Face Time

Gen 3:8"...Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden."
NKJV

Sunday morning during an amazing worship time at our church I received a revelation about relationships.  For thousands of years the only realy way to communicate with an individual in a relational context was to speak face to face.  Letters could be written but could not replace sitting with someone face to face, dialouging about life and growing in knowledge of one another.

Over the years, communication tools increased through the use of the telephone, email, text messaging, Skype and internet social networking tools such as Facebook.  All of these are great tools but cannot replace old fashioned face to face communication.  Now I am an avid user of technology to communicate with people but when it comes to deepening relationships and growing in the knowledge of another person, nothing replaces face time.  There is something about sitting down with an individual live and in person that is special and can never be replaced.

Communication today is fast and easy.  Recently a young man started attending our church and I had not yet had an opportunity for face time with him.  I was at a Phoenix Suns game with one of our church leaders and this young man sent a friend request to my Facebook page which was alerted to me on my phone.  I accepted the friend request and within minutes he sent me a text message asking for a meeting.  We replied back and forth and within 5 minutes had set up a time and place to meet so we could become better acquainted.  Not one phone call had been made and not one word had been spoken yet a meeting had been set up.  Still, everything pointed to the eventual face time we would have.  Many people, however, are content to live their relational lives hiding behind Facebook, My Space, emails and text messages to satisfy their relational needs and then wonder why there is no depth of commitment or satisfaction.  People tend to hide from face time and find their relational lives lacking in fulfillment.

One of the great dangers of our day is treating our relationship with God the same way.  How nice would it be for God to text us His plan and purpose for our lives?  How awesome would it be to receive God's daily blog customized just for us with a full outline of what we needed to do that day.  It would save time, right?  Perhaps.  But it would cost us something in the long run - a deepening relationship with the Almighty. 

Adam and Eve hid themselves from the Presence of the Lord.  The word "presence" is found over 2000 times in the Old Testament and literally means "Face."  So after the fall, instead of seeking face time to restore the broken relationship with God, they hid themselves from face time much like we do today.  Sermon podcasts, Pastor's blogs and devotional books are no substitute for real face time with God.  Don't buy into the relational culture of our day that is content to hide from face time.  God still wants it and so should we.   

2 Cor 3:18

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
NKJV

Below is an article I wrote for The Pentecostal Messenger which was published in the June, 2010 issue.

Patience

When we moved into our current home in 2005, we inherited 3 trees that graced our back yard. Problem was, with half the yard taken by a rather large swimming pool, we needed more space for our 5 kids to have room to play. Since the next door neighbor wasn’t willing to give us any of his backyard space, it was obvious that two of the trees had to go.

The first to get the pink slip was a rather healthy fig tree. It was a beautiful tree but an easy choice because we don’t like figs. (I tried a Fig Newton once and, uh, well….anyway) The next choice was harder because it came down to a lemon tree and an orange tree. We like both fruits, so we chose to keep the orange tree based on the amount of shade it provided for my BarBQ area – which in Arizona is extremely important. The three trees were all different in which type of fruit they bore, but there was one common thread between them: Not once did I ever have to stand in the backyard and say to the trees in my best preacher voice “BEAR FRUIT, O TREE OF MINE.” (That would have been weird and provided unnecessary entertainment for the neighbors) It was in the DNA of the tree for fruit to come forth, a byproduct of what the tree was.