Week 33: the false/true worshiper (part 2)

Some of us may also be saying: “You know I’m not walking away from you. So what am I walking away from? Please, tell me.”

He might respond in this way.

“You are walking away from all the things that are associated with me, but are not me. The very things that may have once connected you with me may now be hindrances. All that was once important and necessary may now be obstacles. Are you willing to step over the wall, into the utter blackness of unknowing? This is where I am. You will rediscover what has currently become meaningless when you seek me and are found by me first. There is no meaning in the rest when I am not the central, immediate, desperate, insistent, given, inherent essence of it all. There is only meaning in the rest when I and I alone are everything to you. I am the treasure in the field and to find me you may have to give up even the good, even the religious, even the ‘church,’ even your ‘Christianity’ (as you have known it). Only when I am first and foremost and above all and in all will the rest regain its color. Because I am the breath that gives all else life. If I am overshadowed or pushed aside, then all else is dead. It is only a shell of what once contained something of me. Come to me, and you will remember the rest. Come to me.”

Sometimes, to walk away from “the rest” feels like walking away from God. But it may be that, in walking away, you are actually walking towards him.

How do we come to God when all of the old ways seem to have no more meaning? When every bridge to him is being–or has been–burned? When every way we have ever had of coming to him is seemingly gone, what is left?

For many of us, there remains this strong, bright spark of love that we have for God. And this beautiful, radiant, unceasing fire of being loved. I am certain, this I have not lost. Nor can I ever seem to lose it.

There is something there, beyond all we have ever known of him. Something deeper, more given and inherent, buried beneath all the facades of understanding. God is where my knowledge–even my knowing–cannot reach. God is an essence my naming cannot describe. God is a host of love that no star or piece of sand can outnumber.

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One response to “Week 33: the false/true worshiper (part 2)”

  1. I relate 100% to all these reflections on true worship. Thanks for articulating it with such poignancy and clarity. I have never stopped loving God but I question many of the ways and traditions in churches and am more repelled by man-made traditions within religious structures than ever. I know God knows where I’m at. He sees my desire for the unconventional authentic communion with him that often isn’t found within the four walls of buildings. My favourite way to commune with him is usually in nature far removed from civilization as we know it. I find the wild outdoors more civilized than cities.

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