Just like He did with the Israelites in the pillar of fire during the long nights in the desert. And just like we will see Him do even with the apostles on the day of Pentecost, when He came in that mighty rushing wind “that blows wherever it wills” and in the tongues of fire that rested on each one of them. For He IS a consuming fire, and His fiery presence is what reveals to us and to those around us that He lives. He is here. Now. Not just for my own sake to purify me, but more importantly as we saw in this first part of Acts, for the sake of those around me, “to be His witness to the ends of the earth”. (Acts 1:8)

As we prepare for the second part of Acts chapter one, let’s remember that this was and still is the purpose of His awesome presence: not to give me the Holy Ghost goosebumps, but to empower me to be a witness for Christ.