Reflections on the Quiet Evening

http://asbojesus.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/1007/

At the Quiet Evening last night (and very successful it was too) I started to think and read and pray. The quiet gave me the opportunity to encounter God and let Him lead my thinking and reading, and communicate with Him through prayer.

Written in the journal I use for this purpose was a quotation from Francis Dewar's book Called or Collared, which I have been reflecting on over the past few weeks:

"We need to be constantly seeking to transcend our projections...in our search for the living God, and in opening ourselves to be searched by God."

Now, I don't know about you, but for me the easier part of that quote is the part that requires me to search for God, the tricky bit comes when I recognise that in order to achieve maturity as a Christian, I need to allow God to search me. Why is this tricky? Well, all of us, without question have the "dark places of soul" which the poet Patrick Kavannagh described. The area of our inner self which remain hidden from view. The aspects of our personality which we do our level best to hide from our neighbour and certainly do not want to reveal to God.

The thing is, there is no point attempting to hide anything from God, no matter how much we would like to. God already knows.

My favourite Psalm says:

¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. Psalm 139

 God's omnipresence is not to be feared. His grace is freely given, and his forgiveness offered to me and to everyone else who seeks it. He stands like the father of the prodigal son, with his arms open wide to welcome us home, as his arms were open wide once for all upon the cross.

"God help us to find our confession... Lead us into the darkness that we may find what lies concealed; That we may confess it towards the light; that we may carry our truth in the centre of our heart; That we may carry our cross wisely and bring harmony into our life and our world. Amen" Michael Leunig

So that was some of my conversations with God, last night, I hope you found it useful. A little note for anyone who read last night's blog entry - we got a cup of coffee and it was indeed lukewarm!