Discovering the God Who is For Us

Yesterday, I quoted from Holy Hunger: One Woman's Journey from Food Addiction to Spiritual Fulfillment, by Margaret Bullit-Jonas.  She was writing about her discovery that OA members had to find the God that supported them, defended them, protected them, upheld them, and they had to learn to rely on that God for strength.  Today, I give you more of her words, her way of relying on the God she found:

I began to practice a very simple, frequent, and honest form of prayer, no doubt a form of prayer that has been uttered by human beings since the dawn of time: Help me! 
I learned the power of turning, both in words and in silent inner gesture, toward the One who alone could get me through the next five minutes without my diving into the cookie jar or the bread basket.  If I needed to pull my car over to the side of the road, if I needed to step out of a conference, if I needed to lock myself in a stall in the ladies' room in order to collect myself for that simple, secret, urgent prayer, then that is what I'd do....

Prayer slowly became the undercurrent of my life, sometimes serving as its quiet backdrop, sometimes leaping into clear relief in the foreground, as I went through each day and asked for help not to overeat.....

Just as I learned that the urge to eat was usually the signal of a feeling that needed to be explored, I also learned that the urge to eat was a signal to pray.  Since the urges to eat were frequent, so too were the reminders that I must turn to God.  From moment to moment, day in and day out, I had to return again and again to my desire for God, my dependence on God's help, my need for a saving relationship with the Source of life.  There's nothing like addiction to teach us that we can do nothing by ourselves.

Not everyone has an addiction, but the journey out of our own hell is one that every person must sooner or later make.  And we make that journey by learning to lean on God as our Source, our Strength, our Help.  Once we take the first step -- one which we could not begin to take unless He had already led us to that point --- He is ready and eager to show us that He is faithful, that He is strength, that He is provider.  That is what I mean by revelation that leads to good theology.  As long as we hold back and refuse to surrender, as long as we hold up our fist and say, "I shall be as god! I do it myself!" (like two-year olds), He will allow us to tie our own shoes, no matter how many knots we make in the process, and no matter how many times we pee on the knots to make them even more difficult to untie in the end. 

Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise, we were designed to walk with God, to be one with Him, to receive His Spirit in our spirits in order to govern this earth and our relationships in peace and harmony.  When His Spirit departs from us, when we can no longer breathe in the breath of His mouth,  the earth and human relationships begin to disintegrate.  And we are surprised when the waters of chaos close once again over our heads, and when we sink once more into the abyss.

But that's not the end of the story.  It continues as it began, with the Spirit of God hovering/ brooding over the waters, and the Word of God issuing forth from His mouth:  LIGHT! BE!  He sends forth His divine energy, and we are born again out of darkness into light; chaos is pushed back and dry land appears, and once again, we walk in safety.  Our world produces good things, relationships are healed, and heaven comes down to earth.