In the spring and summer, I curse them and nuke them, but this week I admired their tenacity. I was running along on a cold sunny morning, turned a corner onto a patch of grass and was struck by a single happy face looking up at me. Seeing the yellow spot of joy against the frosty green, I had to smile at the dandelion’s humble courage and perseverance.
The little spot of joy seemed undaunted by its current difficult season of life. Oblivious to all the frosty reasons for dormancy, it kept its face fully set upon the glory of the sun and saw nothing else. Regardless of its circumstances, it shone as if reflecting the very orb of the sun.
I recently finished reading a book on the life of Lilias Trotter,
artist and missionary to North Africa from 1888 until her death in 1928. She
wrote of a day in a wood and reflected upon a “single bright spot shining as a
great golden star. It was just a dandelion, and half-withered – but it was full
face to the sun, and had caught into its heart all the glory it could hold… There
is an ocean of grace and love and power lying all around us…and it is ready to transfigure
us, as the sunshine transfigured the dandelion, and on the same condition –
that we stand full face to God. Turn full your soul’s vision to Jesus, and look
and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from
Him. For He is worthy to have all there is to be had in the heart that He has
died to win.”[1] Helen
Limmel was so inspired by Lilias’ challenge to “turn full your soul’s vision to
Jesus, and look and look at Him,” that she wrote the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon
Jesus.”
He is worthy to have all there is to be had in this heart that
He died to win. And He will give it all the glory it can hold if I look and
look and keep looking full face at Jesus.
[1] Rockness,
Miriam Huffman. (2003). A Passion for the Impossible, The Life of Lilias
Trotter. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Discovery House Publishers.
A few weeks ago, God gave me an amazing gift of a weekend in the Sonoran Desert. The desert is unique in its simplicity and stillness. The sense of rest and thirstiness that permeates the arid land seeps into the lingering soul.
Sonoran Desert, Tucson, Arizona
For the past three months, God has pressed me with this one
thing – to be still before Him and wait patiently for Him (Psalm 37:7). So, I
have been holding my soul quietly open to God and waiting on Him. It has been both
a season of relinquishment and of soul expansion. The desert is a place of
both.
Its expansiveness and silent power create a sense of
smallness and marvel in the heart. It gives an interesting sense of peace and
freedom. When I come to realize that I’m surrounded by Someone so much greater
than myself and my circumstances, it’s gives a sense of peace and freedom
knowing He’s in control.
Because of its intensity, the desert is also a place where shadows are sought for relief and protection. I was told by a local desert dweller to walk in the shade (my Oregonian soul was meandering about in the full sun). Resting in the shadow of the Almighty has taken on new meaning.
Saguaros of the Sonoran, Tucson, Arizona
The iconic saguaros – the silent sentinels of the Sonoran –
seem to wait in quiet expectation with arms uplifted. Interesting side note – a
saguaro doesn’t start growing arms until about 75 years old. The young ones
stand as an arrow pointing heavenward, while the old ones have grown more ways
to do so. In desert years, I’m still young. But even if I have little buds or
no arms at all yet, I’m lifting them up on the inside!
God has been gradually drawing me into arid nothingness to show me His oasis of abundant life, genuine joy and soul rest. I’m coming to realize more fully that I can do nothing, and from that place He can and will do everything. Indeed, He is everything and so my soul waits in silence for God alone. If one doesn’t enter the desert with humility, one certainly leaves with it.
Some of you know that I’ve been retired for two months and
have been wondering what I’ve been up to. Well, some art, some grandchildren
and a lot of silence.
Over the past 12 months, God has erased three significant responsibilities from the white board of my life and brought me into a season of stillness and solitude – a blank space, so to speak. I was surrounded by people to help, problems to solve, answers to give, meetings to run to, places to go, projects and deadlines. Then I woke up July 1 and, poof, I was nobody and didn’t need to be anywhere. At week three, I felt a downshift and slowing on the inside. It’s very disorienting and redefining but gloriously freeing. And it’s an odd mix of grieving losses with joyous anticipation.
A dear friend recently reminded me of a quote from Oswald
Chambers: When God gives you a blank space, don’t fill it in. So, I have
been doing a lot of listening and contemplation and leaving the blank space
blank.
Yesterday as I read from II Corinthians 3, verse 18 jumped off the page and grabbed me: And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
David Benner wrote, “Contemplation is a way of opening our self to the ineffable – to something that is beyond us and upon which we gaze with awe.” He described it as “leaning toward God in faith with longing, openness and love.”[1] This contemplative quiet and openness to the ineffable has been transforming. God has brought me into a deeper knowing of Him. But, to my surprise, the path also wound through hidden places of my own soul.
