This book with its actual pages is my current read. It’s not like my Kindle which has no actual pages to be touched or turned. This book requires thought. It’s not one you can just zoom through.
Recently I was with Joyce at the dermatology clinic as she was having some skin cancers removed. In the waiting room I sat in a corner chair and laid my book on the table provided. The small table just was beside, and slightly behind my chair.
As the waiting room filled, a young, neatly dressed family came in and took the chairs on the other side of my little table.
After a bit, the young boy picked up my book. I didn’t say anything in case he might think he was in trouble from a grouchy old man with a white beard. Plus it looked like he might have been in even more trouble from his mother, you know how Mom’s are.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he paged through my book. I could see. He noticed the title and then the bookmark my Granddaughter Emma had stitched for me some years ago. It’s always in my current book… the one with actual pages. I haven’t found a way to use it in a Kindle book yet.
But I digress.
The young boy, I’m going to say aged seven or so and his slightly younger sister continued to politely and quietly play back and forth as they sat with their Mom. I could tell she was concerned they might disturb the others who were also waiting. But they were really good, kids.
Joyce finally came out from her procedures. Getting ready to leave, I reached back to pick up my book. It wasn’t on the edge of the table where I had left it.
Instead, it was standing in the middle of the table. I could tell the kids had been using it as an eye-chart to test their vision! There may be a couple of budding optometrists there.
I wondered as we drove home, should I have said something to the kids about the title and its meaning? Did I miss an opportunity?
I hadn’t said anything, rationalizing that it might be disturbing to them and/or their Mom in that small room, being talked to by an old guy.
Continuing to rationalize, I thought possibly as they get a bit older they might remember and wonder about John Ortberg’s amazing title and the cover they had used as an eye chart. Might they wonder, was God really closer than they might possibly think?
In the early pages of his book, Ortberg quotes Jacob from the Old Testament. ‘Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ (Genesis 28.16)
I don’t know about you but I’ve been lots of places where I didn’t think God was. Apparently though, according to Ortberg, God really is/was there. It’s both a refreshing, comforting, and even kind of a scary thought.
Ortberg says of Jacob, “Somehow he was looking in the wrong direction. Apparently it is possible for God to be present without the person recognizing that He is there. Apparently it is possible that God is closer than you think.”
I’m much like Jacob. And now I find that encouraging. I spend/have spent a lot of time looking for God in all the wrong places. (I think there may be a country song in there somewhere)
Looking back, I’m able to see instances where God obviously was there, and just like Jacob I did not see Him. Now I’m working on being able to see Him in the present.
If you are, or have been searching for God, you can use Ortberg’s book as an eye-chart, like the kids in the waiting room and you might discover ‘God is closer than you think.’