I don’t know what, other than the Holy Spirit would put thoughts in my mind each morning as I pray, thoughts that compel me to process; thus my blog, now entering a third year.
I love to read the mystics and certainly identify somewhat with them. As Richard Rohr (my Thomas Merton of the moment) shared this a.m. from his seminar CD: Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate:
“What I find in the mystics is an overwhelming experience of how God has loved us! That’s what comes through all of their writings, and I do mean all—that God is forever the initiator, God is the doer, God is the one who seduces me in my unworthiness. It’s all about God’s initiative!”
Why “The Man on the Mat”? I so realize after 64 years, that my life has been that kind of a story, simply being in the right place at the right time, or possibly in my wrong times, Jesus has righted my place. Either way, I have had little to do with the relatively successful moments in my life. Each time Jesus passed by, often finding me paralyzed on one of “life’s mats,” He simply speaks a word into my spirit, or as was recently done, through another a word is spoken and all I have to do is “get up.” As a friend shared recently, He is the only God that has ever “got up”, so why would I not when He beckons me to do so!
At that moment, my circumstances always seem to change dramatically and suddenly I find myself entering another 5-7 year window of time, opening up with new adventure, connecting “dots” previously unseen, yet all leading toward things spoken to me earlier, some even as a young child.
Years ago, I found this “treasure in a field”; yet I now have come to realize, that I was that treasure and He found me! No, far from arrogance, my awareness has nothing to do with me, but rather with the seducer God who is madly in love with me, as if He knows nor sees any of the unworthiness that I am privy to. He is both the miracle worker to which I must find access and the friend who would “unroof” a house to get me in the presence of the One who owns the field. I hope you followed that curve?
For some unknown reason He knows me by name, has found me and loves me. He pursues me and sets up my life, gives me entry into what seems both to me and I know to others, the “narrow gate” that so few seem to find. My life is favored, even when I do stupid things, For what reason, the same as with the unsuspecting man on the mat in John 5:8: He loves me.
It seems arbitrary and undeserved, unfair in fact, yet somehow, is there for everyone willing to sell all that they own or in my case risk all that I touch. Love is a mystery!