"I Know."

It’s in times of conflict that I wish God had a present embodiment.

And yes, before some of you get super spiritual on me and say “He does have an embodiment! Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily!” allow me to explain that I completely get that. Let’s just say that at present moments, this fact doesn’t exactly help me.

What would help me is to have Jesus in a bodily form, sitting right next to me on my bed, as I explain my situation to him.

Or rather…to be more truthful about it…while I chew him out.

During times of stress and trouble, God and I have a habit of going back and forth, at times in quite a bluntly veracious manner on both ends. I like to tell him exactly what I feel that he’s doing wrong and provide helpful suggestions on what he could improve on. He likes to, much more successfully than I, follow suit accordingly.  

I can never seem to get the idea through my head that calling out the Almighty doesn’t work out that well in the end, seeing as he has quite the edge on me for some strange reason.

So, in an illustration that my friend, Meghan, would greatly approve of, basically my conversations go something like:

Me: Whyyyyyy?

God: YOU KNOW WHY!

Me: *ugly cry face* I knoooow!

And then the silence comes. The silence where I feel like God would look at me calmly, as if to ask me, “Are you finished now, you big baby?”  And I would get all shifty eyed because I’m mad at him for calling me out and feel incredibly awkward for bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight and attempt not to make eye contact.

The conversations continues more calmly after that.

Me: Hey God…I’m not happy with you right now. Kinda mad, at times, actually. This isn’t fun.

God: I know. Trust me anyway.

Me: *sigh* It’s hard.

God: I know.

There’s something bizarre about having the omniscient, all-powerful creator of the universe utter the words, “I know”, into your ear. On some level, it’s a duh moment. Well, of COURSE you know.  It seems like something that doesn’t even need to be said. A given, if you will. But he says it anyway.

And that’s the very fact that brings me to my knees. God gets that I’m incredibly insecure, just one more thing among the many, many…well….all of the things that I totally gets about me. And so he knows that the best thing to do in that situation is not to give me an answer, even though it’s likely I wouldn’t get one anyway. I probably really wouldn’t take an answer from him in good spirit if I’m honest. I’d explain to him why that answer wasn’t satisfactory, because I don’t know how to keep my mouth shut and know my place.

So instead he tells me that he knows. He knows that I’m confused and broken and lost as ever, and he’s still right there in the middle of all of it, understanding both the purpose behind it, and my raw human disorientation in response to it. And he understands. And it’s at times like that that I wish that Jesus had a lap for me to curl up into while I cry on his shoulder, finding comfort in the fact that he knows the reason behind each one of those tears and is right there through all of them.