APART

Distance from our hopes and dreams isn't always initially a joy. Like so many aspects of life though there are often purposes and lessons that one can learn from the process. It doesn't mean we are willing to look for them, but it does me they are there.

In the practical issues of life the meaning of absence can upon occasion have relevance in the spiritual arena. Sometimes I think we look for a more lofty importance in such situations. However the truth is that God knows we are mortal and sometimes the best way to get our attention is to take away our toys. Maybe not permanently, but long enough for us to see what is in our own heart.

That doesn't mean we are willing to see what shines into the darkness. We can close our eyes in order to avoid the truth. When we do, God can always create another avenue of being apart to challenge our thinking.

Just like with any testing, if we resist long enough things may develop the illusion of getting better. We might even interpret it as a blessing as a form of rationalization for our disobedience and refusal to respond as the Lord would have desired.

Thus a sense of being apart may at that point end up lingering longer than might seem necessary. We pray and feel that God isn't listening when it reality it is us that didn't do the listening because we didn't see in the distance what was really being said.

Some people look to translate all such moments of gaps in the heavenly light we see as curable with some formula. If I just do this then everything will be okay.

So they mentally scribble some directions for themselves down on a map of their own purposes. And they may ever follow the map while telling everyone else how well they solved their problem of this kind of distance.

Should you experience a similar event they will naturally offer up their own map as the cure for your distance. If in your case following map only gets you lost, they will never accept that their map might be wrong.

As with any path of faith, we can't always travel in the light. The valleys and shadows will be there. And that also means the times when we can truly feel the same sense of closeness to the Lord as we want.

But it is far better to embrace the understanding that in such moments of feeling apart, God is really there. That he truly does have a reason for our enduring that episode of confusion.

If we continuing trusting and following the path we were originally given, we are more likely to come to the oasis of spiritual belonging. It will bring us better satisfaction than if we get bored with the feeling of being all alone and give up. However. each soul must make such choice on their own path. Some will never see in the mood of apartness what was intended, others will. May we look for God's light wherever it shines.