How God Communicates

7 posts in 7 days link up - Day 4

God is known in the Bible for communicating with/to His followers in a variety of ways.  Gentle breeze, flaming bush, through the prophets, loud rebukes and gentle words from His Son - just to name a few. 

But God isn't all hail and brimstone or serious, solemn words.  Sometimes He has a sense of humor.

I go to Adoration every Thursday evening from 9:00 to 10:00.  Maintaining a mental focus can be challenging for me, so I often will write in my prayer journal. Here's an excerpt from a few months ago.

"Of all the places to be late, construction traffic made me 15 minutes late to Adoration.  I'm not really mentally prepped to be prayerful now after the rise in impatience and "stuckness" I felt.  I had no one to contact, to alert to the fact that I was indeed coming, I was just sitting in a parking lot on the highway.

"Oh, Lord, You rascal You.  I finally arrive, say hello to You and sit down.  And smell farts coming from my chair.  I'm really not sure what message You're sending me.  I do laugh and my mood lightens.  My cloud of gloom and doom disperses somewhat.

"This has been a week of frustrations.  Tonight's traffic.  Imagined and exaggerated feelings of judgment from a family member.  Communication difficulties with our adoption agency.  Inadequacies on being a mother, a wife, a teacher, a cook, a housekeeper, the list goes on.

"Perhaps it's the hormones talking.  I've been increasingly high strung; tonight's 45 minute stroll through traffic did not help.

"Perhaps this is why I got the fragrant burst of "fart chair"?  Didn't know Your sense of humor was so, well, juvenile!"




Have you ever heard the story of St. Teresa of Avila?  I often think of her whenever I have a run in with God's "humor".

Fr. James Martin describes one well-known incident here:  "And while Teresa’s spirituality was a deeply reverential one, her humor also evinces a kind of playfulness in her relationship with God. Once, when she was travelling to one of her convents, St. Teresa of Ávila was knocked off her donkey and fell into the mud, injuring her leg. “Lord,” she said, “you couldn’t have picked a worse time for this to happen. Why would you let this happen?”

And the response in prayer that she heard was, “That is how I treat my friends.”
 
Teresa answered, “And that is why you have so few of them!”
 
This story, one of the most well known about St. Teresa, is often told as a way of demonstrating the abundant humor of the saint. But it shows something else: her playful way of addressing God. Moreover, it shows her assumption of God’s playfulness with her."




Thank you, God, for sending levity into my day. You who made the stars and the moon and the oceans also made the smile and laugh.  Help me to smile and laugh a little more.