Come to Me...

I remember my first foray into Adoration... I had signed up, committed to one hour of prayer in the chapel each week. I thought I needed an arm-load of books to fill the time; to be productive. I'm sure God laughed at me as He usually does.

It finally dawned on me that I was sitting in a holy space, in the presence of Jesus; that I just needed to be... be my authentic self, lay all my cares right there at His feet, and just sit and listen. Over time, God spoke to me through my prayers, through Scripture, through books placed in the pews... so many blessings received through the simple act of sitting in the presence of Jesus exposed in the Blessed Sacrament. I think about Jesus asking His disciples to watch and wait with Him in the garden of Gethsemane; then I think about all the times no one's available to sit with Him now. There are times I'm there, but not truly present; distracted by whatever's going on in my life at the time; distracted by my own preconceived ideas of what my prayer time should look like; looking for signs and hidden messages in Scripture... Still, He lovingly looks at His child, waiting for me to be still and know that He is the answer to all the questions and longings of my heart; that He is all I need. So, these words jump out at me today,

"You search the Scriptures,

because you think you have eternal life through them;

even they testify on my behalf.

But you do not want to come to me to have life." (Jn 5:39-40)

You see, there are times I'm searching the Scriptures, the books and devotionals- my head's in the books but my heart's not searching or moving towards Jesus. I'm guilty of looking to other sources- I love the music, the writings, the messages of different songwriters and authors and speakers. But, they do not satisfy for too long if I start to make them my "molten calf". A particular teaching may be wonderful, but if my attention is directed to the creature and not the Creator, then there is no joy there; there is no life there. True life, abundant life, is in Jesus... and His invitation still stands for us this Lent... "Come to Me".