Reaching for what we can never hope to reach,

        Stretching to attain that which cannot be attained

                 Pressing, striving, longing, sighing, hoping, crying, praying sacrificing

To find,

     to uncover,

          to discover,

               to see, to hear, to touch, to know . . .

We chase the wind and fall in exhaustion, our weaknesses apparent, our helplessness evident.

Exhausted, we lay in r despair and in failure, knowing finally that what cannot be grasped will not be grasped, what cannot be found will not be found.

He is beyond our meager reach, outside our pathetic ability – our inability.

That which can be known, is known, but that which cannot be known cannot be known. No muse, no sage, no genius of man can reveal that which cannot be found, grasped, recognized, understood.

The brilliance of man is the dullness of God

The wisdom of man is as shed leaves from Autumn’s trees; dead, brittle, incarcerated in the prison of the earth to be blown here, there, swept away, crushed, broken and scattered and finally, merging with the earth, disappear, evaporate, vanish as though they never were.

One who saw more than a million see said “all is vanity.”

Unless He reveals Himself, He cannot be seen

Unless He discloses His frame, He cannot be known

Should He hide His visage, no investigation will find Him

All our running and all our striving leaves us only breathless, hopeless, alone and emptier than before the race began unless He allows Himself to be seen, found, heard, touched, known.

So He becomes the Revealer

He exposes Himself to man – to first man, to fallen man, to feeble man, to faithless man, to frail man, to fearful man He shows Himself.

In the Mount, Moses remembers the fire and cries, “show me. . .!”

And he is instructed, “if I lay bare Myself to you, you will surely die.”

And the mighty deliverer of a nation presses forward, “then I will surely die.”

And then the revelation, the showing forth, the unveiling, the presentation, the exposure . . .

Creator unveiling Himself before creation  

First Cause bending to be examined by the invented

Glorious King stooping to be touched by filthy hands

Eternity communing with the temporal

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life-- the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—

Not in the running and the exhausting and the stretching or the pressing, but in the surrendering, in the yielding, in the resting, in the trusting, He comes, remembering our frame, that we are dust,

He comes, as He has always come to those of broken heart, and of contrite spirit.

We schedule our all-night prayer meetings; we labor before Him, hoping He will notice the effort; we wear ourselves to nothing, squeeze ourselves into fragments, push and pull, shout and scream.

We conjure wind and earthquake and fire only to discover on our exhausted bed He was not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire. But after the fire a still small voice.

Our noise is too great, our volume too high, our movement too much. “Stand, and see the salvation of the Lord.”

“There remains a rest . . . “   Enter into His rest

Recline upon His breast

Lean on His strength

Stop, wait, settle,

Anticipate, listen,

Hear      Him      Now

In the secret, In the quiet

He         is           There    -    Here      Now

Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it.

Be still and   know     that     

                                      He      

                                            is      

                                                God.

In His Grace,

Greg