October 30

“You are children of light, now walk as such.  That is, be what you are.  In our relations with God this is especially necessary, because these all exist in the unseen spiritual region, and can, of course, only be real to us as our faith makes them so.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, Daily Secrets, 10/11

Hannah also writes in another devotional for today:  “Someone has said that the only thing necessary for the children of God to do in order to enter into full possession of their inheritance in Christ is simply to be what they are...”  God reveals Himself in what I call real-time.  Our world is increasingly eliminating our face-to-face encounters with people.  Everything is being automated--no longer does a real person answer a business phone and our banking is done at a machine.  Even our groceries can be paid for at a machine.  Add to that e-mail and texting and we have very little actual contact with people.  In the past, at least handwritten letters allowed the recipient to “see” and “touch” something that was actually of that person--not a facsimile.  I can only image what effect this will have on the next generation.  What I’m getting at is this.....It is the nuances of our interaction with people that helps to shape us into who we are.  If we are treated kindly we will more than likely grow up to be kind people.  If we are treated badly, we will either grow up to behave badly ourselves or develop some sort of mask to cover up the low opinion we were given of ourselves.  In the same vein, by interacting with God in faith, we can’t help but become who He says we are.  So we must have face-to-face contact with God and then believe we are who He says we are.

“Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fullness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.”  Psalm 16:11