The Felt Love of God

We are continuing our series, / / UnConditional: Experiencing the Love of God this morning.

Last week we talked about the fact that our earthly relationships, especially those with our parents or parental figures, and I would say even more specifically our relationship with our fathers, either in relationship, or absent of that relationship, really shape and mold how we approach God, or understand Him as a Father.

If all you have experienced is abuse at the hands of your earthly father and then someone tells you that God is a Father, or maybe it was manipulation, or emotional trauma, or he just wasn’t there and your experience with father means abandonment and rejection. And someone says God is a father, how are you supposed to trust Him?

I think we’ve all seen the movie, or cartoon or something that this person has an egg and they don’t know what is going to hatch out of it, maybe a dinosaur or bird or something, but they know that when that thing hatches they have to be the first thing it sees. And this is the line they always say, “It’s going to imprint on me and I will be it’s mother.” But that’s not so far from the truth.

As humans, and especially as children, in those crucial formative years, we are imprinted by the experiences we have. Our lives become defined by our experiences, or let’s say it this way, / / our experiences shape our beliefs and our expectations.

And this is what we call a belief / expectation cycle.

/ / Experiences

It starts with our experiences. Whether as a child, or as an older person, doesn’t matter, we are just more shaped and molded in our younger years. We believe things quicker, we adopt mentalities and habits quicker. As we grow we hopefully become a little wiser, or maybe we become a little more skeptical, but either way it usually means we are less likely to adopt something as fast. And that can be both a positive or a negative thing in our lives.

Remember last week we read that Jesus says we need to become like little children to truly inherit the Kingdom of God. Not be childish, but child-like. Become like little children. Why? Because we accept new truths easier as children. Why do you think the world is so quick to indoctrinate our children with their narrative? Why do you think things keep going younger and younger when it comes to breaking down morality and right living?

Scripture encourages us in Proverbs 22:6, / / Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

The opposite is true. If a child is directed onto the wrong path at an early age it is more difficult to get off that path when they are older. It seems simple enough, but I don’t think we address it often when it comes to our emotional, spiritual health and relationships. The longer we believe a certain thing and live by it, the harder it is to change that belief.

So, our experiences shape what we believe about the world, what we believe about relationships and what we believe about certain situations that we encounter in life.

And I’m getting into this this morning because this isn’t just about seeing God as Father.

Kelley has shared her experience of moving to California before we got married. She was out there on a ministry trip and really clearly heard the heart of God for her life inviting her to move out there and spend time just simply getting to know Jesus.

Father wasn’t her hold up. If you know her dad you know he’s a great guy. Very loving. Very generous. Would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. And although I don’t think any father is perfect, and we all need to relearn some things when it comes to Father God and how He loves us, Kelley’s bigger issue was this idea of Jesus. A male who we are calling our bridegroom, and as a Christian we are His bride and all this is leading toward some marriage in the sky. That’s where Kelley was hung up - why? Because her experience with romantic relationships had not all been good. In fact, she had some pretty negative experiences that shaped her trust of men.

See, when we start talking about the UnConditional love of God, we’re not just talking about a loving Heavenly Father, but we are talking about the Trinity. And we’ll talk a bit more about that in a bit, but the reality is this: / / Our experiences on so many different levels, shape our beliefs about people, life and scenarios to come.

/ / Expectation

Ok, so that experience we have as a child shapes our belief, or let’s call it an expectation. What we believe about people really is our expectation of what will happen.

If I believe you are a cheater I will expect you to cheat on me. If I believe you are a liar I will expect you to lie to me. But also in a good sense, if I believe you love me, I will expect love. If I believe you are generous I will expect generosity.

I have a friend, we go out for lunch sometimes and I just cant ever seem to pay. The guy won’t let me pay. My belief is shaped by this fact that over and over again I have tried to pay and he will not let me. So I expect that same thing. Doesn’t mean I don’t try, but I know it won’t work.

My Belief and My Expectation are one and the same.

If I believe I am unloveable, like I was sharing last week, I will expect that no one will love me.

/ / If I believe that I will be rejected, which is a belief shaped by my experience of being rejected, then in my future encounters with people, I will expect rejection. Because I believe that will happen. So I approach that next scenario with that already in mind.

And you might think, “Ya, but that’s not true, so someone is going to come along and love you, right?” or not reject you.

/ / Actions / Behavior

That’s the problem. Our expectations influence our actions and behavior. / / What we believe about ourselves, or about someone else, will dictate how we approach people, how we respond to people, how we interact with people.

