The Sharpened Spoon

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to have real two way conversation with God? I know this sounds weird, but that is something I have done my whole life, and I know its him because of the things that happen after these conversations.

Trust me completely when I say I am not bragging and here is why. Many times these conversations go a little something like this....

Me: God, I really want you to use me for anything you need, anything at all.

God: Really? You sure about that, no "caveats" not exclusion clauses?

Me: Nope, I trust you. Give it to me.

God: That's great, cause you know what I really need right now?

Me: An ambassador to Italy? (my wife and I would love to live there for a year or two)

God:Nope, bigger than that.

Me: A Broadway Director with sterling character to change the heart of American Theatre?

God: Nope.

(this goes on with me going down the list of things that in my mind were included in "anything" and to each and every one he answers with "nope, bigger")

Me: I give up, what is it? (closing my eyes with childlike anticipation)

God: I could really use a human pinata!

Let the beating commence!

You always hear it said that God will not give you more than you can handle. If this is true, I am convinced that much like I confuse my own children from time to time, he has me confused with someone else. I have a sneaking suspicion that this not at all true, that in fact God loves overloading us to the point of breaking, just so he can prove how big he is.

Some of you probably read my blog over the last year and know what I have been through. I am not into comparing, and next to losing a child, or lung, or a loved one, it was really nothing, and yet...

So, now I am in this place of transition in my life, which is maybe why I feel like I have been wrapped in webbing and left dangling from a tree branch waiting to die. Or, maybe that is the feeling of turning 40 in less than a week, I don't know...But, here's the thing, I know I am not supposed to ask WHY? But I don't care. After everything that I went through I have to ask, why? Nothing changed in the place I was called to stand up and ask for change. In fact, the people that I see as the root of the problem are still very much doing business as usual. And in my own life, I feel like God has just further convinced me of my feelings about the institutional church as it exists today, and it isn't a happy conviction. So, what do I do?

See, there really isn't anything you can do about God. He has a plan which is so much bigger than any of us that it is a very rare day when we rise above the clouds far enough to catch a small glimpse of our part in it. Even when we do it's as if it were written in Martian.

No matter how much we try to package the idea that we can somehow decipher why God does what he does, or determine if it is God doing it, the TRUTH is we can't. But, I know when I hear his voice, when I get something deep seeded in me that will not let go and it's such a rush to be hearing it, and I am so excited about what comes next. That is what keeps me coming back to this place where I find myself today, dragging myself out of hiding and heading off to Mt Carmel to face God knows what.

One of these times, maybe I won't be so myopic. So near sighted that all I see is how this effects me. Maybe I will get it, but then, maybe not.