I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple…..Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’
                                                                        Isa. 6:1,8

Beauty has a way of transforming us.  It never leaves us indifferent or unaffected but moves us towards action, sending us back into the world as witnesses of what we have seen.  As Hans Urs von Balthasar puts it, “Beauty works its way into our bones, into the sinews of our life, indelibly marking us, and then setting us off.”

Isaiah, having tasted the goodness of the Lord, is sent out as a herald of the beauty he has seen. As the Catholic theologian Robert Barron writes,

• The one who has been grasped by the beautiful is like the woman in the Gospel who breaks open the alabaster jar at the feet of Jesus and allows the aroma of the perfume to fill the entire house; she is willing to break open her life in order to witness to what she has seen and heard.

Experiences of beauty always imply mission.  We are changed by what God has shown us.  And whatever we receive in such encounters is always for the sake of others.  As Barron notes,

• Visions of the divine are never given merely for the sake of private edification or contemplation. The “seeing” is never an end in itself.  On the contrary, there is always a commission attached to the insight. Vision opens you to mission.  You have been shown so that others might see as well.

There are countless examples in Scripture of this movement from “seeing” to “being sent.”   Moses is so marked by his encounter with God that his face became radiant.  He doesn’t stay on the mountaintop but comes back down to set his people free.   Saul of Tarsus, dazzled by Christ’s light, is sent to Damascus where he is given a mission to carry the message of Jesus to the gentiles.  And Peter, the first to discern that Jesus is the Messiah, is immediately given the commission to anchor and ground the community through which the glory he has recognized will now be proclaimed to the world.

God, it would seem, does not disclose himself without a “price”. He commissions the one who has seen with a call for service to the whole community, a call that is both compelling and inescapable.  The beauty of the Lord becomes a fire within us, prompting us to a missionary life of proclamation.  As Barron puts it, “To refuse this call would be tantamount to refusing the best of oneself.  To ignore it would be to ignore the person we are meant to be.”  He adds,

• The summons from God is like the coal placed on the lips of Isaiah, or the fire burning uncomfortably in the bones of Jeremiah, or the compulsion that Paul feels  to proclaim the Gospel:  ” I am ruined if I do not preach it!” The beauty of God  so possesses us that our very identity, our very person, becomes the mission to communicate this to the world.

Whatever we have seen of Christ transforms us into witnesses of the gospel.  And the same mystery that first drew us to His beauty now sends us out to share with the world the glory we have seen.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for June 27^th, 2013)

QUESTIONS

1.  In what ways has the beauty of God transformed you?  What particular aspect of God’s beauty comes to mind for you today?

2.  What do you wish you could share most with others about the beauty of the Lord?

3.  How do you relate to Robert Barron’s statement that “To refuse this call would be tantamount to refusing the best of oneself.  To ignore it would be to ignore the person we are meant to be?”

PRAYER:  Take time to meditate on the things you already know of God’s beauty.  Express to God something of your desire to know more—that He would open your heart to more fully appreciate the beauty of His ways.  Now pray for those who you would like to share this knowledge with.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you   Mat. 6:33

If you need a good New Year’s resolution you don’t have to look much further than Jesus’ exhortation for us to prioritize the kingdom of God and the many expressions of His righteousness in our lives.  According to this Scripture, by simply obeying the promptings of righteousness all the other resolutions we feel our life needs will automatically be looked after.

We generally think of righteousness in terms of our relationship to morality or to people.  But the word means much more than that.  It means to be rightly related to all things in your life—to exercise, to sleep, to your diet, to your finances, to work, to ministry, to your possessions, to entertainment, and yes, even to your computer and smart phone.  These are all areas where righteousness applies.  And they are also areas where we likely feel off-kilter at times.  We keep trying to find a balance, but we keep missing the mark.

God is always indicating to us adjustments we need to make in life, which is why we should approach righteousness more as an act of obedience than one of discipline or management.  If we simply heed the correctives of the Holy Spirit, God is prepared to show us how to live without excess or neglect in our relationship to all things.

Peace and stability are generally the indicators of being rightly related to something.  In the OT, when righteousness prevailed in the land, the people enjoyed shalom, a word that means much more than peace.  It speaks of wholeness, rest, harmony, and of the absence of agitation or discord.  When everything is in right relationship to everything else, the result is shalom.

