"Hey Chris, hope you have everything you need for next week. Give yourself a hug from me. Love ya!"
I sent my son the above text message 3 days after my wife and I helped him to move into his college dorm room, shortly before his first day of classes at Indiana University. I realized that Chris was probably too excited about moving out of the house and starting college to think about much else, but I wanted him to at least realize that his old man cared about him and was thinking of him.
My son did not respond that day, nor the next day.
On the third day, I sent him another message, knowing that it was his first day of school, and that he had an 8 a.m. music theory class:
"Congratulations on getting through your first theory class. Hope things are going well."
He would have received the message about an hour and a half after the class, and I knew that he had 3 hours between classes that day. Still no response from my son for the next several hours.
I started work that morning in a melancholic state, wondering whether my son and I were not merely physically separated by distance (nearly 2,000 miles between Los Angeles and Bloomington, Indiana), but that our hearts might also be rent by a great divide. I longed for some acknowledgment from him, if only a simple "Yo!" or a smiley in response. It was God's mercy and provision that I had a very busy day in the office, which supplied necessary distraction. Thankfully, my son eventually responded later that day, and my mood was restored after a few minutes of messaging with him on the computer.
Just as I wished to communicate with my son during those days, God also desires to fellowship with us and commune with us, and created us in His image so that we can do so. How often have we spent an entire day living under God's blessing, enjoying the goodness of his provision, guidance and protection, and respond with nary a thought of thanksgiving, living as if He does not matter and does not exist! May we be eager to seek the Lord at the beginning of our days, as the psalmist wrote,
O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. (Psalm 5:3)
But I will sing of your strength;
I will sing aloud of your steafast love in the morning.
For you have been to me a fortress
and a refuge in the day of my distress. (Psalm 50:16)
May we seek our heavenly Father as Jesus did before the break of dawn,
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. (Mark 1:35)
Lord, forgive me for failing to acknowledge you and not remembering you until the end of the day. May I daily live under your presence, and realize that outside of you there is no good thing.
