God And You And Me

Psalm 27:7-9 – Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When You said, "Seek My face," my heart said to You, "Your face, Lord, I will seek." Do not hide Your face from me; Do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation. (NKJV)

Each of us will face the stark certainty in the last day, the last hour, the last second of our lives — that there is nothing else remaining — just us and God. A few of us may be destined to experience that realization beforehand. I know I did. When I was lying in the operating room at Hamilton General Hospital six years ago awaiting serious cardiac bypass surgery, before and during the first few seconds of the administration of the anaesthetic, it occurred to me in no uncertain terms that there was a statistically significant chance that I might not come out of this operation alive. I then surrendered to the realization that I was completely in God's hands. There was nothing and no one else. And a calmness and peace — I don't know just how to describe it — descended on me to the point where today, my fear of death has largely gone. Later, under the anaesthetic, I did feel that I was soaring, and wonder and excitement were added to the calm and peace I had felt beforehand. But I had no out-of-body experience, nor did I feel drawn to a bright light, nothing like that. I did not see Him, but I felt that God was near for me.

The point here is that every one of us at some point in our lives is going to come to the same realization that life here is ending and that there is nothing left for us other than God Himself. It's inescapable. Each of us must face this alone with our God in the finality of this present life. It's something — a very sobering, but nevertheless a very wonderful something — to think about.

Prayer: Dear Father, we are in Your hands. But we have always been in Your hands, from the time we were conceived. And we will be in Your hands beyond our last breath, for You have made our souls immortal. As You have loved and cared for us, so let us love and serve You and each other faithfully and joyfully in this brief span which You have allotted us in the eternity which is both Yours and ours. In the name of Your Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

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