If we had forgotten the name of our God,Or stretched out our hands to a foreign god, Would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.
Psalm 44:20-21
We've forgotten Your name while we built our own—repeated and competed and written it in bold letters. We tattoo ourselves onto ourselves, all proud and all caps. Our church talks about us and our friends talk about us, and we've forgotten there was any One else in the whole universe.
I remember You in fits and spurts throughout the day as prayer requests come and children go, as the meals are eaten, and whenever I realize something is lost. You are the Great Finder of Lost Things.
We lost our keys on Sunday, jumped right into the river with keys and fifty bucks and not a care in the world. Until it was time to go. Then we remembered Your name and You rescued the forgetful airheads with river water in their ears. We found an extra, a grace-key, another lost and spare one under the seat where we'd only look in an emergency.
We have forgotten Your name and You keep remembering us back.
We have defaced Your image while we've spruced ours up, lifted and pulled and teased the nature out. The image of You in the face of our neighbor is marred by our own sorry reflection: we want to see our own selves, everywhere, but we've forgotten what we look like. What we actually, really look like.
We miss You completely if there is no semblance of us, and what is there to look at in a face so unrecognizable? Too black. Too white. Too young. Too old.
You keep seeing us, though.
I see You on the mountain and in the blue sky, when I run to burn off the food You meant to nourish. (Except the cake, of course. The cake is just a placebo taken regularly for comfort. It's utmost—our comfort.)
Live it up, live it up Nobody ever told us we could die like this Live it up, live it up Corrupted by the comfort we love, love
Andy Mineo, Uncomfortable
I see You in nature but not in the natural man and it makes me wonder—if we're made in Your image—if we ought to look more like the purple finch or red rose. Not completely harmless, but without malice.
We are too comfortable with ourselves and uncomfortable with one another to see Your true face, in all its glory. We miss You in the unobservant way of a lover who's found other things to satisfy, or the birthday-child with more gifts to open.
We miss You because we are ignorant of Your ever-presence.
I say we to soften the blow to my own self. Even if I want to see You and remember You, I'm swallowed up in a world that wants to be without You and it deadens my senses sometimes. I am part of the we that forgets and the we that overlooks and the we that requires a good hard repentance.
Because You remember us, because You search us out, we turn back again to Your name and Your face and Your very image imprinted on imperfect us. Your church. Your body, made whole by Your brokenness. We are not a broken people if we are the people of God.
We are a mended people, made whole and right. Lord, let us remember that.