Altar’d Reminders

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

Sometimes I get in such a loop of what is happening to me or in my orbit that the circumstances can cause me to forget what God has done in my life and what He’s allowed me to witness in the lives of others. During the portion of praise and worship during yesterday’s service, the worship leader began to sing “Yes’ by Shekinah Glory. He beckoned us to say yes to God. As I began to ponder my yes, the Holy Spirit reminded me of how many times I’d stood at that very altar, praying, weeping and believing that God could do what presented to me as impossible. And yet, He did it! My memory flooded with petitions for safety, health, marriage, family, death, career, doctoral study, moving, book writing, relationships and my eyes swelled with tears of gratitude and awe of how God has moved in my life. The altar doesn’t just bear miraculous witness for me, but thousands others share a similar testimony. So then later in the service when my Pastor assumed the sacred space of the pulpit she simply said, “He’ll Do It Again!” Now, as my mother would say, “We were cooking with gas!” As if I needed another reminder, God elected to drop a final confirmation in my spirit and for that I am grateful.

There are countless examples, narratives, depictions and testimonials of how God has “done it again” in our Bible for consumption, but I’d rather request that in addition we look to our own lives and those around us and in community with us. The Word says, God does not have respect of persons (Acts 10:34). Each of us can recall how God moved mountains in our valley’d lives. Perhaps it’s easy or accessible for us to think that God is done and has reached His capacity for answering prayers. Not true. We’ve heard that delays are not denials, but sometimes a no is for our good. At the altar, we are placing our hope, expectation and trust in the One who may or may not move as we please. He is a prayer answering God, even when He moves in a different manner than desired. That’s the complexity of His sovereignty. We celebrate it when it swings in our direction. We utter, “Favor ain’t fair;” but when it swings in an opposite direction or even swings and figuratively “hits us upside our head,” we loose confidence and assume that God is asleep, or that we’ve done something to deserve rejection. If I follow the protocol to carry what is concerning to the altar of our God, leave it and walk away, I am removing my tendency to manipulate and trust that the One who created me, knows what’s best for me. ..and you.

So what shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31)? That “against us” can even be us! How might we discard our doubt, cast our cares, abolish our anxiety and relinquish our resistance? We engage altar’d reminders. We remind ourselves that we serve the God that doesn’t change. And if I’m honest, I haven’t always said “Yes,” and yet God still moved on my behalf. But it’s up to me to remember and continue to follow the process in order to be reminded. May we not alter what we altar!