Walking Together

It seems that at the beginning of our journey, we in some authentic way come to believe that God is good.   That is where we all begin.  We can grow on that milk, cutting our teeth on early opportunities to trust, and after practice, and gentle guidance and time, hopefully with good companions, eventually get some kind of meat on our bones that He can be trusted to be doing good here.  But the picture is never totally clear and trust remains an essential part of the path onward.   It is only after building some strength and experience with Him that we can begin to realize without fainting or running away that He is also holy. It can be a terrifying revelation.

He is holy and coming our way.  (Does that sound scary to you?)

Only when something has been built under us and established as a new foundation beneath us, far more solid than our self-preserving ground, do we dare to let Him really close and into the more hidden layers of who we know we are.  We can’t, however, invite Him to come that near without some awareness that He is in charge, and ready to overturn us.  Can we trust Him with that?  We don’t know what that will look like or how turbulent the storm will be as we go in our ridiculously small boat of understanding onto His sea.  And yet, that is where He asks us to come. 

We will never be fully ready--we can’t wait for that.  (It would mean we believed we could handle the situation instead of allowing Him room to be God in and for us.)

We must not be looking for some great reward that is anything but Himself, for He seems to not have our comfort as the primary goal, ease of the path as a priority, or sunshine and roses as a necessity for each day, though He will graciously send them to remind us that this really is a magnificent love story.  He has dared to be present in the darkness, to come to earth, to enter into the chaos of our week to show us how to live forward.  He doesn’t work some kind of transport magic where a wiggled Holy nose takes us far away from the challenge.  He walks with us so we can be together as we go, gathering others He will surely bring, sharing our reason to hope, helping one another, as we have been helped, to strip off the layers of our entangled selves and find our truer ones.

I am not suggesting that we go diving into a deep place that He has not called us to.  He knows what it is time for.  But when He is calling, or tapping at some thing we’d prefer to ignore, listen to the call and follow Him there.  We will find His goodness and His heart that bursts with pride at our willingness to believe Him.   In all of eternity, our short span of time on earth is the only opportunity we will ever have to offer Him the gift of our trust.  Today will have some of those moments.  Let’s not miss them.