God's Close and Healing Voice

Bette Midler sings that "God is watching us . . . from a distance." (Cf. Ps.11:4).  This is not exactly how Christians understand God.  The Christian God, while radically transcendent, is as close to us as our most intimate thoughts and concerns.  There, in the depths of our soul, God awaits us, and speaks words of love and healing. (The "distance" is made by ourselves, putting God off, casting Him away.)

I had the marvelous good fortune of hearing Jesus' intimate voice of comfort and power last Wednesday morning (Jan. 15) while in the throes of passing a kidney stone in Semachaca, Guatemala.  A more forlorn place to suffer that ailment I can't imagine!  About three in the morning, after two hours of active discomfort and pain, I was sitting uncomfortably, having prayed for whatever deliverance was possible. (Besides the intense pain, another disagreeable aspect of kidney stones is that you can't predict how long it will take for the pain to subside.)  I then heard these words inside me: "Tom, your pain gives you an idea of the suffering I endured for you.  Now I will take the pain away."  And from that moment, not really believing the words I heard, I gradually became aware that the pain was gone.

My own experience of Jesus' intimate presence and power testifies to his radical closeness.  'Doubting Thomas' that I am, I think that my suffering brought me to the place within myself where I could finally hear Jesus' words of consolation and healing.  Reflecting on the experience buoys my trust in Jesus' intimate, caring presence during my daily life when I am tuned to other things.  For my experience of Jesus' presence and power, near to me when I am not, I can only, in awe, give God thanks and praise!