Seeing Eye to Eye

Helix Nebula, dubbed "The Eye of God"

“Are you open?” she asked.

Her question frustrated me. I checked to make sure the light was on above my checkout lane; it was. The belt lay invitingly empty, if not already moving toward me. I was turned in her direction, looking for my next customer. What could possibly make her hesitant to enter?

I wonder if God doesn't feel the same when we approach Him in similar fashion.

Just that morning, I had risen early and sat in my chair at the kitchen table, the coffee steaming in the mug at my right hand, my journal open to a fresh page, a pen laid in readiness across the blank sheet... waiting for the idea that would surely come from God's heart to mine, a thought that would make it's mark on the empty lines in front of me and the whole day ahead of me. As the minutes ticked by and nothing but silence enveloped me, doubt began to rise up inside of me, whispering that perhaps God wasn't open for business to me that day. Maybe I should just put my books away and get the day underway.

Thankfully I knew better than that. If nothing else, the Word promises that there is something to be said for rising each morning to look God in the eye. But there's always something else. :) And suddenly, just like that, there it was.

Grocery store cashiers are told to make eye contact when greeting a customer at the start of an order. A smile is welcoming, a greeting of some sort is obligatory, but it's that momentary connection, eye to eye, that says, “I see you, I hear you; I am aware of your presence before me.” The customer feels acknowledged and validated, and the order is off to a good start.

Many times I have stepped away from my register for just a moment, to put a basket in the stack by the door, perhaps...and have come back to see a customer peering cautiously up my checkout aisle, looking for eyes issuing the invitation to enter before placing their items on the belt. Don't we sometimes approach God the same way? We come tentatively, hesitantly... and if we don't get an immediate response to our initial greeting, an awareness of His presence, we give up and walk away.

We forget that prayer was God's idea, not our own invention or intention. He invites us to come into His presence, to spread our problems before him, to chat, to listen to His advice, to hear what he might have to say. His light is always on, there is never a “closed” sign blocking our entrance... He is waiting, willing, and longing to hear whatever is on our heart each day.

So why does it seem sometimes that we show up and He doesn't? That simply is never the case. He is always there first. Sometimes it just takes a while to make that eye connection. We come harried or hurried and He is always at peace. Our hearts are in two completely different spots. When our focus is on the problems weighing on our minds and lives, He can't get through to us. And so He waits for us to finally search His face. When our eyes lock in to His, it's then we find the grace we need, the space to speak, the answers we seek.

Haven't we all seen a child come crying to his dad, eyes streaming tears, complaints pouring out of a mouth that's demanding an immediate response? The father takes him by the shoulders and says (sometimes repeatedly), “Look at me!”, in a voice that demands to be heard. He knows he has to get the son's attention before he will hear and heed anything said to him. God simply does the same with us. And once He gets us to the point where we see Him... I mean really see Him... it's then that He can deal with the problems at hand. Sometimes just the sight of Him in all His magnificence is enough to mute our lips and remind our souls that He has all things under His control.

Rather than our hesitancy, perhaps God prefers the audacity of those customers who sometimes mistakenly (and other times, deliberately?) go to a closed checkout lane, place their items on the belt and simply wait to be served! Eventually an employee has no choice but to come to the register and run the order through. The Bible is full of stories of persistent people who eventually got what they needed because they showed up and refused to give up till they got what they needed.

So don't be shy. God wants us to take the time to come before Him, look Him in the eye... and get what we need from Him in reply.

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

(Hebrews 4:16 NKJV)

Sunday Selah

The dog already straining eagerly on the leash, I held him back long enough for me to pull the front door closed behind me and make it safely down the front steps before giving him the go ahead to run to the top of the driveway to fetch the morning newspaper, dragging me along behind. But when my feet hit the grass I stopped a minute longer, held spellbound by the splendor in the sky. The rising sun had painted the thin cloud cover a glorious shade of pink, breathtaking in its beauty. Suddenly I was as eager as the dog to get to the road for a less obstructed view and raced alongside him, not wanting to miss a moment of the surprisingly beautiful sunrise. Once there I simply stood and stared, soaking in the sight for so long that even the dog got bored, having sniffed every rock and blade of grass within a leash-length of where I stood; so long that the heavy Sunday paper finally broke through the thin plastic sleeve encasing it and spilled all over the gravel at my feet. The spell likewise broken, I bent to pick up the scattered sections and headed back to the house, a satisfied smile on my face and incredible peace in my heart. There’s simply no better way to start a day.

