Love

"I feel loved." I've been noticing lately that people DO actually say that...and I have been wondering what they mean when they say it. A young Hollywood star says it. A woman coming out of a loveless marriage and then marrying again. HA... mostly people who are embarking on their second or third marriage it seems. But not always...

I think it is easier for a younger person (or at least one who feels young) to "feel" loved because, the physical attractiveness of youth seems a strong enough to pass for love. Lately, the term "HOT" has replaced "beautiful" or "lovely" as a compliment. I think that is an indication of what is of value and what makes for love-worthiness. But as the old saying goes, "when you're hot, you're hot, and when you're not, you're not." As we age, we shouldn't have to depend upon being "hot" to be love-worthy. I don't pine for that kind of love...but I do pine for genuine love. I don't want to be convinced that I am loved, I simply want to BE loved. I find it difficult to express, even to myself what it is, exactly, that I crave. I don't want to be convinced by deeds or words that I am loved. I want to actually BE loved and have words or deeds flow out of that. I think that if we actually DO love, then a convincing performance won't be necessary.

So today I was reading in Ephesians and I came across the definition of love that expressed for me EXACTLY what I desire...and therefore...according to the Golden Rule...exactly how I need to BE. OK, I know that sounds like a performance...and I said performance shouldn't be necessary....but it is...of course...haha. It should just become less neccessary as time goes on and habit becomes nature...becomes genuine...

Anyhow, this is what I read. It is from the Amplified Bible and so now you know one more reason why I just love that translation. It's the [amplified] part that is helpful in expressing exactly what love should look like when we get it right.


...WALK IN LOVE...
[esteeming and delighting in one another]
Ephesians 5:2 (AMP)

I don't see how this can be possible as a one way stream in the long term...even though it might have to begin as one. I think it will have to become a "one another" thing or it won't be possible and we'll just have to settle for an inferior outcome. Maybe the thing that is helpful for me here is to have it so perfectly expressed what the target is...

Esteeming...delighting...one anothering...

PS....I love this poem by Walt Whitman...so I'm just adding it on. It speaks to me of how I wish....and imagined things might have been at this stage of life....

Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,

As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!

Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman, 1891

Good News?

The language of the evangelism I’ve always known hasn’t always sat well with me…but as I’ve been repeatedly told. “I like the way I’m doing it wrong better than the way you’re not doing it at all.” Anyhow, I think I am finding a way to express the Gospel in such a way that I can be at peace with the message…and I think that’s important, because if you’re not convinced it is hard to be convincing. The way we always expressed it seemed more like a threat than “good news” and I think that what we have to share really is good news….to all men. So I say, why bully people, with a threat that is an insult to our loving Father’s nature and intentions? I don’t see Jesus doing that.

I happened to be in a church service this week and the speaker was giving a “gospel” message, in the course of which he said, “You can become a child of God. You simply have to pray this prayer….etc….and you’ll know that if you die…you’ll go to heaven” It struck me that what bothers me is this very rudimentary start point of the message.

I thought of verses that I had recently noticed in chapter two of the book of Ephesians. The first two verses speaks of “sons of disobedience…(the careless, the rebellions, and the unbelieving, who go against the purposes of God)” (AMP)

I noted in the margin….Sons nevertheless….

Verse three speaks of, “children of God’s wrath, and heirs of His indignation.”

Again I noted in the margin…..children and heirs nevertheless…

We often sing songs about “We’re all God’s children …” etc. and since it’s only a song, we don’t get into trouble, but should we genuinely believe that ALL are God children…we would be told…NO…only those who choose to accept Him are His children. (this is spite of the fact that God clearly states in John 15:16 “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,”) So I think we should be able to accept that we are ALL God’s children. If not His….then whose? He created us….He calls us His children….and so I think the message…the good news is…. “You ARE a child of God.” As far as I know…the devil nor anyone else ever created any people, so we are all children of Our Father. (John 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.)

So I guess I might say (when mounting my soap box)…something like… “God has sent me to tell you that YOU ARE His beloved child and you are living a life beneath what He has provided for you. He wants you to come home…He wants you to receive your inheritance. He wants you to align yourself on His side and against the lie that you have believed, which has kept you in bondage.”

