Awesome

“Our God, is an awesome God

He reigns from heaven above

with wisdom, power, and love

our God is an awesome God.” – Rich Mullins

Those lyrics above popped into my head as I sat to write this morning, and I just had to smile.

In this past week, I sat often with the thoughts of, “Really, God, do you really want me to do all this?” The question felt rhetorical, because I didn’t really hear an answer. I had a lot of conflicting ideas and emotions and thoughts through various experiences recently. In the midst of asking the question through the activities of the days, there seemed to be a hint of an answer, but no clear cut certainty.

Remember the verse- “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you” Matthew 7:7?

Beautiful verse, but the power inherent in that verse is intimidating.

Ask? All I have to do is ask?

What I’ve found, then, is that my questions will often lack a certain … specificity. Can I be happy? Can I be at peace? Will you help me feel better?

And the answer is always, Yes, and Yes, and Yes.

But then what?

Then I have to SEEK clarity. That means moving out of my comfort zone, of taking time out of an already packed life to explore other ways of thinking, doing, being AND integrating those into my understanding of who I am and how this fits into my personal calling.

Then I have to KNOCK. I have to acknowledge that whatever change has occurred in me also means that I have to engage the world outside of me in a new way. I have to gather the courage to walk through a new door, and step into an entirely new space.

In the midst of daily life, which can already be exhausting, the call to ask AND seek AND knock could seem like just too much more to do.

I often wonder, “Is there more to this life than what already I know and experience?”

The answer is always, “Yes.”

Then I ask, “Will you show me the way?”

The answer? “Yes.”

Then I ask, “So why don’t I see the answer?”

The response? “Because you have to walk WITH me. Not only with the world and of the world, but WITH ME and THROUGH ME.”

The answer is always in the Journey, in the walking with, in the unveiling of Mystery. The fullest answer is often an emergence through multiple experiences. And the answer ends up being to a question that you never knew could exist.

For example – Should I be a doctor? … Yes. That was the question at age 5.

In the past year, there’s been a much greater specificity … Can I be in Divine Friendship with Jesus and co-create an integrative medical practice that is wildly successful and inspires a movement?

I never would have imagined such a question. Not at age 5, or 15, or 25, or even 35.

But evidently, the answer remains – “Yes.”

We all know that change is inevitable.

But do we change, kicking and screaming with our minds, resisting because we don’t know what we don’t know, and fearful that all will fall apart?

Or do we embrace our awesome God, and cling tightly with trembling hearts and unsteady feet, and seek so we can find, then knock so that the door might be opened?

This morning, I asked a clear-cut question and got a clear cut answer. And don’t you know it, my heart is trembling and my feet are unsteady.

But I’m going to abandon myself to the infinite mercy of an awesome God.

Evidently, there’s another door just waiting to be opened.