Articles
Presents in Presence
Animals and children alike know that if you get a splinter in your paw, you should act
like it isn’t there. If you do indicate that you have a problem, an adult will take your paw and
begin to dig and squeeze on the sore spot with needle and tweezers and, after removing the
problem, add insult to injury and pour antiseptic on it! How could adults be so cruel? Students
know that if you start falling behind and your grades begin to plunge, you should act like
everything is OK. If you let somebody know you’re in trouble, a tutor or, even worse, a teacher
will sit down and talk to you and begin to point out changes in your study habits that would
begin to address the crisis and bring success. How could your friends and teachers be so cruel?
Adam and Eve lived in the garden of Eden and enjoyed a daily visitation from the Lord.
His presents were seen throughout the garden and especially in the tree of life. Then they made a
choice and ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and sin pierced their
souls. It seems that the instinct to hide “from the presence of the Lord God” (Genesis 3:8) was
immediate. Why talk to God when you know that He will begin to expose the sin and work on it?
Satan’s lie has always been to hide because shame and pain should be avoided at all costs. So
they hid from His presence and surrendered His presents. Their son Cain took sin to another
level, and when the consequences began to be realized, “Cain went away from the presence of
the Lord” (Genesis 4:16). God sought to give him grace and mercy, but Cain chose to hide from
His presence and refuse His presents.
What about you and me? We know the “sin which clings so closely” (Hebrews 12:1), yet
our gut decision is to run away from the very one able to set us free from the death that sin
brings. We crave the presents of God, but they only come in the presence of God! Jesus came not
to condemn us, but to save us from the condemnation that is already eroding away our lives
(John 3:17). Is it time for you to confess and seek the healing from the Great Physician?
~Karl McLarty, Cloverdale church of Christ, Searcy, AR
