When I get home people will ask me, "Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? Why? You some kinda war junkie?" You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is.
SFC Norm "Hoot" Hooten 1SFODD, Task Force Ranger 2001
It's a question I've often asked myself, where are you God? Usually it's in my times of most trouble as I struggle to make sense of one situation or another. Where is God when we're up against it? Where is God when the rubber meets that road? Well, if we stop long enough to think, in the midst of our troubles and struggles God is in the only place that He can be...within us. The trouble with our life situations is that we rarely take the time to stop and realize the presence of the Lord within us. Our life situations and how to deal with them seem to take priority in these times. I get it. I have been down that road plenty of times. After my mother passed I became angry with a God who I felt had abandoned me in my time of need. My grief was clouding my vision. God was grieving as well. The pain which I felt at her loss, the Lord felt as well. How could He not, it is He who dwells in me. The apostle Paul makes this clear in Galatians. God is not just a overseer who sits in heaven waiting for His children to screw up or need His help. He is a active participant in our everyday lives. The mainstream church will preach to us a version of Christianity which separates us from God, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is God who created us {Genesis 1:27}. Not only that, it is also God who breathed into us the breath of life that we became a living creation {Genesis 2:7}. His very fingerprints are upon us. How is it that we could deny that our creator would be ever present in our lives? Yet this is what the church narrative teaches. Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead. We readily accept this truth of Jesus as fact. After His death on the cross, Jesus ascended into heaven to be seated next to the Father. Christianity generally agrees with this as well. But that's where the history of Jesus ends for many believers. Leaving many to wonder...where are you God?
With Christ have I been crucified, yet I am living; no longer I, but living in me is Christ. Now that which I am now living in the flesh, I am living in the faith that is of the Son of God, who loves me, and gives Himself up for me.
Galatians 2: 20, Concordant New Testament
As we began to realize the presence of Christ within us, we will began to see just how involved He is in our lives. There is never a time when Jesus is not there with us as we traverse this thing we call life. His desire is that we be one with He and the Father {John 17:21}. His place is here with us. Of course, this presents another interesting question which I was reminded of recently. If Jesus is in us, what of all of those times where we behave in a not so Christian manner? Is He still in us at these times? Yes! Jesus is the same, He does not change. In those times where we're not at our best, it is Jesus who is within us grieving the fact that we would do this to ourselves. This is how Jesus feels when we act in a bad way. Instead of sitting in heaven waiting to punish the wayward sinner, Jesus is dwelling within us. He is there in the good as well as the bad. A comment was made some time ago in one of our gatherings that we act in a way which is pleasing to the Lord. I agree. What behaviors are pleasing to the Lord? We all know the right things to do. Be kind to others, love those who persecute us and give to those in need. Jesus often reminded people of these behaviors. I have not found any scripture where Jesus claims that He is waiting in heaven to punish those who behave badly. However, I have read the passages of Him being in me {Galatians 2:20, Romans 6:8}. It has never been the Lords desire that we would be left to our own devices, separate from God who created us. On the contrary, the joy of the Lord is that we would be one with He and Christ.
For in Him is all created, that in the heavens and that on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or sovereignties, or authorities, all is created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1: 16, Concordant New Testament
~Scott~
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