Knowing Me, Knowing You

Yesterday I wrote about silences, and the rhythms they create in the song that is being sung over us by God.  I felt like I had stumbled upon an important and life-giving truth.  

And then today the majority of my devotional and Scripture readings, the music I'm listening to, the poems I've read... they all speak of God's presence, and the depth of meaning behind God's silence. 

I suppose you could call it a coincidence, but I'm going to choose not to dishonor the beauty of this feeling by relegating it to the realms of chance.  

Instead, I prefer to think of it as God's sly and loving way of telling me I am known.  

I also prefer to see this a grace-filled invitation for me to embrace my uncertainty with confidence--the kind of confidence that comes when I surrender all my outcomes to the One who is the center of all things. 

Bob Goff writes,  "What a shame it would be if we were waiting for God to say something while He's been waiting on us to do something."  

For me doing something means actively listening and choosing to trust what I'm hearing/feeling, and what I am feeling is the realization that I am never far from God.  

As Richard Rohr once said, "You cannot not live in the presence of God."  I love that so much.  Despite all of our efforts to distance ourselves from God, we can never escape God's loving presence, which is all around us, in us and through us.  

I was listening to a song today by Sleeping At Last (songwriter Ryan O'Neal) entitled "Bad Blood."  The lyrics stirred something deep in my heart, and I thought I'd share them:  

You fixed your eyes on us,Your flesh and blood,A sculpture of waterAnd unsettled dust. 

So we wrestle with it all-The concept of graceAnd the faithful concreteAs it breaks our fall.

It is a jarring and unsettling moment when we come up against the solid, unmoving persistence of God's loving presence.  But we need to know that whatever is shattered at that moment will be put together stronger than ever before.  

May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.