HIDDEN DEPTHS

This picture says it all. Life is so much richer than the level at which we live it. People have more dimensions than we take time to explore. People have more potential than they realize. God is so much more than we can ever ask or imagine.

For most people in our world today God is pretty much out of sight and out of mind. Not that people are atheists or even agnostics. People just don't think much about Him and when they seek Him at all, it seems to be in their spare time. "Life is so daily," Tim Hansel once said. The routine of life tends to deaden our spiritual antennae. We put our lives sort of on autopilot and just move from alarm clock to night cap dealing mostly with what is urgent, occasionally what is pleasant. This is often true whether we are living hand-to-mouth or we have more than enough to be comfortable.

In this scenario people start thinking about God either of out of crisis or emptiness. When life is beyond your control, you look for something or Someone beyond yourself for intervention or consolation. When nothing in life works or you seem adrift in a sea of unfulfilled dreams, you reach out for an anchor.

Some people encourage shallowness. "Don't worry, be happy!" Others eschew authenticity. "Never let them see you sweat." Still others counsel action, any action rather than remaining stuck. "Just do something, anything, but stop complaining." Like Job's well-meaning companions, such people rarely have a clue and because their guidance is rooted in unreflective values, listening to them usually compounds our difficulties.

Sooner or later, we are drawn towards God and if we are truly seeking solutions, we don't stop until we have begun to explore the hidden depths of God's wisdom and love.

Blaise Pascal has written, "In each of us there is a God-shaped vacuum that only God can fill." When we starting paying attention to God (for whatever reason) we begin to discover that truth--a truth hidden deep inside our own spiritual DNA, And we finally start embracing the Truth found in depths of God, we begin finally to be free. We begin finally to be the person that God had in mind when He first thought of us.