I’m so glad you asked.

 

Everywhere.

Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

 

Where exactly? I think there’s this misconception that for something to be there, you have to see it. That’s a funny thing considering that the things we all know are the most real are entirely invisible. Things like love, I mean. And you might say, rightly, that these things are seen in actions and…yeah. But I’m not talking about the fruit of love. I’m talking about its essence. And no sir, you can’t see that.

And have you ever loved someone and they didn’t know it? Or appreciate it? They didn’t recognize your acts of love? God’s felt that before, too. In fact I can say with confidence that He lives with that feeling with a continuousness that I honestly don’t want to imagine.

So where is He? I can’t tell you where He is for you, only that He is for you. I can tell you where He is for me. He’s in that song I’ve been wanting to hear in church. Last Sunday before service I sat and flipped through the pages to find it and figured that since there’s only a 1/594 chance that it’ll be chosen, I might as well just take a picture of it and sing it to myself later (I do that). Minutes later it turns out that we’re singing it. Today. He takes song requests.

He’s in that book I’m reading that is seemingly always written for me. (You say that’s the sweet thread of humanity and I say, yes. He made us that way). He’s deep inside that soul of mine that I’ve been begging Him to make more like Him, in the emotion that He’s awakened in reading and understanding things I could never get on my own. He’s made a stoic a crier and a cynic a romantic.

He is in that sunset that I refuse to take for granted. (Little clarification here: nature isn’t God, but God’s presence is surely evident in nature). He’s in that ridiculously perfect day when I walk five miles, get horribly lost, barely notice it, and definitely don’t care.

He’s in the hurricane, too. He’s in that collection of moments (a day? An impossible year? More?) when something in life sits heavily on my soul and relief seems simultaneously necessary for survival and like it’ll never come. There’s purpose in those things, though. He does say that. Our God is not an arbitrary one. This phrase, His words, hovers over my subconscious like [can’t for anything think of a fitting word] : “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Have I said this before? Well it’s my anthem, folks. I can’t help it. Do you know what that means to me? It means freedom. It means I love my Savior, He works all things together for my good, even the things that hurt. “For his anger lasts only a moment, but His favor a lifetime.”

These are promises meant for me, but not only for me. That’s what I’m always trying to say in the midst of my many words. (Sorry, my fingertips hit that keyboard and halfway through I wonder if I’ve said what I meant yet. I could be a good writer and edit but I need to do my R homework so,

 

Christianity is not a quick fix to your problems. It is a long term solution to the world that we live in and its clear wretchedness. It is a collection of people who understand their humanity, their need for a Savior. Yes! We need a hero! And Marvel can’t invent the One we need. We are not good. I’m sorry! But we really aren’t, not one of us. We need the miracle that is Jesus, the free gift, the sufficiency of His sacrifice. We need it because we can’t save ourselves.

Christianity is not a collection of rules meant to suck the fun out of your life. But it is submission to the God whom you love, a feeble yet sometimes valiant effort to please Him in obedience.  It’s unearthly desire to do so, the closer you get to His heart. It’s seeing God as God, and a collapsing to the knees, because once you see Him for what He is there is nothing else you can do. It’s surrender.

It’s what I’m going to talk about, forever. It does seem logical that you’d get bored of that but gosh it never gets old to me.

 

I love you. And I mean it.