Little Insignificant Me

Isn’t it beautiful that God desires to be with us? That he wants it to be Him and us alone? If only our lives would scream, “as the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs for you.” To this I imagine him saying, “so come to me my child, for you are dearly loved. Why do you search for what is not bread and does not satisfy?”

God is a God of abundance. He is our generous provider. There is, there must be, so much more in Him than He can give us, because we are so sleepy and because our capacity is so pitifully small. I love Frank C. Laubach’s question in “Letters by a Modern Mystic”-- “God what have you to put into my mind now if only I can be large enough?” I know. There’s poverty, perversion, exploitation, death, sickness and the list continues. I can’t make sense of the unhappiness around me, but I can make sense of the joy inside of me. And I can tell you one thing—it does not come from anything that can be taken away from me.

As Paul says in Philippians, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength”. We live our lives trying to control certain aspects of life without ever fully succeeding. We were not meant to be, but to be WITH. As Noah Latham once put it, it should be God first, then God and Family, then God and friends, and so on according to your priority list. Allowing everything and everyone to be a part of you and God. Not the other way around.   

Sometimes we think God doesn’t notice suffering because He isn’t in some miraculous way doing away with all evil/suffering, but He IS aware of our suffering. He has gifted us this world and he WILL work, but he wants to work through us, because in the end it’s us who will be accountable. To him and this earth. So he waits until we are at his disposition to allow him to work. Just how he waited until Moses turned to the bush before speaking to him on mount Sinai. Except more often than not, we are too busy being busy, and since God isn’t ending suffering without us, we feel we need to end suffering without him. Perhaps if we realize he wants to work through us, us and Him together, we could trust he understands the suffering of this world. And as a result, feel less pressure and more joy in working with him, rather than FOR him.

Little insignificant me can’t stop human trafficking, poverty, hunger, AIDS, suicides, murders, painful words, painful thoughts, or any other aspect of pain. But I’m okay with that, because I wish not to have control, but to allow the spirit of Christ to have control over me. I want to see a reflection of Christ when I stare into my eyes in the mirror and pray that my soul would never stop trusting that HE is enough.