Presence

I have these wonderful childhood memories of going on fishing trips with my grandparents at their cottage. They are those kinds of memories that you can feel and smell if you close your eyes, the kind that are so beautiful it hurts to know that they are gone, and you can’t even look at the old pictures without getting the lump in your throat and the misty eyes.

In a humble cottage on a large lake, my grandparents would bring small groups of their numerous grandchildren to stay for days at a time. For us, it was a blessed adventure, and there was nowhere we would rather be than there, swimming in the lake, napping on the dock under the hot sun, catching a never-ending supply of fish, waking up early to the fresh smell of lake-rain and the humid sunrise. We were so little then that we didn’t know it, but they were teaching us how to live life in a way that really mattered.

My grandmother taught me how to float. You could find her out in the lake beyond the dock, under the cloudless blue sky, floating calmly on her back, rocking with the gentle waves, at peace. At the time, she did not explain to me that being the mother of eight children and the grandmother of 20+ grandchildren gave her a whole world of things to think about while rocking with the waves. She did not tell me that life is so loud and hard. She did not give me the bigger, wiser motivations behind peaceful floating under the blue sky. She just showed me how to float.

She also taught us how to row a boat, and how to put a slimy worm on a hook. She would spend countless hours rowing us around the lake, letting us catch the abundance of pan fish to our heart’s delight. Then we would carry the fish back up to the cottage, where our grandpa taught us how to clean them, and cook them on the grill for dinner.

He did not explain the value of knowing how to catch, clean, and cook a fish. He didn’t warn us of the bigger picture, when life would change, grandparents would die, and the cottage would be forever sold into the hands of strangers. He just showed us how to clean and cook fish, and then sat down to eat the meal with us. We were squirrely, loud, busy little children, and undoubtedly we sometimes drove him nuts. But he was always just there with us.

They were the kind of people that had a way of making an impact just by their presence. No matter where you were or what you were doing, they were there cheering you on. With so many grandchildren, there was a wide variety of interests, from sports to music and everything in between. It would have been easy to feel like a nobody, like just another kid among a bunch of kids. But it never felt that way. They always cared deeply about us, individually.

As I look back, I miss them dearly, and I long for the day I will get to see them again in heaven. In the meantime, they visit my dreams, and like a soft wind they sweep through those quiet parts of my heart, reminding me, drawing me to what is important in this life. They take the heartache out of these memories by reminding me that there is another life where we will share friendship in more abundant ways than the glimpse we see here, however sweet and those glimpses may be.

My grandparents lived the ministry of presence. Like Jesus, they dwelled with us. And by their dwelling with us, we came to know that presence of Jesus which lived in them. Today I see it in my mom, who patiently gives undivided attention to my squirrely boys. I see it in my dad, who sings to them and shares his love of music with them. I see it in the other believers around me, in our friends who are just always there with us, come what may. I see it, and I connect it back to my grandparents, and I hear the whisper in my heart which says this is Jesus. He is with us in the people around us.

Why does God work through people? We don’t know why, but we know that he does. And this knowing has incredible implications for us. It means we are the presence of Jesus to the people around us, just as they are his presence to us.

Jesus did not keep people at an arm’s length. He came to be with us. He was born in a manger, entering right into the intimate stink of life. We show this love to others by simply being with them. We need not get caught up on results, on conversions, or on trying to make them what we think they should be. We do not have to have all the answers. We can’t fix the whole world, but we can know for sure that every small act of undistracted kindness shown to the people around us is an incredibly important way of sharing the love of Christ.

It is a busy world we live in, and we if we want to be present to the people around us, we have to do it on purpose. Distractions are screaming for attention constantly. We have to pay attention. We have to care. We have to have to draw near to Jesus, so he can fill us with his love for others.

I have kids of my own now, and I understand the value of floating undisturbed under the piercing blue sky, rocking with the gentle waves, letting the world turn without me. If I watch the lives of those who have been walking longest with Jesus, like my floating grandma, they seem to have captured the conviction that it is right to just be. They are able to let the world cling and clang and continue on with its frantic activity, while they practice contentedly being in Christ, and being the present love of Jesus to the people in front of them.

These are the people who give you their undivided attention, who care about the details of your life and remember the little things. These are the people who don’t tell you what to do, but instead let the aroma of Jesus in them attract your deepest senses and longings. I want to be more like them, because I think they are more like Jesus.

“For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing” (2 Cor. 2:15).

The very presence of my grandparents smelled of the sweet aroma of Christ. May we all slow down and be present with the people in front of us this week. May we be the sweet aroma of Jesus, the presence of his love in this tumultuous world.