Wildly Insistent: God’s Abundant Presence in our Lives
We are surrounded by lies.
No matter who we are, nearly everyone has a whispering voice in their ear, like a theme and variations on the first lie ever told. “Did God really say you couldn’t eat from the tree?” the Liar asked the unsuspecting couple. Prowling around the streets of our heart, he isn’t very creative, but, to his credit, he is consistent, crafty and convincing. And as much as we hate to admit it, his strategy works.
This sticky lie of scarcity, the lie from which all others spawn, takes three forms: God is not enough. I am not enough. I am not doing enough.
Nearly every day at least one of those three tangles itself around me, trips up my feet as I try to move forward in the way of Jesus, binds my hands as I try to write, squeezes the life out of my heart and lungs as I try to listen to the still, small voice of God. The lies are thunderous most days; I clench my jaw tight and my fists even tighter around what few things I have, unwilling to open my hands and let all I am holding onto slip away. Unwilling to let God have everything, and unable to receive the abundant life God seeks to live with me.
But time and again, as I panic under the implications of the lies, God’s answer is never a spoken retort, nor a shaming diatribe, nor a 10-step self-help book about changing my beliefs. Rather, underneath the yelling, horrid, unkind words on a loop in my brain, in the quiet way of our Maker, God slips in through the cracks in the stone wall of my heart.
In the same way that the Spirit filled a young girl all those thousands of years ago, in the same way that the Spirit hovered over the waters of an unformed sea, in the same way that the Spirit came into the body of a dead man and brought him to life again, so our bodies–through the tremendous mercy of God–have the same capacity to hold that Spirit. God answers the plague of lies by God’s own abundant presence pouring inside us.
In Psalm 104, the Psalmist writes,
“All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you
open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.”
Friends, where is God's hand opening towards you? What might happen if we were honest with our fears, and perhaps more terrifying still, honest with our hopes? If we knew God listened and actively held us like a mother holds her child? What might happen if we considered what that holy satisfaction feels like in our bodies, and if we remembered God's quiet faithfulness and the way He filled us up once (or perhaps, many times) before? How often do we, distracted and worried, walk past those good things God is lavishing on us, forgetting to gather them up?
Immanuel, God with Us, remains, even (especially) in the unformed parts of us that are distracted by the lies of scarcity that turn our hearts to stone. God does not run away from these places–rather, God draws in close, softens our edges, walks with us in the cool of the day, asks us questions, and whispers the truth of our identity in the face of despair through God’s very nearness. “You are my beloved child,” we hear, “in whom I am well pleased, before you did anything at all.”
Our God, who lives in our bodies, is wildly insistent on nearness to us, even when anxiety, tragedy and rage cloud the eyes of our heart. When we are feeling alone, abandoned, and empty, may we consider the truth and hope of our belovedness in active remembrance of the way we can depend on our Creator. God will give us what we truly need when we need it: God’s own still, small presence.
Scripture for Meditation:
“All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you
open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.”
—Psalm 104:27-28 (ESV)
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
1. Where do you see God's hand opening towards you? What has it looked like before?
2. What does true, abundant satisfaction feel like in your body?
3. What hopes and fears do you want to share with God today?
4. What parts of creation is God using to remind you of God's promises to you, as God lavishes us with good things? What might it look like to gather those up?
