Have you ever experienced an intimacy with God where it feels like he is right there in the room? And then, maybe a day or even a moment later it seems as if he went missing? The coming and going of God is not new. But, rather than let it discourage us, I think we should try to discover what it might mean for us.
In Mark 1, As Jesus enters the home of Simon and Andrew, he is immediately brought to Simon’s mother-in-law who was indisposed with a fever. Jesus came to her, took her by the hand and lifted her up. Upon her rising she immediately serves those gathered in the house as the people of the city began to congregate outside their front door.
The next morning, while it was still dark, Jesus left the house to find a deserted place to pray. Noticing he was gone and nowhere to be found, Mark tells us that Simon and his companions “hunted for him.” Though he was eventually found by the few, we discover that everyone who had gathered the night before was still looking for him.
But rather than return to the seeking crowd, Jesus leads his followers in another direction to minister to the neighboring towns.
In one, twelve hour period, we witness the loving, yet often peculiar way in which Jesus so often relates to us.
At times, he is the God who enters our home. He takes us by the hand, lifts us up and sets us free to be ourselves.
Yet there are other times, maybe more often to us, when he is the God who leaves us on a hunt. It’s times like these when God has gone missing. When he feels distant and unfindable.
But rather than understand this as God’s absence, I think it is better to receive those moments as when God is creating the space for us to find him. He opens our eyes to not only to find Him in prayer, but also as he leads us to our neighbor.
This is Jesus demonstrating his brand of hospitality.
Whether it’s entering into our space and touching us — or creating space as he teaches us — we will come to realize it is always HIS space.
The space where we not only find ourselves, but where we are free to be ourselves, ministering to others.
The God who will never forsake us is always finding us exactly as He wants to be found, exactly as we need to be found.
He is the God who meets you in your home and leaves you on a hunt.
This hospitality of Jesus — found in both the intimacy of home and in the uncertainty of the hunt — is one way we will be brought into wholeness.
We see glimpses of this in our story. Simon’s mother-in-law was “raised up” to serve. This was not only a tease of resurrection but a foretelling of her being made whole — as she is set free to be herself. The neighboring towns are on their way to wholeness as Jesus makes his way toward them.
This coming and going of God is his goodness for our collective good. The space where we find wholeness in our relationship with him is tied into the wholeness we share with one another. This is the wholeness we will share with God and neighbor.
So, whether God meets you at home or leaves you on the hunt, be encouraged: He is the God who is always good and always with you. In his creative hospitality, he invites each one of us into his created space for the purpose of our being made whole in him.