“Amen, Amen”, then they bowed down and faced to the ground, prostrated themselves before the Lord.
And Ezra read from the law of God, translating and giving the sense, so that the people understood what was.
What an emotional rollercoaster in the first reading from Nehemiah this week. I get that, I get that you can in the space of a day go from profound remorse, to incredible awe, to rejoicing in every part of your being that the God you fall before is so loving and merciful. It’s pretty exhausting, but the real joy is knowing just who He is.
I want to heckle at the Gospel, “He’s God you dummies”, but I refrain, because I know I can be the very worst for not seeing Christ when He is right under my nose.
I remember standing in a very hyped praise and worship session and in tears begging Jesus to show me the real Him, not just a sense of who I’d read about. I didn’t want an experiential high, but the real deal, the truth of who He was. I think He has had me on a journey of discovery ever since. He allows me to fall, so I know His love is unconditional, He allows my heart to be broken, so I can glimpse into His. He allows me to question and doubt His goodness so that He can prove time and time again the depths of it. And he goes before me, righting my wrongs, providing all that I don’t even have the imagination to know I need, until I’m in the moment. Yet, still I will miss Him in a conversation, miss him in the sunset I didn’t stop long enough to see, miss him in that awkward person I’m failing to love.
So, I guess I’m sat in that synagogue too, on an average day, missing, scoffing and dismissing His presence, but still desperately searching to find it. I wonder if we are so busy screaming His name, we drown out the sound of His response, but patiently he whispers over and over again till we still enough to hear. #voiceoftheflock #nehemiah #therealjesus #Hispresence #inHispresence#Jesus#knowhimmore#sundayreflection
