Recognition

“They will dash you to the ground, you and your children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognise the time of God’s coming to you.”                                                                                                                                            Luke 19.44

These harsh words were spoken by Jesus over Jerusalem as He came within sight of it on those fateful days leading to His death.

I see great sadness attach to His talk here. I believe I have experienced evidence of this sadness for, on a visit to Jerusalem some years ago, I had a distinct, and deep, sense that God’s presence was not in His holy city. The feeling that I got was that God had departed. What had His people done?  They had failed to recognise Him when He visited them in person.

Jerusalem has suffered much through the ages and, I fear, there could be more to come. May this result in not one stone being left upon another? I pray not.

The words Jesus spoke over Jerusalem might well be applied to individuals. People receive personal visitation from God. Indeed, I believe I have received several such visits. Have I recognised these times? I hope so. And I need to keep myself open and alert to further visitations. My God is a living God. I expect Him to visit me. Indeed, my desire is to live the whole of my life in habitation with Him. Let me be ever ready to receive Him, to hear His words to me and to heed them, to commune with Him and allow Him to take me to ever increasing depths in Him. O, dear God, may I never not recognise Your visitation to me!

Lord God, Holy Father,

I thank You for the reality of you in my life. Hear my prayer of my desire to live in constant habitation with You. Draw me closer to You, please. I love You.             Amen.