Good morning…
“The awareness of my condition moved through me like a wind,” writes Sue Monk Kidd on page 128 of God’s Joyful Surprise. ‘God, I know that You are here even now with Your love,’ I prayed silently. ‘I have been absent, unaware, sleepwalking through Your glorious presence. Please, God, help me learn to be present to You. Teach me, Lord.'”
Sue continues: “It is a fearful awareness that you and I are responsible for the extent we will be present to God. We choose. God has made it that way. His presence is magnanimous, yet He leaves it to us to notice Him or not, to enter His presence and commune with Him on whatever level of intimacy we choose. His desire for communion with human creatures is surpassed only by the enormous freedom He gives us to enter this intimacy with Him.”
God is magnanimous. Noble. Forgiving. Extremely kind. Free from resentfulness. Generous to those less powerful. And God offers us all freedom to notice Him or not, to ignore or to enter into His living presence.
Sue shares a simple, profound story on page 131.
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A group of scholars came to see a religious teacher. The teacher surprised them by asking what seemed obvious. “Where is the dwelling place of God?” They laughed among themselves and replied, “What a thing to ask! Is not the whole world full of his glory?” But the teacher smiled and said, “God dwells wherever people let him in.”
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“I am not present to Him all the time,” Sue admits on page 140, and I am sure we can all relate to her statement. “Yet I do know in those moments when I am that the possibility is there for all of us. We can grow toward it. But we must want it very badly. We must want it with love in our hearts and a lump in our throats, with dance in our feet and steel in our wills.”
Draw near to God and he will draw near to you (James 4:8, RSV).
What might it mean for you to drawn near to God, letting Him in a little bit more today?
…Sue…
