God’s promise of His Presence
As the living God, God is free to be present to whom He pleases, and absent to whom He pleases. But He has promised to reveal Himself to those who believe in Him and earnestly seek him.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8
On your way to the trysting place you will always meet the devil who will try to engage you in some other activity. Being determined, however, to meet with God you will soon discover why the devil sought to stop you.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 29:11-13
We are not to come to this communion unsure if God will meet with us. Rather we enter the presence of the God by the new and living way of Christ (Hebrews 10:20), confidently giving thanks for all God is, has done and has promised.
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Hebrews 11:6
The power of the Presence of God
To those who enter the trysting place to meet with God, the ‘grain room’ becomes the very throne room of the living God. It is the presence of the living God which alone can censure our arrogant opinion, dissolve our self-righteous pride, calm our wilful momentum, and bring us down to right-size as a creature of the Creator, a servant of the Lord, and a little child of our heavenly Father. There we find that our egotism is broken down, our sin is burnt up, our soul is cured, and we ourselves are brought into a newness of life which causes us to value our communion with God more than any other treasure upon the earth.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11
I have written this leaflet praying that henceforth you will enter, everyday of your life, into that secret and sacred trysting place to have communion with the living God, your heavenly Father.
Rod James
January 2007
Permission is given to copy in this form. Quotations are from the English Standard Version.
The Trysting Place
A study about our personal communion with God
The most important thing in your life
One thing is for sure these days, and that is that life is busy! But in the midst of all the rush and pressure there is something that is more important than anything else. Let us see what that is.
We were created in the image and likeness of God
The Bible tells us who we are as a human being. We are a conscious personal being created in the image of the conscious personal God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. God revealed Himself to Israel as ‘I am’ (Exodus 3:13-15), and we also are ‘I am’s, created in His image.
God is the living God
God, in whose image we have been created, is the living God.
He sees, hears and speaks.
The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
and his ears toward their cry. Psalm 34:15
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word
that comes from the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4
In contrast, the images of the idols do not speak, see or hear.
The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
they have eyes, but do not see;
they have ears, but do not hear,
nor is there any breath in their mouths.
Those who make them become like them,
so do all who trust in them! Psalm 135:15-18
Furthermore the living God knows all things and knows us personally.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12
Indeed He foreknew us.
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you; Jeremiah 1:5
Communion of persons
I am sure you have had the experience of being in a room and thinking that you were alone. Your relationship with everything there was an ‘I—it’ relationship. But suddenly you are startled by the realization that there is another person present in the room. Immediately you are engaged in an ‘I—you’ encounter because another conscious personal being like yourself is present with you.
The words ‘you’ and ‘me’ are amazing words. When we say them they usher us into a communion of persons. It is this communion of persons which God has created us to enjoy, with Himself and with one another.
Communion in the Psalms
The Psalms are essentially prayers, and the psalmists address God as ‘you’ over 650 times. For example:
You have said, "Seek my face.
My heart says to you,
"Your face, Lord, do I seek." Psalm 27:8
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Psalm 139:1-5, 12-15
Moses and the tent of meeting
God gave to Israel knowledge of Himself as the living God who had called them into personal relationship with Himself. It was very important to Moses, as Israel’s leader, to have personal communion with God.
Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses...Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Exodus 33:7-10
· spend large amounts of time watching TV,
· seek out sophisticated physical pleasures and entertainments,
· buy more and more ‘stuff’ —electric gadgets, fast and fancy cars, bigger houses and more trinkets to fill them,
· stuff ourselves with food for the body, but neglect the spiritual food from God for our souls.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit…Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Romans 8:5-9
Giving yourself to Communion
To commune with God involves, in the first instance, turning aside from the world. Jesus commanded us to do as he himself did—to seek out a trysting place with God.
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:6
The word ‘room’ is actually a small, sealed grain room or storeroom designed to keep some things in and all other things out.
