“And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
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Ending my previous post with those words from John’s gospel (14:23) has given rise to a gradual reawakening; something to which I am becoming accustomed as I more fully accept my slowness of thought and my inability to see and understand what is frequently right in front of me. The smallest of shifts in perception can sometimes bring food for thought or insight beyond all possible expectation, and such a shift can numb our day-to-day awareness while we linger in the need to ask and seek answers to questions that are very real but remain for the most part unformulated.
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Over the last few days my consciousness of a long-running uncertainty has increased. An intimation regarding my apparent ability to stand motionless in the middle of nowhere while believing I am on the right path and “pressing on” to the end, has brought old doubts to mind once more. Aspects of my tendency to hold back, to linger in the background, to wait and see, have surfaced again, but any discomfort resulting from lack of achievement and what feels like the wasting of valuable time, has been balanced by an undiminished reassurance derived from the still persisting belief that my waiting is in obedience to my Lord’s specific will for me. It is a conviction that has fed and sustained me for years, but the doubts wandering through my accustomed stability at times such as this, spread unease through previously unruffled regions of thought. The mind thus stirred rouses emotion in the heart, and such emotion bares the soul to whispers, both healing and destructive.
This is not a predisposition, and it is neither desire nor vague inclination (whether temptation or mere curiosity). Its beginnings were buried in the unsuspected development of friendship during the only time I have ever fully acknowledged and admitted a need for support from others. That support was provided in ways that seemed effortless and made available without any conscious decision from the providers. It simply came, as it were, as part of the package God had prepared for me, and it lasted only as long as He willed. My own feelings at the time included what I experienced as a great need for its continuance but the support was withdrawn at the very time I felt most in need of it. Once gone, the active friendship and fellowship also slipped away until, with my return to a more solitary existence, contact was almost completely lost.
“And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
What a wonderful statement that is. What a phenomenal idea, and what an awesome possibility.
Why would I have wished for a continuation of that newly discovered form of human friendship when the unquenchable companionship of Jesus, the undeniable guidance of the Spirit of God, and the unfathomable creative and parental love of God were already mine, and residing within me? The answer to that question is quite simply because I could only become aware of the living presence within me through the attraction felt for Christ dwelling within those with whom I came into meaningful contact. The process began with God’s provision of the right persons in the right places at the right times, and the person most needed to be present at the right time and place was myself. It seems that He had every eventuality covered, and looking back to the sequence of events over the early stages of my experience, it is impossible for me to accept that I would have remained in place without my guided responses to His direction and the prearranged provision that awaited me.
Without those persons and the particular words spoken at crucial times, I would not be writing here today; no doubt I would still love solitude and quiet, but perhaps I would never have become aware of the truth in those words, “And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
It is awareness of that truth which feeds the longing and the wonder that hold me at the very edge of things: at the edge of my faith, the edge of my understanding, and at the extreme limits of my meagre capabilities, confidence, and courage. It is that same awareness which constantly tells me not to yearn for the closeness of friendship found when my faith was first brought to life, but to look beyond those who still attract my attention, partly through the memory of past experiences with them and partly through the lingering sense that those same people still have an important part to play in my spiritual journey. I have been blessed with all that I need: God’s grace is indeed enough for me in any situation, and I am called to leave all such attachments behind, focussing instead on the fringes of my comfort zone; to search the distant horizon.
Over the last few days my consciousness of a long-running uncertainty has increased. An intimation regarding my apparent ability to stand motionless in the middle of nowhere while believing I am on the right path and “pressing on” to the end, has brought old doubts to mind once more. Aspects of my tendency to hold back, to linger in the background, to wait and see, have surfaced again, but any discomfort resulting from lack of achievement and what feels like the wasting of valuable time, has been balanced by an undiminished reassurance derived from the still persisting belief that my waiting is in obedience to my Lord’s specific will for me. It is a conviction that has fed and sustained me for years, but the doubts wandering through my accustomed stability at times such as this, spread unease through previously unruffled regions of thought. The mind thus stirred rouses emotion in the heart, and such emotion bares the soul to whispers, both healing and destructive.
This is not a predisposition, and it is neither desire nor vague inclination (whether temptation or mere curiosity). Its beginnings were buried in the unsuspected development of friendship during the only time I have ever fully acknowledged and admitted a need for support from others. That support was provided in ways that seemed effortless and made available without any conscious decision from the providers. It simply came, as it were, as part of the package God had prepared for me, and it lasted only as long as He willed. My own feelings at the time included what I experienced as a great need for its continuance but the support was withdrawn at the very time I felt most in need of it. Once gone, the active friendship and fellowship also slipped away until, with my return to a more solitary existence, contact was almost completely lost.
“And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
What a wonderful statement that is. What a phenomenal idea, and what an awesome possibility.
Why would I have wished for a continuation of that newly discovered form of human friendship when the unquenchable companionship of Jesus, the undeniable guidance of the Spirit of God, and the unfathomable creative and parental love of God were already mine, and residing within me? The answer to that question is quite simply because I could only become aware of the living presence within me through the attraction felt for Christ dwelling within those with whom I came into meaningful contact. The process began with God’s provision of the right persons in the right places at the right times, and the person most needed to be present at the right time and place was myself. It seems that He had every eventuality covered, and looking back to the sequence of events over the early stages of my experience, it is impossible for me to accept that I would have remained in place without my guided responses to His direction and the prearranged provision that awaited me.
Without those persons and the particular words spoken at crucial times, I would not be writing here today; no doubt I would still love solitude and quiet, but perhaps I would never have become aware of the truth in those words, “And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
It is awareness of that truth which feeds the longing and the wonder that hold me at the very edge of things: at the edge of my faith, the edge of my understanding, and at the extreme limits of my meagre capabilities, confidence, and courage. It is that same awareness which constantly tells me not to yearn for the closeness of friendship found when my faith was first brought to life, but to look beyond those who still attract my attention, partly through the memory of past experiences with them and partly through the lingering sense that those same people still have an important part to play in my spiritual journey. I have been blessed with all that I need: God’s grace is indeed enough for me in any situation, and I am called to leave all such attachments behind, focussing instead on the fringes of my comfort zone; to search the distant horizon.
Christ’s Church is not confined within any man-made or visible boundaries; it reaches to the farthest point at which there is someone daring to whisper, “God ... are you there?”
The Father constantly searches the horizon, not only for the returning son – 'While he was still a long way off, his father saw him ...’ (Luke 15:20) – but for every man, woman and child with the faintest glimmer of light and hope in their heart. That glimmer is the undying ember of the ‘first light’ with which we were all born: the spiritual homing-device which links us with our Creator and our ultimate destiny, even when we give Him barely a passing thought.
Our focussing on the possibility, and then on the reality of God’s existence and His presence in our lives, is more than an awakening; it is our coming home to Him as adopted sons and daughters. It enables Him to come home to us, and His coming – His dwelling within us – brings us into the fullness of life as human beings; set apart from the rest of creation, though part of it, and born of the processes that will lead inexorably to the completion of God’s plan for mankind.
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