Only through you being you can God do what God’s got to do

How are you going?  Do you have enough passion?  Or, is it waning right now?  Are you at the point where you just want to give up?  Or, is there a fire in your belly and speed in your legs?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Are you on fire for something?  Has something grabbed you, or do you hold out hope that it will?  Or, has your life fire been extinguished already?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Will you go to your grave satisfied?  Or, will the grave swallow you up, content that you made no difference at all?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

In your going out and coming home, are you doing what God put you on this earth to do?  Or, in your going out and coming home are you just going through the motions of a futility you can’t reconcile?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Are you growing in the direction of God’s will for you?  Or, have you been stagnating for what the good Lord knows is too long already?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Are you completely free of others’ expectations, having no fetters to contain your expression?  Or, are you morbidly afraid of failure, of your words or thoughts or deeds coming to nothing, of people laughing at you, of being insignificant?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Are you using all of your life experiences and gifts and heart to make the difference on this earth that only you can, while you can?  Or are you defeated, thinking your life experiences have pigeonholed you, that you have no gifts, or your heart is no good?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Do you wake up of a morning or an evening with a passion for purpose flowing through your mind?  Or, do you wake and very quickly commiserate or disintegrate?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Have you found the place of solace in forging ahead the path of God’s destiny for you?  Or, are you still languishing in comfortable spaces amid people who are congratulating themselves about being content in doing nothing?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Are you accustomed to life on a rollercoaster or life as a ocean cruise?  Are you thankful for that rollercoaster that builds resilience in you?  Or do you complain in desiring the numbing cruise, when your purpose was the ride those heights and negotiate those dips?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Can you wrestle with aspiring for contentment in a life that seems hardly to make any sense?  Or, are you determined to make sense of everything as you wrangle in a quest for your own fully paid-down version of insanity?  Could it be that life isn’t supposed to make any sense to your and my way of thinking?  Doesn’t acceptance promote empathy?  Doesn’t acceptance reveal wisdom?  Doesn’t acceptance show the depths of character?  Doesn’t acceptance generate peace?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Is it possible that everything that requires fixing is possible only as we believe it is possible?  Or, have you become so jaded that you believe this world is beyond reformation?  Have you ceased to believe?  Or, are you up for a fresh fight that you know your God wants from you?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Are you identifying the many things that you were taught that are wrong, unlearning those unright things, forgiving your teachers, resting in the pedagogical mystery?  Or, are you either stubbornly holding onto the untruths taught to you, or resenting those who placed them there inside you?  Are you experiencing the peace that comes with letting go?  Has freedom’s empowerment come into you that comes only from grasping truth?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Are the people you know, the people who have come into your life for a reason, free to be who they are, whether you like who they are or not?  Or, do you continue to persist in holding them to a standard that isn’t theirs?  Is it the past’s futility that you invest in, or is it the preciousness of future?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Have you managed to look above the present overwhelm in faith, to hold out hope for an answer that may not be there?  Or, have you resigned yourself to the miniscule possibilities that only what you think can happen will happen?  Have you shut God out?  Have you said, “God, you no longer move”?  Or, do you live and breathe knowing that God’s about to do something?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Have you comprehended recently the miracle that you are alive for such a time as this?

Only through you being you
can God do what God’s got to do.

Photo by Abbass Zahreddine on Unsplash

Why it’s good to be real about your mental health

One of the most encouraging things any of us can do for another person is to tell the truth about how we feel.  It gives them permission to tell the truth about how they feel.  It gives us both license to be real within ourselves and with each other.

We love it when we can be our real selves, especially regarding the struggles we have.  It is freedom.  And this applies much more so to the Christian than it does to everyone else, because so many of us have become accustomed to wearing a mask.  How ironic at this COVID-19 time!

Although as Christians we’re commanded and empowered to tell the truth, we’re also more likely to hide our truth, for shame and guilt that perhaps our faith doesn’t work; that we don’t trust God enough.  We are conditioned to present an image that is full of joy, hope and peace.  Christians around us may project that image.  It’s hard to be open when the culture around us can seem to discourage it.  Is it any wonder that people with mental health issues don’t want to go anywhere near a church?

