Friday, October 5, 2012

Good question! #1: How is God inviting you to know Him right now?

Have you ever noticed the pleasure of asking or being asked a good question? A zinger question? The kind of question that takes you right to where you or the person you're talking to need to go. As a spiritual director, I'm a collector of questions; forever in search of the best questions to ask my clients to help them pay attention to the movement of God in their lives.So this blog is the first in a series entitled: Good question!

This morning, I came upon one of those "good" questions. At least it felt that way to me. It had the penetrating, spot-on quality I know can be of great use when I'm probing the interior landscape of some one's relationship with God: How is God inviting you to know Him right now?

When I asked the question of my client, simultaneously, I had the awareness that it was a question I needed to ask myself. I felt curiously drawn to it, as though the idea hadn't originated with me, but came from elsewhere--beyond me--and was for me.

As I ponder the question, I recognize something I know from experience and have come to assume--that God is too much for me to know all at once. And so often God has shown me one of his "faces" or facets, an aspect of God's self that he wants me to know. How is God inviting me to know him-- right now?

Right now....means after a busy few weeks of travel and numerous plates spinning in my head. I sense that God wants me to know him as my rest, my Sabbath, not a means to resolve or accomplish something else. This morning, as I prayed, I felt God encouraging me to seek him period; not to ask for something but to simply be with him and rest in him. I sensed his pleasure as I sought his company.

I recognize something else implied in the question; the belief that God invites us to know him. I think many of us might agree with that assumption, but I notice in myself and others a subtle (or not so subtle) avoidance of God. That's right. A way that we keep ourselves so busy for God or with our work and responsibilities that we resist or ignore God's invitation to know him; to experience and encounter him. 

So, what about you? How does this question sit with you? How is God inviting you to know him right now? That may seem like a really hard question. Here are a few things that helped me think about it: 

  1. Pay attention to anything that you've heard or read recently about God that keeps "haunting" you. What about it seems to speak truth or resonate with your life and what you know or want to know about God?
  2. When you do pray, what do you pray for? How is God responding to your prayers? What do you wonder or learn about God related to the way he is or isn't responding?


2 comments:

B. Miller Hoover said...

Gd morning my friend, I just finished "The Sacred Romance" and I have been haunted by the picture of God as The Ageless Romancer and "me" as His Beloved, and how this may be "experienced" to know Him intimately. I, too, have heard the words "rest" and "shalom" in my spirit. The concept of "Mercy preceeds repentance" has echoed in my soul & believe this is a true turning point on my journey of living faith.

Unknown said...

I really appreciate the phrase, "mercy precedes repentance." That seems right, as mercy softens the heart and helps us desire to turn back to God. Thanks for this. I hope some day we can have a long conversation in person--I am so drawn to know all that God has done in you over the years.