CBG COVID Challenge: #3

It seems like even in the midst of rhetoric reminding us to slow down, be still, take notice…there is A LOT OF advice, newsletters, even devotionals to help us through this time. I am not excused from that latter. I do not want to add more TO DO’s, more alliteration bullet pointed advice (although I do love alliterations), more noise to the quiet we have been challenged to become comfortable with. Take a breath. In the name of Jesus, release any guilt or need to accomplish more, to achieve more, to have answers for why this season exists. The amount of content shoved down our throats, from news to meditation tips is our humanity trying to feel less helpless in the face of uncontrollable circumstances.

What if this time to be present is a space to expand our seeking without an agenda, our curiosity and our capacity to live in questions? What if we finally can acknowledge how vast the world, our lives and our community are as the unanswerable things become the normal? What if we finally see our own humanity in the presence of a huge God? Have we forgotten that God is that big in the midst of our plans? Have we forgotten God’s promises in the midst of our own desires and schedules? Have we forgotten our truest purpose in the midst of really great callings we’ve discovered in our enneagrams and personality tests?

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, and when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 29:11-14

I must love the questions

themselves

as Rilke said

like locked rooms

full of treasures

to which my blind

and groping key

does not yet fit.

Alice Walker

Prayer: God, I want to find you. I want to know you. I want to hear you. I want to sense you with all my being. I want to feel your presence in me, around me, before me. How are you expanding how I experience you during this time?

Creative: Break out the colors (on nails, on paper, in the pan…)

Brave: Thank someone you haven’t in a while.

Generous: Reach out to a small business to see how they’re doing.

John 10: Knowing the Voice

There are so many damn voices. Loud ones. Sultry alluring ones. Witty and enticing ones. Every voice is vying for our attention. Every voice wants us to listen and follow. Social media. Instagram. All the damn tv shows on all the damn networks. Which voice are we supposed to follow? How do we know? How do we know this is God? How do we know which voices to tune out and which one to tune in to?

We need to know what quiet sounds like. We need to know what complete surrender feels like. We need to be so blank and so silent that there’s a clearing. A nothingness. A lack. A valley. Then in that empty, in that nothing, what voice calls not for anything you can provide but simply for your vulnerability, truthfulness & openness?

What voice makes you feel exposed in a way you’ve longed for but you’ve never felt courageous enough to do to yourself? What voice exposes you so you can see yourself with no shame, no guilt, but with a brave curiosity and desire to shed & become!