Trusting God

Yesterday in Meeting I thought about God. I don't doubt God. I know that when I am having a "dry spell" it is due to my lack of attention, awareness and consistency rather than anything having to do with the nature of God. God gave me free will and I use it being thoughtless and distracted much of the time, which separates me from God.

I know God. I have met God in my heart, in my intuition, where God has given me guidance and some small amount of wisdom. Once even, God spoke to me. (Mystical sounding, I know: crazy even, for those who have not yet discovered the nature of their relationship with God.) So, I know God because God came and whispered and nudged and put me on a path.

In Meeting for Worship, I was thinking about how my life, my very self, would be changed if I met God. How would I be different if I was drawn close to God where God is. God has met me where I am, allowing me to know and experience just what I have been ready for. It has changed me to a great extent, but I am still me. I can still spend entire days, weeks even, with very little thought or intention in my mind or heart toward the Divine. I can still live my life as if this world is all there is. I can still go through my day-to-day routine of concerns, chores and habits with little attention being paid to my Creator. How would I be different if I met God where God is? How would I live or act if God stopped allowing me to grow and discover God as I am able but demanded more of me?

I have never felt the awfulness (used in the original sense of the word, which was, literally, "full of awe"), the fear, the "quaking" that I understand to be a part of some people's relationship with God. I feel deep joy, sometimes contentment, acceptance, and often a great sense of relief that God loves me like my Divine Mama no matter how far I drift. But I have never felt awestruck by God.

I would imagine that each person's relationship with God is as unique as each individual. I know that my perceptions of God are unique to me and I honor the fact that what others believe about God are sacred to them. At this point in the unfolding of my connection with God, I know God as love and grace; the soft, warm light of a fire at night-the kind of light that makes us feel and look good. I wonder, though, about the light that illuminates our faults and breaks us open to a new self.

Or maybe I'm just hoping there is an easier way than this day-to-day two-steps-forward/backsliding path I'm on. This way takes so much work, so much responsibility. I still feel like a spiritual child in many ways. I've written before about how I long for a "calling"; for God to call me to something bigger than myself. But, when I think about where I am, how there are days when I don't even remember to pray, not even to give God a word of thanks for the beauty of my life...well, no wonder God doesn't try to trust me with a MISSION.

So, I think about what it would take for me to live my life transformed. Would it take an encounter with the soul-searching Light? Or, am I able to allow God to help me transcend my self each day in "small" thoughts and actions? I don't really believe that relationship with God is habit, but that's how my life feels right now. All these bad, or not even bad, more like thoughtless habits are in the way of my relationship with God. I want to live for God, transcending myself, because God is. I want to love God, to let my life speak, to make my whole life a prayer to the greatness of God. I envy those who are lucky enough to be knocked senseless from their horses and transformed but I understand that God wants me to learn the lessons I need to learn walking the path I'm on. I trust God to guide me, to show me what I need to know.

I open myself, as best I can, to God's will.