a kingdom built of seeds

I’m like you.

If you’ve never had a vision. You don’t speak in tongues. When others around you seem to have an encounter with God, you have none. You’ve sat in a crowd of believers wondering, “Why not me? What’s wrong with me?” You’ve wondered what you’re missing, what you don’t have that others do. You’ve wondered why you’re different, why you can’t seem to meet God in the way others do, why God doesn’t show up for you in the ways he does for others.

I’m like you.

If you can’t seem to find life in a church. You can’t seem to experience God there like others do. You’re uncomfortable with their impenetrable certainty when you are full of doubt. You wonder if it’s wrong to see God everywhere else, everywhere you shouldn’t, everywhere he’s been banned. The secondary is the primary. The secrets of God are hidden (and found) in the mysteries of the world. God is not obvious, hidden where the religious one is not likely to look. You find God in the world, among earthly things that perish. In a nature so oddly spectacular. Birds sing praises. Trees dance in worship. The wild speaks the language of God.

(Have you heard an elk bugle in the night? Have you listened to the chorus of birdsong at dawn? Have you seen the alpenglow at dusk? Have you witnessed a sunrise or sunset from a mountaintop? The earth is the likeness and image of God. It’s where you go to have him.)

I’m like you.

If you know there’s something more but you can’t quite name it. You know that somehow the eternal inhabits the temporal. In what passes in a moment is a trace of what is forever.

I’m like you.

If you’re suspicious of organized religion but feel drawn to Jesus. You want to believe but don’t quite know how. You’re a believing unbeliever and ask God to help you in your unbelief.

I’m like you.

If some days you’re anxious, depressed, or hopeless, and God doesn’t save you from it, but meets you within it.

I’m like you.

If the further away you wander the more the Divine seems to accompany you.

I’m like you.

If you have the sense that God never gives up on you even when you have given up. Whether on yourself, or your final shred of faith.