“One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” ~Andrew Gide

“To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily.  To not dare is to lose oneself.”  ~Soren Kierkegaard

Sometimes in everyday life you hear people say, “I just wish God would show me He’s really there.” We’ve all felt that at times. But lately, I’ve begun to wonder if the reason we don’t feel God’s presence more is that we live lives that are so safely within the borders of what we know is possible in our own strength. Living so cautiously, coloring within the lines of cultural expectation, we give God very little reason to show up.

Sometimes circumstances push us into those shaky territories where we must cling to God. But how many times, have we put ourselves directly in the line of faith? I’m not talking about testing God with foolish let-me-throw-myself-from-this-cliff-and-see-if-angels-catch-me type action. I’m talking about risk of another sort.

A friend and I were talking recently about how small our prayers tend to be. She wondered aloud to me, “Do you think it’s because we’re afraid God won’t show up that we only pray about things we think are pretty likely to happen anyway?” After our conversation, I was encouraged to begin to pray wildly audacious kingdom prayers, big things that would require God to show up.

Some time before that conversation I was reading in the book of Second Samuel, chapter seven. It was that point in David’s very tumultuous rise to power, where things had begun to go right for David. He finally lay his head down, not on a battlefield or in a pasture, but in his palace. But just as his head touched his pillow, he was startled awake by a thought. “Here I am living in a palace of cedar while the ark of God remains in a tent.” He couldn’t sleep after that. He couldn’t be comfortable with the disparity. His imagination began to stir.

While God decided David would not be the one to actually build the temple, I get the feeling that David’s stirring mind pleased God. It is such an intimate scene. For some reason, it reminds me of a lover turning to his beloved and saying, “My sweet, you don’t look comfortable; can I get you another pillow?” It is the sort of thinking of someone who is anticipating the need of another. While God definitely doesn’t need us to care for Him, He gives us the opportunity to care for His name, to care for His kingdom’s advancement, to rouse from our place of comfort and safety and think about Him.

The idea to build a temple for the ark was a big, audacious idea: one that would require the entire kingdom to pull together to accomplish it. And yet, I think the very grandness of it pleased God, (like the very lavishness of Mary’s broken alabaster jar—an idea which must have set her imagination aquiver—pleased Christ). After all, it is at this point that God turns to David and says, “I will establish a house for you.” God turns the same loving attention back on David. (And with Mary, Christ turned the same loving attention back to her, saying that wherever His Gospel would be preached her name would be remembered).

Perhaps we’ve seen God bring us through many trials, as He did for David. We find ourselves settling into that comfortable place, that much-deserved place of rest. But are our minds and heart’s stirred by the fact that God’s name is not honored in a place near us, or that there is no Church, no house where people call upon His name in a certain country or town, do big kingdom concerns ever stir us from our place of comfort? And when they do, after we pray, do we find ourselves stepping out in God-centered risk?

Abraham climbed a mountain with his son Isaac, believing that God would provide. Do we step out into the unknown believing in that God of provision?

Here’s a little secret. I’ve begun to do more of that lately. And you know what? The more I do, the less I wonder if God is really there. I find Him, like Abraham did, making provision at the top of that mountain.

© Catherine Claire, 2007