Submitted by Pastor Bill Hargis, Rock Port and Watson United Methodist Churches

Out of the entire Bible, Revelation would be my least favorite. Some of it is scary and other parts are hard to understand. But rest assured, someone has counted all the letters, multiplied them by 4 to the seventh power, carried the 5, subtracted 10, turned the TV to the newly revealed channel number, and can now tell you, with authority, who the antichrist is and the exact minute the end of the world will arrive.

During a seminary class last month, my classmates and I were asked, “What one question do you have about Revelation? After lunch, we will discuss them.” My question was, “How much of Revelation has already happened?” After asking my question and getting several puzzled looks and then hearing other people’s questions, I had a revelation. We were talking about God revealing himself, not the end of the world. In hindsight, that makes more sense in a class called “Theology in the Contemporary Church.” My bad. Do we still say that?

That is the problem with us humans. So many times, we have already decided what the topic is before the topic is revealed. Our ears hear what we want to hear; our eyes see what we want to see. Our minds have come to conclusions before we have all the facts. This could be due to other people’s influence or by circumstances we find ourselves in now.

Theologian Richard Niehbur describes God’s revelation as a “luminous sentence from which we can go forward and backward and so attain to some understanding of the whole. Revelation is God’s own self-disclosure.”

God revealed himself to us decisively through Jesus Christ. John tells us “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, (1:1). And the word became flesh and lived among us, (1:14).” WOW people, read that again and let it soak in. Meditate and go forward and backward over these luminous sentences.

Here is the problem as I see it; we are too busy. We are too busy to take a few minutes out of our daily lives and devote this time to our creator. Right now, there are almost 2.56 billion Christians on earth. I think God is busy as well but never too busy to be with you.

It is the easiest thing in the world to tell someone else what he or she should be doing. I tell my people every week they should be spending quiet time in communion with God but, of course, I am too busy. I have sermons to write, classes to study for, people to see, and deadlines to make. And when I start thinking that way . . . everything comes apart and I am not accomplishing anything.

At some time every day, I stop what I am doing and hide. I find a quiet place with no distraction, and I spend time allowing God to reveal himself to me. Sometimes that’s 10 minutes, maybe 30. However much time God and I need to work things out. Here is what I have learned. Whether we want it or not, God will reveal to us what he wants us to know and believe me folks, speaking from experience here, it may not be all warm and fuzzies in the beginning. So why not take the easy way and just listen?

Let God reveal himself to you today, read that luminous sentence forward and backward. Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful and kindle in us the fire of thy love.