It seems to normal secular perceptions, even for many persons of faith, an odd claim that mankind can experience God in their personal lives. Many millions do claim such experience, and others believe that God may involve himself in some large social event like a flood in which there are no lives lost, or the recovery from a pandemic threat to health. Stories have been written about the unaccountable cause for ending circumstances related to the black death of centuries ago that may have taken a third of the European population, or the end of the flu epidemic following World War I that may have taken more American lives than the war. Doubters about God argue that if he existed and involved himself, he would have prevented the pandemic from occurring at all.
The Apostle Paul expands on the mystery concept, a large concept in Scripture, that God is so intimately related to individual persons of his approval that he adds an invisible presence within the person inviting him into their lives. The meaning of Scripture is that this is accomplished in the work of the Holy Spirit, and was promised to the disciples – triggered by the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus. That indwelling of Christ for the Christian is not as broadly understood as is the redemptive story of the crucifixion – God’s sacrifice for sin that results in forgiveness for those who in faith accept the offer. Christ is said then, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, to enter into the being identified as Christian in the natural world. In the primary meaning of Christian this mysterious function of Christ in God is achieved. Those not wishing to engage Christ in this relationship may leave him in the vestibule of their lives and live out their faith as best they can on their own terms. Often that reservation results in contradictory life conduct and values. We have Scripture for the purpose of illustrating the ranges of surrender to the expectations of God and his involvement in assisting the person of Christian faith to find what is sometimes called the victorious Christian life. Not every person of faith is victorious during the mortal sojourn.
My interest here is to address the concept of the victorious Christian experience – remembering that there is a complete story of life for every individual that is evaluated separately from any earth context in which the individual lives. In secularism each of us becomes a lone ranger searching our way through the good and ill of the world experience summarized in our culture and important to what we become and accomplish. What does all this mean when one has ended so much of what active life entailed, and is candidate for the physical shutdown of this mortal coil? (At this edit I mark my 95th birthday.) My wife died just a week before my 78th. I miss her, but relieved by relationships with our children and their mates/families – a happy context for me. I am eldest of four generations, and shortly, there will be another. I participated officially in the ceremony of a great-grandson and his bride many months ago. The stories are beautiful and tender for me running a length of a list of gracious experiences. For me, that is not quite enough. There is something more to be filled in. I sometimes dream of my wife. She is present and she isn’t in most of them – real but invisible but loved and appreciated. I live now with a son and his wife – in my Dad’s Den. Many days go by when I see only them. I never feel alone. I sense to my person another Presence. I don’t discuss it in that someone will likely write it off as a bit of religiosity that the ol’ fellow has picked up to cover the decline of the years. I sometimes think out a concept in prayer to this unseen guest in my physical life. He offers fellowship as though living together – relating in joy and comfort, even talking to each other in prayer/Bible exchange, with a feeling of gratitude for: Christ in you, the hope of glory. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020