God With Us: Living Daily in the Real Presence

Stephen Ogden

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Isaiah 55:2

Returning from Thanksgiving break. Much has occurred over the past couple of weeks. As best as I can recall our last classes were regarding Christology and soteriology—Borg and Wright, Begbie on the Trinity, and so on. Then (for Wendell, Syman, and me) it was off to the Evangelical Theological/Philosophical Society meetings in D.C. and the C. S. Lewis Institute’s apologetics conference at McLean Bible Church.

After all the conferencing, I got to visit with Patrick Gray (a former professor attending the Society of Biblical Literature’s meetings) and Mark Booker and his church (Church of the Resurrection, part of the Anglican Mission in America). Then I rode down to Knoxville with Josh, my best friend from home, on Monday afternoon and night. The week allowed me to visit with family, Jack and Jeanne, Jordan and Ange, Josh, Max, and Bob. It’s been a blessed time of learning, meeting with friends, and generally being fed spiritually even as the Thanksgiving holidays fed me physically in abundance.

So here I am, waiting for the true self to emerge, even as God nourishes me and makes me, slowly but surely, solid, like Lewis’ heavenly beings in The Great Divorce. This experience has been confirmed on a spiritual level by the vision of a friend and mentor of several of us in the Academy—he had a vision of angels pouring power, strength, solidity, and beauty into us from the Father in Heaven. God is pouring these gifts into us as we simply wait in his presence and delight in the food he gives us: his Word, his Body and Blood, the thought of the Church, the people of God, the blessings of friendship and family. I’ll get back to that.

I feel as if God is leading—to where, I do not know. But I get the distinct sense that he is leading.

Since the conferences and my conversations with Mark Booker, I am feeling much more excited about academics as my way to serve the Church. Perhaps this is just a consequence of having spent time in such a Christian academic setting with some of the most brilliant Christians alive. Perhaps it’s a consequence of really starting the application process and looking forward to going back to school in the fall. However, I feel like any of these things could just as likely turn one off to the academic pursuit, if it was not in the Lord’s will, not in his calling. This new sense of leading doesn’t necessitate staying out of the Church or ordination forever or indefinitely. I am still quite desirous to stay open to God’s call in church leadership. But I’m excited about school, excited about what a Christian can do in secular institutions, and excited about J. P. Moreland’s call for Christians to be intellectually engaged with our culture and our world, with full confidence that Jesus Christ is the smartest person who’s ever lived. “Taking every thought captive” for the glory of Christ.

Yet much remains unknown, and it’s tempting to feel anxiety when thinking of the future. I listened to Elvis sing “Known Only to Him” earlier today in the car: “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. It’s a secret known only to Him.” That’s a great gospel song and comforting on one level. It’s a good truth to remember, just as Gary Habermas talked last Saturday and Doug Banister preached this Sunday about telling and re-telling yourself the truth to combat the lies of Satan and emotional doubt. Nevertheless, that approach is so cerebral, as another friend and mentor of the Academy, Bill Kirwan, said of Habermas’ talk. It’s just a way of thinking, important though it is for us to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.”

What do we actually do in the meantime? We tell ourselves the truth about the future, namely that “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever” (Psalm 138:8). We can remember the great story, the one true myth, of the Bible, of God overcoming the real problem of evil at every turn, with and in spite of his people, until it is finally categorically destroyed and dealt with in Jesus Christ, crucified, dead, and risen again (as N. T. Wright so convincingly portrays the Bible’s answer to evil). But how do we taste this climax now, and not merely and vaguely recall it as an event 2,000 years past?

I think it means we have to truly dwell in and feast on his presence at all times. We don’t simply put the future and our will in His hands—we taste and feast on him now. We pray continually. We wait as he brings about and gives birth to our true selves. We soak in the gifts he pours into us from Heaven. We give thanks and praise, not simply one day out of the year, but every second as we recognize him as the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.”

As Peter Kreeft said in a lecture I listened to today, we, like hobbits and the Inklings, have to learn to sit and “enjoy the pint.” This was a profound point. The great saints, the truly heroic ones, we often associate with the “holy fools,” those who have suffered and died for the faith, those who have faced martyrdom with jokes and counted themselves all blessed as they starved, bled, and were tested. Those are the minority. They are not the Shire folk.

The folk of the Shire, however, are overwhelmingly good people (like Lewis and Tolkien), and the majority of them are tasting heaven because they’ve learned what it means to be content. They’ve learned that eudemonia (“happiness,” “well-being”) has typically meant living excellently, not just moral perfection but also enjoying good things. We always know God is there in the pain and the hardship—that’s when we really pray long and hard. But can we praise him daily when things are going well, when he’s blessing us with friends beyond number, graces beyond counting, ideas as infinite as Heaven itself, family that loves continually, food that always seems to find its way onto our table when so many in the world are starving?

This is the art of waiting, the art of living as a daily saint, which I am still learning. He’s given us so much in this very moment to ensure us of his victory 2,000 years ago and of his purpose for all the future. It is in his Word, in the Eucharist, in the Church, in the indwelling of his Spirit, in gazing at truth and beauty, in wondering at his daily graces and blessings that we know him now and know that Jesus Christ is truly the “same, yesterday, today, and forever.” This is how he gives us our new name—we wrestle with him now and wallow in his blessing! Just like Jacob, just like the saints who have their name written secretly on the pure white stones, we find our true selves through intimate struggle in and with the Lord.

In Advent, we wait for and celebrate God’s Incarnation. He has become (and is ever more becoming) our Emmanuel. God is with us—we just have to be with him and follow as he does his work in us and in the world.

Stephen Ogden is from Knoxville, Tennessee, a graduate of Rhodes College, and is planning to attend graduate school in theology and/or philosophy next year.

1 Responses • Fellows, Tue 12 Dec 2006