Ever "run into" God?

Lately I have thought about how often we as humans run into things. For instance, when walking through my house there have been times when I have cut a door way short, my pinky toe runs into the door frame, and I then thought numerous bad things. There have been times when hooking up a truck to a trailer, that I have ran into the tongue of the trailer with the bumper of the truck. Then there have been times when I least expected it, that I would run into friends that I have not seen in a long time. We run into a variety of things in a variety of ways. Today I find myself contemplating, what happens in life when we run into God? We can run into God in a lot of places, experience God in a variety of ways, and feel God's presence in numerous circumstances. In my love of music, especially country music, when I think of running into God, I consider a song sang by George Strait a few years ago. The name of the song is I Saw God Today. The chorus of that song is as follows: I've been to church, I've read the book I know he's here but I don't look. Near as often as I should. His fingerprints are everywhere, I just slowed down to stop and stare, opened my eyes and man I swear - I saw God today.

When you think back across your life, when have been the times in your life that you have ran into God? When were the times you saw God in the most unlikely places and experienced God in the strangest situations and circumstances? The month of June through the first Sunday in July, our sermon series will be entitled, 'Running into God.' In this series, we will be reading through and preaching from various stories from 1 and 2 Kings. We will hear and learn of times when God's people ran into God in times of challenge in life, hopelessness in life, fear in life, oppression in life, transition in life, and God's presence in the most unlikely places.

Below are the passages of Scripture we will be hearing from each week. I pray you read them before coming to worship on Sunday mornings. I pray all our eyes will be opened to see God in numerous places, and I pray that we never stop running into God.

Scripture Readings:
• June2: 1 Kings 18:20-39
• June 9: 1 Kings 17:17-24
• June 16: 1 Kings 19:1-15
• June 23: 1 Kings 21:1-21
• June 30: 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
• July 7: 2 Kings 5:1-14