Touch....

Old songs come to mind when I think about touching God. From ‘…reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by…’ to ‘…surely the presence of the Lord is in this place, I can feel His mighty power and His grace…’ But the one that captures the heart of my imagination is a Ray Boltz song that intrigued me the moment I heard the words. ‘With her hands she was touching Him, the Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning and the End, and with her hands she was holding on to His…’

The name of the song is Touching Him. It was a common request when I regularly sang for a multitude of churches, perhaps the audience could hear my sincere passion. I want to touch Him. I want to feel the touch of His fingers on mine, the warmth of His embrace, even just to touch the hem of His garment. I want my relationship with Him to be tangible. The song is about a woman Jesus had graciously forgiven. At His dinner host’s outrage, Jesus said; she, who is forgiven much, loves much, as she washed His feet with ointment mixed with her own tears and dried them with her hair. (Luke 7:36-50)

But how do you ‘feel’ God today? How do you ‘reach out and touch the Lord’? He’s no longer here in our midst to reach out and touch. Or is He? Look around. Who do you see? Doesn’t His Spirit reside there? Touch them, now. Feel your fingers tremble at the point of contact…..

The final chorus: ‘With your hands, are you touching Him, and with your heart, are you loving Him, and with your hands are you holding on to His? Then the source of life is right there in your hands.’