There is something comforting about time after all, even as it seems to hasten us on into oblivion at times. The chance to reflect and revisit a prior time reminds me that all is well in the soul that yearns for God and that the march of time is a bringing-us-closer to something, rather than a taking-us-away. As I reflect today on the significance of things, this first day of a new year, I am reminded of a writing I wrote exactly one year ago. And, as I re-read that writing, I noticed a call to a kind of rest that has slowly deepened within me over the last year. A quote from the mystic, Madame Guyon, captures it well:
Rest. Rest. Rest in God's love. The only work you are required now to do is to give your most intense attention to His still, small voice within.
-- Madame Jeanne Guyon
As best I know, at this point in time anyway, this rest is a growing awareness and confidence in the goodness of God towards mankind, towards me. Perhaps the threat we feel from the oblivion we so often dread is really based in sense of loss in the goodness of things we have experienced as we age – goodness defined on our terms, base on our own personal histories. And the voice of this loss chagrins us into brokering our sense of goodness from within ourselves and through what we experience. This, though, is really a false voice. A voice not of the peace of God, but a voice from one trying to distort peace by basing it on our own ability to manage things, to secure the goodnesses we seek. This distortion of goodness changes the game from something we desire, to something we think we deserve. And, when we operate from a sense of things we deserve, we miss the very nature of goodness. The very nature of God himself.
One of my conclusions over the last year is that God is the ultimate author of goodness. And, because this is true, my attempts to manage it based on my very limited perspective of what goodness should look like are really just sad and pitiful, at best. The fact is, I really don’t know how to write a story about goodness. But that is not my job, my role in life. My life is to be about participating in the goodness that God designs for life. Goodness that extends itself to me, and not simply to me. And the way I participate in it is largely by being willing to wait for it, rather than by trying to make it happen. And the way I wait for it is largely due to my willingness to rest (rather than work hard) and listen for God’s voice.
This is something I think I was recognizing a year ago today and something that I believe more and more in now. I don’t control goodness. I receive it. It is gift. It is something I can be a part of…something because of the nature of it, to offer to others…to give away.