But, we know that depression and other mental illnesses don’t discriminate, and that they’re incredibly complex, and that just as many Christians battle with mental health issues as non-Christians do.  Having depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, or some other condition, doesn’t whatsoever correlate with weak faith.  Indeed, those with mental health challenges may know deep down within themselves that they have a faith strong enough to get through their adversity one day, sometimes a single moment, at a time.

In fact, it takes exceptionally greater faith to keep stepping with the Lord through the dark nights of the soul.  And it’s this faith, if only others knew what we were dealing with, that would inspire others.  If only we have the courage to share how hard it is, we may stand to be encouraged, and we may be a source of encouragement, simply because we have stripped off the mask.  See how brave a person needs to be to tell a truth laced with inconvenience and vulnerability?  But of course we need to know our truth will be accepted, even embraced, and that we won’t face embarrassment or ridicule for it.

It’s good to be real about our depression and anxiety because an unnecessary burden is immediately relieved; we no longer have to carry the arduous weight of a lie!  We no longer need to prop up a perception, carry off a deceit, or project that we have it all together.

When we live openly in the light of the truth — that life is hard, each and every day, or most days — then we stand to be encouraged by others for the courage we’ve shown.  This equips others to employ their courage.

Being honest about where our mental health is helps to inspire others to be honest.  And when two people can be honest with each other, they give each other permission to be real, and there is no greater gift or blessing.  We have a chance to become who we are.

Perhaps the purpose of your depression is to be real about it, by trusting God; there may be a purpose in it for you.  It might help others to their freedom.  Same with your anxiety.

I can tell you I’ve endured depression several times and had my moments and seasons racked with anxiety, and I don’t doubt there will be more in the future.  Isn’t that encouraging?  You and I are not alone.  We don’t need to pretend that we are stronger than we are, because the Bible tells us it’s only when we are weak that we are genuinely strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).  Doesn’t that flip our intelligence on its head?!

We don’t need to resort to the cheapening of our emotions.  Those who truly love us will allow us to be who we actually are, in any and every moment of our lives.

Ultimately, when all is said and done, I recognise that it’s only when we’re with people who will allow us to be who we are that we can let our guard down and be who we are.

And as someone who I respect as has said, be very well aware to discern those who can and should be trusted and trust them.  It is horrendous to have opened up and to have trusted when such a trust is eventually betrayed.  But, as I often say, I would much rather before the sight of God be the betrayed than the unrepentant betrayer. 

Sitting safely in a traumatic moment of déjà vu

Today I had a bizarre experience.  I went for scans on a shoulder, having been so foolish to make a dive in F grade cricket where I landed on my shoulder awkwardly.  The bowling that day didn’t help either, of course, though it was fun at the time.  So I went in for my scan, having had an x-ray beforehand.  The scan was easy enough, and then I was off to a meeting with my pastors’ peer group.  On the way for my son’s school pick up, I could hear my phone ringing.  On arrival at school, I picked it up and dialled 101, to then get a message to call the radiology clinic.

At this point it seemed a bit strange, especially given they wanted me to come back in as soon as I could to have another scan.  I put that off to them having not done the scan properly.  Little did I expect that this follow-up scan would throw me into the land of déjà vu — to see something I’d already seen.

It wasn’t until the sonographer had re-scanned the shoulder and then had departed from the room to get the doctor that I sensed I had been here before.  July 1, 2014, to be exact.

It is hard to put into words just how I felt.  The thing is, when we went to the sonographer on July 1, 2014, we were told to go and then come back.  When we arrived back, we had another scan, and then the sonographer went immediately out to get the doctor.

Today, as the sonographer went out to go see the doctor, I was shunted back to that fateful day when we were told there was something mortally wrong with Nathanael’s scan — heart transposed, diaphragmatic hernia, enlarged kidneys, etc.  It was the commencement of four long months before he was died in labour — stillborn.

