God is Now Here!

This is an excerpt from my notes the beginning of the year on the night I spoke at All Night Prayer - I have had a few people ask me to share and I felt impressed to share part of it tonight.  I will probably continue it next week!  Thanks for understanding I was speaking... not reading! lol... sorry if it gets a little tangled! That's just me!

One day several years ago I was in Wichita Falls just coming out of a Ladies Prayer Meeting and I was holding the hand of a little four year old boy named Ian. Ian walked out of the hall and over to the glass paned doors, put his hand to the glass. With both hands framing his face he peered into the dark auditorium and said ..."Where's God at?"  His mother and I had a good laugh knowing that in his little mind he was thinking Pastor Elms was God and he wasn't at his spot on the platform!

How many times though I have asked myself that same question!  Tonight I will attempt to answer that question for myself!
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I love this time of year when everything is fresh and new. We enter into it with a clean slate, so to speak!  We have this entire untouched untarnished year ahead of us and we are determined to be our
best self!  Old things are passed away... or have they?

We ride along till about March, when it all comes tumbling down on us!  We wake up one day having once again loaded ourselves down with cares of this life, responsibilities, and busy"ness"!  We stop and think, What happened?  We had such bright plans.  We were focused, motivated, and suddenly it all went south!  Where did we go wrong?  How have we lost focus?  Why are we already burned out, discouraged and feeling defeated in every area? Possibly we just planned and scheduled and busy"ed" our self right of God's presence!

Once again we have to go back and adjust our focus.
We must refocus!
Definition of refocus - to bring back to focus, to look again.
It does not mean to look back.  It means to bring to the present.

We start out with clarity of purpose.  God speaks to us and we feel Him directing us and speaking to us, but quickly we find ourselves having lost focus, forgetting the words He spoke, and losing direction. We look ahead or behind.  It is the enemy's business to distract us!

So tonight here we stand... at the beginning of 2013 refocusing! Beginning again!  Automatically we start to look back at 2012 where all our faults and failings, doubts and stumblings scream at us, grab us and sometimes choke us with the memory of the failure.  They attach themselves to us like barnacles before we even realize what has taken place.  With this weight already heavy on our heart we look forward to the future and we think "God, I have so much looming before me and behind me that I didn't get accomplished. There is much I see that you want me to accomplish in this year and still so many promises yet unfulfilled from last year.  We become overwhelmed, unfocused.

We must realize, He needs us to be PRESENT where HE is PRESENT to accomplish His goals for us.  We must remain in His Presence! We must be present where his presence is present, here in the present!  Scripture tells us that to God one day is as a thousand years... That is beyond my comprehension so I had to find a place in my little ole brain to handle it!

Focusing on the here and now...You see, God is not present with us in yesterday, He was there, but it is now past! He MOVED ON! (So should we).
He is not present with us in tomorrow because we are not there.. He will be when the time comes, and He certainly holds our tomorrows, but...
HE is PRESENT with us TODAY!  We are here living in TODAY!

He has focused on us TODAY to accomplish TODAY what He is PRESENT NOW to assist us with!
So I figure that one day is as a thousand years can be possible because He can work through each and every one of us in a thousand different ways in a day!  So He can accomplish a thousand years of work in one day through all His focused, present and available children!  Just my little take on it!  I am sure it wouldn't hold water in a theologians mind!

Don't look back at yesterday.  Don't drag all that stuff with you and expect Him to be present with you and work through you as you remain unfocused on the task at hand today!

Then we have the future...  and all the promises that have been given to you for tomorrow. I have promises yet unfulfilled that, if I allow it, they weigh on me,
and I become unfocused.  Sometimes I look ahead and wonder "How will it ever all come to pass?"  Have you ever been so inspired and the hope for your future become so exaggerated in your head that when you contemplate "How?", you feel as though you must live an entire life in one day just to get to the promise?  God does not give us promises to overwhelm us, or to burden us.  He gives us promises for us to be strong in faith, to not faint, but to have hope, and to remind us that He HAS A PLAN for us.  He expects us to focus on the plan that He is PRESENT in TODAY, for without today we can never accomplish tomorrow.  Our steps are ordered of the Lord.  We cannot skip the steps of today... They are important!  They are part of the plan and the process!  Don't get ahead of yourself, and don't lag behind.  Yes, look at yesterday and tomorrow, but as pictures, a photo book if you will, to look at and then turn the page to focus on now!  He has our future in HIS focus.  We cannot afford to become unfocused on today by trying to focus on what we are to become tomorrow.  He is the omnipresent, omniscient one, not us! 

Bill Gaither wrote the song that says:
"We have this moment to hold in our hands and to touch as it slips through our fingers like sand; Yesterday's gone, and tomorrow may never come, But we have this moment today."

Be present and accounted for in the PRESENT... where HE is PRESENT!  He had a plan for yesterday. It brought you to today. It equipped you for the present!  He has a plan for tomorrow, but you cannot skip today and expect to reap the promises He placed in tomorrow's hands.

Now is the time.
He has brought you to this place for such a time as THIS!  The here and now!

Let us enter into this new year with this simple plan of action:
   To be present (show up) allowing God to work His purpose in us TODAY!
    To remove barriers or defences and insecurities and boundaries we have placed on ourselves that cause us to feel inadequate to do His work.
   Let us let go of our wills and intellects, our insecurities and shortcomings.  The yesterdays and the tomorrows.
Lord, remind us of how you lived on this earth.  No matter what He faced on this earth He never lost sight of where He was headed. He never lost sight of His purpose.  He kept focus!

The atheist wrote;
  "God is nowhere."
His little daughter, who had been taught to sound out her letters,  read it aloud -
"God is now here." 
The sound of his daughters voice saying that touched his heart and he was converted in that moment!
Our ever PRESENT God can melt even the coldest heart.
Wherever you are He is.  He wants to be with you always!  He will always be reaching for you! 
He is NOW HERE!  He is present with you in the here and now!  Are you?  Let go of yesterday, don't worry about tomorrow!  Be here, now where His presence is!