The prayer life of Brother Daniel
Brother Daniel was a renowned Indian evangelist through whom God did many wonderful works. When he was a young man and still studying God led him into communion with Himself.
God selected for him a secluded spot, far from human habitation, where he would retire every night for solitary prayer, This spot was between two and three miles away from his college hostel. It was a wild inhospitable region where foxes roamed and where great cobras and other snakes moved about undisturbed. At that time, wild and luxuriant growths of a species of Cactus called prickly-pear overspread the area. In fact, athletic Daniel had to take a leap over some cactus and enter a small clearing amongst the prickly-pear. This spot which God showed him became a place where he met his Lord nightly.
…The foundations of a beautiful communion and walk with God were laid, during the unnumbered hours of prayer, in the complete isolation of this ‘trysting place’ which God chose for him. The hours would fly while he was closeted in this sweet fellowship with God. Often, until well past midnight and into the small hours of the day, Daniel would tarry in God’s presence loathing to break off this rapturous communion. Joshua Daniel, Another Daniel, p.20,21
It is clear, reading the wonderful events and works of Daniel’s life, that the wellspring of his ministry was this continuing communion with God.
recognised that those problems were not primarily of their making, but came from my reactions. The knowledge that the presence was God—what I now knew in its fullness—was no new idea to me. That He was Father was the new understanding. Nor was it simply an intellectual understanding I had now come to know, for that I had previously known. I suppose the word ‘communion’ is the only one which covers what was happening at that time…Later, contemplating what had happened, I recognised that this was a relationship with the Father that Ruth Crawford—quite unconscious of me—had manifested that night I had come upon her at prayer.
This is your life
Communion with our Creator is the most important part of our lives. Indeed, all of our problems spring from the loss of that communion and the terrible and fearful aloneness that follows. By contrast it is in this communion that we know God’s presence, and with His presence come:
· forgiveness, love, and fellowship,
· cleansing, purity and holiness,
· comfort, inspiration, encouragement, and strength,
· wisdom, truth, awareness, and sub-conscious sorting out,
· conviction of sin, repentance, correction, and moral change,
· guidance, direction, purpose and prophetic words,
· courage, perseverance and endurance,
· love-gifts for other people—of mercy, kindness, healing, encouragement and helpfulness,
· faith, joy, peace, and hope,
Do you see why I say that this communion is the very foundation of your life? It is the well of living water.
For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Revelation 7:17
Communion with the world
Yet in our Western materialistic culture we neglect this foundational communion of our being—this rich treasure for our soul—and we flit about non-stop, having communion with the world.
For my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13
Though we are created for communion with God we neglect this essential communion and
The loss of communion
We were predestined in love by God to be adopted as the eternal children of our heavenly Father (Ephesians 1:3-6), and so were created to have personal fellowship with our Creator and with one another.
But the biblical witnesses tell how, instead of blessing and thanking their Creator and living on the earth in joyful fellowship with their heavenly Father, our first ancestors doubted God’s intentions, and, hoping to become their own gods, rebelled against their Creator. Instead of stepping up into autonomy and independence, however, they fell into the bondage of evil forces, and their conscious, relational personhood lost the love-character of their heavenly Father. Cut off from communion with our Creator/Father we human beings fell into terrible guilt, fear, pride, greed, hatred and loneliness.
Jesus came, addressing God as “Father”
The biblical witnesses tell how the Father, instead of wiping us out, which He would have been totally justified in doing, sent His beloved Son into this now darkened world to save His lost and silly creature-children. And so Jesus came, living his life as a man in perfect communion with his heavenly Father. On one occasion he said,
"I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Matthew 11:25-27
Jesus’ prayer life
A ‘trysting place’ is a secret rendezvous in which lovers meet to have sweet and intimate communion with one another. The Gospels give us glimpses of Jesus going regularly to such isolated places to have communion with the Father.
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.
Mark 1:35