I have no interest in bowling you flat with my glory.

I’m not a flirt, or a show off, I want relationship, not compulsive adoration.

God I don’t know any more if I hear you when you say stuff about my business. I was sure you said that new client was going to come on board, but they haven’t. Not yet anyway.

Is not yet, not good enough Mark?

Well no, I guess it’s not. I thought you said it was going to happen this week, so now I feel like I got the whole thing wrong.

Actually you got part of the thing right, it is going to happen.

But not this week?

Not for a while.

Sounds like a cop out God. It’s easy for me to relax when you say that, but how do I know it will happen, if it doesn’t happen straight away?

How do you know it will happen when a human promises you something?

Depends on how reliable I’ve found them to be God.

Exactly.

Exactly what?

Mark you understand that things don’t happen overnight when a human promises them. You don’t evaluate the truth of what they’ve said based on how quickly the thing happens – if you think they’re reliable you’re prepared to trust what they said said will come to pass.

True God.

So are you having issues with how reliable you think I am Mark?

Oh man God!! I guess this more about trusting you like a good Christian should? What does that even mean?

No. Making a choice to trust someone, a human or me, is a different matter – related, but different. What I’m talking about is how reliable you’ve found that someone, a human or me, to be. I’m not asking ‘will you trust me’, but rather ‘have you found me to be trustworthy?’

Ok?

So how reliable have you found me to be Mark? I’m not asking you to trust something you don’t know about, you and I have had a fair amount of dealings, done a lot of the down and dirty aspects of life together. I don’t want to know if you will trust me Mark, I can see you’re trying. I’m just asking a plain old question; how reliable have you found me to be?

Pretty good God.

Explain.

Well you said that my son would be cured of Leukaemia, and years later you said my baby daughter would live even though she was dying a number of times every day, and then you told me my wife would come back when she left me.

And Mark?

And OK everything you said would happen did. It took 14 years for the picture you gave me about my daughter to come to pass, and five years before my wife came back, and two years before the doctors said my son was out of danger, but ok, yes it happened. So yes, I guess you’re reliable.

Good, glad to hear it Mark (smile). So if you’ve been wondering whether you can hear me talk about your business, wondering if you get that stuff wrong, what sort of things do you think you can hear me about?

I don’t actually know anymore God. It makes me doubt everything when you say something, then it doesn’t seem to happen. And then to make it even more confusing, I think I heard you say yesterday that when listening to you, words like ‘will be’, can be mistaken for ‘can be’, or ‘has been’?

You think Mark?

Well ok, I’m pretty sure you said that.

Yes. I’ll explain. Words can be mistaken when talking to anyone. How often do you get the wrong impression when talking to a human? It makes you want to stop talking to them, but most of the time you have no real choice, you have to keep talking to them. With me it’s different, I am the easiest friend to shut down on, I’ve designed it that way. You can easily send me away, easily drop and forget me

Feeling bad God.

Don’t. I’ve designed it that way. It has to be easy to block me out, otherwise we couldn’t have a relationship.

What God? I don’t understand that.

Yes you do. The only reason we can have a proper sort of relationship, a friendship, not a ‘mighty God with overawed human’ religious sort of relationship, is that I don’t make myself overpoweringly obvious.

Okaaaay. Just thinking that through God.

Good. Do. Mark, you can’t have a friendship sort of relationship when the other person is overpowering. If Bob Dylan phoned you up and said he just wanted to be your mate you’d find it difficult. You’d be so overwhelmed if that happened that you’d not be able to relate to him like one of your real friends. Bob would have to ‘make himself small and un-Dylanish’. If Bob wanted to have a proper friendship with you, he’d have to disguise himself as someone else. It’s the same for me – I have to hide a lot of myself, disguise it. If you could see me in all my glory you wouldn’t have a chance of shutting down on me.

Sometimes I think that would be good God.

Actually it wouldn’t. You’d be an adoring fan, not a friend – a slave, not a buddy.  You think it’s my Holy Spirit reminding you of my glory, it has to be right? But actually no. When my Spirit gets involved I come as an illegitimate baby in a stinky barn. When the Spirit gets involved you’ll always find me ‘making myself a little lower than the angels’, washing feet, arriving on a donkey. I’m not invisible because of your sin Mark, I’m invisible because I’m invisible.

God hang on! There are too many big concepts here, all coming at me at once.

You’re understanding them all Mark. Don’t panic. Here’s what I’m saying; Satan reminds you of my power and glory, my overwhelmingness and you think it has to be me saying those things, surely Satan wouldn’t?? But yes he would. Having scared you a bit with my tremendousness, a tremendousness that I hide from you – argue with that if you want Mark - but it’s obvious in nature and in scripture. I HIDE MYSELF! I don’t run around making a big show of myself. Almost never.

Alright true enough God, carry on.

Ok so having given you a warped picture of me as God the wonderfully, overwhelmingly glorious and mighty one, and told you that you are unworthy, just a worm and oh so lucky to be forgiven by me, Satan then plants thoughts you think are your own, like ‘why don’t you show yourself God??’ He does that because it is completely contrary to my nature. That’s what a lie is like. Contrary. He paints me as tremendous, glorious, ever-powerful, and of course I am all that, but I am invisible to the human eye, clearly visible to the spirit, but not to the eye. Always hiding myself (in plain sight) on purpose.

On purpose God?

On purpose. I’m like a woman. Wonderful. Mysterious, ever-powerfully able to change so much in your life. But a true woman hides all that, you have to find it, search for it. Prostitution and pornography is the overt display of that which is meant to be uncovered by a true lover, not displayed to all.

Satan prostitutes my glory, pretends I want to display it like some mad cosmic flirt. He lies. I keep my power hidden so that it is only seen by those who want to see it. Why? Is it yet another of Christianity’s tests? No, that again is a lie of his about my nature. I hide myself so as not to overwhelm you, so as to allow a relationship. You can’t have a relationship with a prostitute, everything hidden is too much on display. There’s no pursuit, no unfolding, no discovery, it’s all there already. It’s no different with me. I want you to discover, unfold, get to know me. I have no interest in bowling you flat with my glory. I’m not a flirt, a show off, a prostitute, I want relationship, not compulsive adoration.