If you talk to really shy, insecure people, and I don’t mean just quiet or introverted, those aren’t bad, but I mean truly insecure, and you really get to the root of why they are insecure, you will find it’s usually because they are afraid.

Afraid of rejection

Afraid of being mocked

Afraid of being treated poorly

Afraid of being taken advantage of

Afraid of something.... And so it is easier to be alone, and not experience the pain or trauma they have experienced before, and that they expect will happen again, and so they act in a manner that protects themselves from it.

We don’t think of it as protection, but it is. I put up walls, I act insecure, I shy away from situations, I don’t put myself in a position to be hurt again because I actually expect that I WILL be hurt if I DO put myself in that situation. And why do I believe that? Because it’s happened before.

With that particular person, or group? Doesn’t matter. My experience has been rejection, my expectation is rejection, and so my behavior screams very silently, “REJECT ME...”

And as long as I’m caught in that cycle the problem simply perpetuates itself.

/ / Reinforced Experience.

An initial / / experience defines something for us, which in turn creates an expectation. That / / expectation influences our behavior. And the way we act in that next encounter influences the results of our interactions - we act shy, we act rejected, we act insecure - and because of that / / behavior, we influence the outcome, and our experience becomes the same as it was before and we end up back at the top, further reinforcing the expectation. And you might be thinking, “I don’t do that...”

But we all know someone, not you, I get it, but someone who has said, “See, I told you I’d be rejected...” “See, I told you I never win.” “And there it is. I was waiting for that to happen.”

And the cycle starts all over again, except this time it’s a little bit stronger, because we just fell victim to the same experience again.

And we cope with this in different ways We learn to live with our wounds, don’t we?

This is why people shut off, shut down, shut out the world. So they won’t experience that hurt again. Better to be alone and depressed than hurt all the time.

Some people become someone else entirely. Instead of protecting by hiding, they extrovert themselves and become everything everyone wants, so they will be accepted. Win at every sport, or competition, be the smartest in the room, yet crying inside for something they are afraid to open up to.

We all remember those moments where someone we think has the world at their fingertips, tragically takes their own life. We’ve seen it from popular artists and actors to prominent ministers in the church. Projecting something they are not, to try and protect something they don’t want to confront.

Now, two very quick thoughts on all of that.

First, God is sovereign. We may be stuck in some pretty strong, reinforced belief systems. God is a redeeming God. We don’t sing songs that say he breaks every change believing there are some chains he can’t break. There is no bondage, belief or lie that God cannot free us from. This isn’t mind over matter. This isn’t make yourself free. Yes, sometimes there is work involved, faith without works is dead. But God is the one who brings freedom. Galatians 5:1, / / So Christ has truly set us free!

Second, I said this a few weeks ago and it’s really been sticking with me. But as I was reading Revelation 12:10, that scripture calls the devil the accuser of the brothers and sisters in Christ, I realized that we can be free and yet bombarded with the negative expectations of our past in the devil’s hopes we will grab ahold of them again.

I was saying this last week, I believe freedom is a journey up a mountain. The Mountain itself is freedom, we are free. Jesus says very clearly in John 8:36, / / …if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. So, we are free, but I also know that we don’t always live free. In fact, Paul warns us of that very thing in Galatians 5:1, And reading this from the GNT this time, / / Freedom is what we have - Christ has set us free! Stand, then, as free people, and do not allow yourselves to become slaves again.

A lot of translations of that verse say don’t submit again to a / / yoke of slavery. Not egg yoke, but picture that wooden shaped bar that either would be used to get animals to pull a cart or plow, or put on the shoulders of a person to carry a bucket on either side. The picture to me is this: The enemy will constantly try to get you to live out of a mentality of slavery, of brokenness, of the wounds we have experienced, regardless of whether they are healed or not. Jesus removes the burden. Remember, Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, / / “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

But the enemy constantly offers us that former burden again, even though Jesus took it off, but we can easily pick it up and put it back on. And the reason we do that sometimes is because it’s comfortable to us - bondage has become our normal - just like we saw with Israel last week, “Why didn’t you let us die in Egypt. Being free is too much work!”... it’s what we are used to - it’s how we know how to live.

Living free is harder work sometimes, because it takes dedication to freedom! It takes dedication to speaking the truth over and over again. It takes seeing that yoke for what it is and saying, NO!

