Doing

There is a hidden frustration within every manager, parent, and teacher’s soul.  It is a simple fact.  We know at least one individual that has more potential than they realize.  We see what they cannot.  We know what is at best illusive for him or her.  We understand the potential.  We also know we cannot live their life.  At best, we can encourage, nurture, and be present.
 
I listened to the music unfolding.  I found myself sitting in front of God, hearing Divinity’s voice with extraordinary clarity.  I could feel God’s hands holding me close.  I knew I was God’s child.  It was so real!  The taste, sense, and experience became alarmingly real.  As I spoke with the artist after the set, I found myself sitting with uncertainty, fear, and doubt.  There was a connection clouded by life’s chaos.  Pain, anguish, and angst blocked the link between God and the individual.  Even as I listened, I knew I had heard the Spirit’s voice in the moment of one heart’s music. 
 
The conundrum in that moment is far more real that you or I realize.  We are connected with God, even if our doubts, fears, and uncertainty.  We are God’s kids, just as we are.  We experience God, knowingly and in our wanderings. 
 
The fact is simple this; “The Master, God, has given [you and] me a well-taught tongue, so [you/]I know how to encourage tired people.  He wakes me up in the morning, wakes me up, opens my ears to listen as one ready to take orders.”  (Isaiah 50.4) 
 
Life will, for a time try to sap the best from our lives.  Evil will attempt to dominate.  Pain and anguish will be familiar friends.  Yet these do no mean God and the Spirit are not present.  In fact, it is in doing the God stuff – sharing hope in music, finding beauty in the ordinary, and in walking for a time with another – that we discover again and then again what it means to be part of God’s family.  It is a calling worthy of our best.