Sometimes, well no, not really sometimes, more like all-times. I feel this intense, pressing desire for God to accept me. But in between God accepting me and the me of right now, is this unknown cloud of silence. I stand and I look at it, with a low humming anxiety in my heart and I try to solve it. I treat it like a puzzle. I want to know what I’m missing, specifically, I want to know what it is I am doing wrong so that I can fix it. This becomes my obsession, and when I can’t figure it out I start screaming to God to show me. I declare to Him: “You see me as I am! Expose my sin, see through me, show me my error so that I may repent, so that I may know and experience and love you.” And when I receive silence, I then start down the second rabbit hole of trying to discover why the second silence is now existing on top of the first one and so on. Well, I wish I could give the direct answer on how to stop this cycle, but I currently sit deep within its depths and even as I write this I start freaking out about how to get myself out. Notice that: how to get myself out. There are three things wrong with this sentence: the first is the how: relationship with God is not a math problem or a formula, and anyone who has walked with God for any length of time knows that just because God worked in one way at one time does not mean He will work in that way the next time, this is not for us to solve, so we are allowed to let go. The second is “myself,” who, throughout this entire endeavor, has been the sole focus of my attention. This is a deep error in our tendencies. We look at ourselves indefinitely, and God, full of mercy, constantly draws our eyes to Him and to others, and in this we find freedom that we are allowed to drop our hands from our toil and simply look up and remember the nature of God. The third problem is the “out” part of that sentence. I envision myself trapped, or like I stated at the beginning, separated from the acceptance of God. Maybe this, the preceding assumption of it all, it the very core thing that must be challenged. Perhaps we can allow ourselves a moment to stop and really wonder if there is a problem. God has the ability to show us if He wishes, and until then, He has unconditionally chosen us, and in every second of our lives loves us just as fiercely as every other second we have ever existed and ever will exist. God has already accepted me and He did so looking at the entirety of not just my life, but who I actually am. This thing does not change, and we need not fear that it ever has nor will. We are freed to love.