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The Chibi News Daily Reflection
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My name is Marcus Mack. A very warm welcome to you here at St. Michael's Church in New Haven
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A common theme when talking to people who have become Christians is the topic of absence in their previous life
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It goes something like this. I had always noticed an uncomfortable absence in my life
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Something was missing and I did not know what that something was. I always had to keep myself busy and distracted to drown out the quiet absence
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I spent years looking in various places for ways to fill that emptiness and loneliness
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until I encountered Jesus Christ. I realized I wasn't missing something, I was missing someone
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God isn't a God who is distant and out there somewhere far from us
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but who is intimately close. In John's Gospel in chapter 14, Jesus told us that when he returned to his Father in heaven
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he would not leave us alone. His absence on earth will be substituted with his presence within us through the Holy Spirit
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Jesus said in verse 23, Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching
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My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them
