Sometimes I think I'm crazy...

Here are a few examples:

* The Spanish congregation of my church has a prayer meeting every Saturday morning at 6 am. I had been a regular attender until the end of April when I decided to take a break and sleep in for a few weeks. Just before 11 PM last night as I fell asleep, I offered up a simple prayer. "Lord, if you want me to go to prayer tomorrow morning, you will have to wake me up. I'm not setting the alarm." I guess it was less of a prayer and more of a challenge, now that I've written it out. Somewhere in the night, I had a dream that a youth gospel choir was performing a concert just for me. After a particularly rousing tune, I woke up and looked at the clock: it was 5:06 am. Am I crazy, or did God wake me up on time for prayer? I smiled, climbed out of bed, got dressed, and headed off to church.

* I went to the room where the prayer meetings usually take place and was quite surprised to find that I was the first to arrive. So I sat. Thinking. Wondering what I would do if no one else showed up - being that it was the holiday weekend and all. I recalled two phrases that have been rolling around in my head a lot this week: Sacred Solitude and Alone with The Alone. Hmmm... Maybe this was my turn for some sacred solitude, time to be alone with The Alone. I began to relish the thought of an hour of time alone. To pray. To think. To speak to God and to myself. The security guard noticed me sitting there. (There's a security guard at the church because it's open 24 hours a day, just in case people like me want to be alone for prayer in the middle of the night.) He told me that they'd begun to meet in another area of the church. Am I crazy, or did God want to test my fidelity? Would I stay there even if no one else showed up?

* From prayer, it was off to Caribou for some joltin' java. I journaled. I read. After waking up mysteriously, finding myself inexplicably alone with God for a few moments, and then surrounded by over 20 other early risers who also felt the call to come together, shoulder one another's burdens, and share one another's joys, this is what Michael Yaconelli wrote on page 84 of Dangerous Wonder - the book I'm reading:

"But God does more than hide - He also seeks. Early one morning, I was writing about my faith. My office was a mess with reference books strewn over the entire surface of my desk, my couch, and my floor. After about two hours I began to sense the presence of God in my study. It was a very unusual experience for me but, at the same time, very real. It was as though He was playing with me. I went to the computer and wrote down my experience as it was happening...

'I sit in my room this morning, playing hide and seek with God, enjoying the seeking as much as the finding. Catching glimpses of my Father smiling, darting from one book to another, hiding in my mind. Suddenly He is standing there in my thoughts laughing, escaping my grasp, only to turn up in the pages of my notes. As I gather my notes, my Bible, my books to prepare this talk, I find my soul overflowing with gratitude, with the tears of joy because God and I have just spent two hours together, just He and I playing with truth, and I live my study with a strange understanding that I did not find God... God found me.'"

* Am I crazy, or was that page written just for me, to be read today at Caribou Coffee after the morning I had? Am I crazy, or is it possible that God laughs at me, at us, that He cares whether or not I get up and go to church on the last Saturday morning of May? Am I crazy, or was God playing with me this morning?

* Here's Yaconelli's answer: "God does play with our souls. He hides and He seeks and His laughter heals our hearts. When God plays with us, before we know it, we are playing: playing with our neighbors, our church members, and even our families."

* Before I head off and play a few games with my children, I've got another question: Am I crazy?