Turmoil, on the other hand, usually indicates that adjustments are still needed.  It creates tension in us until the changes life is crying out for are made.  Such restlessness is a God-given instinct through which the Holy Spirit teaches us the correctives we need.  Just as our inner ear can tell us when we are standing off balance, so this God-given instinct can help us recognize when we are off-kilter in a relationship.  If we simply follow its leading, the Holy Spirit will free us from all the unnecessary wear and tear that being wrongly related to something produces in our lives.

The correctives of the Holy Spirit have a way of nagging us until we either do something about them or else shut them out.  If we consistently ignore these promptings we will develop what Jesus calls a “calloused heart,” which is not much different from the calluses we develop on our hands from manual labour, or on our feet from walking.  Our bodies warn us when a blister is developing.  It even provides pain to alert us of impending injury.  And if our inattentiveness persists, these repeated blisters eventually become a callus.  Having refused to heed its first warnings, our body shifts to plan B.   It hardens the skin, making itself insensitive to further stimulus.  This is what happens when we also ignore the Holy Spirit’s promptings.  We end up losing our relational sensitivity to that area of our lives.

To seek and find righteousness in all our relationships is certainly a realistic goal for any of us in the coming year.  We were created for righteousness in all areas of our life.  And in order to enjoy such accord with everything we need simply be more attentive to the discords we sense, to recognize them for what they are—the promptings of the Holy Spirit—and to be more willing to obey whatever adjustments they are calling for.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for Jan. 9^th, 2014)

FOR DISCUSSION:

1. How would you describe the shalom you feel when you are rightly related to some aspect of your life?  How would you describe the experience of not being in right relationship to something?

2. In what relationships have you allowed a callus to develop over your heart?  Are there areas in your life where, by ignoring the Spirit’s promptings, you have lost your relational sensitivity?

3. Consider an area of your life where God is presently indicating that correctives are needed.  How does it change your motivation to consider this prompting as a call to obedience rather than a burden of responsibility?

FOR PRAYER:  Choose one of these two prayer options to be the focus of today’s prayer.  Choose the other one for some other day.

1) Imagine living in right relationship to all things in your life. Meditate on the quality of “shalom” that God envisions for you in these relationships.

2) Take stock of an area in your life where there is still turmoil in your relationship to something.  Welcome whatever correctives the Holy Spirit is suggesting to you.  Ask God for His aid in helping you choose to obey these promptings in your life.

I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw.
Prov. 23:32

The end of the year is always a good time to look back and learn from decisions that either helped or hindered our passion for the Lord.  From the wisdom of hindsight, what might we learn from the ways we have observed ourselves growing (or not) over the past year?  And what adjustments might we consider in the coming year to ensure that we keep strong in our spiritual direction?

Consider the following Awareness Examen as applied to your spiritual growth over the past twelve months:

• What particular seasons of growth do you remember?  What were the dry times?
• What circumstances occasioned these experiences?  How did you respond to them?
• What has grown in you as a result of these dry or abundant times?
• What has been pruned as a result of these?
• What new or deeper desires do you now have that you didn’t have a year ago?
• What desires did you have then that don’t seem to be as pressing today?
• What do you know about God that you didn’t know a year ago?
• What do you know about yourself that you didn’t know a year ago?
• How is your relationship to others different than at this time last year?
• How can you apply what God has taught you about your own spiritual growth in the coming year?
• What choices will help you remain fruitful?

As you look back on the previous year make note as well of particular activities and choices that most significantly contributed to your spiritual passion and growth.  What insights, books, people or events helped fuel the flame of your zeal?  Consider as well the decisions or conditions that quenched your spiritual life—situations that either distracted or dissipated your spiritual passions.  As we “apply our heart” to what we have observed in the past year we can easily learn what adjustments will be needed in order to assure a more profitable future.

