Being present and active belief

A couple of weeks ago I got to go to Kirksville, Missouri, a place I love deeply. While I was there, I got to see so many of the people whom I love and am loved by. We got to sit, talk, be present with each other. We were content and happy to be together, without expectations, enjoying each other's presence, reminding me once again that it is showing up that matters. I am grateful for the people in my life who show up, who are present to me, who love me.

When I recently read John 6:22-40, it reminded me of this fullness of God's love, reminded me of how important presence is.

In these verses, the people are searching for Jesus and can't find him. They were with him when he fed them with a few barley loaves, when they ate and felt, for once, satisfied. They are hungry for more, want him with them, want to understand more deeply this feeling of contentment, and so are pulled across the sea by this indescribable force. They are seekers of understanding. They are earnest.

What can we do? they ask when they find him. You know, to accomplish the works of God. This was the most full we have ever felt, and we want to go deeper. Tell us how.

Believe in me, he says. This is the work of God.

It's not what they were expecting him to say; it is both easier and harder. Jesus is talking, I think, about a belief that stays present in each moment, that is awake to the needs of others around us, alive to the Lord moving in, with, and through us, like breathing. A belief that is active, that lets God teach us on a moment-by-moment basis what it means to believe. A belief that is open to "just" being with people, whatever that looks like. Really, this is what Jesus did.

Believe in me, he says.

Sometimes, I think, we are so focused on the work we think we are "supposed" to be doing to accomplish the works of God that we can become too busy to be open, to receive the gift of each moment, the gift of each other.

Our work becomes not a distractor, but a way for us to be brought more deeply into God, however, when we remember that our first work is to believe in Jesus -- everything else we do must come from that. Letting our work become worship, petition, presence, because it comes from belief; this is how we pray at all times, without ceasing.

Like always, I am talking about presence. Believing is an opening of ourselves, an awakening to what is in front of us. We are loved by and love, after all, a God whose name is I AM.

A quick Google search of the definition of the word "work" brings up this informal definition of "the works:" "everything needed, desired or expected."

John 6:28-29: "So they said to him, 'What can we do to accomplish the works of God?' Jesus answered and said to them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.'"