Being Loved

It seems that so many of our problems would just disappear if we believed that God loved us. I mean if we really believed God loved us, we would be at peace and we would love him in return. In my own life, I think about placing my whole self unreservedly in the Lord's hands and saying, "Do what you wish." It scares me to place myself at his feet and I'm learning that it shows that I don't trust him fully. I can't expect to ever trust him fully so there will always be a gap there but the story of Creation is of God drawing people to himself and teaching them to trust him. He stands at the door and knocks. He waits for them to open and then comes and eats with them. He is willing to come near us and be with us. We will never fully trust him but He is willing to fill the gap between us and Him. We should long to trust him and let this longing carry to us to his feet.

If one looks at Jesus' life, it is inescapable. He loves us. He demonstrates it with actions. He demonstrates it with his hands and his feet. He touches people, challenges them, loves them, and gives up his life for them. In a world where people are guilty because of sin. They break the law that God made and it brings destruction to themselves and to their families. Some sit on the fence at God's invitation and never make a decision. They never open the door. They never place themselves at his feet. They exist in their minds as "good people" and will keep existing as such day after day. But they are not good people. Their goodness forever stands defined as their acceptance before others. The acceptance of others changes the way one feels but it does not penetrate the heart to the core of who they are and call them good or loved. People long for this their whole lives and yet they exist with stifled dissatisfaction as they seek perfect love from those around them. They live day after day feeding on a love that is only a reflection of a greater love. Jesus is that greater love. He loves us and he makes it clear to us with his life.

There exists in our heart at its' very core a place that bears our very names, engraved so deeply that it could never be erased. Whose hands engraved it there? Whose hands formed every crevice and then marked it with a name? Jesus did and we belong to him. We belong to Jesus. He is the one who we do not believe loves us. We hear him knock and we hesitate to leave behind our occupations and comforts and things to go answer the door. The truth exists still as it has since the beginning: He who created us is the only one who can fulfill us. We long for comfort, for work, for purpose, for love, and yet we seek it apart from Him. We will never find it apart from him. He formed us and engraved our names. Only he knows us at the core of being and so he is the only one whose hand can touch there and say, "Loved. Mine. Here is your purpose. Follow me." No one else's hand can touch that place. No one else's voice can call down to that place.

For days and months I have gone on living without my heart surrendered. The truth is, I think, that we are meant to always be surrendering each day. It is easy to hear encouragement like this and think it of it as mainly for people who have never made a first step a faith. And yet, the message from God's perspective is for everyone. It is for us. He wants a relationship with us and He wants us to know that He loves us. Not just for the first time for us but continually.

How then can we believe God's love for us continually? We can come to him continually. We can look at Jesus' life. We see him and hear his words. Then we respond to his words in faith. This means instead of looking at Jesus in the third person as we do when we read the Bible, we look at Jesus directly in the second person in prayer. "You, Jesus. I come before you with my heart." We lift our hearts to him in prayer and fix our eyes on him. We can be never certain of everything before we step out in faith. We can be certain of mathematics but with God it is a relationship. We have heard his words and so we step out in faith when choose to believe and respond to them. My heart breaks when I think that I do believe his love for me. I hesitate to place my body and soul and life into his hands completely to say, "Yours." He does not hesitate to knock on my heart and yet I hesitate to open. He came down from heaven and gave his life in order to so. He loves me. I won't know it until I open the door of my heart and let him in. In faith, this is my daily task to continue to know his love. I must rise to my feet and go to the door. I want to know Him. I wanted to be called loved by the one who formed my heart.

Just A Creature

I am just a creature.

Over the past few months I have learned that I can only have so many friends. I can only have so many hobbies. I can only think so many thoughts. I can only get so many questions answered during my lifetime. I can't do everything. I can't make every dream come true. I am not God.

I am just a creature.

I can, however, make some dreams come true. I can get some questions answered. I can have some friends. I am limited to some and I must be content with that. To refuse to do so is to go outside of my boundaries.

I am just a creature.

While I spent time at L'Abri in Holland, we talked a lot about freedom. What I learned about freedom is that being completely free to do anything and everything is not freedom at all. In fact, when I am faced with this unlimited freedom, I find a tension there. The endless choices and possibilities paralyze me. Unlimited possibility meets limited creature and though at first the creature is dazzled by endless number of paths before him, eventually he is overwhelmed. For me I encounter physical anxiety and an never-ending cycle of thoughts that can lead to depression. There are consequences of my wandering outside my boundaries.

I am just a creature.

I also learned that freedom does not depend upon my detachment from obligations or commitment. Freedom comes through commitment. Freedom depends instead upon the nature of what I am committed to. We commonly think that freedom means more of this and more of that and less of anything that confines. But real freedom means confinement - confinement to something life-giving. In real freedom, I choose to have only this and only that because only this and only that is beautiful and worth so much to me that I will willingly commit myself to it.

I am just a creature.

Creatures have definition. If you look up the word "creature" in the dictionary, you will find it defined as best as someone could. You and I too are words with definitions. And yet we are such complex words that only God, the Creator of creatures can describe the lines that define us. If someone were to ask God, "That one, Patrick, who is he?", God could answer. I have definition. I am confined to my definition and yet when I accept who I am, I have freedom to move and exist and love within my specifically-drawn lines. Psalm 139 describes our defining. He hems us in behind and before and lays his hand upon us. He wove us together. We have definition. Freedom means that we are free to exist as we are.

I am just a creature.

What a fearful place to be - to accept who I am in my beautiful limitation. While beautiful, it is also painful because there is beauty outside my limitations - a forbidden beauty that I must not desire or dwell on. It is not mine, it is someone else's. When my heart is filled with such covetous desire, the best thing is for my heart to be broken and to finally let go of its wayward dreams. Then I am free to experience healing and to have my heart learn to love the body and soul to which it is tied. What a fearful place to be - first to accept and second, to learn to move within this freedom. It is beautiful that in Him we live and move and have our being but it is also fearful when we learn the truth that we were created defined for a defined purpose. We learn our value and then we learn to bow and place our value on the altar to be used. The one who can speak out our definition by heart also speaks a word to send us out into the world and to actually live as ourselves.

I am just a creature.

In this thought process, this is the point in my understanding where I find myself falling short. I cannot describe the intricacies of what takes place on the altar when someone places themselves before God. I do not know what will happen when this is all lived out. This is where each person's story begins to unfold in its' own way. This is prayer - not dead and lifeless prayer, not rote and predictable prayer, but prayer that overflows with unpredictability and life. It is unpredictable to the extent that something will happen within the confines of God's promises but not outside. It is full of life to the extent that within the confines of God's promises, there is perfect freedom and room for all the beauty that the world contains. We are who we are and God is who he is. I accept who I am and I come to him as myself. To my delight, I find that because of Jesus, he loves me as myself.

I am just a creature.

So Lord, break my covetous heart, heal it to a place of accepting itself, and let it learn to know that it is loved even as it is called to new places. If it is called somewhere specific, let it learn to accept where it is called. If it is given freedom to choose, let it learn to seek you in what it chooses. I cannot do all but I can do some. Let me choose to walk with you in my some.

I am, happily and fearfully, your creature.