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

• Discuss together the questions above.
• Make resolutions for the coming year in light of your answers.
• Write these down and plan to revisit these resolutions together later in the year

FOR PRAYER:  Ask God for insight into the “garden” that is your life, that He would show you what grows well in you and whatever hinders your growth.  Offer yourself as “co-creator” with God of your own life, or as a servant who wishes to steward well the garden God has given you.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for Jan. 1, 2015)

IMAGO DEI: November 17, 2016
www.imagodeicommunity.ca       

I am like a deaf man, who cannot hear, like a mute, who cannot open his mouth;  I have become like a man who does not hear, whose mouth can offer no reply,  I wait for You, O Lord; You will answer, O Lord my God.    Psalm 38:13-15

Most of us live in a fog when it comes to any real sense of God’s presence in our lives.  Like the Psalmist, we find ourselves more deaf and mute than we would like to be regarding the quality of our communication with the Lord.  There are, of course, those rare and wonderful occasions when the clouds part and we experience a moment of clarity in this relationship.  But, for the most part, like the Psalmist, we tend to see, hear and speak dimly.

Psalm 38, however, affirms this condition as normal.  As the Psalmist matter-of-factly confesses, “I am like a deaf man who cannot hear, like a mute, who cannot open his mouth.”  It might seem like a hopeless position from which to cultivate a relationship—like being in a foreign country where you cannot speak or understand the people you are trying to communicate with—if not for the faith that God understands our human predicament.  Such is the confidence of the Psalmist.  Rather than despair over his inability to pray, he offers the very condition of his lostness as the basis of his prayer.
Those rare times—when the sky opens up and we once again know clarity in our communications with God—are what provide faith for us that, if we simply keep returning to prayer, these times will surely return.  Such hope is certainly the Psalmist’s inspiration when he says to God, “I will wait for you, O Lord,” and then adds his confident assurance that “You will answer, O Lord.”

Maturity helps us accept the limitations of our creatureliness when it comes to initiating communications with God.  But experience also teaches us that, if we wait long enough—if we persevere, and not give up on prayer—the Lord, in His time, will answer us.  From His own gracious initiative, clarity will return to us. The fog will lift, the clouds will part, and the sun of truth will shine on us once again.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for July 10^th, 2014)

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION

1.   How would you describe your own experience of feeling deaf or mute in your prayers?  Have you ever used this condition as an excuse to leave your prayer?

2.   What happens when you accept the “fog” as normal for the spiritual life rather than seeing it as a sign of failure on your part?  How is your faith especially purified during such times?

3.   When you are in such a fog, how does God instil faith in you that spiritual clarity will eventually return?  What posture does the Lord invite you to assume during such times?

FOR PRAYER:   Accept your feelings of deafness or muteness as a normal part of the creature’s relationship with its Creator.  Consider the Psalmist’s stance whereby he simply prays, “I will wait for you, O Lord.”  And then rest in the confident assurance he then models that “You will answer, O Lord.”

IMAGO DEI: November 3, 2016
www.imagodeicommunity.ca       

If a son asks his father for bread, would he give him a stone instead?
Matt. 7:9

To know God is to trust God.  It’s as simple as that.  And the opposite is just as true.  To not trust God is an indicator that we do not really know God.  In other words, the “god”  we do not trust is not really God, but rather a false imagining of our own making.  This reasoning also applies to people who believe, for instance, that God is absent, that He has wronged them, or somehow betrayed or abandoned them.  The untrustworthy god that they are imagining is not truly God.

To accept the fact that such “gods” are actually fictitious projections of our own fears is a first step towards establishing a more truthful relationship with the real God.  Confessing our false images provides an opportunity for us to start all over again— a chance to be re-introduced to this “Jesus I never knew.”  The alternative is to continue living in a dysfunctional relationship with the “god” of our fears.

The “God who cannot be trusted” does not really exist.  And yet, through our imaginations, we often live in complex relationships with such non-existent gods.  It is important to recognize and name the presence of false idols in our theological thinking.  Such caricatures are most readily identified by their un-Godlike character,—e.g. the god who is always angry with you, the god who is always disappointed in you, the god who is always demanding more from you.  Or, conversely, the god who doesn’t care what you do or how you live.

There are many Christians whose relationship with the spirit they call “God” actually produces desolation in them.  But, mercifully, the Lord will not allow us to establish our foundation on such unstable idols.  Instead, the inner turmoil these relationships produce is meant to reveal to us the unfittingness of our images of God.

The Lord once taught His disciples how ridiculous it would be to not trust His Father.  He asked rhetorically, “if a son asks his father for bread, would he give him a stone instead?”  Of course not.  That would be laughable.  And yet that is exactly what we imply when we imagine God as not being good or faithful towards us.