I was having a very honest conversation, a prayer moment with God a few weeks ago and I said, “Why is it that I have done so much work and gone through so much healing and so much counseling to be free of insecurity, and there are days I still feel so insecure?” And I was reminded of that very verse - beware the accuser of the brothers and sisters in Christ.

Do you know what an accusation is? An accusation is someone else’s charge or claim that we are or are not something. It is NOT the proof. And so for every time the enemy comes to accuse me of being insecure, what do I need to do?

Well, I can pull some things from scripture I know to be true, right?

I have taken off the yoke of bondage and embrace the yoke of Jesus Christ, following Him!

Proverbs 3:26, / / For the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.

Isaiah 41:10, / / Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

2 Corinthians 3:5, / / It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.

All of that to say this, as we are talking about the UnConditional love of God - we can look at the love of God, we can feel the love of God, and we can experience the love of God, but we also need to be aware that the enemy of our souls will continually do whatever He can to get in between that love and you.

So, last week we forgave our fathers, to the best of our ability, right? God, with your help I choose to forgive.

And remember, as long as it takes, as many times as it takes. If you still feel that hurt, or pain, or anger toward your father, mother, parental figure, aunt, uncle, church leader, teacher, whoever it was, continue to choose to forgive them. Act out what you don’t feel yet, so that you can write a different story in the days to come.

And like I said, this isn’t just about the Father. But this is about the trinity. This is about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

A couple months back I was reading John 3:16 and felt like I was reading it for the first time.

/ / For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

I’ve always read that to mean God the Father sent God the Son. But for the first time when I read it I wondered why it didn’t say exactly that. I grew up reading a translation that says it this way, / / For God so loved the world...

The word in the Greek for God there is / / theos and it means the godhead, the trinity.

Isaiah 53, which is probably regarded as the most messianic OT scripture, meaning, it was talking about Jesus more than 700 years before he was even born, says this about the coming Messiah, Isaiah 53:10, / / …it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants.

The name Lord, in the Hebrew is / / Yahweh, again, the one true God, or the Godhead.

So, when we read, For God so loved the world, I wouldn’t say it’s only speaking of God the Father, but God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Godhead, God in his fullness, sent the Son!

And so when we talk about these things that get in the way of our relationship with God, this isn’t just a “daddy issues” thing, but it’s an experience / expectation cycle that we talked about will also impact how we approach God as Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

This is why I go so hard after what seems true and what IS true, because as long as our beliefs are based on a lie, as much as it might seem true for my life, it is shaping my expectation and determining the results of my life. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that.

Listen to what David prays in the Psalms. Last week we read Psalm 139:1-18, but in vs 23-24 David prays this, / / Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Let’s just call that reorienting the “truth that we believe” for the truth of God.

/ / Search me...

Look deep in my heart, where I hold the things that have happened to me in the past.

/ / Test me...

Look deep in my mind, where I hold the anxiety and worry of my life.

/ / Point out in me...

Point out anything in me that gets between me and you.

Redefine all those things. What’s in my heart, what’s in my mind, what’s getting between us, so that I can follow you on the path of life by living in your truth.

It is not easy, but here is the very simple truth. / / We have to be willing to let go of the hurts that have shaped our past, so we can embrace the truth of God that leads us into HIS future.

What happened to you may have been horrible. Straight out of the worst story you can tell. And no amount of forgiveness or redemption will ever make that thing ok, it was not, and is not ok. But if you are not willing to allow yourself to deal with it and let it go, it will hold on to your life til the day you die.

And sometimes it’s as easy as forgiving and embracing the truth, and sometimes, like I said last week, we have to fight for it, like Israel did going into the promised land. Your promised land of truth might require a fight.

So, as we continue to look at the UnConditional love of God, not just from God the Father, but also God the Son & God the Holy Spirit, I want you to be aware of areas of your life where you may be holding God at a distance because of hurt or experiences in your past. Just like Kelley was doing with Jesus, because for her it resembled too closely a romantic relationship, and she was not ready to trust romantic relationships.

Just like my past experiences of rejection made it very difficult for me to understand that someone could and would love me - furthest thing from the truth, but I was allowing that lie to dictate my beliefs and expectations, which were influencing my behavior and impacting my results, further reinforcing those beliefs.

So, for the last two weeks we’ve been talking about God the Father, and I would call that the Eternal love of God. Jesus says in John 14:6, / / “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

And so we know that Jesus is essential, but it seems like there is an end goal here. It feels like the Love of the Father is the final destination. Jesus purpose is to lead us to the love of the Father. There’s just something about the Father’s love that changes everything.

