“Approach each new day with desire to find Me. Before you
get out of bed, I have already been working to prepare the path that will get
you through this day. There are hidden treasures strategically placed along the
way. Some of the treasures are trials, designed to shake you free from
earth-shackles. Others are blessings that reveal My Presence: sunshine,
flowers, birds, friendship, answered prayer. I have not abandoned this
sin-wracked world; I am still richly present in it.
“Search for deep treasure as you go through this day. You
will find Me along the way.” (Jesus
Calling)
I have been finding it difficult to concentrate on God
tonight. After spending all day cleaning, I keep thinking of how much there is
left to do in my house. Parts of movies recently watched replay behind my
eyelids. I mentally write my next blog, the one I intended to post five days
ago. Things don’t slow down, and they certainly don’t stop.
I close my eyes, willing myself to focus on you, wishing the
other images would fade into nothingness. They don’t. Maybe holding my hands
out will help—open so you can take everything I have and I can receive you.
Lists spin through my million-mile-an-hour brain. Frustration.
Listen for me, you
say.
That sound be easy. Nature is quite loud tonight and I
always hear you in nature.
I close my eyes and listen.
There is evidence of
you all around.
Evidence, yes, you
say, but that is not me tonight.
I try to identify individual sounds. The uneven rhythm of
cicadas envelops me.
Are you in the
cicadas?
No.
I try to tune out their hum and focus on another sound.
Surprisingly, even from up on this hill I can hear croaks from the streambed
below.
Are you in the frogs?
No.
The chorus of other insects blend and swirl together, and
above them all (audibly and literally) an airplane passes overhead like a star
broken free and on a mission. It is not beautiful. Man-made swooshes as metal
fights past air is not beautiful.
Surely you are not in
the airplane.
There is no reply, which I take for another no. What other
sounds am I missing? Aunties talking by the home. Cars on the main road.
Insects upon insects upon insects. Faint shouts from across the valley. I lean
back and focus on my breathing.
My breathing.
Two long seconds in, stretched to their breaking point, a
slow curve, and two measures out, relaxing and releasing, even, metered, and
graceful. Over and over again. By the grace of God, over and over again.
That is where you are. Not in the cicadas or the frogs or
the airplane, but in me. In every inhale and exhale. In every blink, every
thought, every forgotten moment. I breathe you in and I breathe you out and
still I think I have to look around to find you.
What a deep treasure it is to have your Spirit in me.
