Showing Up

I'm pretty sure that most of us who follow Jesus, who call ourselves Christian, believe that God is everywhere... that God is present in all places at all times. I'm pretty sure we all understand that there is nowhere we can go to where God isn't already there waiting for us.

So, if we think that, if we really believe that, then why do we pray for God to show up? Why is it that sometimes--after a church service or a prayer meeting or a bible study--we say that "God showed up," and other times it seems like God's presence was nowhere to be seen--or more to the point: felt?

We rely pretty heavy on our feelings. Or at least it seems like we do when it come to spiritual issues. I wonder if sometimes we've made those feelings out to be idols. We start to chase after the feelings--the warm fuzzy God-feelings--instead of chasing after God. We begin to hunger and thirst for the experience rather than the one who gives the experience.

Anyway, I think sometimes when we say, "God showed up," what we really mean is that the feelings we experienced met with our expected understanding of what God showing up should feel like. Really, it has little to do with God showing up or not. After all, if God is everywhere at all times, God always shows up.

So... that makes me think. Maybe the problems has nothing to do with God showing up. Maybe what it really has to do with is whether or not we show up--I mean really show up, not just occupy space.

Showing up is hard. It requires sacrifice. To show up means we need to leave something behind. To show up means we need to set aside personal agendas, personal expectations, personal distractions. To show up means we need to be fully present.

Maybe that's one reason we miss God--not because God hasn't shown up, but because we have never become fully present to the God who is already here. Maybe we were looking for something different--a different feeling, a different expression of worship, a different... well to be blunt, a different idol.

Being fully present is about making a sacrifice. It's about sacrificing all those idols we tend to fashion out of the fragments of the world in which we live. It's about sacrificing our expectations in order to experience the God who is already present. It's about really showing up.

What would happen this Sunday if we all decided to show up? What would happen if every Sunday we came to worship with the attitude of being fully present for whatever God does in our midst? What would happen if we learned how to be fully present to a God who is always present for us?

I have a funny feeling we'd be saying, "Boy, God really showed up today."