When does God show up?
God is not lost and never was, nor do we "find" Him. He is always surrounding us even when we are not looking. I recently binge-watched a series on Netflix called #DEATHTOSELFIE that featured Pastor Steven Furtick from Elevation Church. If you are in love with christian music as much as I am, maybe you have heard some of their songs like O come to the altar or Here as in heaven. The series really digs deep into the life of Jacob in the book of Genesis. It really helps if you do not know much about Jacobs backstory. The series is also really funny, I definitely enjoyed that, it was very easy to get into and love.
"When God shows up in the middle of nowhere, we can see He is now here."
-Steven Furtick
In this series, the focus is on Jacob who had at one point lost everything just for the blessing from his blind father. He impersonated his brother Esau and ended up fleeing from his family. Well 21 years later God told Jacob to go to Bethel and to build Him an altar because that is the place where God blessed him. God is referring back to when Jacob was alone in the night and a stranger began to wrestle with him. This stranger dislocated his hip socket so he could not fight back. But that did not stop him & Jacob would not let go until this man blessed him. The man asked Jacob for his name and then said "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed." So... we can kind of guess this stranger was God, am I right?(Gen. 32:24-31)
Even when Jacob was at an all time low and thought no one would be there for him after what he did to his father and brother, God showed up...IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. God shows up even when we have so much baggage and when we think that He disapproves, He still shows up and basically says "Let me deal with this, you rest." He will show up in the most confusing, transitional times and especially in the middle of sin. We let ourselves think we have no one, that we're alone. You know what I do? It may seem like I am talking to myself sometimes but, just in the car or when you're laying in bed or when you're getting ready for work in the morning in the bathroom mirror...just start talking to Him. Because I can assure you that He wants you to do just that, He will bless you just like he blessed Jacob. It instantly calms you to get out your problems, especially when it is something you feel to be private information. All throughout the Bible you will notice this phrase is spoken by the Lord, "the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob...", look it up if you don't believe me. Even after what Jacob did, God never fails to include that He is also Jacobs God and that He does not turn away no one. He would never turn away anyone who wanted to go to Him. I am going to be honest, when you go to God you are probably not going to get a miracle that moment and you may find yourself doubting that things are going to get better but you have to be persistent in your prayer and persistent in the time you spend talking to Him and dedicating your life to Him. There are so many times that I did not see Gods blessing at the time but then a year later I would say, I am so glad that He took care of this the way He wanted because I am in such a better place and on a much better path. I didn't know it at the time but He had bigger plans for me that didn't include the things I thought I wanted.
Like Jacob did, we need to go back to "Bethel" the place where God met us in the middle of nowhere. We need to give God the glory for delivering us from that moment on when we were in our own version of Bethel. In #deathtoselfie, Pastor Furtick deemed Bethel three things; a place of remembrance, a place of revelation, and a place of response.
I absolutely loved this series because it spoke so deep into a part of my heart to remind me the times God showed up for me and blessed me when I thought I either did not deserve it or thought I had no one who understood me behind my problems and heartbreaks. If you have netflix you can watch this series. It is only 5 episodes long but you're going to wish there were more than just 5 episodes. I found that Elevation church also does Podcasts and the episodes can be found on Youtube if you do not have Netflix. I'll include the link/links to youtube below. The also feature some of their other sermons not related to #deathtoselfie on their channel.
Click "Elevation Church" to be directed to their Youtube channel