Last week I registered for a webinar called ​“Space for God.” Later, I opened my calendar to find ​“Space for God” covering every hour of every day for the next several months:

This technical glitch turned into a nudging, an invitation to make more room for God.

It’s an invitation I need. Because even after years of reading spiritual formation books and talking about practicing the presence of Jesus, I tend to relegate ​“space for God” to little blocks of time here or there. 

Why? Partly because of life’s distractions: things to do, things to buy. 

It’s also partly because a subtle shame rumbles in my soul like a distant train, consistent enough to fade into the background, yet loud enough to drown out God’s gentle whisper. 

This mumble of shame — perhaps a childhood voice, perhaps the voice of the Accuser — rarely speaks clearly. It comes in fragments of thought and feeling. But if it was pinned down and forced to speak, it would say things like:

• Who are you to be talking to others about spiritual things?
• You’ll never have pure motives, so why even try.
• You are a fraud.

When shameful sentiments like these compose any part of our life’s soundtrack, we tend to keep God at a distance. Like Adam and Eve, shame tempts us to hide to avoid facing God in our nakedness.

To break free from toxic shame we must bring our entire self to God, not as we wish we were but as we are. Brother Lawrence discovered this.

Imagining himself ​“full of sores and sins… who has committed all sorts of crimes against his king,” Lawrence threw himself into God’s hands ​“that he may do with me what he pleases.”

But instead of condemnation and chastisement, Lawrence found:

“This king, full of mercy and goodness… embraces me with love, invites me to feast at his table, serves me with his own hands, and gives me the key to his treasures. He converses with me, and takes delight in me, and treats me as if I were his favorite.”

May the Spirit give each of us this same revelation of God’s goodness so that we are inclined to make space for God all day, every day.