The prayer we should pray is “Thy kingdom come…Thy will be done…by me…in me…through me…and in the whole world. Let me have a role in bringing it to pass.” By means of this prayer…which Jesus taught us to pray….we are saying, “I’m aligning my will with the will of God….My Father….and acknowledging my real identity as His child.”

I like how Neil Anderson says, “What you do, doesn’t define who you are… who you are determines what you do….” I might not have quoted that just right…but the point is that it is important to know that you are a Child of God, because this important knowledge will bear fruit in your life. You will begin to act and live out of your identity as a child of God. You will be enabled to grow out of your carelessness and rebellion and live out the truth of Acts 17:28 “For in him we live, and move, and have our being;..”

Dallas Willard speaks about a “bar-code religion.” He says, people have been told that they just need the right bar-code…you pray a prayer…you get your bar-code and then you just forget about it. Your place in Heaven is reserved and that’s really all that matters. But Father wants His Children to grow up to be like Him…. It’s not just Hell avoidance….that’s just a threat….it’s not the good news…it’s bullying…it’s soap sales.

The good news is, “Father loves you and He wants you to come home. You are His child and although you may be in rebellion… He is the kind of a Father who will never let you go. He created you and He loves you. You are His workmanship and ‘He who began a good work…will be faithful to complete it.’ Come easy and live a blessed life…or be prepared for a long hard road at the end of which…you will find Him waiting.”

Man looketh on the outward appearance

Charter was reading to me while I was there this week, the story of Isaac and Rebecca. I thought it might be a teachable moment on the concept of what to look for in a prospective wife. Never too early...haha.... Anyhow, When he came to the part about the servant praying, "If I ask for water and she gives it to me and offers to water my camels too....let that be the girl..." I questioned Charter, "Do you think that was a good way for the servant to choose a girl?" Of course, I was thinking that by his method he was learning whether the girl was kind, hard working, generous....etc. Blank look.....so I said, why do you think he asked for *THAT* sign and not just (for example) "Let it be the first girl in a blue dress.?" Without hesitation Charter stated, "She might be ugly." Well I guess that pretty well sums up the notion I was out to correct. Maybe I was a bit premature......or maybe a bit too late...but I hope not...

Upon This Rock

Is Peter the rock on which Christ's church is built?

Once again....while reading a very well-known Christian author, I read a reference to Jesus allegedly telling Peter that he (Peter) was the rock upon which Jesus was going to build His Church. Of course the reference is Mathew 16:17 where Jesus says, "...thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

If we are just reading one word at a time....or one verse at a time...instead of the whole passage in context, it is understandable how we might imagine that this is what Jesus was saying. Just because the name Peter comes from the Greek word petros... which means stone, we assume that interpretation. But what I see in reading the red words in my Bible is that Jesus often used a literary device which I refer to as "THE TURN" (admittedly, I just made that term up myself)

Just for one example, I refer to Luke 21:16-18

Luke 21:16  And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.
17  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.
18  But there shall not an hair of your head perish.

OK the turn here is that in v. 16 He states plainly that some will be put to death...and in v. 18 he assured them that not a hair of their head would perish.

So the turn is that in verse 16&17 He is referring to what is going to come to pass in the natural realm...and in verse 18 He has TURNED and is referring to the heavenly realm. That's just one example...there are more....but I digress....

So back to Luke. If we take our reading back a couple of verses....Jesus is asking Peter who people say that He is...and who Peter thinks that He is.... Peter gets the correct answer when he says, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

THIS IS THE ROCK upon which Jesus is building his Church! Sure there is a little play on words with respect to Peter's name....it means stone....But it is the BEDROCK TRUTH of what Peter has just stated which is the Gibralter on which Christ is going to build his church.

Just look at how much harm has been done by the notion of the apostolic succession of the Popes etc...the church built on Peter...and all it's various offshoots. Yet all through history Christ has been simultaneously building His church...with living bricks...

Abraham and Isaac

I marvel as I read the story of Abraham and Isaac at the dispassionate way in which the book of Genesis relates the story. It would be amazing if the passage had been written by say, Fyodor Dostoyevky in the style of a psychological novel with all the internal wrestlings of both Abraham and Isaac revealed.

Imagine the scene of old Abraham at the age of approximately 125 years taking a rope and binding 25 year old Isaac and suggesting he take his place on the pile of prepared firewood that Isaac had carried to the place on his own shoulders. What thoughts must be going through Isaac’s mind? He is certainly strong enough to resist his ancient father, but he submits to being bound and placed on the alter.

