abide.

i used to sit in my room a lot at night and play my guitar and sing songs.  they were songs to God, partly because i didn't know any other songs, but mostly because that's the only songs i cared to sing.  i led worship in college for campus crusade, and we were pretty good, and it was pretty rockin', but honestly, i always preferred the nights alone in my room.  there was just something about the purity, the vulnerability, the rawness of it - just me and God.  i loved it.  and i had a feeling He did too.  i felt okay in those moments.

sometime a while back i quit doing that.  i don't know why, to be honest.  and i didn't realize it at the time, but i was really missing something.  people have sometimes told me that i have a gift, and by that i suppose that they meant that i was talented, or that i had an ability to lead people to God.  i hope that they meant the latter, but even still...  i have realized recently that i had nothing, and i still have nothing.  it isn't me who has the gift.  it never was.  it is, and always has been, God who has the gift, and He has been gracious enough to give it to me.  

over the past few years i have struggled to figure out what it means to abide, to live always in the presence of God.  just a few minutes ago i was sitting on my bed, and i was playing my guitar, and i sang some of those songs that i used to sing.  and i experienced something beautiful.  and i am not just talking about the songs or that emotional feeling you get when you feel really connected to God.  as i was singing those songs, i began to see that the gift that God has given me is the gift of being in His presence, not because i am singing songs to Him, but because He is present.  because He is always present.  and all i have to do is open my eyes.  all i have to do is stop, and stop talking, and stop trying.  all i have to do is be still.  

i see You in every scene

i bet You are thinking about me

i have such a short memory

so You keep reminding me of You

but to be honest, that isn't enough for me anymore.  i don't just want to remember that God is there.  i don't just want to go about my day and then think, oh yeah, God's there, He's thinking about me.  i want to be in God's presence.  completely.  and i want to be transformed by God's presence.  i want to be consumed by God's presence.  brother lawrence didn't just walk around being aware that he was in God's presence.  he was absolutely obsessed with being in God's presence.  he didn't care about anything else.  i read this book about a russian pilgrim who wanted to learn how to pray without ceasing.  so he started praying this prayer, the sinner's prayer:  "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  he said it over and over and over again.  thousands of times a day.  and after a while, that's all he could think about.  and he was so consumed with joy and love for God that he didn't care about anything else.  he said he would pass people on the road and hardly notice them, because he was so fixed on the reality of God.  and brother lawrence talks about how sometimes, he would have to literally do something to keep himself from outwardly bursting with the joy that he found in God.

i am not like that.  but i really, really want to be.  

all of life comes down to just one thing

that's to know You, oh Jesus, and make You known.

sometimes i wonder if i've just made it too complicated.

"abide in me."