You Remember that time?

So you know that moment when you are totally drenched from rain that is hitting you like a thousand needles being driven into your face as you keep telling yourself, “If I ride a little faster, I can dodge the raindrops that aren’t supposed to be falling at all? Yeah that moment earlier tonight on my way home from Seattle to Portland…

God and I had a conversation as the rain came down and my body temperature dropped. I was not equipped for rain today. And I was asking him a couple of things:

1. That I would find a way to be grateful for my soaking. I ended up deciding that I was grateful for it because it was teaching me how to be grateful for the damndest things.
2. For the person I was trying to blame for my getting caught to find peace and love today. They were not the reason I was caught in the down pour. My own thoughtlessness was the reason I was caught in the down pour and I didn’t want to hold myself accountable. It felt easier to blame someone else. I had to give that up and so I prayed for them to have what I wanted. I prayed for them until I meant the words I prayed. This one wasn’t so difficult
3. And I apologized for trying to manipulate him by my choices to pray and, “surrender.” I realized I started my prayers not so much because I was trying to connect with God as much as I thought that maybe if I paid attention to Him, He’d turn off the faucet. I am grateful that I am aware of my attempts to manipulate God. I don’t think it really fazes him one way or the other. It is more a testimony of how I am, and want to be no longer… “I am now ready that you should have all of me, good and bad…”

And in the midst of these prayers I became incredibly grateful for the man who taught  me to pray in such a way; who called me to be the kind of man that could finish a year at The Seattle School; who taught me how to live in spite of my best efforts toward destruction. He and I don’t walk the same path any longer and I am sad about that, and I am eternally grateful that God would place this non-Trinitarian /non-Christian in my life to teach me about Jesus and what it means to follow Him. I still remember telling him, “David, I find it remarkable that God has chosen to use you to teach me more about Jesus than I ever learned in Sunday School or seminary; but then again, if He can use an ass to speak to the Israelites, I’m sure he can use you to speak to me.” I’m here in large part because David listened to God and then gave me what he had been given by another who went before him.

For too much of my life I limited God. He could only speak through approved channels: The Bible and/or a Bible believing (and by that someone that believes the Bible the way I do) pastor or friend. God was small and I was scared. I’m still learning that He is bigger than I can possibly imagine. (Kant was at least right about that.) He can speak through whatever means He chooses. He can even speak through a Unitarian/Universalist or King JAmes only fundamentalist. The trouble is not that He isn’t speaking, but that I don't listen because I don’t believe he speaks that way or through that medium. And so I miss out.

The rain didn’t stop, and God gave me one of the most glorious sunsets I have ever seen, complete with a rainbow on the other side of the freeway. I laughed so hard at His glory that I had to bring my speeding bike back under control. I have a strong feeling that He was laughing with me.