Faith | Is God hard to find? ‘Consider the lilies’ to unearth his presence

“Consider the lilies is the only commandment I have ever obeyed.”

Nineteenth century American poet Emily Dickenson may sound like she’s skimping on obedience to God, but she gets to the heart of how we can grow closer to God.

“Consider the lilies” is part of a long passage in the Christian Gospels where Jesus teaches about God’s love and care for us, and how we can connect closely to God in our everyday lives.

There are a lot of books written and sermons given about the hiddenness of God, about how much the search for God requires of us. I want to say to all those folks, have you ever really looked at a lily?

Perhaps we want the search for God to be difficult so we can feel smug if we feel we have succeeded in tracking down the Deity. Or maybe we’re looking for an excuse to give up, soothing ourselves with the false ideas that we’re not good enough or holy enough or clever enough to win the spiritual version of “Where’s Waldo?”

But is God really all that hard to find?

Prophets and mystics and poets of many faiths tell us that all we need to do is pay attention. They teach that God is not far off, God is not hidden from view or playing a game of hide and seek.

Their own experience has shown them that finding God was mostly about paying attention to the world around them. The lilies, the rivers, the trees, the birds, the faces of friends and strangers.

For years I’ve been climbing a local hill, hoping that the exercise and fresh air and sweeping vistas would lead to lofty thoughts and spiritual experiences.

Too often I find myself thinking uncharitable thoughts about bike riders who abuse the trail or dog walkers who don’t clean up after their pets, or will my knees hold up (and hold me up!).

Wild flowers decorate the trails in the late spring, and I keep an eye out for the rare Sagebrush Mariposa Lily. Every year, if I look carefully, I might see two or three.

I would count the lilies rather than really “consider” them. Finding one was more a personal success than a spiritual encounter.

Until last year.

I have no idea why, but instead of two or three lilies there were thousands. Literally thousands. It seemed as though God was shouting “CONSIDER THE LILIES!!!!”. The hillside reverberated with the intensity of their beauty and the mystery of their abundance.

Counting the lilies was not possible.

What God was asking for, even demanding, was my awestruck attention. No counting, describing, analyzing was appropriate, just attention and wonder and praise. The Biblical word for this is “Behold! meaning “really see this, don’t pass by”. By paying attention, beauty transformed my grumpy heart.

But God isn’t just calling to us from fields of lilies. Loud and urgent “pay attention” calls are coming from flooded farms and dried up streams, from homeless camps and locked down schools.

It’s easy to stand awestruck before abundant beauty, but tragedy and struggle and need are also places where God calls, “Behold” and waits for us to really see what is happening to God’s world and God’s creatures, including God’s people.

I don’t think we can claim to see God’s presence in a field of thousands of beautiful lilies unless we are willing to see God also in the faces of thousands of beautiful children who don’t get enough to eat. In both kinds of places, God is near saying, “Behold”. Pay attention. Don’t pass by.

Let paying attention transform our seeing into service.