I sought an encounter with God, but I first encountered the unwhole
parts of me hiding in the shadows. Yet it was the encounter with my unwholeness
that revealed how truly wide and long and high and deep is His love for me. He gently
embraces me just as I am in my weakness and insecurity, and loves me too much
to leave me there. His unconditional compassionate love for all of me is
absolutely staggering.
In the contemplative quiet, He transforms me from the inside out to look and think and live more and more like Christ. So, I wait in the blank space and listen and gaze with awe upon the Eternal Majesty. In His perfect timing, He will show me the next step.
When God gives you a blank space in your day, your week or your life, you might want to resist the temptation to fill it in.
[1]
Benner, D. G. (2010). Opening to God, Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer.
Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press.
Last week, I was struck by two statements in Isaiah 65:1-2.
“To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’ All
day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people….”
The vision of God calling and reaching out to people who disregard Him struck me deeply. Many times, I have disregarded God in the craziness and chaos of living life and distanced myself from Him. All the while, He says…Here am I, here am I. He repeats it to grab my attention and underscore His intent. All day long He stretches out toward me longing for me to reach back. It’s overwhelming and completely undoing that Yahweh, the Eternal Majesty, continually reaches for my self-centered preoccupied soul.
God is the silent footfall at my side leaving invisible
tracks of glittering glory winding through the reality of my messy days. He
does not pursue me for anything in me, but what lies in the core of Him. We are
an undeserving obstinate people, that God deeply loves and gave His life to redeem.
His open hands are an open door to a deeper dimension of knowing Him. I cannot
get my mind around why the transcendent God would open Himself to a personal encounter
with me.
When I seek Him and when I don’t, when I cry for help and
when I’m self-sufficient, all day long He holds out His hands to me. Catch
that? All day long He is reaching for you. Right now, before you read
further, pause with that picture. Envision the open hands of God before you. Sit
with it. Ponder it.
He is reaching through all of my life whether I see Him or not. He says, “Here am I” in the unfolding Spring bud. In the dropping Autumn leaf, “Here am I.” In the first beat of a new heart and the stilling of another, “Here am I.” In the colors of dawn and in the deepest darkness of night, “Here am I.” When surrounded by a never-ending stream of issues and people and when alone in the silence of myself, “Here am I.” Here am I in your mess. Here am I in your joy. Here am I when you face challenges and struggles. I am named “God with you.” Name Me in your peace and in your turmoil. Name Me at the insurmountable and impossible. When the way ahead is unclear, here am I, I AM with you. See Me.
There’s a phrase from the movie Avatar that has found its
way into my soul and into my dialog with God: I see you. It means, I see
your love. I see your heart and soul for me and you mean everything to me.
Every moment holds the possibility of a personal, intimate
encounter with the transcendent God. This is the sum and whole of the journey –
to respond to His loving invitation and be filled with the fullness of His life.
My part is to turn toward Him in trusting openness throughout my day, and say,
“I see You.”
Why does He so persistently reach for me? What does He want? Does He want me to spend more time reading scripture, volunteering at church, taking up a cause, giving more money, helping people, surrendering my time and talents to Him, etc., etc.? I used to think so. Those doings are outcomes but they are not what God is so intentionally and passionately pursuing. Maybe He’s opening His hands to take my fears, my worries, my struggles and my pain so that I can rest in His sweet embrace and simply be with Him. His whisper of “Here am I” is His reach of tender compassion. He wants me see Him and sink into His love. He will do the rest as it most pleases Him.
The creation of a living being hidden in secret is as mysterious as it is miraculous. And we go on our way oblivious to the miracle.
Recently, I came across a video capturing the embryonic
development of the Alpine Newt from a single cell to a juvenile. Photographer
and filmmaker Jan van IJken captured the four week process condensing it down
to six minutes of “otherworldly beauty.” Watch it here: The
Science of Becoming
The single cell quickly cleaves into two cells, then splits
into four, then eight, and soon the exponential growth of cells is untrackable.
At one minute into the video, the embryo tucks into itself forming the gut. At the
1:45 mark, the nervous system begins taking shape.
At about 2:20 minutes, something even more amazing and miraculous appears in the growing embryo. Cells migrate, seemingly willy-nilly, across the surface. National Geographic author, Jason Bittel wrote, “Each is taking cues from the genetic blueprints within it as well as signals from surrounding cells to determine what sort of tissue it will become.” Clearly, each of the thousands of individual cells is being directed by the Creative Hand to its assigned place and the fulfillment of its purpose. It looks as though each is moving in rhythm with the Maestro.
