His Touch... Our Touch!

Yesterday, I wrote about three quarters of the blog post that I had intended to publish today and was pondering over ways to bring it to a good conclusion while preparing the coffee maker this morning, when my thoughts were interrupted by a song that came over our home entertainment system.  On Saturday mornings I like to listen to the special live recordings of the Bill Gather Homecoming concerts played on Sirius XM.

Today was no different and I was pulled out of my blog thoughts by a female voice singing about how “GOD ALWAYS HOLDS HER HAND!”  I can’t even say that I heard much of the rest of the content of the song because I immediately pictured all the times that I had held my sweet wife’s hand throughout our five years of dating and subsequent forty-three years of marriage, before her early homegoing to heaven.  And with that personal example, I considered all the ways in which our heavenly Father likes to stay in physical contact with us… His family on the earth. 

When I had gone grocery shopping earlier in the week, I saw an older lady (Hah… probably my age!) moving herself along in her wheelchair with one arm while pushing a basket with the other as she went down the aisles.  For some reason, I was already having an extra emotional day that day and when I saw her, I had to stop and pull myself together as all the memories of me pushing Piper along in her wheelchair with one arm while pulling a cart behind us when grocery shopping in North Carolina came flooding back to me.

But what I especially remembered this morning as I listened to that song, was how… even in her semi-unresponsive condition… that I couldn’t keep my hands off of my wife.  I realized one afternoon years ago, while perusing the aisles of the Super Walmart in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina where we lived at the time, that every time I leaned over and/or walked around her chair to grab something off a shelf, that I also made the extra effort to touch her shoulder.

In some respects, one could say it was an unconscious response derived from a long-established habit of physical touch between us, but I had also committed to her when she got sick, that she would never be alone and that I would be with her the whole time.  So, while all those touches may have been from long established interactions, they were also a very deliberate action on my behalf… because I wanted her to physically feel the touch of my deep and intense LOVE for her.

I Corinthians 13:7 in the Passion Translation eloquently declares that,

“Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.” 

I wanted Piper to know that in whatever was physically and mentally happening to her at the time, that she was ALWAYS safe in the shelter of God’s love manifesting through me.  That I would NEVER believe for anything less than the specified best of God as stated in His Word, would NEVER consider this attack of sickness as a form of failure in our faith (which some people actually stated and other’s implied…) and that she could be secure in the FACT that I would NEVER give up on her or on God!

The idea of the touch of God upon me, or the picture of His holding my hand as He “leads me all the way through the valley of the shadow of death…”* has been the constant foundation of my life since Piper’s graduation from this realm to God’s in 2018.  There are times that He feels so close to me, that I have to lift up my arm in the strong sense that He is taking hold of my hand and leading me at that very moment in time.  That happened to me yesterday afternoon when Fiver and I were out walking along the golf course next to our house and along the string of backyards that openly face the greens.

I was so wrapped up in my conversation with the Lord that I didn’t even realize what I was doing… and when I did think about the invisible people watching me** from their living room windows… I had to laugh and say “Who cares… hopefully they are blessed by it… or possibly think of me to be a little strange!”

Do you ever think about how God reaches out to you each day?  It could be through the guy who walks by your house and raises a hand to heaven in worship unto the Lord, or the smile from the person in the car next to yours.  Maybe it is the cashier who surprises you by saying “God bless you” as you walk away from the register (happens out here a lot!), or like the little girl who lives behind us and always yells out “Hello!” if she catches a glance of Fiver or I through the fence.

I don’t think that God can contain Himself!  When we are thinking about Him… He is also thinking about and reaching out with His LOVE to us!  In Psalm 73:23-24 the Psalmist spoke in heartfelt passion saying,

“Yet, I am always with You. You hold on to my right hand. (and) You wisely and tenderly lead me, and then You bless me”  (God’s Word © / The Message)

I can’t think of any place that is as safe a shelter for all the circumstances of life, than smack-dab in the middle of God’s LOVE… Can You? 

I bet that you can’t ether!

So, I challenge you to think about His touch upon you and your life as you walk through your day today, tomorrow and throughout the following week… and while you’re thinking about Him… why not allow yourself to be used of Him to LOVINGLY touch the life of someone around you!

Have a terrific weekend… and keep EXPECTING… and passing on… God’s best for you!

 

*Psalm 23:4 – KJV/TPT

** I quite often run into people in the neighborhood when out walking, who, when they bend over to pet Fiver, have told me that they see us walking every day!  That also happened at the apartments in North Carolina as well as in the planned community where we lived in Santa Rosa before moving to North Carolina!  You NEVER know who is watching you!