The delicate combination of morning sun eeking over the residual dampness of night is such a beautiful sight, sound, and smell. Something inside me both relaxes and quickens at the same time, in part knowing that all is well in a world that tries to hold so much more than it should. I love these simple reminders from God through the natural world. I find myself increasingly conflicted about the organization of my life that misses these simple but powerful realities so much of the time. What do I do to remain more in earshot of such voice from God? What am I clinging to that prevents the simple embracing of such things…in a way that trusts God for ‘the rest’, the things that call out that ‘I need to take care of’, that propel me on into the whatever of this life and away from the quiet beckoning of my ‘trust me’ God?
Or, is the starting phrasing of this question (what do I do, what am I clinging to) more a reflection of the ache in my soul still submerged in a cursed earth that yearns for a home just not yet fully available to me? …ah, the agelessness of this familiar question. One that makes me both tired with its ever-presence and closer to an opportunity to ask a better question…a question closer to ‘God, how can I be with you in this earth-bound, human state?’
Would Jesus not have felt something similar? …after knowing in the most intimate of ways what it was like to be un-earth-bound with the Father, even as He was traveling in his humanity here. It is hard for me to imagine that He didn’t know these questions far more deeply than I. And, while I feel like these pull me apart…I suspect for Him, they were the very opportunities that drew Him ‘in’…towards His Father. I wonder if that is happening for me. I think it might be. But my daily memory fails me, and the voice of the Accuser says again that this is not an accurate description of what is really happening, that I am being separated from something rather than grafted into it.
But the morning’s voice remains calm and silent and even more powerful…as I wait for its mysterious effect to do its soul-salving work. Perhaps that is a more fundamental issue, my willingness to wait…for His time-honored Way to love me as I need to be loved and not yield to the false voice trying to name the loss and death I will surely experience by choosing to simply wait.
One more time, I will choose to wait…not perhaps for the ‘last time’, but more hopefully for the first ‘next time’. Thank you, Morning.
The relationship between God and man is more private and intimate than any possible relation between two fellow creatures.
-- C.S. Lewis
