We seek to align ourselves to God’s perspective, not to present God with ours. Nicola Slee expresses this beautifully:
Give me the resolution to say ‘No’ to the good so that I will be ready to say ‘Yes’ to the better.
Give me the courage to keep living in the open- endedness of the future without foreclosing the mysterious work of your Spirit in my haste or fear.
Give me the persistence to stay in the wilderness of unknowing until I am ready to receive your call.
Give me the strength to keep still and keep waiting when all about me is pushing towards movement and activity and choice.
Give me the acceptance to live these days in uneventfulness, simplicity and hiddenness, without craving excitement, distraction or change.
Give me the grace to live in the emptiness of not doing without the rewards of achievement, fulfilment or success.
Give me the wisdom to discriminate between my own impatience to move forward and your Spirit’s deep stirring of my spirit when the time is right to move.
Give me the faith to trust in your obscurity, the obedience to stay faithful to your mystery, the courage to keep tryst with your inscrutability.
In the palm of His hand
News and false news
Rumours and speculation
Comment and analysis
Fear and frustration
Impossible questions
Fielded answers
But I am safe
In the palm of His hand
Certainties no longer certain
Structures shaken
Routines ruined
Unexpected becomes expected
Distance and isolation
Insecurity and sanctuary
But I am safe
In the palm of his hand
When will it end?
How can it end?
What will remain?
What have we learnt?
Where will we be?
Whatever is to come
I am safe
In the palm of his hand
Cheryl Coverley April 2020
The gift of hiddenness
What if the gift
is hidden within crisis
and isolation?
What if the gift
is hiddenness itself?
What if it is not about absence
but about presence?
In a world where everything
is ‘out there’ –
what I had for breakfast
‘Gender reveal’
quantities of ‘likes’
selfies
endless posts……
what if God has something for us
that is unseen
unobserved by others,
private
personal
precious…….
In days before ultra sound
and 4D scans,
God saw the Psalmist’s unformed body within the womb;
what intimacy
when all was concealed from human eyes.
What of the ‘Messianic secret’
the knowing of Jesus’ identity
which was not yet fully revealed?
Or his words
of seeds growing secretly –
their future fruitfulness
displayed in due course?
The ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’
of God’s kingdom?
And what of our own secrets –
wonderful news to be shared
when the time is right?
And in that waiting
is there impatience or eager anticipation?
Frustration or the treasuring of the season
as Mary treasured her joy in her heart?
What might God want to birth in us,
end in us,
address in us
in solitude
isolation
and hiddenness?
What if He has a plan and a purpose
for this very time
these particular circumstances
that could not happen any other way?
When busyness, distraction
and competing ‘good’ things
divert us from the ‘better’ He is calling us to?
When we are ever conscious of the eyes that are on us?
Or the eyes we want to be on us?
As Jesus sought out quiet places,
lonely places
where he could be with God,
maybe God has given us
a rare opportunity
to step aside
and be
just be
away from other eyes
no boxes to tick;
competences to achieve;
goals to attain;
with space
and time to
become
and then be resourced for the next step
the fruitful work
not based on routines,
past expectations,
‘We’ve always done it this way’,
but the new things that He has for us
individually and corporately
following on from the hiddenness;
of the seed dying in the ground
being transformed,
and then revealed.
Do we have eyes to see?
To discover the gift
hidden for us
as we are hidden from others?
And will we remember that we are never hidden from God?
Dare we treasure our hiddenness from other eyes
receiving the gift in the darkness
that will prepare us to emerge in the light?
Cheryl Coverley April 2020