But I also want to touch on the fact that no one part of the trinity, God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit, love independently of each other. I believe they work in concert together. We don’t just experience the Love of God the Father, but we experience that love THROUGH the other members of the Trinity.

So, today I want to talk a bit about what I would call the experienced love of God. Or the Felt love of God. And if you felt anything over the last two weeks of the Love of God, I would explain that to you in this way...

Let’s read from Romans 5:3-5, / / We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of Character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

In various ways every translation states very clearly that the Holy Spirit has been given to us.

Let’s just settle that right there - the original word means to give something to someone.

And again, the word God there, For we know how dearly God loves us.... theos, the Godhead, the trinity.

So, For God so loved the world - He gave his son.

For we know how dearly God loves us - because he has given us the Holy Spirit.

One more for good measure.

1 John 3:1 (ESV), / / See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God [theos]...

The Godhead gives the Son

The Godhead gives the Spirit

The Godhead gives the love of the Father.

It is a collective decision over and over and over again for God to love us.

/ / For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit.... to fill our hearts with his love.

To what? What was the purpose of the Holy Spirit being given to us? to fill.

The ESV says, / / Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

The word poured, that the NLT translates into, “to fill our hearts” means / / to pour out, to shed, spill, run out, run greedily, gush out. to bestow or distribute largely.

This is not a drop of God’s love, this is the Love of God being poured out to overflowing.

Psalm 23 says as we sit at the table that God has prepared for us, even in the presence of our enemies, our cup overflows!

Now of course, Psalm 23 is talking a bout quite a bit here, and you can read my cup overflows and think of the provision of God, the deliverance of God, the generosity of God the grace of God, mercy etc… But if we look at it simply in this idea of the love of God being poured into our hearts - what does God want to do? Not just fill our cup, but poured out to overflowing!

And again, in the midst of this incredible scripture in Romans 5, talking about endurance, talking about character, talking about getting through the hard stuff, and eventually that we have a hope that won’t disappoint us, Paul ends with, God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit…

The Passion Translation - / / And this hope is not a disappointing fantasy, because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us!

So, for a few minutes this morning I want to focus on these two thoughts.

/ / The Holy Spirit lives in us.

The Holy Spirit is our access to the felt love of God.

So, first, the Holy Spirit lives in us.

Romans 8:9-11 says this, But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

So, First things first, and that might seem like a scary sounding thing when we read, “…remember, those who don’t have the Spirit living in them don’t belong to him.

Which I get why Paul is saying that, but read everything surrounding that and recognize what is happening here.

I personally believe that there are two things at work here. First, that we have the Holy Spirit, and second that we see the evidence of the Spirit’s work in our lives when we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives. One of those is based on our belief, and the other based on our ability to follow. Just like we’ve looked at believing in Jesus doesn’t simply mean head knowledge, but it’s a commitment to following the way of Jesus, we also have the Spirit, who is in us, but desiring to lead us to life in Christ.. And I’ll go more into that second part next week. But I want to talk about something here this morning.

There are some varying beliefs within the church about what it means to receive the Holy Spirit. Some believe you have to be baptised in water to receive the Holy Spirit. I love water baptism. It is an incredible declaration of our obedience and dedication to Christ, but I don’t believe you have to wait for that to receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself says in Acts 1:4-5, / / “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

We don’t actually know if all of the disciples Jesus was talking to had been baptized in water by John, or anyone else.

It is also generally believed that Jesus did not baptize people in water. John 3:22 says, / / Then Jesus and his disciples left Jerusalem and went into the Judean countryside. Jesus spent some time with them there, baptizing people.

Wait, didn’t you just say he didn’t baptize people.

Well, we get a bit of further clarification a few verses later. John 4:1-2 says, / / Jesus knew the Pharisees had heard that he was baptizing and making more disciples than John (though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them - his disciples did).

That is not me saying don’t get baptized. I love the tradition of baptism, but I don’t think it is essential for salvation or receiving the Holy Spirit. And like I said, there’s a bit of a split within beliefs on whether you have to be or not.

I think Paul brings clarity to this in Ephesians 1:13-14 when he says, / / And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchases us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

And he also asks the important question in Galatians 3:2, 5, 14, / / Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ… I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ… Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.

