Where are you?

This morning, as usual for a Saturday morning with a house full of grandkids on the weekend, I'm at Starbucks for some time to read, pray and be alone.  

I've been thinking this morning about where I am in my walk with God.  The question is something like this,  where are you?  (I'm not speaking to God when I ask this, this question is for me.)

I know what I want.  I want and desire a close and personal relationship with God, with Jesus, but I struggle to know what that looks like, what that feels like.  What does a personal relationship with God look like? What happens when I have it?  I think this is where the mystic will jump in and tell me, but I don't find scripture making it that simple.

I can't make anything happen.  It seems all I can do is make myself available for God to speak, to do, to be with me.  For me that means some time alone, time in the word, some quiet where I can just be still.  I can't tell you I've heard any word from God because I really haven't.  I'm quite content to find his words to me in scripture (as I should).  But that sense of nearness still somehow eludes me.

I don't write this asking for you to help me, to give me answers.  That's not how all of this works.  It's very much like any relationship...it just takes time and fellowship together and soon we begin to be comfortable with each other, close in a way we don't realize is happening.

My sweet wife and I are coming up on our 42nd anniversary.  It's hard to believe we have been married that long.  She's still so young, but in these years there have been times when we are in the same room together with no words being exchanged and one or both of us have said, "it's so nice being with you."  

I think that is a bit like a relationship with God.  It's that presence that is so life giving....even if no words are exchanged.  I'm available for him to speak, but even if he doesn't....it's so nice being with him.