While I waited for the sonographer today, I fully foresaw the doctor coming in to give me the worst of news.  I was preparing myself for, “You’ve got cancer,” or something like that.  Now I know some of you will say, “Oh, you’re just being silly,” but the nostalgic feeling was palpable and though I wasn’t panicked in the slightest I couldn’t shake it from my mind.

Why do I even write this?  I guess I just want to put it out there.  Once we’ve experienced a trauma, a very similar circumstance takes us right back there to the memory of it.  I also want to say that the conversation I was having with myself pivoted around, “It feels the same as 2014 but it won’t be the same.”  We need to recognise that situations and circumstances don’t always or even often repeat themselves.  Having my son there for the five minutes the sonographer was gone, I focused on chatting with him and what he’d done at school, even though I was hyperaware of my surroundings, noting the exact minute on the sonographer’s display, the light in the room, the jumper on the bench, even the feeling in my shoulder.  I kept reassuring myself that everything was alright and that, like in 2014 when we received the worst news, I would be able to endure the moment if the worst news was about to be heard.

As it happened, there was no visit from the doctor, and the sonographer just had to check because there was something of an anomaly to reconcile.  All ended well.

We never know what we will arrive out of left field to remind us of something we can never forget.  In those moments, it’s got to be a prayer that we can talk ourselves through it, that we can rationalise it, or at the very least that we can rest on good help if we need to.  And there’s no shame in any of this.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Why people give up

People give up because life is too hard,
because people are too hard,
because too hard is too hard.

People give up because they can’t afford to live,
because they have too much pain,
yes, too much... that isn’t difficult to understand!

People give up because they lose hope,
one too many times; it’s usually after 1000s of times —
giving up doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

People give up because of what people think of them,
and though you may say, “Don’t worry about it!”
you really don’t care to understand.

People give up having tried their best for years,
to establish themselves, to achieve equality, to earn respect,
when these things should be givens, out of love.
Years after stinking years.

People give up because they can’t change their skin colour,
the way they look, feel, what they do and don’t do;
for all sorts of reasons.

People give up not knowing just how much they’re loved,
or for feeling guilty for being loved so much,
in situations where two loves pass like ships in the night.

People give up because they were idealistic enough to believe
they could have an impact in this world,
and, guess what, sad as it’s to say, they perhaps never felt they did.
That is shockingly sad.

People give up for a moment to indefinitely,
an hour, a day, a week, a year,
and sometimes they learn a great deal in their giving up.
Sometimes it’s a waste of time.

People give up because the cost is too much,
the currency is pain, and life feels constantly
like an ongoing crushing disaster.

People give up because people are frail,
you and I, well I don’t know about you,
I certainly am — and I don’t care what that says about me.

People give up because they’re attacked,
and their friends watch on without a word,
and a person feels more alone than who knows what.

People give up.
They do.
Legitimately so.

People give up, again and again,
and though they do,
they pick themselves up again.

People give up and some actually die,
and that’s not a truth anyone can deny.

People give up, and if there’s one thing you can do,
be ready for that time, when you’ll be feeling blue.

If you’re at that point of wondering why,
don’t give up on life and agree to die.

Know that people give up.
Accept that it’s true.
Don’t cast onto them more guilt.
It’s enough to be a friend.

Everyone’s allowed to give up every once in a while.

~

This article is code for, I’m taking a break.

Please take good care of yourself.  You being here is EVERYTHING.

International helplines: https://checkpointorg.com/global/

Photo by George Bakos on Unsplash

Your world needs the real you and you need that too

The thing that stands between where we are and where we want to be is us, ourselves, being transparent and backing our ability to communicate messages about what we think and feel.  Where we exist and are unable to do this, we cannot grow, we can’t thrive, and we will barely survive.  But where we feel safe, where we are not concerned about how we will be received or perceived, is where we need to be in the long term.  In safe places, we have room to grow and heal, to bloom into what we are to become.

