Be Still and Know...

When I was a little girl, I thought of God as a big man who required Shirley Temple curls, three teired fancy dresses and shiny black shoes on Sundays to want to be with me. I often wondered why my mother had to drop me off in pink, funkily painted, cenderblock rooms for Sunday School to learn about God. I mean, wasn't God OUTSIDE? "He isn't in here", I would think. He's "out THERE".
I have always experienced God in nature. I remember spending time down at the creek when I was a kid, just to watch the water roll by. No thoughts at all. Just ripples and light and the sound of water running off the rocks.
I guess I have always wondered why people complicate God so.
The birds of the air, they do not labor or spin, and look all of their needs are provided.
They don't complicate things. They just take their worms and run. "Thank you very much", says the bird and hums a little tune.
They don't fuss about theology, or play in bands, or take up collections for buildings, or convince people of their sins. They just flitter about, little this little that, and we watch them in awe, in nature, and think, "Wow. God is a big God to make all this, huh? Just for me."
My children and I wake up in the mornings and first thing we do is go look out the farmhouse window and see if the birds are awake yet, and if they are eating their bird seed next to the big oak tree.
As I watch my little boy and my little girl look out the window, it reminds me of that Dr. Suess book where the little boy and the little girl are looking out the window, except it's not raining and the Cat in the Hat isn't really coming over. That's the difference between real, and well, not.
And I have been reminded that we, we humans, especially me, have a tendency to mold our image of what we want our life to look like and then put it on God like, "Here ya go, this is what I want, deliver buddy. Turn some tricks and make it funny." With our laundry list of expectations.
Some of us learn fast, others of us slow, sometimes painfully slow, that it doesn't quite work that way. God and Dr. Suess are very different you see. And I've had it backwards quite a while.
It goes more like this: "God, I offer myself to Thee. To build with me, and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self so that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Love, Thy Power and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always."
That is a prayer of surrender.
And there is no easier, or softer way.
Thy will, not my will be done.
And then I realize, while I am watching the birds out my window, that He has been here all along. Been with me all the while. Sitting and watching with me out my farmhouse window. Waiting for me to surrender my "idea" of Him. So that I can see him sitting right beside me. And he's not in a hurry at all.
And then I realize that the fear of people and of economic insecurity have left me.
And I can sit and watch in peace.