The Nearness of God

“God is always ready, but we are very unready. God is near us, but we are far from Him. God is within, and we are without. God is friendly; we are estranged.”

— Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1328)

The easiest thing in the world, we make the hardest. The closest thing to each of us, personally, might as well be eons away. There is a polar dissimilarity between the nearness of God and the distance we have with ourselves. Something so abundantly close evades our attention because we either look too deeply, too scientifically, or we don’t look at all.

Yet, even believing ones can, and often do, miss the point of God: the nearness of God.

Trusting What We Already Know

Somehow, deep within our spirits, nestles the secret fact of God, one we’ve been searching for.

Perhaps the questions of life have plagued us to such an extent, we’re riddled with doubt or frustration with God or fatigue has beset us—it seems too hard, too meaningless, or too tritely bemusing, to continue this search.

God seems never more distant. The more we look, the less we find.

Despite what we might think, these feelings have a viral commonness about them; many people, indeed most, have significant periods where God failed to show up. We are not alone. Our Lord

Could it be we’re making the search more onerous than it needs to be?

Our Lord hides in such a way so as to be found by those who earnestly seek him; he remains hidden to all others.

Trusting what we already know is nothing about the knowledge of God we’ve learned from books or sermons or speeches or the devotional life. As we read Meister Eckhart’s quote again we know God already; the Deep Mystery belongs within us. All the uncertainty, vacancy, hurts for betrayal, jealousies, and confusion (and suchlike) reveal our need of God, and the Lord is there to assuage all these things and more; to help us redeem our moments—those moments only the Creator can give.

All the things that are wrong about us, and life, lead us to God; simply the fact that we are frustrated by what is wrong is the intention of Divine allure. We’re being led by these difficulties toward the solution—a solution none without God can find.

‘Proving GOD’ Is Ridiculous

Anyone setting out on a journey to prove or disprove God is found in themselves a person running away from their very self. They are like a dog deluded by the threat or the game involved in chasing its tail.

We can suppose some will make a sport of proving God—some maliciously, like the atheist on mission, and some benevolently, in evangelistic pursuit of souls for God.

But the ordinary person has no role, unless they would waste their lives, chasing after proof, for or against. They would be better served getting to know their inner selves—for, in that, a most fruitful spiritual search, they will find God. The Lord will prove Divine existence.

No One Makes Life Easier Than GOD

When we ponder the vastness of life outcomes, those deliciously fine to those horrendously broken, and the infinite nuances between—within the mix spoken of above—we find God makes life easier for each one who believes.

There is nothing else known or unknown in this world that does this, and does it, with truthful veracity, with our best interests at heart. Whatever our circumstance, the Lord can make it easier, better, more meaningful and fulfilling.

***

God is near, always. Ready to help, to love, to forgive, to ease our burdens, making sense of life: these are found in a God ever so near as to be within us.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.