To know God is to trust God.  We can then rest in the secure fact that He is good—in other words, in the truth of who He really is.  Faith is what assures us of God’s character—that He loves me, that He is merciful, that He is trustworthy, that He is faithful, that He understands me, and that He will never abandon me.  To think of Him otherwise, as Jesus suggests, would be laughable.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for June 26^th, 2014)

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION

1. What are some imaginary characteristics of God that you think you might be living with?  How would you describe the “merciful turmoil” God allows you to experience in relation to these false images?  How does confession of such idols open us to the possibility of a new relationship with God?

2. In what ways have you underestimated God in the past?  How does the discrepancy between the fearful projections of your imagination and the revelation of God’s character in Scripture suggest that you do not yet know the Lord as fully as you might in these areas?

3. Consider the invitation to let go of an image of God that you suspect is false.  How would you feel having to start over again with “the Jesus I never knew?”  Would you welcome this?  Or might you find yourself clinging to the false god you know rather than risking the mystery of the God you don’t know?

FOR PRAYER:  Come to God as a child, ready to be taught anew.  Confess your ignorance and ask the Lord to reveal Himself to you afresh, as He really is.  Let God confirm directly to you all the attributes that Scripture speaks of Him.

IMAGO DEI:
www.imagodeicommunity.ca

Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the Lord
                                                                               Isa. 66:9

The end of any discernment process will naturally presume some action on our part.  That’s why Fr. Thomas Green, in his book, Weeds among the Wheat, refers to discernment as “prayer meeting action.”  In other words, the final stage of discernment, will inevitably require of us the courage to act.

But the process of discernment can sometimes lead to a place of paralysis where a person cannot, or perhaps will not, choose a course of action out of fear of being wrong.  They have done all the preliminary prayer work of discernment.  They have established impartiality in themselves, remaining at an equilibrium regarding all the options before them, they have removed from themselves the influence of inordinate desires or fears that would affect their decision, and they have given their wills over to God’s pleasure as best they can. But in the process of being so open-handed in their disposition, they have perhaps also relinquished their will to act.

We often have a pretty good idea of what God is calling us to do.  But, consciously or subconsciously, we also want to delay the inevitable action that this choice will require of us.  Feeling stuck like this—unable to bring to birth that which we have conceived—reveals an underlying disposition that is important to acknowledge in the discernment process.  It is the fear we have of facing the onerous responsibility of making a choice.  Through our inaction, we are in fact saying to God, “I don’t really want to make this decision. I want You to make it for me.”  But this is where God turns the tables on us.  If we have been saying to the Lord, “I want whatever You want,” the Lord now says to us, “Good, but you are the one who must now choose what you think I want.”

As discerning Christians we are to assume the responsibility of not only seeking God’s will in our lives but of also acting in the world according to that discernment.  In the freedom of faith, it is up to us to choose, with God’s counsel, how to best serve Him.  And it is a shirking of that responsibility when our discernment process simply ends with the prayer, “You decide for me.”

Fear of the responsibility of making a choice can keep us paralyzed in an unfruitful state of discernment.  This is the image the Lord gives in Isaiah—of a baby stuck in the labour process.  Discernment, however, is never a substitute for faith. Nor is it an excuse to dump our hard decisions on God.  But it does take courage—the final thrust of faith—to bring to birth that which we have conceived in our discernment, and to counter the paralyzing fear that sometimes sabotages the process of “prayer meeting action.”

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for Oct.17^th, 2013)

QUESTIONS

1.       Do you remember an occasion when the fear of making a wrong choice paralyzed you?  How did the situation resolve itself?  Were the fears warranted?

2.       How might the open-handed disposition we are trying to maintain in our discernment process wrongly suggest to us that we are also letting go of our responsibility to choose?  How is asking God to decide for us a shirking of the freedom He gives us to discern His will?

3.       What will you need from God in order to find the courage to act, in faith, in the midst of uncertainty with regards to the outcome of your decision?

PRAYER:  If there is an issue that you are presently discerning, consider the posture of saying yes beforehand to God, regardless of which option He will indicate.  In other words, lean forward with your will, and be fully prepared to act according to either direction the Lord might choose.

