God Watching Day 3

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now." Matthew 6:34a The Message

It's like when the parade is coming. Standing on tip-toe, stretching up tall. Anticipation at a visceral level. The chick is looking for God. But God is not off down the street today beating the drums and playing the trumpets. Perhaps it is the compassion fatigue that sometimes creeps in on Fridays. Or one too many nights this week of not quite enough sleep. But the draw today is down and in. To focus the attention and the seeking not on what God is doing and where God is appearing in the big bright world, but rather where and how God is doing God's doings in the small dark spaces within me.

I am struggling tonight with anger and sadness. Someone I admired has turned out to be thoroughly human. Feet of total clay. I have gotten caught in a situation not of my own making and now in I must make a decision that is true to what I believe is the movement of the Spirit in the situation, and, that once named is likely to be misinterpreted, misunderstood and get me alienated from this person I like a lot, still admire and feel hurt and betrayed by. And so I ask myself, just what is God doing right now in this mess?

I'm thinking now might be a good time to think about the rest of this Matthew passage...." and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." I seem to keep finding myself in these situations where I get to decide if I mean what I say when I talk about trusting God, trusting in God's love and care, God's thereness for me. Not the happy endings, feel no pain Santa Claus thing. But not the reverse "God never gives you more than you can handle" stuff either. Or the God's Testing crud which is even worse. God doesn't. That's the point. Give it or not. It. Just. Is. Whatever "it" is at any given time. Right now it just happens to be this messy interpersonal thing. God didn't arrange this so I can learn from it, or make my friend behave as she is for some object lesson for my life. Or hers either I daresay. But here we are. And God will help me deal...I know and trust that. It has been my experience. Even though I can't tell you how it works, I know that it does. So what is God doing here? God is doing what God always does. Loving me, being faithful. Being my wing. The place to run back to when the world is too big and cold and scary. And God as Jesus has done another thing....given me some good thoughts and examples on some ways to be here that might give me peace, help me feel whole, loving and loved, no matter how the thing turns out.