Spoken Word Poetry: The Greatest Secret

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I will tell you the greatest secret that I know.
And it is to always come to God.
I don'tt mean this in the abstract sense. The abstract sense only creates a helpless, inarticulate frustration.
I mean come to God consistently and constantly in your practical life.
I do not mean a phone timer to think of God every five minutes.
I mean that your life is a language between you and God.
I mean that he is with you, but you are not always with him.
I mean that you need him. And your need could be a beacon to draw you to him.
I mean journal with God. Journal to God. Journal what God says to you in your heart.
I mean talk to him out loud.
I mean close your eyes into the sun and listen. Take a walk.
I mean treat your negative emotions as your flashing signal to bring that negative emotion to God.
Learn to slow down. Keep short accounts. Let not distraction snuff out your curiosity.
You're frustrated and irritable. Ask:
Why am I irritable? What's the lie that I'm believing? What am I afraid of? Lord, what do you want me to know about this? 
You're uneasy. You're anxious.
Lord, what's this about? What am I afraid of? What am I believing about myself? What am I believing about you? 
You're frustrated about the Nuggets losing in the playoffs.
OK, that's me.
But I'm not joking about this! This is the kind of stuff that we might deem as too petty to involve the Lord with.
But if it's having a real impact on my soul, why would I not involve the Lord?
What do I believe about God that makes me not want to waste his time with small stuff?
Why would I not receive his comfort and his wisdom and his peace for small things that feel big to me?
That's what little children do. Everything seems big to a child. This is what they talk about.
But I'm all grown up. I'm supposed to know better. I chide myself.
Don't disturb the master with this. He only pays attention to the big stuff.
Where did we get these ideas? God draws near, bur we hold him at arms length.
I'll pay the check, Jesus. You paid last time. I insist.
But there is another way to live.
This is the best thing that I have to give you:
To stir you up and encourage you that your Father wants to spend time with you.
He's not disappointed. He's not separating from you. He stands at the door of your heart and knocks.
He loves to be with you.
Sometimes I hold my daughter, and she nestles into my arms with her head against my chest, and she closes her eyes, and I know she feels safe, and warm, and loved.
This is a piece of heaven that I get to give to her on this earth. I get the privilege of showing her the Father.
This is the Father.
What would it take for you to believe this in such a way that you stopped what you are doing right now, closed your eyes, and visualized yourself laying your head against the Father's chest, telling him what's on your mind?
He's not too busy.
He wants to talk to you about whatever you want to talk about. He's not limited. He doesn't have more important things to do.
He loves your curious questions. He loves to hold you in your pain. He loves to  whisper wisdom into your ear while you nestle in. He loves to love you, and given time, he will teach your childlike soul to love him.
But when we are children --and bear in mind, you are a child compared to the ancient of days -- when we are children, all we have is our need. And he loves your need. Because it draws you to him. And him to you.
The infant's love is the infant's need and the infant's trust. The infant comes with nothing except need.
Reach out with your little fingers and grasp the thumb of God, your Father.
This is the best gift I have to give you. The invitation:
You can have this. You can have this every day, in your own special way that fits your own unique design and way of being.
Just as a good father loves each unique child as they are, not expecting them to be anyone else, so your father loves you as you are because he created you exactly as you are.
Here is our problem. We think the love of God is abstract and faraway.
We don't think his love means that he loves to be with us as we are. Loves us in our imperfection. Loves us better than the best human father. Delights in us. Smiles into our hair, smiles against our cheek, comes to walk with us wherever we are walking.
We think his love is words in a stale page. Unknowable, untouchable, conceptual, like a textbook.
It's not the kind of thing that we can connect with during the day in real life.
In real life, my daughter wants me to watch her jump over this thing or that.
My son wants to talk my ear off about his new video game.
My daughter has a nightmare and wants me to lay with her in her bed.
My child comes to me with the most raw emotions, all the tears and frustrations, the deep irrational pain that manifests through the body as hitched breathing and loud moans of grief.
At my best, I just sit with him. I come to where he is, a benevolent presence in the darkest night, and I just love him where he's at. Maybe he's not ready to talk. So I just sit in silence.
And God is much wiser than I am. And much closer to you, even than I am to my son in those moments.
I have good news for you. Everything that could possibly be done to clear the path for you to have a profound relationship with your God has been done.
The death of Christ signifies the furthest possible extent that God could go to in order to make relationship possible.
The gospel is very strange, but for some reason it resonates with the human soul.
Because we know we're broken. We know something's wrong. We know we need atonement.
And then Jesus is tortured and butchered on a cross as the payment for every cosmic debt.
The echoing financial statement that all has been made right, all debts are clear.
Suddenly, the weakest, most sinful, most unworthy, most bound and hindered, most despicable human, has a shot for relationship with the divine king who redeems and transforms everything he touches.
The kingdom of having suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
Suffer the little children to come to me. The filthy ones. The inconvenient ones.
There's nothing so ugly that he can't make it beautiful. Nothing so broken that he can't make it new.
Why believe in a God who isn't strong enough to deal with your particular issues?
You are the leper that no one can touch.
But Jesus can touch you. Your disease isn't stong enough to extend to him. But his light and love and healing are strong enough to extend to you.
Maybe you are the villain who has done too much dirt to be a candidate.
I wonder if there's anything that my little son could do to sin himself out of my love.
And my love is far from infinite.
Maybe you are just so right. You've looked at all the angles, and you've come to your conclusions. This isn't for you. You've tried it before.
You've created a wall of reasons to protect you from further disappointment.
My friend, I sing to you.
Why believe in a God who is for everyone else?
You're just a little child who thinks that he knows. So am I.
There's only one thing needful to know.
We need something very simple.
We don't need the stuff of theologians and professors and degrees.
All we really want to know is that we are loved.
And if we're not loved, we'd rather not know.
It's an audacious thing to believe that you are loved.
The most important risk you'll ever take.
And if you begin to know you're loved, then you find yourself drawn to the one who loves you.
The one you need.
The one you always needed.
God has hidden eternity in our hearts.
And it manifests as a longing
For something so breathtakingly huge
We almost can't bear
To hope
That it's real.
This is the best thing I have to give you.
The invitation.
It is real.
Taste and see.
And taste again.
Every day
Is an opportunity for
Taste and touch
Risk and failure
Longing and faith
The righteous falls seven times
And rises again
Why does he rise?
Because he's loved.
Because the father is near.
Come and see.
I stand at the door.
I knock.
If anyone
Will open the door
I will come in to him
And I will sup with him
And he with me
Today if you will hear my voice
Do not harden your heart.
Abide in me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself
Unless it abides in the vine
Neither can you
Unless you abide in me
Come to me
Weary and heavy laden
And I will give you rest.
Let us distill
All of life
And the entire universe
Into one word:
Come.