There’s a word for a moment like that. I find it sprinkled all through the book of Psalms in my Bible. Every couple of verses or so it’s there in italics, perhaps to give it emphasis. Selah. Somewhere I read that it means, “Pause. Think about Me.” I printed the word and it’s definition inside the front cover of my journal the last couple of years to remind me what my morning devotional time is all about. It’s those moments (illustrated by my first actions with the dog this morning) in which I pull the door closed on the events of the day before and prepare to step safely into the new dawn - I hold the hounds at bay for a moment and look up to God for love, comfort, companionship, guidance, direction, or any combination thereof. Delighted with the glimpse I get there, I run in His direction for a better view, a fuller understanding of what He might have to show me, soaking in His glory while time stops still until my heart is so filled with peace that nothing I might face that day can possibly take it away. Now I simply won’t start my day any other way.

Of course, not every sunrise is as spectacular as the one I saw today. Some days there are no puffs of vapor in the sky to be lit up with the approaching rays. The sun simply comes up over the horizon, (we are grateful!) and we go on with our day. On other mornings the clouds hang so thick and low that we never catch a glimpse of the golden orb rising or setting, and we just go on in the knowledge that it’s up there somewhere whether we can see it or not, doing its job out of our view. And likewise not always are my morning devotional times filled with mind-blowing revelation or an overwhelming sense of the nearness of God. Many are the days I drink my coffee, read my Bible and speak to Him the words that have gathered in my heart without hearing a response write-worthy of the open journal pages before me. But even on those occasions when my troubles hang so darkly around me that God is hard to see, I am comforted by my conviction that He’s still actively working on my behalf to bless and prosper me in all areas of my life and in every moment of my day. The important thing is that I’ve stopped the ever-ticking time clock long enough to look in His direction.

Selah. Pause, and think about Me.

What’s important on a daily basis is perhaps equally so on a weekly one. We are instructed in the Bible to set apart one day as holy unto God, a day to cease from our regular activities and worship Him. And yet sometimes we find that difficult to do. Our lives are so pressure-packed that taking the time to gather with other believers in unity of purpose seems impossible. We mistakenly think we need those hours to accomplish all that needs to be done, and as we give in to that deception, we lose so much more than we gain in that time we should have set aside; we lose the peace of God’s presence and the power that is found in an ongoing relationship with Him. We simply need our Sunday Selahs to refocus our minds and thoughts, to reset our priorities and to connect with the like-minded individuals God has deliberately placed around us to encourage and inspire us.

But there’s another reason the Sunday Selah is important to God. When I had made it back to the house this morning, set the dog free of the leash and dumped the disheveled paper on the kitchen table, the first thing I did was grab my phone and wonder who else might be awake, so anxious was I to share the experience with somebody. While browsing on facebook a little while later I saw that a coworker had likewise seen the sunrise on her way in for an early shift and had posted a picture and a word about how the sight made going in to a difficult work situation a little more bearable. I smiled as I read the cyber stream of conversation that was quickly developing about the event.

I’ve seen the same thing happen when people make time for God on a Sunday morning and are impacted dramatically by a word in the pastor’s message, a song in the worship service or a simple thought expressed in a video or drama presentation. Sometimes just sitting in the presence of God affects them so deeply that we read all about it in facebook posts later in the day and hear it in conversations around us all the following week. The resultant chatter must surely make God smile, as word gets out that He has a whole lot to offer, both in this life and the next, if we’ll simply stop our running long enough to take a look.

Selah. Pause, and think about Me. And then go tell somebody about what you see.

“…And let us rejoice and exult in our hope of experiencing and enjoying the glory of God.” (Romans 5:2 AMP)