IMAGO DEI: Published September 29, 2016
www.imagodeicommunity.ca

Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story-
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe.
                                          Psalm 107:2

It is not very difficult for me to remember the man I was when Christ first found me—a man who had, in many ways, lost his life to foolishness and dissipation.  I know that I am not the same person today that I was when I first met Jesus.  The very dignity of sonship that I had squandered and that I never imagined could be recovered has somehow been restored to me.  I am a new creation today, a very different person from who I was as a young prodigal.  My life has been given back to me, and it is easily understood as gift.  As I often say to God, “my life belongs more to You than to me, not because I give it to You, but because You gave it to me.”

Such gratitude in recognition of what we have been saved from is the call to worship that we hear repeated again and again in Psalm 107.  It is a reminder to all those Jesus has rescued from afar—from the hand of the foe—to “give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for humankind” (v. 15).

The Psalm reminds those who “wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle” (v. 4) how the Lord has graciously saved them. It recalls their lostness and how God delivered them from their distress and “led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle” (v. 7).  Does this imagery apply to any period of wandering in your own life?  Have you too been rescued from lostness or aloneness and placed in a community where God is now establishing you in love?  If so you are encouraged to “give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for humankind.”

The Psalmist next describes those who “sat in darkness because they rebelled against God’s commands and despised the plans of the Most High” (v. 10-11).  It reminds them  how they “stumbled, and there was no one to help” (v. 12).  But it also recalls how they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and how “He brought them out of darkness and broke their chains” (v. 14).  Are there periods in your life when you knowingly rebelled against God’s commands and subsequently found yourself stumbling?  If you have been given reprieve from the consequences of such, then you too are encouraged to  “give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for humankind.”

The Psalmist continues, now addressing those who “became fools through their rebellious ways” (v. 17).  They “suffered affliction because of their iniquities” (V. 17).  It reminds them how they too cried to the Lord in their trouble, and how “ He sent out His word and healed them.”  If you have experienced, in any way, the salvation and healing of God’s mercy applied to the foolishness of some of your life choices, then you too are called to “give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for humankind.”

And finally, there are those who, through no fault of their own, experienced calamity in life.  The Psalmist draws on the imagery of a ship caught in a storm, where the waves are lifted high and we fear for our safety.  We are to recall such times of peril when our “courage melted away” (vs. 26) and how, when we cried out to the Lord, He “stilled the storm to a whisper” (v. 27) and “guided us to our desired haven” (v. 30).  We are to especially remember the gratitude we felt after the storm—how glad we were when it grew calm.

For these and countless other experiences of God’s salvation in our lives we are invited to “give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for humankind.”  As we begin a new year together, let us remember and celebrate God’s grace throughout our lives.  Let us approach the year with gratitude, recalling the wonderful mercies we have already seen.  And let us, with genuine hope, anticipate such continuing mercies from the Lord in the days to come.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for January 16, 2014)

FOR DISCUSSION:

1. Which of these four narratives do you have experience of?  The plight of lostness? Rebelliousness?  Foolishness?  Calamities?  What did these experiences teach you about God’s desire and ability to save you?

2. Take time to focus on a particular event in your life in which one of these narratives applied.  If you are in an Imago Dei group, and if appropriate, share this story with others so that they too can give thanks to God.

3. Why do you think Scripture often calls us to remember and recount the saving mercies of God in our lives and in our communities? How might you might commemorate these stories of God’s grace through a symbolic act or artifact (e.g. Gen. 25:18)?

FOR PRAYER:  Consider how the Lord’s saving grace has transformed your life.  Meditate on the fact that you are not the same person today as you were when Jesus first found you.  Imagine what your life would look like if you had never met the Lord.  Give thanks to God for the many ways the knowledge of Christ has saved you.

IMAGO DEI: September 15, 2016
www.imagodeicommunity.ca

The light shines in darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.  John 1:5

The coming of Jesus has certainly confused our experience of spirituality.  Our relationship to divinity, ever since, has become much more subtle.  Gone are the well-defined walls that separated what is godly from what is merely human. Gone is the clear-cut distinction between the sacred and the common.  And gone is the obvious logic of heaven and earth as two separate geographies.  Instead, we have divinity mingled with humanity, and sanctity somehow shining through the darkness of our sins.

The OT was painstaking in the ways it delineated the gulf between what is divine and what is human.  The tabernacle itself was an elaborate object lesson demonstrating, in the most graphic terms, the distance that separates purity from sin.  Its main purpose was to communicate the fact that God is holy—and that we are not.  The fact that such clear boundaries exist was a given in the OT.  But Jesus has changed all that.  He who is both human and divine has confused the lines of demarcation that made sense of our lot.

