Altar to an Unknown God

Originally written on June 17, 2013

This past weekend I went on a silent retreat.  This is not something unusual for me.  I used to do this annually, but I would always do something called "spiritual exercises", which meant that I was usually listening to a meditation or sermon on a significant event in the life of Jesus.  This time, I didn't have that.  All I had was silence.  

Honestly, I wasn't nervous going into it.  I was so stressed out from the events of previous weeks that I welcomed it more than anything.  I was happy to get away.  I was happy to turn off my phone, be off of Facebook, and miss whatever social event was occurring at the time.  I needed space.  

However, what I wasn't expecting was an encounter with God.  I know, sounds weird right?  I went on retreat to encounter God, but did not expect to encounter God.  Allow me to explain.  I went on retreat to encounter my perception of God.  I thought I would encounter the God that I know.  Instead, I encountered the God I don't know.  I had never met this God before.  He was messy and chaotic.  He didn't speak to me, but he merely stayed with me.  He didn't have an agenda.  He was not the cookie cutter version of God.  What he taught me was that love looks very different.  And life is not to be tamed.

Being the control freak that I am, it's almost as if I have taken a solemn vow to control absolutely everything I can.  However, after meeting this chaotic and messy God, every scenario I evaluate leaves me with one conclusion: I can't control the outcome.  Why try?  I felt as if he was inviting me on an adventure, beckoning me to follow him through his hurricane force winds.  I hesitated, wondering, where will this lead me?  Where are we going?  What will happen?  As I sat there, staring into a swirling pool of chaos, I had to decide to trust him.  My options were to trust him or to stay where I was, where everything was safe and, as a result, I would continue to shrivel up and die inside.  So I voluntarily walked into a storm with power beyond all imagination.

What I found there was priceless.  In every circumstance, be it joyful or tragic, God is waiting there for me.  In my desperation and loneliness, he is not only there, but he feels the devastation I feel.  That dead feeling I have in my heart because I have completely cut it off from loving others and loving him, he feels that too.  Do not get me wrong.  He isn't there to make me feel better or take the pain away.  He is there to suffer with me.  

I began to recall different circumstances in my life where I had been particularly heartbroken either by a person or a shattered dream.  God showed me that my own lack of love was the source of my continued pain.  What if I loved that person?  What if I loved the person in front of me always...just for who they are.    What if, through my pain, I genuinely loved them with all of their brokenness also?  If I could do that just once, I am sure I would be a saint and I know the choice is my own to make. 

This God, who I didn't know before this weekend, didn't come to ease my suffering.  He didn't come to heal my broken heart.  He came to show me how to love through suffering.  So far this is the greatest gift of my life.  

I will leave you with these tidbits from my journaling:

All this time, I thought I knew you.  I thought I knew your will, your heart, your plan for my life.  I even thought I knew your love for me.  I know nothing.  And how could I know you?  You are infinite and I am finite.  How can I ever fully know you?  You are unknowable and I will spend all of my life and all of eternity trying to scratch the surface of who you are.  

The Lord is not reckless and if He abandons you at all, He abandons you to himself.  While it may look and feel like chaos, it may look and feel like pain, it is still holy.  Stop clinging to God, you who you thought you knew, and start seeing God, who you don't know.  Love all of Him.

As you walk through life with God, you pass through a series of rooms.  These rooms may be filled with various things.  Ones that bring joy, peace, understanding, and others that bring sorrow, fear, and horror. In the midst of all of this, it's important to realize that God is present through it all.  He is always there for us to love him and to receive his love.