The confusing part for some has been that in Acts 19 it tells a story of Paul meeting some believers in Ephesus and he asks them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” and they answer, “No, we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And so Paul asks, “Then what baptism did you experience?” and they reply, “The baptism of John.”

And Paul explains the difference between Johns baptism of repentance and that John himself said one would come who would be greater. And so I’m not 100% here on why these “believers” are actually called believers because it seems they haven’t even identified as following Jesus - it sounds like they only know the teaching of John the Baptist. And so Acts 19:5 says, / / As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied.

So, some have taken that scripture and others that are similar and said that you know you have received the Holy Spirit if you have been baptized AND you start speaking in tongues.

I remember being in church services as a kid and going up to the front, and a special guest speaker, or the pastor would lay hands on us and then tell us to start speaking in tongues, and I remember the devastation of not feeling anything, and of not speaking in some weird language I didn’t understand. I walked away heartbroken because what that said to me was, “You didn’t receive the Holy Spirit, better luck next time.”

Looking back at that I just think, “Wow, that is so not the heart of God.” And that is what Paul is addressing, did you receive the Spirit because you did the right things? No of course not...

In Luke 11 Jesus is teaching his disciples about prayer, and he tells the story about going to a friends house and asking for some bread to feed a friend that’s come to visit. Problem is that it’s the middle of the night and so your friend says, “Go away.” And he says, but if you keep asking, keep knocking, keep begging, he’ll eventually give you what you ask for.

But he finishes this story with this line in Luke 11:11-13, / / “You fathers - if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

As I said, I do believe there is a difference between having the Spirit inside of us, and seeing the evidence in our lives of the Spirit’s work. And we’ll get more into that next week.

And I will also throw this in here because it’s important. Remember what R.T. Kendall says, All too often we major on the minors and minor on the majors. It’s less about when we receive the Holy Spirit and more about that we do. I personally believe we receive the Holy Spirit the moment we commit our lives to Christ, to follow him, to be redeemed by Him. In that moment the Holy Spirit seals us as His own! That’s what scripture says.

I also love baptism. I think it is incredibly important to identify in this life, on this earth, I am a follower of Jesus. And I think there is something incredibly powerful and affirming about it.

That being said, if you have not been baptized, talk to us, we want to do that with you, we want to celebrate with you. If you grew up in a church that sprinkled water on your head, that’s fine, we don’t do infant baptism, we do what we call dedication, where we pray for and bless a child and as the body of believers we make the choice to do whatever we can to help them in their journey with Christ through life. And so we believe in being of an age to decide for yourself that you are a follower of Jesus and that you want to express that through water baptism - And so if you want to be fully immersed in water we would love to do that with you, so please come talk to Kelley or myself.

I would also suggest when it comes to baptism that we go for what the word means - water baptism means fully immersed in water, but baptism simply means fully immersed. So when Jesus told his disciples to baptize people in the name of the Father, the Son & the Holy Spirit, what did he mean? If baptism simply means to be fully immersed - I believe that we are meant to be fully immersed in the name, or the character, the fullness of the Father, the Son & the Holy Spirit. All of God in all of us as we give all of us to God!

So, that’s the first thing this morning, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you have been sealed with, you have received the Holy Spirit.

And the second thing this morning.

/ / 2. The Holy Spirit is our access to the felt love of God

Back to Romans 5:5, / / …we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Psalm 46:10, one of my favorites, / / Be still, and know that I am God!

So, if we take Romans 5:5, that God wants to fill our hearts with his love, and Psalm 23, that our cup is meant to overflow, and Psalm 46:10 that we need to be still - I think we get the very formula for experiencing God.

Let me ask you this question - / / How easy is it to fill a moving cup?

How easy is it to fill something that is constantly moving, constantly distracted, constantly on the go?

Let’s put it a different way. How easy is it to communicate to someone that won’t stop and listen to you?

Anyone with children knows this one all too well. I’ve had to say this many times, “Stop, look at me, and listen to what I’m saying...”

Then what do we do? “Ok, repeat what I just said...”

Why? Because distracted people rarely get all of what is being said.

And here in Psalm 46, Romans 5 and Psalm 23 we see the key to experiencing the love of God.

/ / Be still, invite the Holy Spirit to pour out God’s love into your heart, let it overflow in your life.

And so I want to wrap this up by inviting Kelley to come up here and we are going to do a bit of an exercise in experiencing the presence of God. If you want to experience God’s presence and love in your life, this is how it happens.