Have you ever had the experience of God chuckling through you? I did tonight. My wife was relating an experience she had that was just a bit of fun on God's part, and I was a bit amused, but then I started chuckling at her reaction, and I just knew it was deeper than just me. It sounds crazy, I know, but after a few seconds I realized I was good with it, and just went with it. There is a peace, and a rightness about it which is hard to explain. There is a part of my mind which wants to seize back control and re-exert itself, but the truth is, I don't want it to. I don't want to fall out of sync. I want to laugh when God laughs. I want to open my mouth when God wants to speak through me. I want to feel what he's feeling, and know what He wants me to know in that moment. I want to abandon that part of me which wants to throw the brakes on because it's scared. I want to rest in the peace, the joy, the patience that being in sync with Him brings. I'm good with it.
What continues to strike me so profoundly is God's humility, His gentleness, and His patience. Here is a Being, the foundation of all being and existence, who literally "is" power, and who chooses instead to not exercise that power when it comes to me. He does not push. He does not invade. He explicitly does not overwhelm me to where I can't process anything, and when He shares His overwhelming love through me He makes certain I can handle it. He waits for me to reach out to Him. He waits until I am ready for Him. He shares what He is feeling with me, His joy, His emotions, His pain, and His grief as well. He who is power makes Himself vulnerable to me, allowing me to share in who He is. There are quiet moments where nothing needs to be said or exchanged and it is just simply a continuous awareness that He is there.
I am still getting used to this and not retreating from it to protect myself. I don't want to retreat from it, but the continuous presence of the Other in relationship without blocking Him (or anyone else) out takes some discipline and awareness on my part. I'm having to train myself to not block the constant awareness of His presence out. There are powerful moments as well where He shares things with me, either for myself or for other people. None of it is ever without my explicit or implicit consent.
I also notice that when I question something like, "well, what about this person?" When I question whether they're supposed to be doing something or not where He is concerned. The answer I get is, "what difference does it make to you how I work with that person?" There is also the extreme empathy He has. Like with this whole COVID thing, His bigger concern was in being kind and empathetic to those people who are scared whether it be from getting the virus, or losing a loved one, or losing their incomes or homes. The virus itself just isn't a thing for Him, but He feels deeply for those who are scared and hurting because of it either directly or indirectly. He sees it through everyone's eyes, and feels what every one of us is feeling. I'm still learning this, and learning to be careful not to interject my own thoughts and interpretations into His.
In contrast to God's respectful, gentle patience is is incessant invasiveness of what I would call the darkness or even the "dark side" which is a near constant yelling trying to get me to react. That is, it insists on putting situations and fantasies into my mind what provoke what I would call a "moral response" trying to get me to agree or disagree, to judge the situation and so take sides as either right or wrong, to feel either superior or angry or fearful at a thing. Whether that thing actually exists or is of any importance is irrelevant. Whereas God sees things through everyone's eyes, the darkness only wants me to judge as though I was superior in some way to this other person, thing, or idea. The darkness inserts itself without permission, trying to force itself on me and drown everything else out. The irony is that, though it barks the loudest, it has the least amount of actual power. It can only yell and not shut up. Its goal is to get "me" to take action. But that yelling is like an abuser, and it wears on you and plays mind games until it gets what it wants.
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