Mid last week, I prayed as I was driving in to work in the morning. One thing I have been doing for the last 6 months has been to tune the radio to the classical music station. Much as I enjoy Kiss 92 FM, it is too much distraction for a morning prayer. I prayed about certain disappointments in my life, not cancer. Deep inside I know that disappointments take root because I allow them to, and I allowed it because they were the most satisfying humanly response to those situations. And God's prompting over the last few months has been that He is enough for me.
And to that I told God that I believe He is there but sometimes it feels like I am making excuses for Him - that he is there even though nobody can see him, that he is always good even though many things around us aren't good at all. As I write this I am resting from a medical procedure in the hospital and I can hear a young child crying in fear as he undergoes his procedure. What is a child doing in the radiology department any way? Sometimes it feels like God absentism. I don't really believe it but it does feel that way at times. When I got into the office that morning, I flipped my devotional calendar to the correct day as I hadn't been referring to it for a few days. I was speechless when I realised that that day's devotion was about God being the only one who can fill us up completely. Nothing else was going to be enough.
I got up early yesterday morning after rolling in bed for an hour. I was about to go for a walk but decided against it because it looked like rain was coming. It was the right call because the rain came very soon after. Rainy days are great for thinking so I got back under the duvet. I thought about my keeping-a-safe-distance relationship with God. You hear me talking about God quite a bit, but we don't have a best buddy status. I certainly wasn't loving "the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength". I told God just that, that I honestly struggle to feel the Shema.
God certainly heard me that morning. When I got to church, one of the pastoral team members who has been praying for me gave me John Bevere's book "Drawing Near, A Life of Intimacy with God". The back cover urges the reader "not to settle for the dry shadow of Christianity that knows about God without knowing God. The incredible invitation from the Creator of the universe is not just to worship Him from afar with words and rituals, but to enter a relationship so meaningful and intimate that you know His heart, and He knows yours". That might as well have been the words of my prayer earlier that morning. The sermon that morning also spoke directly to me. Based on Psalm 8, the message was about us being created, cherished and commissioned by God for His purpose.
It feels like @God is following my mental tweets, and responding to them.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
Psalm 8 : 3-4
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