Where Are You?
I've been feeling bad lately. Very bad. Worse than I've felt in a long time.
And when I'm faced with any sort of confrontation, the first thing I want to do is run and hide. It's what I'm good at, it's what I'm use to, and it's what I feel like I have to do.
Sometimes it feels like I'm stepping out into this ocean of nothingness and misery. Like I'm just going to drown, and hide my face from God under the waves.
But that's gotten me thinking, where could I go to hide from God?
Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. I can't hide anything from God. Not my sins, not myself, not my desires, nothing.
What could I really do to make God stop coming after me?
Absolutely nothing.
Back in May of this year maybe a few days after I started this blog, I consecrated myself and my ministry to St. Joseph. I kept a journal of all of the prayers I said and the mediations that I did, and I even wrote him letters every day for those nine days.
On day two of my consecration Novena, I remember I heard this prayer in my heart, and I wrote it down.
Who is this, Whose Holy Face
comes beyond my veil and
calls me good,
and calls me by my name?
Leah Darrow, in her amazing Do Something Beautiful podcast, had Sr. Miriam James, SOLT, on as a guest in Season 1 Episode 8 titled "The Beauty of Surrendering." The two of them talked a little bit about the Garden of Eden, and the Fall of Man, how Adam and Eve tried to hide from God after the serpent tempted them to eat of the fruit of the tree.
They mentioned that the first question even spoken by God in the Bible was "Where are you?"in Genesis chapter 3 verse 9.
He calls out to them asking so simply, where are you?
I can't help but think that He does the same to me, more so for my sake than His own. And I keep asking myself, where am I? Where am I going? What am I doing? Where is my Lord in all of this?
My mind goes back to Scripture again, specifically Jeremiah 2: 12-13. Listen to this:
Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD,
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewn out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns,
that can hold no water.
You remember when Christ met the woman at the well? (Which is another story that Leah Darrow loves.) Remember she came to the well seeking to be satisfied by the world?
This is what Christ was talking about. She had placed her faith in these broken cisterns that were only going to leave her feeling dissatisfied.
She would be thirsty again. She would feel lost again. Unless, she trusted in Him, and trusted in His living water.
I'm here. I'm so broken, and I can't hide. I looked for God in all the wrong places, and I never found Him.
Now, I just want to let him find me.
What broken cistern have I been placing my faith in? What broken cisterns have I been hiding in trying to hide my face from God?
What could I do to convince God to stop looking for me, and stop trying to satisfy me?
Absolutely nothing.