Return to the Quiet

Sometimes life seems overwhelming.

How do I get back to the center when there is so much swirling and confusion inside me? Demands on time, expectations, emergencies, who needs sleep?

I snuck away to my church office tonight and in blissful solitude listened to some spiritual music CDs while I did some straightening and organizing that required no intensive thought.

In the process, God has returned me to the Quiet.

This is the place where I am loved and experience it, where I am reassured and believe it, where I am serene and safe and embraced in timeless rest.

I'm not sure when the transition happened from feeling overwhelmed to feeling received. I didn't notice it. I only realized my neediness was gone, evaporated like a shallow icy puddle on a warm spring day. I just know I have been received by God into the Quiet; restored, renewed, and relaxed.

Now I'm ready to go home and sleep. God is so good.

Blessings,
David

You Can Do This.

The earth is an interesting place, with its deserts, mountains, valleys, and so on. Likewise our lives, with their deserts, mountains, valleys and so on!

Sometimes uphill seems like a long journey; sometimes downhill is scary as speed picks up. No matter what your personal topography looks like at this moment, God is with you.

God does not do things to us; God goes through things with us. God is not afraid of our challenges. Isaiah 53:3 describes the prophesied Messiah in this way: "He was despised and rejected; a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care."

If I have to deal with rejections, mistreatment, isolation and grief from time to time, I'm grateful that these qualities were not absent from the Messiah but actually integral to the Messiah.

I am convinced God understands us and never abandons us, no matter how the conditions may appear. Romans 8:39a reminds us that "neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God."

Whatever the path looks like, God is with you. Keep walking in love with love toward love, because you can do this, and you never have to do it alone.

Blessings,
David

Be Still, and Know that I Am God (Psalm 46:10)

Outside my window:
still life.

The walnut tree stands,
branches unmoving,
sunlight on its leaves.

Stillness?

Somewhere within it,
photosynthesis is happening.
Life is coursing through it,
renewing it,
repairing it,
inching it closer
to the very sun that feeds it.

Inside my room:
still life.

I sit praying,
unmoving,
letting light shine within.

Stillness?

Somewhere within me,
rebirth is happening.
Love is coursing through me,
renewing me,
repairing me,
freeing me to become
the very love that feeds me.




Blessings,
David