Photo: St. Thomas, VI, February 2, 2019
Yesterday we explored some areas where people weren’t on the island. We found a somewhat secluded area and decided to see what we could see around the shoreline. We swam for what seemed like forever searching for underwater life. We saw some neat things and found some stellar shells. But, we didn’t even make it all the way around the original course we plotted. Instead, we turned around and headed back the way we came because there was a little current and we are elderly.
When we returned to the cottage we saw the area where we were swimming and it looked so tiny – so incredibly small. And I could not believe how big it actually was when I saw it from such a distance.
That is what it’s like to know God. The closer you get, the more you realize how unbelievably big He actually is.
Men like to be right – especially men who are husbands – especially, especially men who are husbands named Tim. At the end of the day I’m often left feeling as though I am always wrong. That’s what it is when you’re married to Mr. Fix it. He’s the ultimate diagnostician and I’m just a parts changer in the grand scheme. So, by default, I’m not usually right. So, I’ve been doing what any girl who’s seldom stellar, but sometimes really right about some things seriously would. I have been rubbing it in when I am veritably, beyond the shadow of a doubt, right. I’ve even had a few victories lately!
Yesterday the mechanic said, “Look at that island out there with a house on it sitting all by itself.” “Honey, that’s not a house, that’s a boat.” I watched for a few solid minutes before the sail passed through a clearing in the far away land. “LOOK! See! It’s a sailboat, not a house! Told you.” “No. Over there.” *Mechanic points due north.* “Oh.”
That’s what it’s like when God gets a hold of a girl who can’t get past her own not-so- greatness. All this time she’s been pointing and preaching about the itty-bitty boat, but all the while she’s been looking at the wrong God-loving island altogether.
I’m tired of being wrong, you know. I’m tired of being proven wrong. Which is why I should have never gone back to church. I literally feel like everything I have thought and believed on so many levels for so many years was just plain wrong. And it’s not because anyone is candidly correcting me. It’s because the carrying out of Christ’s work right in front of me is as clear as the water in this Caribbean sea.
If God was the house on the island due north that everyone’s been pointing at all my life, I’m still the girl going on about the boat sailing around the adjacent island and how right I am. Meanwhile, I’ve been seeing Him so distant, so far-removed, and so tiny when, in fact, He is so much bigger and takes so much more movement and exhaustive effort to see all the way around than any place I’ve ever been before. I have been looking for a house, seeing a sailboat, and thinking I saw rightly when I have literally been staring at the wrong flipping island for real.
How’s that for a revelation?
Seeing God is an exploration of sorts. Knowing Him is a perilous, fantastic, furious journey. Just when you think you’ve figured something out, you no sooner find out you failed. But being led by someone so incredibly righteous – someone who is never, ever wrong makes following less like fighting and much, much more like true freedom.
Start successfully explaining that to those who are still seeing the sailboat shouting about their rightness and you’ll be a serious soul-winning deep sea diver.
It has been three months since I went back to church. It had been a year and a half since I stopped going. Most days my self-righteous bitterness did not allow me to miss it one bit. Most days I was dancing in the distance, fixated on the far away floater while everyone else was pointing to the big, beautiful house juxtaposed just over yonder. I could not see it. I was too satisfied, fascinated, and content in my pitifully wrong rightness.
Nevertheless, because God is the huge, warm, amazing oasis that He is, His providence found me by allowing me to think I found him first. He is continually showing me my stupidity through his people’s simplicity. And I cannot believe how long I’ve been wrong about Him.
I have honestly never felt worse about who I have been. But somehow I have never felt better about who God is. And that’s all kinds of crazy. The only way I can describe it is truly amazing grace.
I am still one of the most dense rocks you will ever meet. Ask the mechanic. But maybe I don’t have to be an island anymore. Maybe my books and my poetry don’t have to protect me. Maybe the house on the island is where I should start looking. Maybe if I start looking at the house on the right island instead of self-righteously sailing away on the wrong one, I won’t keep missing God’s grandiose grace – for me and for all the other do-gooding no-gooders.
Maybe I can be a rock without being an island. Because maybe, just maybe a God this good can handle a girl this bad.
Everyday Encounters With the Creator 