The metaphor of God’s presence, especially with this people, runs throughout the Bible.

Jesus tells his followers (building on an Old Testament metaphor) that they are the “light of the world.”

At the end of the entire Bible, the writer of Revelation has an image of major churches as lampstands, but in danger of having their lamps removed due to various struggles and shortcomings.

There’s some room for debate, but probably the original though behind all of these metaphors is from Exodus. More specifically, you can see the symbol in the building of the tabernacle—where God’s presence resides within the people of Israel—and the placing of a symbolic lampstand inside the tabernacle, to illuminate the “bread of the presence.”

So how bright was that light?

I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer said something along the lines of, “we who live in the era of electric light have no true concept of the dark.”

I think it’s true. Living in an era where we can make the night practically as bright as day, we forget how truly deep and dark the night can be.

And a lamp stand simply is NOT that bright.

In Florida, we lose power a few times a year without fail, and when that happens at night, trying to read by candlelight is pretty instructive:

It’s REALLY DIFFICULT.

A candle just doesn’t give off much light.

Whether thinking about OURSELVES or our CHURCHES, sometimes we think that being the “light of the world” means having a white hot burning spotlight that gives day-for-night to the largest radius we can imagine.

But the lamp stand in the tabernacle simply wasn’t that big. It probably had a very, very smalll radius of light.

But it wasn’t the radius that was important, it was what the lamp SHOWN ON. It’s what was illuminated: the bread of the presence.

It’s not how large, or how bright our light burns: it’s simply whether or not our light is illuminating God, Jesus Christ, and the life he offers us with the Holy Spirit.

It might seem like your personal (or your church’s) light is too small, but maybe that’s not what you should focus on. Maybe you can just focus on keeping the lamp lit, and keeping it shining in the right direction.

There are things you do and places and ways in which you serve that instantly resonate with people. Although thoughts like “craft” and “excellence” are often in play, one of the other reasons that people will instantly gravitate to you in these areas is because they are often devoid of EGO.

It is very easy to serve with an eye towards results, particularly results that involve human accolades and rewards. But sometimes there is an area of your life where, because of GRACE, you are able to separate yourself from the results, and just stand and serve in a sort of eternal flow and current.

You do, or say, the thing that you are meant to do, and are utterly unconcerned with getting anything back. Not in an egotistical way at all, but actually in a completely selfless way. In fact, practically all issues of “performance” melt away, and you are merely existing and reacting as Grace leads you.

The irony, or course, is that people naturally are drawn to this. Manipulation and performance surrounds us, and so when people (with eyes to see and ears to hear) experience an ego-less offering, it is like a breath of fresh air, a drink of cool water in an aridity.

Of course, you shouldn’t think of this too much, and you certainly shouldn’t let it affect your thinking and motivation.

Rather count yourself as blessed to be able to offer something to the world that people need and value.

In your life you have the ongoing opportunity to move between “wisdom”  and “identity.” There can be a tension between these two ideas, but navigating them successfully can yield a peaceful, centered growth and maturity.

Wisdom is the idea of seeking out new ideas and insights into life. It involves a humility that says, “I do NOT have all the answers, and need help sometimes.” Wisdom invites voices from other perspectives into your life, and can bring about wide-eyed realizations of wrong-thinking, and thus opportunities for growth.

Identity, on the other hand, comes about from deep, thoughtful, and courageous self-reflection, and ultimately results in the awareness of who you uniquely ARE. At its best, identity emerges with the ego, and through identity you are able to understand your place in the world.

Shutting yourself off from new ideas—from wisdom and counsel—can put you into ruts, and even cultivate a sort of arrogance in your life: that you have it all figured out, and that you “know the way the world works.” On the other hand, not ALL wisdom is effective and useful for YOU, and an identity that is humbly and loosely held can help filter when to allow new ideas into your life, and when to graciously say, “no, thank you.” (Or “Not Now.”)

The truth is, you need both wisdom AND identity, and though you going back and forth between the two may feel exhausting sometimes, it’s a necessary tension to manage, AND one that can yield beautiful results.

