Recently I realized that I have encountered a sort of freedom here in Maria Auxiliadora, which in turn has flourished inside of me. I am not simply referring to the culture or the people or the experience- though all of that has played its part- I am talking about Yahweh. He is so big and real and pervasive- behind all this poverty there is peace and a deep, secret comfort so profound that it somehow causes men to sing for joy and women to welcome any and every stranger in for coffee.

Yahweh fills heaven and earth. He is both near and far away. He is working inside of us and outside of us; his Holy Spirit wells us like a spring of living water inside, yet at the same moment his Word is holding the cosmos together. He is boundless, unborn, undying, unchanging, immeasurable, invisible and infinite. All these negatives crash together to form the ultimate positive, for this same transcendent Deity who is beyond all understanding has made his home in us, revealing to us wondrous truth and liberty, such as we have never known.

I often have to slow down to see this. In the same way that a headache distracts me from doing my work on a physical level, so my ego distracts me from focusing on God at the spiritual level. C.S. Lewis puts it like this: “All your wishes and hopes for the day come rushing at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.”

There are several things that I immediately feel when I find a silent place and welcome God to speak to me. First is satisfaction: it is accomplished. I can rest in the fact that he lived the life I could not live and died the death I should have died. Second is trust: he guided Joseph through what seemed like a series of losses and failures into a transformation of character and enormous blessing. All the harm the world means to do me, God means to use for his good purpose. Third is thankfulness: He has showered me with a rain of grace, though I am wicked. Fourth is humility: I can embrace him as my shield and refuge, reveling in bliss as my self shrinks and God begins to surround me. Such a feeling is adequately described in Habakkuk:

“The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.”

So, as events and feelings come and go, God continues to become my firmness and my center. Such belief leaks out into every area. Giving a drink to a young girl, scorned and looked upon as worthless- unable to speak- and watching her face light up with happiness; sitting wide-eyed and grateful at the table as Carolina recounts to me how Jesus has recently fueled in her a passion to seek after him; almost losing all the data on my external hard drive and reflecting on how attached I still am to “things”; studying John 15 with a friend, asking the big questions and being freshly inspired by Jesus’ love: however small these things may appear to the observer, they seem to have taken on a hidden significance. I imagine that one day we will, together united, all recount such things in paradise as wonderful tales- moments that impacted eternity- sharing endlessly with indelible excitement and great laughter.