"The God who is there..."

"Awake! Awake! Put on strength, oh arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days, in the generation of old!"

"Awake! Awake! Stand up, oh Jerusalem, which has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury...Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling...I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee...." Isaiah 51:9, 17, 22-23

When need to spend some time soaking in the truth that God answers prayer. We go through the whole rigmarole of how God answers prayer (yes, no, wait, etc.), but we kind of slump over the very fact that He answers at all. Answered prayer (regardless of the answer) is always a cause for rejoicing, for it is one of the moments in our lives when we witness God's intimacy with us in concrete form. God's intimacy is mere abstraction to us until it becomes concrete, and answered prayer is one of those concretions.

We live on a multifaceted plane of existence, but we (unfortunately) have a solely concrete plane of perception; 'non-concretions' are easy to forget and ignore, and that to our peril. It is no small wonder, then, that God gives us Himself in the concrete: in prayer itself (trinitarian communion), in the Bible (alive through the breath of God), in Creation (His invisible attributes made know), and in Incarnation (God made flesh), among others. Whenever we think on or partake of these things, let us not forget to give praise to the God who will not leave us alone.

"Praise to the Lord,

Who comes in a robe of flesh

And and a cloak of pages.

Tis Heaven on earth,

That we might see Him

Face to face..."

-Jon Vowell