Your spirituality IS your life. 

Your life is a classroom, a lab that tests your beliefs, that gives you space to practice (oh, that word is so much more important than you think) the things that you believe to be most true about the world. 

Don’t be surprised if you discover that you’re struggling in this classroom. 

Don’t be surprised to find out that judging people comes faster than—and as natural as— breathing, or that anger is lingering right underneath the surface, or that desire and envy are your constant companions. 

Don’t be surprised, but don’t be content either. 

Realize it, name it, and stay committed to the path of growth. 

And keep practicing. 

You will be constantly tempted to underestimate how deep grace actually goes.

It’s easy to believe that “grace” is some kind of theological or spiritual hocus-pocus magic trick that somehow gets God to love you.

But this shallow version of grace misses the abundant life that God really wants to give you. What’s more, it can create inside you this tension that even though God may have “let you in to heaven,” He still really doesn’t like you. That’s not really “unmerited favor”—the Biblical definition of grace—that’s some kind of qualified tolerance, like the Father has to grit his teeth and bear with a family of loud and misbehaving children.

It’s easy to to believe that “grace” is the mechanism that gives us the good things of life: family, friends, homes, paychecks.

But if that’s all grace is, you can start to believe that when those things are absent from your life—or when others do not possess them—that you are “in trouble” with God, or that He has overlooked certain people groups or parts of the world.

But God’s fundamental posture towards the world—and the people in it—is one of LOVE, brought about and infused by His essential unmerited favor… GRACE.

So how deep does grace actually go?

Grace goes so deep to say that God is present in every time and in every place.

In all circumstances. In all places. At all times.

And what does grace require of us?

Really not much, except gratitude.

And so the depth of grace really means that at all times—in good times and bad times—in success and adversity, our fundamental posture towards life and God should be one of humility and gratitude.

Don’t be afraid of your unique ways of connecting to God. We are all wired up differently.

Years ago Gary Thomas wrote a helpful little book called Sacred Pathways. In it he identified nine ways that people can experience and encounter God, including through study, through serving others, or through appreciating nature.

Life can be full of constant distractions, and when you are living like this it can be difficult to experience God. The difficulty is because one of the true things about God is that He is found IN THE MOMENT, and when your mind is going a hundred miles an hour about 20 different things, you really are NOT in the moment. You are far, far away, and God may be disparately trying to speak to you about what is going on RIGHT NOW.

However, when you are on your own unique pathway, there is often a moment where you can lose yourself and become TRULY present to the moment. Every moment and every activity collapses into THIS moment and THIS time, and you discover that your mind is simultaneously ultimately FOCUSED and ultimately OPEN to possibility, to the Spirit of God that is speaking.

Don’t be ashamed of your pathway, and don’t neglect it. The pathways is NOT God, but it is a tool and a roadmap to the place (and TIME) where God is.

How long does spiritual growth actually take?

You go to the chair every morning with some mix of hope and acceptance. You HOPE for an encounter, for a wave of grace and presence and transcendence that leaves you with goose bumps and and an elevated heart beat. You ACCEPT the fact that not only may this not happen, it’s not even the point.

The point is to show up and do YOUR part.

But still you desire some change, some marker and evidence that you’re getting better. But would you even recognize it if it showed up?

Or is the evidence really only seen by others, by your friends and family?

Some mornings it really seems like going through the motions, like no one is really listening. And this is difficult. You know in your head that these times are simply times of FAITH, when the gap is a little wider, the silence is a little deeper.

When the feelings come, when your heart is stirred deeply with a loving presence, THAT is when it is actually easier to believe, to be grateful.

But those times are simply good gifts from God, and your job is to first appreciate and be grateful for those gifts.

But NOT to come to expect the gifts.

When the silence is louder than the words of love, it doesn’t mean the Gift-Giver is absent, or is unhappy.

It’s just a reminder that you cannot really control when and how the gifts are given.

Still, though you may know this objectively, the experience of the silence can be challenging, and even discouraging.