In the world that struggles for authenticity, where more and more we may feel silenced or that we are unable to speak, it is all the more important that we speak up.  This is for our own health.  In a recent devotion I was asked to give on mental health (with a pandemic flavour), I felt compelled to share my own struggles through this period, including the story of a couple of really dark days, as a call to the people there to be open and transparent with the people they trust.

It’s never easy to be totally honest when it comes to our worst mental health days, because it involves tremendous vulnerability, because we wonder if it will shape people’s perceptions of us.  It usually does, but not in bad ways.  Notice as you look around your room where you are being honest, and you can see people are looking into themselves.  In such moments, where we open up in safe spaces, people are not so much focused on us and our story; they are taking our story into themselves.  It may look like they are having a deer-in-headlights moment, but in that moment, they are meeting themselves, and it is transformative for them.

Our worlds need us to be who we are, transparent and open, presuming we are in a safe place, because when we are transparent and open, others are emboldened to be transparent and open.  As we are courageous, we give others the license to be courageous.  As we are open and transparent about our journey, we open up space for others to share into.  Not only do we, ourselves, prosper in being open and transparent, so we are heard, we give others permission to open up and be transparent with us, so they are heard.  Just about nothing else is required for healing.  Indeed, much of therapy is involved in being completely honest in a safe space, which presumes acceptance and care couched in wisdom and discernment.

A key reason our world needs us to be transparent and open is our world is made safer that way.  As we are transparent and open, we say to our world, “you can be too.”  The world is crying out for space to communicate what really needs to be said.  None of this is a threat to anyone.  Nobody ought to feel threatened about someone else’s honesty, about somebody else saying how they feel, and explaining the personal impact of things.  If only we had a world that allowed everyone to share honestly, where everyone could be honest, where everyone was honest.  Of course, not everyone wants to be honest, and for many it works against their aims for they prefer to be dishonest.  But for those who desire to live in freedom, who desire a safe and beautiful world, it begins with us being able to communicate.  As we communicate in truth, we create a culture where others wish to communicate, too.  And collectively we are all better for it.

Photo by Andrew Robert Lauko on Unsplash

Your depression is a normal response to what you’ve suffered

Sometimes what makes most sense is actually true.  Isn’t it amazing the trust we put in the smartest and wisest professionals, yet we are more supremely confident in them when they say what we always felt made sense?  This article is about that.

As professionals or as pastors, we can count up our years of learning at university, college or seminary level (and for some of us that can be a 20+ year process), and we can look at our degrees and diplomas, and then at the end come to conclusions that marry up with what we always thought would have made sense in the beginning.  Yet it is so comforting to know that we looked at our knowledge in a scientific way, in the research we did over many years, all the books and articles we read, all the debates we had, together with our years of practical experience working with people, and in observing life, to have God prove to us a logic that cannot be refuted.  It was as it has always been.  And yet we know it is a deep truth because of all that we have learned.

Here is an astoundingly simple idea.  Isn’t it ironic that it takes us professionals to come full circle to agree with what God would’ve said in the first place?  This isn’t putting any of us down, because we really did need to make sure that what we thought made sense was actually true.  And it so often is.

Our depression is a normal response to the losses we’ve suffered.  Indeed, the exact amount of depression we suffer is commensurate with what we have lost and how that impacted us personally as far as we’re a unique and worthy person.  The trauma we have experienced amid life has had an equivalent impact on our mental health.  Is it any wonder that we suffer what and how we do?  We suffer what another person would suffer if they had experienced what we had.

At some point we need to get beyond treating the symptoms of our conditions and dig deeper in exploring the causes.  The symptoms are about what we are doing wrong, yet the causes are about what was done wrong to us.  The causes are about seeing ourselves within the bigger picture of all of what needs to be considered.  In reversing the focus, in looking at the causes, we get to see ourselves within the system of life, and within the systems that have impacted upon us, so we can see what we are responsible for, and what we are not responsible for.  For the things we’re not responsible for we can then forgive, and that is its own very redemptive journey to embark upon.

