H,
There is no unpleasantness
in spending time with God. Perhaps there is a momentary unease. That is normal
in forming relationships. This is the deepest and most meaningful connection
you will ever have. It will take some getting used to on your part.
The first and only rule is
absolute honesty. This is the only way we learn anything. We admit we do not
know. There is no reducing God into science or art or religion. He is somewhere
beyond where the mind of man or woman or the spirit and soul of both can comprehend
without an invitation to look up and see with new eyes and a new heart. Thankfully,
the invitation has been given. Our response must be in honesty and not fear.
There is only one thing that
can lead you to this point of honesty: desperation. You must have crashed your
ships along a stony coast and realised you are marooned. This does not look the
same on everyone but everyone comes to God because there is something lacking
in their daily living and dying. They come to extend their living and cut short
their dying.
Out of such bleak beginnings
comes the greatest light of all. This is the freedom to be yourself. There is
no crowd pressing in on you. There is no one to impress. You are before a being
that knows you and knows your story and knows how to see what lies between the
two: your hopes, your desires and the person you wish you could be. It could be
a tricky prospect, speaking up about the most horrible things you have done and
thought to do. Somehow, you find it is liberating. The human soul was made for
release and the human spirit takes the form of final freedom. This is the start
of your walk with God. To say it all and hold nothing back. To even say what
you think of Him. He is not petty or protective of His space. He is not your
pastor with a fragile ego and a need to control. He is not your friend you
cannot trust or the parent who let you down. He is not all your failed attempts
at triumph and love. He is some being altogether different from the many imperfect
pictures described in the years since you first accounted the idea of deity.
It turns out He is love,
itself. It turns out you are loved, after all. It turns out, as with the fire
burning in your chest, He has a passionate desire to talk with you too. It is
not that you have found love, it is that love has found you. It is not that
your quest is at an end, it is that His has ended because He was looking for
you all along. There are so many things He wants to say to you. As there are
things you have to say to Him.
You need time alone to bask,
to worship, to find and to fall in love with love and be made whole again.
Take your time.
You have an eternity of it.