By minute four, a beating heart and circulatory system come
into mesmerizing focus. Red blood cells are coursing single file through
feathery gills and tiny toes.
You and I started exactly the same way – one cell divided into two and life and growth began. Soon millions of cells began dancing to an unheard rhythm. Each directed by the Maestro in a great symphony of movement to its assigned place to fulfill its purpose.
You were programmed with a unique genetic code written by
God Himself to make you exactly as He intended you to be. Cells followed His
pattern on the pads of your fingers organizing into a one-of-a-kind
fingerprint. Mysteriously, somewhere within and between neurons, your
personality, gifts and sense of humor were created.
There was divine purpose in the making of you…every part, every cell of you. God intends that we continue becoming more and more like the image of Christ and thus more and more our truest selves.
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me! Psalm 139:13-18, NLT
Being a lover of the natural world, I follow Natgeo (National Geographic) on Instagram. A couple of days ago a photo of a gray whale taken by Florian Schulz in a Baja lagoon froze my scrolling.
Photo by Florian Schulz.
Florian is a professional photographer specializing in
wildlife and conservation photojournalism. This was his Instagram post:
“I was so touched by this whale mother. She moved so close
that I could reach her. She looked directly at me, and I felt we had a silent
conversation. No words, just observing each other. It gave me chills…there was
so much wisdom radiating from her gentle look….”
Several things struck me as I read his post and studied the photo. The first arresting statement was that the whale approached him and moved so close that he could touch her. These whales actually seek human interaction and seem to enjoy it. Then she set her gaze on him and lingered there. His reaction to peering into the deep eye of this massive creature looking back at him was a profoundly moving experience. He was awestruck by the wisdom and gentleness radiating in her look and it gave him chills. Lastly, there was a silent conversation between them – a communication of knowing beyond the language of sound. No words, just beholding each other.
Such an obvious segue to the God who reveals His divine
nature in the natural world:
The eyes of the Lord
are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry. Psalm 34:15
We have a very attentive God who desires an up-close-and-personal relationship with us and seeks it relentlessly. He sets His gaze on us, leans toward us and yearns to interact with us. He is always looking into our eyes, always listening to our voice, and always thinking of us. We are never out of His thoughts, out of His sight or beyond His hearing. Nothing distracts His persistent presence from us.
Charles Spurgeon wrote,
“He observes them with approval and tender consideration; they are so dear to
him that he cannot take his eyes off them; he watches each one of them as
carefully and intently as if they were only that one creature in the universe.”[1]
Selah – pause a moment and ponder the implications of that. Read
it again and linger over it. This both astounds me and humbles me when I reflect
on my sporadic attention to Him.
A personal encounter with the Living God, looking at Him looking back at me, is profoundly moving. This massive Being desires our companionship beyond what our intellect can grasp. But the knowing of the heart – the very heart of spiritual knowing – is living so close to Him that you can reach out and touch Him. Most of the time, there are no words exchanged.
This transformative knowing requires that we step out of ourselves and our preoccupations with the crises and demands of these shadowlands and soak our souls in the quiet depths of His unfailing everlasting love. When you drop the barriers in naked vulnerability and slip into His love, it will give you chills of the best kind and will utterly transform you from the inside out.
This knowing of God through a genuine living encounter with Him
comes from “sitting at the feet of Jesus,
gazing into his face and listening to his assurances of love for me. It comes
from letting God’s love wash over me, not simply trying to believe it. It comes
from soaking in the scriptural assurances of such love, not simply reading them
and trying to remember or believe them. It comes from spending time with God,
observing how he looks at me. It comes from watching his watchfulness over me
and listening to his protestations of love for me.”[2]
Spend some time, some days, soaking in the assurances of Psalm 139 and just behold Him.
Looking into the all-seeing eyes of the Holy God looking
into the soul of me, I anticipate reaction. But His eyes don’t widen in shock
or His brow furrow in disapproval, nor does He turn away in disappointment.
Incredibly, His heart melts in compassion and His eyes glisten with tenderness.
I am undone by unfailing, unflinching, unhesitating love and sink into the
eternal depths of the eyes of the Living God.
[1]
Spurgeon, Charles H. (1988). The Treasury
of David, Volume 1. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers.
[2]
Benner, David G. (2015). Surrender To
Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press.