It is far easier to heal if we can see the whole picture, including seeing how if we put another person in our place that they would probably respond the same way we have.  We would look at their response and say it was normal, so why do we feel so guilty and ashamed, or weaker than we feel comfortable being, for responding the way that we have?  The most important factor in redeeming our healing is being able to see apart from ourselves, in order that we may have empathy for ourselves, by extending to ourselves the empathy we would give our friend if they were suffering.

Even though it is not unusual that we judge others harsher than we judge ourselves, especially in conflict where there’s a difference in opinions, it’s usually the opposite in terms of our mental health a lot of the time.  When someone else says they’re teary and they just can’t shake it, we feel sorry for them and we’ll encourage them and/or pray for them.  But then when it’s our turn to be depressed, we can feel we’re a burden to others, or we feel we’re sad for nothing, or that we’re making more of this than it should be, or that we should be grateful, or that we shouldn’t be feeling that way, or that this is too much and too hard.

But what we’re feeling is normal for what we are experiencing.  A big part of healing is coming to a place where we stop being so critical of ourselves.  And when we stop criticising ourselves, we stop criticising others.  What we extend to ourselves in terms of grace we’re able to extend to others.

We never need to feel guilty or ashamed for the depression we experience.  It is a normal response to what we have suffered.  Just knowing that helps us heal.

Photo by Halie West on Unsplash

You are the whole world to those who cannot afford to lose you

**TRIGGER WARNING**               This post is about suicide.

This is not an uncommon experience for me as a counsellor.  Obviously, I receive people into my care who are usually at their lowest ebb.  Nobody likes to admit they need to talk to a counsellor.  Few people will willingly engage with a counsellor for extended period, not only because of expense, because it is difficult work.  So this scenario I will paint here is something I’ve come to expect.  I’m glad it is also something that I have personally experienced, because it puts me in a place of empathy I otherwise may not have.

“I just don’t know whether it’s worth it to stick around.”  “When I get to that point....”  “I just don’t know if they need me.”  “I feel like an absolute failure.”  “What if I’m getting it completely wrong and just stuffing them up?”  These statements and more are common.

These statements are predicated on such care that prove the existence of a love just about nobody else will give.  Think of the odds of a loving father or mother being able to be replaced.  It’s just not going to happen.  Not by far!

During a session some time ago, I pondered with a father of young children the scenario we had both faced, and it was a salient moment.  A minute or two of silence as a full gravity of the moment was felt.  I have come to realise as I have reflected, together with experience I’ve had having known partners and older parents and siblings and friends who have been left behind, that the worst destruction occurs within the children left behind.  These are very hard things to say let alone write, because the last thing I want to do is to make anyone feel guilty, or to cause anyone to feel distress for how their circumstances have played out.  But there is an undeniable fact in the loss of a parent, particularly to suicide.  For children left behind, it is a devastating impact, but not just that, it is devastating over a lifetime.

As a father who has seriously contemplated his own value as a life to be lived on this earth, I get it.  I understand what drives us to sincerely question our existence.  It’s at these times that we lose our comprehension of how crucially important we are in remaining alive, in going the journey, in holding out hope, however painful the process of life may be.  If there is only one purpose we have in being here it is in being here for them.  Once we are gone, there is no coming back, and there is a missing out on thousands of experiences that without us fall flat.  And not just that, they don’t just fall flat.  These experiences take on a completely different meaning, every single one of them, and they are railroaded by one experience that young people so often cannot get past.

I don’t know how much plainer I can make it.  And I don’t know if this does any good.  But from one parent who has felt like a failure to another, I implore you to stick around.  Every single time you are dogged by emotions that are overwhelming, by thoughts that are confounding, by pain that is unrelenting, make yourself a promise now, before the next time, to pick up the phone and to call someone you trust, and if that person isn’t there, to keep on calling until you get the assistance you need.

