God permeates reality, why do we keep missing Him?

Somehow, someway our word has been broken. In many ways, we never stood a chance, the nature of our world view follows the nature of our reality. We are compartmentalized and none is more obvious than when it comes to our general view of God and Christianity. For too long in our society, we have been taught in our schools, our religion classes and our family’s that God is separate from reality and the things that truly affect us. We have accepted this and live it out essentially stripping God of His diety and turning him into our feel good side dish to the American dream. If God is separate from our day-to-day lives and found only in Churches and unrelatable stories, then He is not real and it only follows that we should reject Him and we have. There are less people my age interested in knowing and worshiping a God outside of themselves than possibly ever before. This makes sense if we teach that God is separate.

But if God is real then should we not see him in reality? Should He not be so much bigger than a Church experience? A real God, a real creator would mark his creation at every chance. He would reveal His living tangible mystery, woven through out history for us to find if we only look. My friends, God was NEVER meant to be limited to a Sunday service. He was never meant to be separate from our lives. We did this to Him because true worship is inconvenient but when we actually grasp His grandeur, worship can be our only response! We are missing it!! But we don’t’ have to!

 I am almost always thinking about these things because when I found the Lord, I found that He actually permeates everything, inwardly and outwardly. It is He who should shape our worldview because it is He who shaped the world and I am sitting hear writing to you yet again hoping that my latest experience might just intrigue you enough to recognize the God who surrounds you!

For the past two weeks I have been running around Italy with my husband, brother-in-law and 7-month old. As you can imagine, we saw a ton of churches but none as magnificent as the mother ship, St. Peter’s Basilica. St. Peter’s is incredible by itself but if you are lucky, you can tour the scavi, excavations commissioned by Pope Pius XI underneath the basilica. So what is so great about the scavi? Well, a lot. See for many years it had been accepted on tradition that St. Peter’s was built on the tomb of St. Peter himself. There are documents that suggest this to be true but there was otherwise no real proof. Fast forward to the 1940’s when Pope Pius XI wanted to be buried in a small chapel that would require the floor to be lowered if it were to be open to the public. As construction began to lower the floor, Roman artifacts were found and a full on excavation was commissioned.

My brother-in-law and I walked through was used to be a Roman burial ground and were impressed as our very straight forward British tour guide walked us through beautiful mausoleums with frescos still visible. Some were pagan, some were Christian, but all were amazing and dated back to the 100s. As we walked deeper into the scavi there was a grave located directly under the tabernacle on which was found two older monuments and 1500 coins from around the world place by pilgrims. The excavators removed the bones to be examined it was found that these bones belonged to a man of old age, strong, wrapped in purple and gold linens (signifying importance), and interestingly enough missing his feet. Yes, these are the bones of St. Peter who died as an old man, worked as a fisherman, was revered by the Christians of the time and whose feet were chopped off after he was crucified upside down. The tradition is true; St. Peters Basilica was built right over his grave.

This was very cool for me to see the bones of St. Peter but something even cooler was revealed to me two days later. I was reading the gospel when Jesus says, “ I say that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.” UPON THIS ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH! Yes, yes, the universal church was lead first by St. Peter but then there was a literal church built on him! Jesus said this and then it actually happened, in real life and we can see it 2000 years later! This is only one of the many many Jesus micdrops. My friends, there is a God who sent His son and there is evidence, true connections everywhere. The mystery is real; it doesn’t just disappear as we enter into a post Christian society. Truth doesn’t change according to belief or convenience. Open your eyes. Let yourself be wrong and be seized by the God who reveals himself in every generation throughout history and let yourself worship!