It can be hard to understand our God—the One who loves us in ways so detailed and intimate we feel humbled and baffled by his attentiveness. The One who gives the gift of free will, which allows for both miraculous goodness and ripping, wrenching evil. The One who created a magnificent earth—where leaves change, flowers bloom, breezes make music, clouds billow, skies shift in splashes of color—that we have neglected to reverence. The One who gives us to each other—even as we struggle to love and forgive in our imperfection—and sends his Spirit to be our breath and daily bread.
It can be hard to understand our world—this one in which children are born and embraced in their mothers’ arms and children are taken hostage and imprisoned in cages, and we ache in that deepest part of our beings, trying to process how both can exist. This one in which we totter between sickness and health, the joy of life and the grief of death. We ask, how can living both fill and rend our hearts? How can we want both more and less of life as we know it?
When I make space for this type of reflection, I am reminded of the book of Job. Out of immense suffering, Job calls out at God for an account of why he has had to endure trials: “let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing” (Job 31:35). God responds “out of the storm” by questioning Job, “Where were you when I founded the earth?” (38:4). “Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place?” (38:12). “Have you entered into the sources of the sea, or walked about on the bottom of the deep?” (38:16). After listening to God for many questions like these, Job realizes he is not God, and says, “Look, I am of little account; what can I answer you? I put my hand over my mouth” (40:4). “I have spoken but did not understand; things too marvelous for me, which I did not know” (42:3).
We could stop here, bowing before the reality that we cannot understand all of God’s ways, that we are creatures and not the Creator. But, let’s not stop here—let’s move deeper into the Mystery.
When we continue to bring our aches, sadnesses, joys, desires, and thanksgivings to God, God reveals how he has and continues to take them into himself. We press our wounds against Jesus’ wounds and see that he died for us. By his wounds we are healed. We experience Jesus’ goodness, mercy, and tenderness and know that he lives (and, indeed, reigns).
None of this—this life of captivating beauty and deep longing—makes sense apart from the cross of Christ. In the cross, we see Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection and our own. When we set out eyes on this truth, God’s Spirit emboldens our hearts, makes our prayers powerful, and shapes us into prophets of hope to bring light into the dark corners of our homes and communitities.
Come, Holy Spirit. Fill us with your wisdom, joy, and peace. Give us the grace to persevere in faith, hope and, love today. Amen.