The Giants

June 14, 2009
Rongo, Kenya


O God, your presence here, in this place, is so perfectly clear. I could walk outside into the night and look up at the stars and the mountains you have made and hear your voice and feel your presence in your Creation. But I don't even have to. Your presence is already so abundantly clear in the people sitting right here beside me. I see your holy presence shining in all of your children to some degree in as much as they reflect your glory, but right now, here with particular people, I feel completely awash in your Light.

Some of your children here with me are so completely filled with your Spirit that You almost visibly stream out of their pores. Your Spirit flows across the table when they eat with us and drenches the seats when they travel with us. Your Spirit bathes their activity in peace when they work and hems their words with love and gentleness when they speak. You have filled them so full of your joy that it bubbles over contagiously to all who interact with them, and you have stuffed their hearts so full of your peace that it just spills over in continual waterfalls quenching any flames of anxiety or inter-personal tension. Their souls are polished mirrors that reflect your love, your patience, your gentleness and kindness, blessing everyone they meet with light from Your face.

I know that it is not in your nature to force yourself upon your children, but to lovingly coax us into a deeper relationship with you. O, but who could resist you, Lord, when Your aroma is so sweet and Your face is so alluring? Where is your subtlety I have known so well? You are a shameless lover, pursuing your children passionately and relentlessly. Who could possibly refuse you, Lord, when you reveal your glory so clearly and so openly in the lives of your faithful servants?

I know that a relationship with you is not built in a day or in a single moment of transformation, but in a lifetime of listening to your voice and serving you obediently, bringing our desires before you in times of need and wrestling with you in times of anguish and confusion, feeding upon you as our spiritual food and relying upon you for the nourishment of our souls.

I see you working powerfully in the lives of your younger children as well, but these particular children of yours in which your Spirit glows so evidently now are not babies in the faith, but are the product of a lifetime of spiritual growth and gradual transformation. I assume that, unlike our bodies, the growth of our souls is not constrained by physiological limitations but continues to grow unbounded as we live with you daily and drink of your Word and grow in our faith. And I have a hunch that if you were to suddenly peal back the thin veil that hides the spiritual realm from our physical senses (so that we could see the world as you see it, as it truly is) then we would see these men walking the earth like giants, your light emanating from their bodies in all directions, piercing the darkness and showering the earth around them with your love, your joy, your peace, your patience, your kindness, your goodness, your faithfulness, your gentleness and self-control.

I thank you, Lord, for giving me the opportunity to live and work so closely with them, to learn from them, to see you shining so clearly in their lives, to bask in your reflected light, and to be be an imitator of them as they are imitators of You.

Thank you, Lord, for Jerry Drennan.
Thank you, Lord, for Stephen Greek.

Amen.