He watched from the shadows, shielding himself in the trees. The darkness of night was his friend. He was not its victim. He was what gave the night its terror. That wasn’t how he felt about himself. He felt comfortable, even safe in that nook of trees. But as he watched the child of light draw nearer to him, he saw himself through her eyes, and felt that if she knew what lay in wait, a figure bulging with prowess like a stalking cougar, she would feel the terror, and he felt it rising on her behalf.

It made him shudder.

She passed close enough to hear his breath, so he held it. He watched silently. She had not seen him. He felt the warmth of her body, the nearness that gave him an electric thrill. The thing he desired most had come close. He could have reached out to touch it, but the panic (was it in him, or in her) had prevented him, frozen him in place.

Get it together.

He steeled himself. As she began to gain some distance, he turned to follow. Then he stopped.

What am I doing?

1. Start

It was a pleasant enough afternoon, but Lenny was not in the mood.

He sat slouched on the couch, hands in his pockets like he had stood up to go but fell backwards instead and hadn’t moved for some time. He looked at his pants crinkled in his lap by his bulky fists crammed almost up to the elbow.

Who am I kidding?

He didn’t feel like going anywhere.

It was only the second night this week that coming home to an empty house hadn’t surprised him even though his fiancé had left the Tuesday before. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He tried to watch TV, but ended up shutting it off, grumbling. He grumbled himself to sleep. He woke up in a stupor an hour later and walked down the hall like he was dragging his feet through sludge and collapsed.

The next morning he was feeling better. He felt a little opening, a little light coming from way down at the end of the tunnel. But he was still alone. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for that dull ache in the background the whole day and night. He didn’t know what to do about that. Even though he could distract himself from it with activity, and that might even have made it bearable, it didn’t go away.

He found himself wondering why. He could understand missing someone, even being ashamed that his actions had driven them away, or anger at her faults which had driven a wedge between them. But why was there an emptiness beyond the hurt that he felt was waiting for him even after that was gone?

He could understand why he felt bad, but why this bad!

It was almost like his life was over.

Maybe he was afraid that it really was.

___

Lenny had heard all the Bible stories when he was a boy. He had always believed in God. His questions had him thinking, wondering if God was really there. Was God his answer? It was a simple enough conclusion to come to. God of everything, everything that was made, did he not have the answer to everything, the how-to on life?

It made him think about the Bible. Maybe that’s what the Bible was, the ultimate instruction manual. He flipped through it looking for something in its pages to give him a clue, but he didn’t have much confidence in it. He didn’t understand it.

Still he couldn’t escape the idea that God was his way out.

___

His life was like a cage that had been rattled. The beast had been set loose to wander, but once it was outside, all it knew was that it was lost, and it was smelling the wind to try to awaken the instinct which would guide it home.

Nevertheless there was the man’s mind. He sensed the design within the thing, and however slight it was, he had a seemingly unreasonable hope that this God was there for him…

Whispering on that wind.

___

It came when he wasn’t expecting it.

On a walk to the store one day, unsuspecting Lenny had an encounter with God. Before he left the house, he had been thinking about his ex. When he left the change of scenery and the fresh air helped clear his mind. He enjoyed the break. When he was at his most relaxed, his mind turned to God. It gave him a little thrill of awareness.

After a moment of looking up, he had the image in his mind of a man carried along beside, and inside him, rocking in time with the cadence of his feet.

They say that God is in your heart. What if he really is? Would I know it?

So Lenny did something radical. He took this word literally, and looked into his heart to see God.

He felt something.

Lenny looked again, a little more hopefully this time.

He felt it again. He kept looking, and he knew that this something he felt was not leaving. It was there inside him, and had been there even before he looked.

Lenny looked up, unconsciously looking for approval from above.

That’s foolish, he thought. Why would I look up if God is actually in my heart?

Was God up there, and down here at the same time? Lenny didn’t know the answer, not in a provable kind of way, but that’s what it seemed to him. He looked up with asking eyes. He felt like the answer was drawing him back in. He looked in, and there, he saw plainly, was God.

He didn’t see a form with a shape. He saw what he felt. It was a God who was visible to his heart.

He was so, so kind! He could feel his love, glad that Lenny had looked so that he could share his love. Lenny received an abundance of kindness then, showing him more and more that God really was there. He felt it build. It was reassuring of God’s good will towards Lenny. It wasn’t like a cold priest giving his pontificating sermon. It was a warm, healing embrace. It was the reality of God made alive.

