Some time ago, I wondered what I would be able to share at PARAKLETOS. Now I'm wondering how I'm going to be able to say everything I have to say in such a short time. I don't think I've ever been so divinely excited by a PARAKLETOS conference as I am right now.
And this time it is not due to anything external, neither to the speakers, and we have very good ones, nor to the television coverage, we have our own program and some interventions will be broadcast and especially interviews, nor to the participation of other ministries, and there are some who bless us with their participation; no, it is totally internal, profound, and certainly the work of God the Holy Spirit. I suspect that He is preparing something good for us, very good, excellent.
And it all begins with the evening of praise and prayer. Two years ago, we experienced some more than wonderful moments. I am always moved by God's availability, His responsiveness, the way He is so inclined to manifest Himself, to invest us, to invest the places of His presence. He has already begun it in the preparation meetings. Often, through inattention, we miss an outstretched hand from God; through skepticism, we miss a tiny thing that can change the course of history. God does not always come forward with trumpets and high-pitched cries; no, He gives a word, a command, an instruction; He does something simple. We cling to it, remaining faithful, and gradually, everything changes. We want to be present where everything is going to change.
We can be so involved in the human present, which is very unpleasant in many ways right now, that we fail to grasp God's kairos, that pivotal moment when a small gesture turns things around. We are not ordinary men; we are children of God, born of the Spirit of God, meant to listen more to their God than to the doings of a world in the grip of the evil one. What natural eyes often see is not pleasant, but God is not depressed. Surely He knows something we don't. It is in our best interest to adopt His perspective. So, when David is assailed from all sides of the natural, he finds that the only thing that matters to him and that his heart desires is to remain in the presence of God and contemplate His magnificence.
This is our life as born-again Christians that is thus described. I know, I have betrayed the direction of my first message. In reality, another glimpse of the same old message, the one that Jesus preached with His life and that the Holy Spirit came to administer in, and for us; God with us, by His gesture of salvation, and our daily response.
There is so much to say, so much, about this wonderful God, this inexplicable Jesus who is not ashamed to call us His brothers, so much to say, to sing, to proclaim, to express, but John knew what he was talking about when he said that the whole world can hardly contain the books that would be written if all the deeds and actions of the Savior were to be recorded.
Shalom.
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