I Have Remained with You

Meditations for Ragamuffins

May 22, 2024

I Have Remained with You

No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:39 

Catherine of Siena is a saint of God in the blessed unseen cloud of witnesses that surrounds us. (Hebrews 12:1) Like Mother Teresa, she too experienced the dark night of the soul. Catherine had been blessed with an unusually intimate and vivid awareness of the presence of God in her life. She would spend hours and hours in her small room relishing in the experience of God as she prayed. Then one day she felt terribly alone. The awareness of God’s glorious presence was replaced with troubling, impure, lustful thoughts; such an experience she had never before had in her entire life. Catherine fought against her loneliness and despair for quite some time until the troubling thoughts began to fade, and her awareness of God returned. When her sense of peace returned, she questioned God: “Where were you when these foul images filled my mind?” God’s answer stunned her: “Catherine, all during these temptations I have remained with you, right in your heart. Otherwise, you could not have overcome them.”

Jesus cried out from the cross, “My God why have you forsaken me?” and only a short time later he whispered, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.” How could he make such a tender affirmation during such torment? Because his Abba Father remained with him, right in his heart.

The experience of Jesus, Catherine of Siena, and countless other saints in the cloud of witnesses that surrounds us affirms the great mystery of our faith. Because of the divine presence of Christ within us, we have been liberated from the tyranny of emotions. Our faith doesn’t depend on experiencing God in discernible ways, our faith rests only on Jesus. Because Christ is our life, God, our Father, declares that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He further attests that this righteousness, since it was given to us as a gift, is not based on our behavior. We are not his righteousness or new creation because of what we did, or what we are doing, or what we have refrained from doing. Rather our right-standing with God is based on what God has done in uniting us to Christ in death, burial, resurrection, and enthronement.

My Takeaway: When all our feelings, our emotions and even the opinions of others may rail against us, our life in Christ will liberate us, and safely carry us through the storms of life.

Sē’lah

 

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2024 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.