The world cannot afford to lose you, let alone to those for whom you are the whole world.  You are never failing if you always want what is best for your children.  You, present in their lives, is the best thing for your children.

Here is a handy link to international emergency contact numbers.

Photo by Dominik Scythe on Unsplash

There’s no greed in the need to be seen

Lemn Sissay.  You probably haven’t heard of him, or maybe you have.  Hearing his story not only resonated with an unknown passion in my heart, it reverberated within the unquestioned nodules of my soul.  So anti-racist as to be racist, I had no idea, and yet what is buried deep within me, that which is intrinsically part of me, is a prejudice that I can only acknowledge.  We all have them.  And the only solution is to be honest, to face them, to admit that they exist, and then repent of them, for we cannot recant them.

Deep in the history of the life of Lemn Sissay (chancellor of the University of Manchester) lay the ruins of a rejected humanity.  And yet there, within the boy, as a child of the state, materialised a man who became a prophet for these times.  A boy who was ‘rescued’ by civilised white church English folk, who was then rejected by these same people — his only known family — who were not so much kind, as “kind of kind,” losing everything and being cast into a boy’s home as a 12-year-old.

Sissay’s story is the ultimate caricature of bigoted scapegoating.  The voice of institutional racism and abuse shines a light on the prejudices that a patriarchal, colonial society carry.  Oh, I know that it’s not a good idea to mention concepts like patriarchy or colonialism, but they’re the sins of the institution of our time.  This truth is sure:

the worst -isms are predicated on pretending to be holy
the most ‘pious’ of people are also typically the most predatory

How many swoon to the overtures of culture, where structures and institutions are worshipped, where Christ is nowhere to be found?  How many of us have ‘thrived’ in the cultures that have swallowed us into themselves by our accommodating of myriad compromise?  How many of us have had to ignore the wrong that goes on, just to keep the peace and to keep our place secure in the subcultures that have given us conditional abode?  It is a tyranny that all are subject to, and the very presence of this wickedness heralds all the more the need of Jesus of Nazareth.

The problem with this kind of society is what it does to the least of these.  Those who are not seen would be the first ones that Jesus would see as standing out from the crowd.  This Jesus of our salvation beckons to these to come close, and to hear his voice, as he may say, “There is no greed in the need to be seen.”

Indeed, every human being needs to be seen, to be noticed, to be cherished, to be held, and to be heard.  If every human being was to be established in such embrace, the love of Christ adorned and personal, there would be no brokenness, no violence, no rejection of God.  “Perfect redemption, the purchase of blood.”  As it is to be with us.

Everyone has a need of expression, just as everyone needs to be met at a gate called acceptance.  It is unfortunate that we often need to be affirmed by others in order to feel accepted, when the truth in all reality is, we are accepted by God already.  Having bypassed God, because we are met by the most broken versions of God’s image, of course we will feel that we are less than we are.

Isn’t it strange and indeed bizarre at the extreme that those who most pretend to have everything together are the most broken of all, because they’re deluded enough to think they do not need God?  So many of these are good churchly people, who feel God is so blessed to have them offer what they’ve got.  People who couldn’t be more wrong.  They turn God’s gift back on God imagining God wouldn’t be the same without them.

Every single one of us struggles in having never quite anticipated the truth of who we actually are.  We are a chosen people, and none are excluded.  Of course, again, I do not want you to miss this, that there are sects of faith in all matters of expression who have acted as if they are exclusively arranged as divine.  These could not be further from God.  The classic irony is that those who treat others with even the slightest disdain — and disdain with the best, most superior intent — are themselves disdained by God.  That’s your Christian snob.  The one who cannot know Christ.

There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God, whether you reject God or not, whether you feel utterly unworthy or not, whether you feel this discussion is discussable or not.  There is nothing we can change about how God feels about us in our mortal bodies, with minds and hearts created in his image, yet fallen by actuality, and by innate prejudice so needy of Jesus.  All who call on this Christ by name, truly, will be transformed in his kindness.  Their fruit will be kindness, with no credit to themselves.

