In the view off the height of the mountain, in the smile of Tameron learning to read, in the singing of hymns on Sunday, God is in each of these moments.
I don’t know where I got the idea that God is only in the church. Something about church being called the “House of God” and the beautiful, ethereal sanctuaries we build for Him makes it feel as if the only place He would want to live is in such places. Truthfully though, people didn’t give God a permanent “home” until Solomon came along and stationed his gorgeous temple in the solid ground of Israel’s soil. From there on, the rest is history.
But God is so much bigger than that. He is everywhere. He promises to be with us, through Jesus, “even unto the end of the age.” Wherever we go, He is there.
The thought is at once comforting and huge. If God is with us everywhere, then in each moment we have the chance to grow closer to Him and embody the love that He wants most from us.
Living here in South Africa, it’s funny to find that some of my most meaningful “God moments” have happened outside of church services. Athlone Primary North, the school I’ve been helping at, is about as far from looking like a church as you can get. With baby blue walls, a class bell that sounds like a tornado warning, and hundreds of children running around there’s hardly a moment of peace for quiet reflection. There isn’t a meeting place or auditorium, no stained glass. And I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a church with dinosaur posters in the hallways.
Despite all that, God’s love is everywhere inside. If you’ve ever worked with kids, you know that it’s not always easy to show patience and love to them unconditionally, especially when they’re en masse. Put a class of 37 eight and nine year olds together and you’ve got a recipe for chaos. Talk about walking the talk and the challenge of putting God’s love into action. At first it was exhausting giving them the kind of unconditional love that Jesus set the example for us to walk in. But like any muscle, the heart gets stronger with use.
One little girl in particular, Tameron, really gave Ms. Tshivhase and I a hard time. She was loud, wandered the classroom like it was her playground, and had the annoying habit of hitting the kid next to her with her ruler. As if we didn’t have enough crying kids on a daily basis. To be able to give more attention to the rest of the class, Ms. Tshivhase asked me to take Tameron on as my personal project in tutoring and helping her behave. The first time she came to the back of the class to work with me, her frizzy pigtail braids bouncing as she skipped, all I could think was, “here comes trouble.”
It only took a couple of reading sessions with her to break the ice. After reading each word she would snap her head up to look at me with a “did I do that right?” stare. Genuine encouragement became easier to give each time I worked with her and pretty soon, we both looked forward to time together. Getting over my initial prejudices to show her love not only let me experience the joy of showing God’s love in the world but also did wonders to Tameron’s behavior issues. After a couple of weeks she became one of the most dedicated students in the class and even became the week’s Class Captain for good behavior.
On Valentine’s Day a purple, heart-shaped cut out ended up on my desk with “b my valentin?” scrawled messily across it in crayon. Somewhere between “here comes trouble” and that day, God’s love had come between and created something beautiful. For me it was a moment in which God’s love was made tangible, a reminder that we can encounter Him everyday in the most unexpected of places.
Just as God created the world, loves everyone in it, and is everywhere on it, so are we called to show His love wherever we go. Inside and outside of the church, experiencing the love of God can happen in very real ways wherever we find ourselves.
