Lonely God

The idea of God being everywhere - and becoming more aware of Him - is one I'll likely write about numerous times. It's a theme running through my life in this particular season.

This seemed to start with a passage in The Message that contained a phrase I couldn't (and still can't) shake. Isaiah 33:21 read, "Instead, God! God majestic, God himself the place in a country of broad rivers and streams…"

God himself the place. I understand what the words mean, and it seems like an easy enough concept. The sheer bigness of God reflected in it has been hard to wrap my mind around, though.

Contemplating it one day, I couldn’t help but wonder what being "the place" must be like from God's perspective. I imagined the most beautiful place I could, and what came to mind was a mountain overlooking a valley with a thick forest on its floor, everything just waking up in the early morning.

Suddenly, I was overcome by a profound sense of loneliness. Is this what it feels like to be so enormous, to have this huge love and deep, deep longing for relationship with someone that barely notices you're there?

This poem is what rose out of that feeling...

How lonely it must be

hanging in this very air

as people breeze by going nowhere important,

as I breathe in, breathe out, breathe 100 times

without even knowing I've done it.

Yours must be an outsider's kind of sadness

looking out across a valley,

floating tree tops on thick, white mist

in the damp and sweet of autumn,

but no one to witness. Just You, being…

Who will be your companion,

hunkering down on your hearth

of stories and blessings,

returning your gaze, your smile,

your longing, open heart?

My arms are not big enough to take You in,

but to You, they are plenty.