I lie awake in bed, perched on the edge of the day, reading Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott.
I’m not far into it yet but she is sharing bits of her life and how she found God…or rather how God found her. I’m always surprised by the messiness of how He draws us to Him, chases us relentlessly, cares so little about the things we think He does.
I’ve been thinking a lot of religion and how much of it seems to be our attempt to control what is beyond our grasp. Religion minimizes risk. We know the rules and how to keep them so we feel safe. Relationship, especially with God, seems highly unpredictable and we seek to tame Him.
One of my favorite parts of The Chronicles of Narnia is when one of the children asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan the lion, who represents Christ, is safe. Mr. Beaver answers something along the lines of, “No, of course He’s not safe, but He’s good.”
And in this is the difficulty, for love requires trust and trust requires letting go. Truth be told, grace is terrifying because it puts things back into God’s hands rather than our own. It strips us of our checklists, our security blankets, and stands us before One whose face we have not yet seen.
Perhaps the greatest challenge of our lives is to face this fear, to say with heart quaking and knees knocking, “I choose to love You and stop trying to control You.” Trying to do all the right things (or most of them) is far easier than love in the end, yes?
Sometimes in moments when I think about God’s scandalous passion for me and how He has decided to make things work between us I say to Him, “You are out of Your mind.” And it seems I hear a whisper in return that sounds a lot like, “No, I’m out of Yours.”
For His heart is above our ways of thinking, out of our boxes, beyond our doors.
I set the book on the bed. Close my eyes. Lean again into the mystery.
Love…it’s the sanest kind of crazy.
