Weird night

“If you have never known the power of God's love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it - I mean really asked, expecting an answer.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat  


     Okay, weird topic!  We have all experienced that moment when we get caught watching someone.  You know - something about them grabs your attention and you can't help but stare.  Maybe it's a physical deformity, a resemblance to someone you know, or just a spiritual draw you can't explain, but you just can't stop watching them.  Then the awkward moment when they catch you staring and you quickly look away - for the fourth time!  (Or maybe I am weird)  Then there is the opposite.  Somebody can't stop watching you.  You catch them over and over and they awkwardly look away the fourth time you catch them.
     It's really awkward when you are out in public and this happens.  They catch you watching them several times and you are actually relieved to leave the store.  Then as you take the corner in the next store you run into them.  I am the kind of person who will usually say something in a panic, like, "I am not stalking you."  Or if they had been watching me and we meet again I will ask, "Are you stalking me?" 
     Stalking is a really strange behavior.  I have been stalked more than once and it is a little intimidating to find flowers on your car at six in the morning in the pitch dark as you leave for work.  Especially when it is a law officer doing the stalking.  There are many reasons a person would stalk another human.  It could be anger.  They want revenge.  Maybe it's lust?  Could it ever be love?  Really?  Would a person who loves you follow you around?
     So we pretend.  You think you are in love.  You follow somebody around, hoping they will see you?  Hoping they will come over and talk to you?  They act like they don't notice you at all so you what?  Just keep stalking?  You leave little notes or even signs that you love them?  Sounds a little juvenile, doesn't it?  You don't hide when they look your way, you just stand there hoping they will realize it is you, you are the one who truly loves them.  You leave them gifts.  You see they are about to step into traffic and a car is speeding toward them so you push them out of the way.  Will they see you now?  Will they notice you are always there?  They look right through you.  You speak, but they don't hear you.  So you keep following, hoping, knowing that you love them and if they would just give you a chance you could prove it to them beyond a shadow of a doubt.  You know you are the one they have always been looking for and if they would just give you a chance, just reach out to you, just say...
     A little crazy isn't it?  Is it?  Is it juvenile or innocent and pure and real?  Jesus does it.  He is stalking us all.  Quietly following, waiting, loving, protecting, waiting...waiting...waiting for us to notice Him there watching us.  He doesn't hide from tree to tree.  He stands out in the open.  Waiting. Hoping we will talk to Him.  Hoping we will accept his unconditional love.  So many don't even see Him.  I see Him standing next to an old man with a sad face.  I see Him standing behind a pierced teen at the bus stop.  I see him get into a car with a mother of four misbehaving kids and a crying baby.  It's time to tell them he is there with them. 

Yup, weird mood tonight!

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out