What emotions must Abraham be experiencing as he reaches for the knife? How does he continue to trust God, who has given him this son in whom is bound up such an amazing promise. What if God had not spoken in that hideous moment as he raised the knife.

I wonder if Abraham expected that Isaac would be raised from death? He had God’s assurance that Isaac was the child of promise, and yet he had been told to lay him on the altar.

What amazing confidence Abraham had in his ability to hear God’s voice….and in God’s ability to keep His promises despite any circumstances. And yet, we sometimes believe that God’s plan has been thwarted somehow, and His purposes has been derailed.

But it has not….

It is He

I am reading Thomas Merton’s “No Man Is An Island,” and was struck by this short passage. I don’t feel I need to add much…except to say that it speaks to me on several fronts that I have been/am dealing with.

1. The craving for significance...which I think it is idolatry
2. The need to withdraw from society at times…in order to deal with our stuff….so as not to overwhelm others with our own unhappiness…
3. Self-conscious living...which Father has showed me is the flip side of the sin of pride
4. We need not worry about our progress…or success….just keep putting Him on in every situation without worrying if anyone sees or takes note…or appreciates…or even about the outcome….
5. We are not expected to make of ourselves anything other than what Father is making of us…

So with no further adieu….(as they say)….Here’s a nice little bit from T. Merton:


“3. All men seek peace first of all with themselves. That is necessary, because we do not naturally find rest even in our own being. We have to learn to commune with ourselves before we can communicate with other men and with God. A man who is not at peace with himself necessarily projects his interior fighting into the society of those he lives with, and spreads a contagion of conflict all around him. Even when he tries to do good to others his efforts are hopeless, since he does not know how to do good to himself. In moments of wildest idealism, he may take it into his head to make other people happy; and in doing so he will overwhelm them with his own unhappiness. He seeks to find himself somehow in the work of making others happy. Therefore he throws himself into the work. As a result he gets out of the work all that he put into it; his own confusion, his own disintegration, his own unhappiness.

It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity. We must withdraw ourselves, to some extent, from effects that are beyond our control and be content with the good will and the work that are the quiet expression of our inner life. We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, to work without expecting an immediate reward, to love without an instantaneous satisfaction, and to exist without any special recognition.

It is only when we are detached from ourselves that we can be a t peace with ourselves. We cannot find happiness in our work if we are always extending ourselves beyond ourselves and beyond the sphere of our work in order to find ourselves greater than we are.

Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one; but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own idea of greatness is illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves. It is, therefore a very great thing to be little, which is to say; to be ourselves. And when we are truly ourselves we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are."

From “No Man Is An Island” by Thomas Merton (Trappist Monk). This is section three of chapter seven, “Being and Doing.”

Next Year

I was in the back yard assessing—as gardeners will—what worked and what didn’t. The mantra of a gardener is, as we all know, “next year…” So it was with this in mind that I cast my eyes around the yard to determine what had to be done differently next year. A small potted geranium caught my eye. I had bought it because I loved the color and the shape of the flowers and the leaves. I hadn’t any planter to put it in, so I just put it in a pot thinking I’ll let it grow and it can become a mother plant—to take cuttings and then next year I’ll put them in all my container planting.

On surveying the plant, it seemed to me that it had not grown a single new leaf all summer. It had just stayed the same size. I wondered at this until it occurred to me that it had never stopped flowering all summer either. It had always had a half dozen or so of those retina-burning scarlet flower clusters even though I had neglected it all summer.

Well and good, I thought, but I had wanted the plant to become robust and large enough to take cuttings and it was still as small as it ever was in it’s little four inch pot. I determined right then that this winter, I would take it in, and rip off every blossom….and cut off every new flower bud….to force the plant to use it’s life to not just produce a few beautiful flowers, but to become large and robust enough to use to propagate more of it’s kind. I determined to wound it—and then to nurture and fertilize it over the winter season.

Isn’t this what Father sometimes does with us? It is not that our flowers don’t please Him, or that He wants to destroy us…though it may feel that way. Possibly there comes a season when He has to take the drastic measure of ripping off all that we cherish and find our meaning and value in—in order that He can make us fit for a higher and better or bigger purpose.