Step One

"How do you reconnect with God?" she asked.

It was a good question. He can seem so distant. He can seem unapproachable.

"I don't know." I said, "It's different."

"Sometimes it's a special word from a verse or passage, or a feeling that whelms in me when I see a great sunset. Sometimes it's more formal prayer. Once it was a pine cone that made His presence known. He's spoken to me in visions and through my illustrations. But when it comes right down to it, I feel like I have a switch in my brain. I can flip the switch, turn my focus inward, and just know He is right there with me. That capacity is always there if I will remember to use it."

Now C.S. Lewis gave great metaphors and illustrations of spiritual principles with a disclaimer essentially saying, if it doesn't help - forget it. It's not like it is inspired. Here I give the same disclaimer:

God isn't "out there" in any sense that precludes Him being "in here." The Holy Spirit is a vital part of prayer because God is jealous. God is jealous. I think He is jealous for Himself. We have been given the Holy Spirit. In giving Him to us God has created a tension and a longing within Himself. The three persons of the God Head live in constant communion. When I choose to be in sin, separate from God, I take the Spirit with me. That causes tension. When I become aware of that separation, I can turn inward to the Spirit, and relinquish control to Him. Then like a magnet, the Spirit carries me directly back into the full presence of God.

Sometimes I feel like the Spirit is bottled up in me. Chained to a wall. Rapping his finger on the plain oak table in the barren room of my selfishness, sitting there, resigned to being toted around like a discontent toddler at the mall. But in those moments when I become aware of what I am doing, and turn that switch, it is like I have handed the key to the cell block over to my prisoner, and He immediately unlocks the door, clears the debris in a single leap and runs for me - with me - back into the presence of the Father where He is received with widespread waiting arms, and me along with Him. Every time.

Every time.

Nothing about the process seems foreign to me. Though it is remarkable. In giving the Spirit to us God has stretched himself (so to speak). And the jealous elastic rebound of that stretching carries me right into His center.

Then things really get good! (to be continued)