I had a trick, as a teacher, for catching students who were off task. Teachers are told today that they cannot possibly manage a classroom from behind a desk because they cannot see every student from their desk.
But much like an artist who draws using negative space, I caught my off task students even when I couldn't see them, simply by watching the students around them. The off task student, even if he is sleeping quietly, will eventually draw attention to himself and the kids seated around him will begin looking at him and the whispering will start.
Today I once again heard that ever elusive woodpecker, lightly tapping on branches, vines and bark. Again, I couldn't see him. I could only hear him and that wasn't enough, so I started watching the space around where I thought he would be and when I saw a vine start to move, a branch spring up, I would snap the picture.
You can barely see him in the picture today. He's there, hidden in the vines.
Is it possible that we might look for God in the same way? We cannot see Him, but we know He's there by how the world shapes and bends itself around Him. We might catch glimpses of Him then in the odd coincidences of life, in the man, yesterday, who stopped to take a picture of the billowing flag on the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's death.
Or we might look elsewhere. Yesterday, late in the day, I was digging through a drawer when I found the tiny, tiny papers that I had printed on with tiny, tiny writing when I was in college and feeling called to be a minister some day. I included verses from Isaiah 43:19-21.
"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise."
Sometimes God is abstract and symbolic and speaks in dreams and coincidences and other times the words are quite literal.
My current life is a figurative wilderness, but God has sent me to a literal wilderness, a daily journey/pilgrimage to watch just how God takes care of the wild animals, how He provides. So that after 100 days or 365 days, that might just sink in with me.
But much like an artist who draws using negative space, I caught my off task students even when I couldn't see them, simply by watching the students around them. The off task student, even if he is sleeping quietly, will eventually draw attention to himself and the kids seated around him will begin looking at him and the whispering will start.
Today I once again heard that ever elusive woodpecker, lightly tapping on branches, vines and bark. Again, I couldn't see him. I could only hear him and that wasn't enough, so I started watching the space around where I thought he would be and when I saw a vine start to move, a branch spring up, I would snap the picture.
You can barely see him in the picture today. He's there, hidden in the vines.
Is it possible that we might look for God in the same way? We cannot see Him, but we know He's there by how the world shapes and bends itself around Him. We might catch glimpses of Him then in the odd coincidences of life, in the man, yesterday, who stopped to take a picture of the billowing flag on the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's death.
Or we might look elsewhere. Yesterday, late in the day, I was digging through a drawer when I found the tiny, tiny papers that I had printed on with tiny, tiny writing when I was in college and feeling called to be a minister some day. I included verses from Isaiah 43:19-21.
"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise."
Sometimes God is abstract and symbolic and speaks in dreams and coincidences and other times the words are quite literal.
My current life is a figurative wilderness, but God has sent me to a literal wilderness, a daily journey/pilgrimage to watch just how God takes care of the wild animals, how He provides. So that after 100 days or 365 days, that might just sink in with me.
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