When we knew ourselves uniquely as sinners it was easy to grasp the distance between ourselves and God.  But now we’re not so sure.  Jesus has blurred the boundaries.  He has torn the curtain that not only kept us from God, but also kept God from us.  Separating the weeds from the wheat isn’t as easy as it was before.  Even in our own hearts, it is difficult to discern what is human and what is of the Spirit.  For, in the person of Christ, the two have mysteriously become one.

The light shines in darkness.  God somehow co-exists with even the most profane aspects of our humanity.  He dwells in the midst of our basest instincts.  He skirts on the edges of our sins, dances in and around our iniquities.  Nothing impedes His grace.  Though sin persists in us, divinity is undeterred.  Though our depravity is evident, Jesus continues to shepherd us towards a sanctity that somehow already dwells within.

The darkness has not understood this.  His glorious Truth beckons from deep in our hearts, a righteousness that we feel called to become. Though we live much of our lives out of sync with this Truth, Christ’s love is relentlessly conforming and aligning us to its movements.  Though our inner lives flicker in and out of darkness, His presence continually lights our way.

Such is the mystery of the Incarnation.  We cannot understand how or why this Light persists, but we nevertheless grow in our faith and experience that even our sins cannot  thwart its purpose.  Praise be to God for His steadfast ways!  In spite of our confusing darkness, the Light of His unconditional grace is somehow making perfect sense of our lives.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for Jan. 2^nd, 2014)

FOR DISCUSSION:

1. How do you relate to the experience of darkness and light co-existing within you?  What examples do you see of this in your life at present?

2. What is required of you, and of your understanding of God, in order to live in the paradox that though you are a sinner you are also a saint, and that though you are a saint, you are also a sinner?

3. Jesus said that His sheep would “go in and out” of pasture (Jn. 10:13).  How might this relate to your experience of living in and out of sync with the Spirit’s movement within you?

FOR PRAYER:  Meditate on the fact that Christ’s light shines even in the darkest recesses of your soul.  Thank God that there is nothing in you that will deter or thwart His purpose for that Light.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning.
Lam. 3:22-23

The ocean laps against the shore.  Each wave extends towards the land, then draws back into itself.  Sometimes a small shell is caught in this action.  With each passing wave it is drawn nearer to the sea.  As the water recedes, the shell advances a few inches and then rests until the next wave.

But sometimes the shell gets lodged in the sand.  For a time it remains stuck there. The waves continue to lap around it but it no longer advances.  The waves however now have another objective.  With each passing they are now working around the shell, drawing away the sand that is keeping it from advancing towards the ocean. Eventually, enough sand will be taken away and the shell will be free once again to respond to the draw of the waves.

Watching such a scene unfold at the beach I can easily recognize the similar action of God in my life.  His waves of grace have often washed over my life, lapping on my shores and drawing me to return to my Father’s house.  Sometimes my return is thirty fold, sometimes sixty or even a hundred fold.

But often, like the sea shell, I too get stuck in the sands of life.  Though God’s waves continue to lap on my shore, I no longer respond to its draw.  At such times I can easily   feel like God has left me behind.  But faith tells me, in spite of my seeming lack of progress, that His waves are nevertheless clearing the sand that prevents me from advancing towards His love.  Though I might not notice it, each wave is helping remove the obstacles that keep me from responding as I should.

Eventually His grace will dislodge me from whatever is holding me back, and I will be free to respond once more to His presence.  Such is the everlasting mercy of God—it is new every morning.  Whether we feel free or stuck, we can be certain that His waves are always drawing us towards Himself, and that He is intent on removing every obstacle in our way.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for Nov. 20, 2014)

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. Consider the action of God’s waves lapping on your shore and drawing you closer to Himself.  What is required to let yourself be taken towards Him?  How might you be resisting this action?

2. What “sands” are there in your life that cause you to get stuck, no longer able or willing to respond to God?

3. How might you present yourself to God during these times so that His waves can erode the sand around you and dislodge you from the places you feel stuck in?  How is this different from trying to dig yourself out of a rut?

FOR PRAYER:  Thank God for His “waves of grace” that continually lap the shores of your life.  In your prayer, let yourself be drawn more and more into the ocean of His love.