Out of the Whirlwind
Meeting God
by Eugenia A. Gamble
 Desert fathers and mothers
tell the story of a young inquirer who came to visit an old monk.
The inquirer asked the old monk how he might meet God. The old
man took him down to a deep stream and they entered the stream
together. The old man put his hand on the young man's head and
gently but firmly pushed him under the water. At first the young
man showed little resistance. After a few moments he began to
squirm. Still the old man held him down with remarkable strength.
Soon his squirming became frantic, then panicked. Finally with
a huge burst of energy and resolve the young man pushed his way
to the surface and gulped in the fresh air. "What were you
trying to do to me?" the young man demanded. "When
you want God as much as you want to breathe, then, God you will
meet."
Where Is God?
We all have a longing for God-a deep, urgent desire to experience
the awesome presence, power, love and mercy of God. We are not
all, however, aware of that deep need. Like people moving through
life in a deep sleep, many in our culture live and move with
little or no awareness either of God or of the need for God in
their lives. People long for God and call that longing by many
other names-security, the perfect job, "Mr. Right,"
wealth or justice. But the truth of the matter is that we long
for the feeling of being consciously in the presence of God.
How, then, do we answer Jesus' call to feed his sheep? First
of all we choose to tell our stories. We each have a story of
God's activity in our lives. They are the stories of wounds healed,
hearts mended, courage restored, faith nurtured, relationships
strengthened, barriers broken, prison cells flung open. Many
of us are uncomfortable at the thought of talking out loud about
our faith with others. Maybe we are more secure in talking about
it in the abstract. But people don't want to meet God in the
abstract. They want to meet the God that changed our lives.
Ever Present and Ever Loving
Second, we must remind ourselves and others that Jesus is miraculously
present in the storms and crises of our lives. I became aware
of this truth again a few weeks ago when I took my annual theater
trip to New York with my mother. As we rounded a curve and saw
the snaggle-toothed skyline of Manhattan from the window of our
train, I knew that I would have to go to ground zero and see
it for myself. It was not at all what I expected. I expected
the scene to feel like a horror movie-frantic, crazed, like Dante's
inferno. But it didn't. It was sad and unimaginable to be sure,
but also something else. What I found at ground zero, in the
face of the worst that human beings can possibly do to each other,
was the presence of the best that God can do for us, the presence
of Christ himself, walking across the ashes as he did so many
centuries ago across the troubled waters of the sea to his frightened
and desolate friends. If we want to feed Jesus' sheep today,
we must tell them that Christ is present in the storms and crises
of their lives. We must tell them that as we face our lives and
meet Christ there that he will come to us each day more deeply
and lovingly.
Third, if we want to help people meet God we must tell them that
their choices between good and evil matter. It is not my responsibility
to think for another, to tell her exactly what is and what isn't
evil, exactly how to make every moral choice. We teach scripture,
wrestle with our own ethical choices and allow the Holy Spirit
to speak, lead and convict ourselves and others. What we must
help people see is that our choices are rarely neutral and never
irrelevant.
"Feed my sheep," Jesus says to his friends. If we are
friends, we have work to do.
Eugenia Gamble is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in
Birmingham, Alabama.
How have you met God? Read
Eugenia Gamble's reflections in this issue of Horizons.
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