On finding and being found

Rest is something we are often, if not always, forced to do. In her book, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life, Tish Harrison Warren opines,

But every evening, whether we like it or not, we must admit again that we are not unlimited. Our bodies get tired. Our efforts prove futile. We are needy. Yielding to sleep confesses this reality: a confession that is countercultural and revolutionary. We are not sufficient; we need a caretaker. And this must affect our bodily routines, our worship, and our view of God.

But rest is more than something we do for our physical nature. We must rest our minds, our hearts, our spirit: we must rest holistically. If one is self-aware enough, one knows that each touches the other, changes the other, regulates and directs the other. My physical weariness creates a spiritual weariness in kind, the opposite also being true.

My reflections on this have sprung from the bubbling to the surface of a profound weariness that has forced me to consider rest, and not just the physical kind. Many times I have said, "If I only had a few months to rest. . ." Having gotten those few months during this recent spring due to COVID-19, I realize that a deeper kind of rest has been calling to me, one that can't be found simply by being given time.

I first began to receive hints of this from the most unlikely of messengers: disappointment. Sounds strange, doesn't it? That something as uncomfortable as disappointment could be the harbinger of a better way, yea verily, of hope? I think it is human nature to want for things, things that are built into us to want, such as family, friendships, security, a sense of place. Through a "series of unfortunate events" I slowly began to lose many of those things, but chose to continue to hope that following the weeping would come the rejoicing so many spoke of or pointed out in Scripture.

Waiting is a hard thing to do. It can drain you down to the bottom of your soul, if you're not careful, leaving you dry as a proverbial bone. Waiting is even more difficult if you have some preconceived idea of how things will be, because, of course, that's how things just are. But when such things do not materialize, and the hardness continues, one tends to settle into a daily trudge through life, rehearsing the humdrum of routines as to burn a groove into one's soul.

We are not sufficient; we need a caretaker. And this must affect our bodily routines, our worship, and our view of God.

We do, indeed, need a caretaker. It's funny, though, isn't it, the ways in which God "takes care" of us? The ways in which he calls us to rest, or even forces us to do so in his gentle way? I have learned of late that God does not often care for us in the ways we, as humans, might care for one another. Through disappointment, God has cared for me, teaching me new truths:

God is vast and inscrutable.

God's ways really are higher than my ways.

I will never again claim to have "the whole truth" about God.

I will never again predict the ways in which God might choose to act.

God is found in the oft-unnoticed daily providences of life.

Oh, what rest is found in not knowing, for it is here that I believe God is most often found and known, as are we. All our striving and pushing, of placing God in a mold, of haughtily believing we could figure him out, or describe him, or predict him, or even know what he wants for our lives: madness. The giving up and giving in is the beginning, I believe, for it is at this point that I think we begin to notice God in the daily providences, and also in his past providences, woven like a distinctly colored thread in the tapestry of our lives.

Today a former student, now friend, sent me a new song by Audrey Assad, entitled, Find You.

Beyond ideas

Beyond the veil of time

Beyond all color

And bending of the light

Beyond all concepts

And movements of the mind

I will find you

As far as nowhere

As far as eye can see

From east to west there

Is no place you don't breathe

When all is laid bare

At the bottom of my grief

I will find you

If I make my bed below the earth

I will find you

Such a beautiful echo of Psalm 139, in which David surrendered and confessed the same:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

    you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down

    and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

    and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

    it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?

    Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

If I take the wings of the morning

    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

    and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

    and the light about me be night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you;

    the night is bright as the day,

    for darkness is as light with you.

While some believe this is a Psalm of praise, an awe-filled declaration of God's greatness, I have often read in David's words a frustrated giving up and giving in, an exasperated kind of waving of the white flag in surrender to God who is impossible to understand. The final verses of the psalm give a hint of this:

Search me, O God, and know my heart!

    Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

    and lead me in the way everlasting!

Such freedom there is to be found in resting from the exhausting work of trying to prove that we know anything about God! Instead, we cry, "Know me! KNOW ME, God!" I believe it is in that moment of surrender, and the living into the confession of his "inscrutable ways," as Paul seemed to shout in Romans 11:33, that we even begin to know and be known by Him, to find and be found by him.

Of late, I arise each day and bring the burdens of my heart to him who already knows them all. He does - he really knows. I imagine him, chin in hand, knowingly listening, patiently considering. As I sip the last drops of my coffee, I want to stand and step into the day - to choose to do so - trusting that "when all is laid bare, at the bottom of my grief, I will find you," trusting that God's loving - truly loving - providence will hold, direct, and care for each moment, and that nothing is or will ever be lost.

I want to be found resting right there.