Object in the mirror are closer than they Appear

Ever have one of those days, weeks or in my case, month, where you just can’t seem to really ‘find’ God. It’s not that I’m going out of my way to sidestep Him rather I’ve just been pretty ‘busy’. And when I get really busy I can not seem to ‘find’ time for the simple things, the healing things, like time spent with God which leads me to a sort of sleepwalking through my life. The problem with being too busy is that things take time and it is time I do not have - time to see, time to listen, time to love. There is a blindness that comes when I become preoccupied with my task-lists of the day, that cut me off from the current of God’s presence and it is easy to ‘forget’ that the same God who is within us is also all about us.

So this morning I went to our men’s bible study and it was me and my bible and no one else showed up. My first thought was, about what I had done wrong, then I thought - what’s the deal with these men – I mean, why aren’t they as “committed as me? Then I moved on to - well I have a lot of work to do and probably best that I get back and get busy. Instead I stayed, just me and my bible and as I prayed and I read, I opened to Matthew 11. Have you ever read something many times and then you read it and you realize that you’ve some how missed words before? I’ve read Matthew 11:28-30 countless times but this morning it was different, this morning I listened and it was as though I had never seen these three words - come to me.

Matthew 11:28-30
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

We are not told to get busier, to try harder, to work smarter, we are told – “Come to me”. I read those three words over and over and I could not move away. So this morning I followed instructions, I came to Him and I found light, I found rest, I found peace, I found Christ, right where I had left him – waiting patiently for me.

And speaking of light, as I was driving home this morning from our bible study I pulled into my development and there in front of me was light. Not just any ole’ light but warm rays of light that gently made their way through the trees, somehow peaking around the branches that looked more like the hands of God. It was so extraordinary that I U-turned around multiple times to soak it all in much to the dismay of a couple joggers who likely thought I had lost my mind.

The cure for too much to do is solitude and silence, for there you find that you are safely more than what you do”.
Blaise Pascal

Ever read your car’s passenger mirror? “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear”. And God is like that, He is closer than you think but instead of slowing down all too often we step on the gas and wonder why it’s so tough to find God. In the midst of our “busy, busy, not now, maybe later” world, you and I are paid the almost intolerable compliment of Christ requesting our permission to heal us. We are told – “Come to me and I will heal you” and He waits for me and for you…. but first we have to take our foot off the gas.

“Be still and know that I am God”
Psalm 46:

In the way we judge others…

There is a very well dressed guy in his 30’s that gets onto a bus with his 3 very young kids. He stares right past everyone on the bus as he and the kids walk to the back of the bus. As the ride goes on the kids start to wander and while they start out as “oh isn’t he/she cute”, the little ones shift from cute to annoying to being a safety hazard as the bus driver has to direct the kids to please remain seated more than once. After several minutes, the other adults on the bus and the driver have had more than their fill of these precious little tikes and their self absorbed jerk of a “dad” who has been on his cell phone since he got on the bus. After another round of - “stop touching me ” from the kids, followed by wailing and sobbing from the youngest one the man finally hangs up the phone but says nothing. The woman seated in front of the man, furious at this guy, leans over and says – “Look, obviously you don’t care about anyone else on this bus but maybe you could stay off the phone for a couple seconds and do something about your kids?” With that the guy looks up at her, looking very upset and confused and he says – “Oh…. I’m so sorry….. I was talking to my brother…… we just left the hospital and ……my wife…. my wife just died…. .. ”



“For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Matthew 7:2

Most of us, we go through life with our – Hi, how are you – Oh, Fine. Clichés, facts and opinions and rarely do we venture into the dangerous waters of connecting deep to deep. It’s like we are afraid that someone will find out something about us, that we are broken. So, we hide our true feelings from those we say we love and from God. And the irony is that it is only when we share our honest feelings and who we really are that people get to know us, love us and help us. And, this also works with God as we tack on a cliché or two with those well worn lines that we have recited over and over again and then we call that ‘prayer’. If it’s boring and humdrum for you, imagine how God must feel? All too often, like the man on the bus, we see, we know, we judge – Guilty! And if we had the divine view of all life, and all lives, this might work but our judgments are flawed and they cut us off from others and from God.

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them. “
Mother Teresa

No matter how temporarily satisfying, or how ‘right’ we are, or how much agreement we have from our friends, one “guilty” judgment from us upon another serves only the purposes of hell in us. The Master will judge and we are not He. And from personal experience, let me tell you folks, being “right” is a sad, poor substitute for being truly ALIVE.

Peace!