God Told Me You're Wrong

"I was talking to Jesus about you this morning" she began a little hesitantly.

"Really? What did He have to say?"

"Well...He told me you got your One Word wrong."

"Excuse me?"

"He said He gave you 'presence', but you chose 'seek.'"

My mind went back to the day before when I was praying with her and another person.

That other person had begun their prayer with "God I pray that Toni feels your presence in a tangible way today." He got specific so there was no misunderstanding. "Not your p r e s e n t s, but your presence. Surround her with it and help her to be aware of it..."  Throughout the prayer, he circled back to God's presence a number of times.

When he was done, I told him I found his prayer interesting because the words "presence" and "seek" had come up over and over in the beginning of the year as I was looking for my one word. I really felt drawn to presence, but I thought "That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I'm going with seek, because I can seek attributes of God along with His presence. Presence by itself just sounds strange as word to meditate on."

Now here was this woman, after hearing my thought process, telling me God said I chose the wrong word.

I wondered if what she had heard was more her opinion than divine dictation.

Instead of voicing my doubts, I countered with "What do you mean?"

She said, "You're always 'doing.' God gave you a noun, and you went with a verb.

Presence is a noun...and God's presence is a person, a place, and a thing. But you chose seek, which is a verb.

You chose seek as if there was something you needed to do. God's not asking you to do anything - His Presence is already here - just rest in it."

Even if God hadn't imparted these words and she had been influenced by my comments the previous day, there was a ton of truth in them. I am always in motion. It's hard for me to be quiet and still.

I had just come out of a trying year that had left me feeling dry even as I sought after balance.  Perhaps God really was telling me to stop seeking His Presence because it already enveloped me.

The very next day my email contained a post from (in)courage entitled The Gift of Presence. It was about giving our friends the gift of our presence when they are hurting and words can't fix or undo the problem, but it was likened to the way we know and interact with God, sitting in His Presence. The day after that, the post was entitled He Will Meet You and it contained this line...when you are present in the moment, you will feel His Presence.

Yeah, God's like that. When you don't want to hear what He has to say, or you're not quite sure if He's the voice you're hearing, He repeats himself.

Over and over if necessary.

Every day this week, the mention of God's Presence has been in something I've read or a song I've listened to, or someone has prayed that I would feel His Presence in my life.

I've never been so happy to admit I was wrong.

Writing this, I looked for scripture on God's presence. I realized there were two verses I had encountered multiple times in the past month...no wonder I had been drawn to the word presence.

Psalm 139:7 - Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

And Exodus 33:14 - And He said; my presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.

It's not that seeking is wrong, but right now, I'm tired and verbs require energy. I guess I'm in a noun kind of season.

God's already here and I'm ready to rest in His Presence. The only action needed is to lean in.

Hide and Seek

More often than not, I arrive a little late.

It didn't used to be that way. It's a bad habit that developed over time.

I don't mean to do it, I just think I can accomplish more than is humanly possible in a finite amount of minutes, hours, or days, and as a result, I get caught short.

I can joke that the laws of space and time don't apply to me, but the deeper truth is it's probably rooted in pride. I suffer from Super-Toni syndrome. A friend even gave me a picture once that said "I'm fairly certain, if given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world."

But this time, my reason for being "tardy" is different.

I did wait on purpose.

I waited because I didn't want it to be about me and what I thought God wanted. I waited to listen to what He actually had to say. I've been in a dry place and my hearing hasn't been so good lately.

Truth is, I wasn't just in a dry place, I was completely dehydrated. 

Even in a year when my "one word" was balance and I worked hard to fill my soul by more learning ABOUT Him, I wasn't really spending time WITH Him. In my last post, I wrote "I said 'no' to activities in order to spend time alone in reflective quiet..." And I did say no to outside activities. I just whittled a lot of that reflective time away not reflecting so much as vegging out internally.

Doing nothing and spending deliberate time waiting in God's presence are two entirely different things.

I need to spend quality time one-on-one having casual conversations and heart to heart talks.

Instead, I've been hiding from Him like the squirrel in the picture hiding in the grass, grasping the "nut" of my heart for dear life, not wanting to let go. Why? I'm not sure I could articulate it.

What I can say is that it's not the first dry spell I've been through and it probably won't be the last. I've lived in God's presence and I've lived on the outskirts and the former is infinitely better than the latter.

But I'm human.

It's not an excuse, just an observation of our fallen condition. We strive to be like Him, but we fall short. We've ALL fallen short of God's glory.

So all that to say a few weeks after others have talked about theirs, I'm finally ready to reveal my "one word" for the year.

Seek.

I want to seek His presence, His love, His grace, His mercy, His wisdom, His forgiveness. His peace.

Seek is a big word.

Only four letters long, it encompasses a lifetime of longing. A lifetime of pursuit. A lifetime of discovery.

While I was still waiting on the word, I went back to an app I'd used sporadically in the past year called First 15. I knew from years of walking with Him that the hiding needed to stop. I needed to start the day in His presence. I had to push through the dry to get back to the well of living water.

The very first devotional for the year was entitled "What Does It Mean to Have Time Alone With God?"

Day after day, I saw the words "seek" and "presence" in everything I read.

Although Matthew 6:33 was rolling around in the back of my mind - "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.", it sounded so huge. The kingdom of God. AND His righteousness. Tall order. How vast is God's kingdom? How all-encompassing His righteousness? Where on earth would I start? (no pun intended!)

Then God opened my eyes to a verse yesterday I've read many times.

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." (Jer. 29:13)

Simple. Direct. Seek Him. He'll make Himself known. He wants to be found.

God's not hiding and neither should I.

This year, this month, this day, this hour, this minute...I will seek.