What did it mean?

This was all new to Lenny. So even though he had just experienced God’s love poured out, and even though that in itself awed Lenny and pressed an indelible stamp in his mind, changing him forever, he didn’t know what to make of it. Imagine that, the kind of experience that could revolutionize a person could not take its full effect because it didn’t fit what that person knew and could understand. He had to take a step back and think about what had happened.

He did his shopping and slung the bag over his shoulder, barely speaking to the cashier on the way out. He fell into his rhythm, step, step, step, looking out into the air and the open sky. He saw the trees and followed them with his eyes stretching upwards and clutching at the air. Their branches bobbed in the wind playfully, but their great height and wild reach gave them an unassuming majesty, as if, if they wanted to, they could rain down havoc on the little creatures of the Earth but would never do so because they weren’t built with that kind of malice inside.

Lenny’s heart filled with love.

“Lord, I think a tree is one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever made.”

Lenny was shocked that had come out of his mouth. He had never spoken to God so off-handedly. The few times he had it was like they do in church, with thee’s thou’s and therefore’s, feeling very stiff and afraid to say the wrong thing.

He looked up again as if something would fall from Heaven on him, then shook his head and just looked in his heart and around him as he had learned. God was there, and he wasn’t upset. If anything it felt as if God hadn’t changed at all. So Lenny walked home with God bouncing along inside him, looking out into the world with another presence accompanying him.

It was nice, like the sun shined brighter while he was wrapped in that little bubble with God.

___

The rest of the day, though he thought about it, Lenny didn’t talk to God any more. He cooked his supper and relaxed in front of the TV until his friend, Bill, called and asked him to help him with his car. By the time he got home, he was ready for bed, and didn’t think about it again.

The next morning he woke up early and had hours before work. It was when he thought about making his coffee that he remembered his conversation with God. In those moments grinding the beans, heating the water, and washing out the pot, there was a space, a plane he shared with God, in which a whole level of thought above what he was doing existed, separated by a kind of awe, an awareness of God being there with him. 

He was quiet. He felt appreciated by God, a simple man living a simple life as he poured his coffee in his cup. He felt a lightness in his heart.

Why don’t we sit for a while and talk?

Lenny felt expectancy well up as he sat down at the kitchen table. Settling into his seat, a calm filled him and the space around him. It was a calm in which he knew God was.

The moment was set. He was ready, and he knew God was going to speak to him. Yet what did he know about that? What did it even mean? He was calm, maybe as calm as he’d ever been.

The crease between Lenny’s eyes deepened and his eyes began to water. He exhaled loudly, then caught himself and cut it short.

“You’re really there, God,” he softly, but earnestly exclaimed.

Lenny felt a kind of recognition, like God becoming more tangible to him.

“I’ve never felt like this before.” Lenny grew aware of the coffee cup handle still clutched in his fingers and eased his grip. “What is this?”

He stumbled, and corrected himself, “I mean I know it’s you, but what is this?”

What is what? he thought—be more specific!

“What is this feeling, God?”

The feeling in him grew stronger, and he knew with the feeling God was telling him it was He. He was manifesting in Lenny’s heart.

Lenny looked at God, and God looked at him. Lenny couldn’t deny it. It was definitely something. He felt it more than he saw it, but it was there.

‘Maybe it’s seeing God with my heart rather than my eyes,’ Lenny thought.

He didn’t know. He knew he didn’t know. So he shook it off gently so that he didn’t interrupt the peaceful feeling of stillness and continued. At a loss for words, he sat back and opened his eyes and ears as wide as he could, listening for anything, any sign of life from that side, any movement or whisper. He felt the Lord settle him, calm him again, and he loosened up a little, slouching slightly more in his chair.

He was just quiet.

He sat quietly for some time. One thing was certain. He was being encouraged. He didn’t know how it was happening, but he was sure God was encouraging him. It was almost as if there were words; God was speaking to him. It was too tangible, the encouragement, to be completely insubstantial like a mere feeling. It was definite. It had direction. What was God encouraging him to do?

Just trust me, came the answer. It wasn’t audible. He could feel it. It wasn’t audible, but Lenny knew he said it. He understood that in all this, sitting and waiting and listening to God, he was to trust him. He was being told to trust him.

So Lenny waited. He did nothing else but sip his coffee. Even that he did sparingly so that he would not interrupt.

LENNY & GOD – 2. Humble myself…