Have you seen God? Heard Him? Felt or experienced His presence? I have tried to focus in recent months on trying to “find” God, to know and love Him more, to be closer to Him. But sometimes, as with many things in life, the harder we try, the more frustrated we become. Often we need to just step back and let whatever we are striving for just happen. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but many years ago when I was unsure of my calling and I used to pray to know God’s Will for me, I’d ask for a sign. Something like, “God, if it’s Your Will that I continue to write Modern Day Bible Stories, or contemporary biblical-based fiction, show me a sign…send a deer across my back lawn.” (Behind our back yard is a forest that stretches for miles…and many deer roam there. But every time I asked, I never saw a deer. In fact, I have lived in this same house for 15 years and have never seen a deer back there, even though my husband and kids have…that is, until a few weeks ago. I wasn’t praying or asking or “trying”…and suddenly I looked up from the kitchen table through the back window and there was a doe just standing smack in the middle of my back yard, staring at me. (As if to say, ‘well, when you least expected it, here I am.’) I grinned and said, “thanks God.”
I think we were all born with a “God-sized hole” in us that can only be filled, of course, by God. No amount of money, or power, or material things, or food, or other substances…or even human affection, approval, intimacy or even love can fill it all of the way. And it can, and probably does, take one’s whole lifetime for God to fill it. How does God do that? And can we seek for Him to fill it? I think we can both find God in seeking Him – through his Word, in meditation, prayer, gratitude, and through human relationships – but also in being open to His miracles and surprises. I felt God’s presence watching my  baby grandson being born this past week, saw Him in my son’s tearful, joyful eyes, heard Him in my grand-daughter’s laugh when I took her swimming later that day, experienced Him in spending time with a friend in need, and in missing my husband who was away on a business trip. I definitely feel Him in church, especially in the sacrament of Holy Communion. And yes, I experience Him even in nature, like seeing the deer on the lawn when I least expected it.
Elijah was looking to find God, feeling bereft that his people had turned away, when he “came to a cave where he took shelter, then the Lord said to him ‘Go outside and stand on the mountain…and the Lord will be passing by’.” (can you imagine what Elijah must have been thinking, feeling, maybe even expecting?) “Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” And it was the Lord speaking to him. (1 Kings 19:9-13)
Sometimes the Lord even comes to us in a gentle whisper…if we’re still enough to listen.
