On my knees one night—on my knees resting in the vast expanse of quietude—I heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing. I worked so hard to quiet my mind and my spirit; I had gone so far to find this vast expanse, only to realize that I desperately wanted to hear something, to see something, to feel something. So I broke the silence before it broke me and I spoke a few words.

“Oh God, What’s wrong with me?”

Immediately suppressing the onslaught of corollary questions—those questions that are even worse in many ways—I forced a bitter quiet on myself. Then what could I do, having made the only inquiry that one can truly make of God? I did that silly thing that humans do too much. I waited for an answer.

What led me to finally inquire of God? It was Him that blessed me with so much, with gifts and talents and opportunities and friends and success. I had everything. But I deserved to be fed dirt and to sleep in it. Why was he giving me all this? And then again, why am I worried about it? Why am I questioning it? Why does it bother me?
I should be happy.
Doesn’t every man say that just before he sees the truth? But I was still in darkness.
So God left me in the dust of my own inquiry. He could have said the comforting things that gods are supposed to say, “don’t worry, I’m in control, just relax, I love you.” But what a human answer that would be. He didn’t need to separate his solution categorically. He calmed my soul and inflamed it all in one pass.
“The only blessing I’ve truly given you is that burning mind, heart, and soul of yours, of mine. I gave you fire. You’re in pain because all you’ve ever done is played with it.”
They say only God can humble you without humiliating you. I was already on my knees. But it took Him explaining the entirety of my life in one convicting blow to make me feel like I belonged there.