Will there ever come a time when you consistently dwell in this joy, this love, peace and compassion?

That’s when you hear the voice of your mentor, your spiritual father saying, “How long did it take you to wonder INTO the wilderness? If it took you 20 years (or 5, or 10, or 40) to get INTO the forest, why would you expect to walk out in just 4 years (or whatever your number is).

The point is to simply keep on walking: show up, sit down, and engage silence… and wait.

In Matthew’s gospel, there’s this story about Jesus hits me on a very practical, but subtle, level. 

In chapter 14, John the Baptizer has just been executed by King Herod. It seems that Jesus and John were rather close: Jesus was actually a follower of John for a time (John baptized him!), and may have been a mentor of sorts, and even extended family (they may have been cousins). 

So Jesus just finds out that this man, this influential figure, this friend has just been murdered, and he withdraws to pray (and, I’m sure, to mourn and grieve). 

But Jesus is a popular figure, a rabbi and a healer, and so when the crowds hear that Jesus is in the area, they convene around him.

The gospel says that when Jesus sees them, he “has compassion on them,” and begins to heal the sick folk that were there. 

That is a gear shift: to go from trying to mourn and pray in solitude, to performing acts of ministry. 

It’s one of my biggest challenges: I have relational “buckets” that I live in, and if I’m required to shift—from solitude or study to serious conversation, or from a business meeting to counseling—it is a stress on me. In fact, sometimes I simply cannot make the shift. 

Unfortunately, life—people—don’t dwell in discrete buckets, and life doesn’t have hard edges. Learning to move fluidly between interactions is a gift of the Spirit, and something that will take time to grow up in me. 

(All quotes from Henri Nouwen’s The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom.)

When people who know your heart well and love you dearly say that you are a child of God, that God has entered deeply into your being, and that you are offering much of God to others, you hear these statements as pep talks. You don’t believe that these people are really seeing what they are saying.

There is so often a deep doubt in your core about who you are. Furthermore, the encouragement you so often give to others you refuse to believe about yourself. 

It’s not out of rebellion, it’s out of the deep woundedness that you—and so many others—carry. 

As long you as you remain blind to your own truth, you keep putting yourself down and referring to everyone else as better, holier, and more loved than you are. You look up to everyone in who you see goodness, beauty, and love because you don not see any of these qualities in yourself. 

Seeing everyone else as better than you is not true humility; it’s actually a form of pride. Pride at its core is finding ways to separate ourselves from others. Humility is actually not thinking of yourself at all, not so you can be “special”, but so you can be free to be in absolute community with all people. 

You have to be willing to live your loneliness, your incompleteness, your lack of total incarnation fearlessly, and trust that God will give you the people to keep showing you the truth of who you are.

It starts with naming it, and naming it completely. It’s way too easy to be afraid that if we admit to ourselves how “bad” we are at the spiritual life, God will somehow reject us. But this is a problem with an incomplete and inaccurate understanding of love (and much moreso, God’s love). 

Name it, and name it completely. What we bring to God, God heals. What we bring to Christ, Christ heals. Bringing it to him starts with naming it. 

You wonder where hope lives, and this is natural.

Shootings… division… strife…

William Butler Yeats said in a famous poem, “The center cannot hold,” and you feel that in this season.

On one side, a brave public face. On another side fear, anger and insecurity as both the left and right forget how to treat each other as human beings.

Where does hope live?

You want to keep away from the news, but still the news always seems to find you.

Where does hope live?

Maybe hope lives in the surrender of hope. 

Think about Jesus, and his very central invitation—call and command, even—to take up the cross (yours, or his, depending on the gospel).

Remember that the cross was not a symbol of hope.

It was a symbol of death.

But what Jesus (and all of life, really) is trying to teach you is that embracing the reality of surrender, loss of control even unto death is actually the place where you find hope.

If for nothing else than that’s the place you surrender and lay down all expectations of anything else, and you are content to be present to the moment, and find that right there is the place where God is, and where to breathe—to merely be alive—is to have everything in the universe available and to you.