CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: ‘I wish the Christ within me was less elusive’ while on life’s roller-coaster
Back in the 1980s, hungry for the deeper experience of God other Christians spoke of, I was prayed with. I expected something dramatic, but it seemed God whispered: ‘You don’t need to pray for more of me! I am already here within you.’
Sometimes I still find myself longing for the dramatic and decisive. Last year again I sought prayer, but even as kind words were being spoken over me I realised my request betrayed what I’d heard all those years before - ‘I am here within you.’
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I wish the Christ within me was less elusive, but the experience of those days when I do sense the gentle grace of his presence sustains me through the times of mysterious divine absence.
Last week, mind over-full with social media and news, I tried to still my heart in God’s presence. It seemed to me I was on a perpetual roller-coaster. The tracks snaked between rows of bushes, heavy with luscious crops. Sometimes a fruit would fall in my lap, and I’d devour its goodness. I tried to pick more, but we were travelling too fast and my harness restrained me.
The ride stopped each evening, and I dismounted and went home. But when morning came, I felt I must sit myself down once more and strap myself in. And all the while I ignored the path leading up to the bushes, where people, calm and content, filled baskets with fruit.
I realised how much I want to be in control of my life, to structure my days, to live predictably. And I saw that this longing was the harness binding me to my seat, and damaging me.
I realised I am too much ‘in my head’, reflecting on ideas while not connecting with the world around me, and the God who is present there, in people, in all living things, in matter itself.
Even my longing for God had become ‘something I had to do’. But the seeking and the finding is a gift, a gentle grace of God, and that morning, it transformed everything.
I laugh at the craziness of the roller-coaster. I rejoice that there’s no need for worry, since whatever happens, I am secure in God. I realise there’s more than enough time to do what’s been entrusted to me. I am free to love, value and care for my body rather than regarding it as a distraction, a means to an end.
Since that morning, the sense of God’s immediacy has receded somewhat. Some days, I’m back on the roller-coaster; other days, however, I’m in a garden full of fruit trees, wild flowers, insects, small creatures. And I can walk there, learning the names of each leaf, bloom, beastie, animal.
And the gardener is not far away.