There is a need to abide to the truth.  Every one of us must necessarily live according to reality, and when that reality is wrong, when there is nothing good about it, it needs to be discussed just as much as it would if everything was good about it.  Silence is anathema.  And those who silence the least of these will surely endure most punishment.

There is no greed in the need to be seen, and to be seen is to be heard, and to be heard is to be graced with the opportunity to use one’s voice.  There is no purpose in silence in the kingdom of God, because silencing voices comes from the enemy.  In using our voices, and having people turn toward us and notice us, and in their listening to us, we are known.

There is no greed in the need to be seen.  Greed exists, however, in denying a person their need to be seen.  There is no kindness in that, but God’s judgement.

Photo by Paul Gilmore on Unsplash

The dark night when strength ends and God begins

We ultimately come face-to-face with opportunities in life where we intensely desire to more fully and completely understand hard realities; those things that happen against us, that cause us an enormous amount of pain, and indeed change the passage of our lives.  These excruciating experiences, the event and our recovery, transform us, and in many ways, we wonder the purpose in such transformations.

We look to God in the heavens, imagining that only this Lord of life knows.  Sometimes we wonder if God does know.  If God knew, and because God loves us, surely the Lord of our lives would give us some appreciative aspect with which to view the confounding mystery.

And yet we wait.  There is, of course, no limit to our prayers.  There is no limit to our asking wiser and knowledgeable others. There is no limit to the books we read.  We scour the face of the earth for a knowledge that escapes us at the time.  There is almost nothing we wouldn’t do to know the purpose of why these things happened, or more poignantly, where it is taking us.

Then we come across writings.  Perhaps it’s the mystics.  Certainly, Saint John of the Cross, among many others, indeed the mystics share this cherished tradition of lamenting and praising within the mysteries of life.

“In the dark night of the soul,
bright flows the river of God.”

Therein lies the secret of I’m sure the reason God draws us into the deep and dark and cavernous realities of life.  It was true of my own life.  Not until there was nothing left did God become real.  Oh, how deeply lost I was.  Cast into an oblivion that felt like it had no purpose at all but to crush me. There, deep in the crushing, “despairing of life itself” as the apostle Paul puts it, I came to acknowledge that my power had run out, that my way was no longer working, that all seemed futile.

There, amid the end of all things from an existential viewpoint, I stood in the valley of decision; to throw my life away or to run hard after God; to drown myself in sorrow and anguish or to hold out hope for another way; to decide something that had no return or to decide to do something concretely good.

It was a decision in prayer with God.  “I will take You on your word, Lord,” I said, “just please don’t fail me...” The fact is, deep in that dark night, with no sign of God present and active, we seriously doubt God’s omniscience and omnipotence and omnipresence.  We quickly forget, and yet perhaps we are in this place where we have never known.  That’s really where I was.

It’s not until we have really committed ourselves to God that God really shows up.  God knows that our faith is just a decision away, and this isn’t just about the initial point of faith, because faith is required every day, at all times.

The more we step forth each day in faith, the more God shows up.  This is not the truth of it, because there is more, but that’s how it appears.

As we press into this hard dark night experience, not knowing why, or how long it will last, we can decide in a moment’s inspired thinking in humility, to let go of our ideas and our strength, and to take one step forth in faith.

One decision, and we may meet God there as God joins us.  Only later, however, do we see that God didn’t join us, actually, we joined God.  Only afterward do we see this.

We do not choose God.  God chose us.

We only see God move when we expect God to move, that is, in the purity of faith.  This is how faith works.  This isn’t just a knowledge for newbies.  We can be in the faith for decades and still need to learn this.  We easily get to a place where we stop expecting God to move, and lo and behold God stops moving.  Moving forward is about acknowledging a basic thing; God moves when we expect God to move, when we are looking for God to move.  The key question, then, is always, “Where is God moving, and what is God doing, here, right now?”  The more keenly we watch, the more we will see, and the more we will see, the more we will believe.

Photo by Sam Manns on Unsplash