A Flickering Light In The Darkness

I had one response, yesterday, to my wonder on knowing God.  

“I know God as the light that flickered in the darkness of my depression.”

I didn’t quote her words specifically.  So I hope you get the point.  

She didn't try to define who God is; just that she knows him through her experience of His presence.  

I was grateful for her willingness to enter my mental conversation.

So here is another intellectual wondering.  “The eye of the storm.”

The sentence, in Ted Loder’s prayer, is a request: 

“I want peace;

show me the eye of the storm.”

        

And the question I asked, on this stormy mid-west day, is: What does that mean?  

Here is what I learned:

The eye of the storm is “the calm,” “the center,”  surrounded on all sides by turbulent cycles of wind.

Some weeks ago I wrote about Jesus leadership style as “a non-anxious presence.”  — the calming presence in the midst of the not-so-calm.

That would be the flashes of light the person felt in her depression.  A calming presence in her emotional crisis.

It seems to me that if we could just be satisfied with the light of Christ/God. The  calming, reassuring presence, that the light brings into our live; then maybe the stormy winds of interpretation, of God’s Word, would be more peace-filled.

Unfortunately, there are many in the world who have learned to understand God as a God of judgment; rather than a God of gracious assurance.  

You have heard me too often on that subject.

No more said about that.

The God/Jesus I know is indeed a calming and loving presence in our lives and in our world.