Bread of Heaven

Wednesday 5/21/2014 6:32 AM

When our kids were younger they all took piano lessons for a time.  None of them really took to it very much and we eventually sold the piano.  One memory I have is that of my daughter, Kate, playing a song called Breath of Heaven at a tempo that was much faster than the composer intended.  She knew the song well, and played with abandon, but the tempo precluded anyone singing the words of the song or even humming along.

Over the course of the past months I have bemoaned the fact that it seems as if God has stopped speaking to me during my morning quiet time.  My devotions have been somewhat sporadic because of my schedule and other distractions but, even when I sit down and have them, he seems quiet.

This morning I read an excerpt from Carlo Carretto’s book, The God Who Comes.  He writes, “The God-who-is has always been searching for me.  By his choice, his relationship with me is presence, as a call, as a guide; he is not satisfied with speaking to me, or showing things to me, or asking things of me.  He does much more.  He is Life, and he knows his creature can do nothing without him; he knows his child would die of hunger without bread.  But our bread is God himself, and God gives himself to us as food.  Only eternal life can feed one who is destined for eternal life.  The bread of earth can nourish us only for this finite earth; it can sustain us only as far as the frontier of the Invisible.  If we want to penetrate this frontier, the bread from our fields is not sufficient; if we want to march along the roads of the Invisible, we must feed on bread from heaven.  This bread from heaven is God himself.  He becomes food to us walking in the Invisible.”

I want God to speak to me, to show things to me and to ask me to do things for him.  That way I can listen, observe and then act upon what he says.  I feel as if I am doing something to earn his favor.  But God wants to simply be with me.  He wants to sit quietly and enjoy my company.  He wants such a deep relationship that words are not needed to express love or to give direction.  He wants an intimacy so deep that I think his thoughts with him, anticipate what he wants me to do, and then act accordingly, out of love.  That kind of intimacy can only develop over an extended period of time being in the presence of the one you love.

I want to feed from the Bread of Heaven but, like Kate’s playing, I live my life at a tempo that precludes the intimacy I desire.  I need to keep time with the metronome of the Holy Spirit, be still, and live in the Presence.