God hides in order not to be found where humans want to find God. But God also hides in order to be found where God wills to be found. —Stephen D. Paulson
I don’t know what you’ve got on your plate, and what plates you’ve got spinning in the air. I don’t know all the parts of this life you’re trying to balance. I don’t know all the things you say to yourself about how you work out this whole faith thing. I don’t know the doubts you have, but I’m guessing you have one or a few. And, if my assumptions are presumptuous, I ask your forgiveness.
I guess, as H always says, “You can only tell your story.”
I don’t know what you’re doing in this season to get closer to God, or to coax him from hiding, or to work up some special experience of grace.
Yesterday, I went rogue. I didn’t exercise. I went shopping. I learned Home Goods is opening a store in our town and I celebrated about that fact. I ate at McDonald’s. I had a massage. I ate Thin Mint cookies. This is my confession. It was entirely unholy.
Except that it wasn’t.
And I could beat myself up about it and convince myself that what I do (or don’t do, for that matter) dictates God’s love toward me. But, I’d be wrong.
In spite of me, God is Love. Isn’t that crazy? I don’t have control of God. He’s beyond my manipulations, my orchestrations, my protestations. Contrary to popular Christan-ese, God does not “show up” for us. God is already here. Wherever you find yourself, he’s there. Already.
Just because we can’t see him, or (and this seems to be important, these days) feel him, doesn’t negate his presence among us. But what would we do, should God tell us to hide our faces in the cleft of a rock so that he could pass by? Which one of us could stand such a revelation of God to us?
I’m back on the wagon, convinced the Sabbath was made for me, and not the other way around. I need the guidelines. I’d go wild without them. OK. Wilder. And God—regardless of my diet or the amount of bible verses I have memorized or the things I sacrifice—is God.
This is not a cop out, or a manifesto pronouncing an end to reason or moderation. It’s just a reminder that God loves you. Whether you get it right, or not. Whether you keep those plates spinning, or not. Whether you feel him, or not. He loves you. No matter what.