My Storehouse

"It's important to keep adding to our storehouse of names, aspects, and images of God.  We tend to stick with the familiar images such as Father, Shepherd, Comforter, Christ.  But what if we're looking for the divine Comforter while the divine Challenger actually is on our case?  Or we're thinking we need the Fire of the Spirit to buck up our faltering spirits when God is trying to make the Water of grace available  through our own tears?  What if we're looking for divine Light and illumination when what's available is the divine Darkness in a 'cloud of unknowing'?"
--Robert Corin Morris
"Wrestling with Grace:  A Spirituality for the Rough Edges of Daily Life"

I read this quote about a week ago and it caught my attention.  I began to ponder what "new" name or image of God I should be adding to my storehouse.  Or perhaps worded another way, "What 'new' name or image of God does HE desire to add to my storehouse?

Personally, I am more comfortable with God as my Comforter than my Challenger, or God as my Light as opposed to Divine Darkness.  I am consistently looking to God to be my Security, my Stability in a world...in my world, which seems ever changing.  And I know that this is good and right and wise.  He should be my Security.  He should be the One in whom I find stability.  But what I am being challenged on in the words of Robert Corin Morris, is that He should  be more than that.  And quite frankly, that makes me feel a little uneasy.  At which time I run to my Security and bury my heart in His strength and ask Him to walk with me through the coming season.

Because I know that one is here.  A new season.

I met several days ago, a woman, whom I have asked to disciple me.  I have been praying and seeking a new Spiritual Director, as my previous one has felt she was unable to continue providing me direction.  And so I have patiently waited for His guidance in finding someone else to fill this particular role in my life.  The time spent with this woman held a strength and richness which has ignited a new sense of spiritual excitement.  But it was also apparent that her way of discipling would lead me onto a new fork in the road.  Herein lies an uneasiness as well.  No longer is the path clear in front of me the way I had mapped it out.  Now there are unknowns.  What will walking into this blank territory of my soul yield?  Is there a dormant part of my being that needs to be awakened?  Is there a weak part of my soul which needs to be made strong?    Yet I sense that God is mapping out this something new.  I sense holiness even amidst the quiet fear.  I wonder if just maybe, God does not have some new names or an image of Himself in mind, for me to add to my storehouse?

And so in His gentle strength, I will enter this new season, turn my soul into this fork in the road, and wait to hear the name He whispers in my ear.