No distant Lord have I,
Loving afar to be;
Made flesh for me, he cannot rest
Until he rests in me.
Brother in joy and pain,
Bone of my bone was he,
Now—intimacy closer still,
He dwells himself in me.
~Maltbie D. Babcock (1858-1901)
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles in Philippians 3
Oh beloved, it is true. We come to know Him at first and the truth of it all is simply astounding.
We were dead in our sins. Now we are alive in Him…. We were alone in the universe. Now we have an intimate Friend forever…. We were stuck in our flesh. Now we are free its bondage…. We had no hope. Now He is our Blessed Hope…. And this is only the beginning…
At first, the love we have with Him is a very real and good infatuation. The fact that He is dazzlingly beautiful draws us in closer to Him. The Beauty that He is, is the definition of attractive. He is the symmetry behind beauty. He is the Sum of all the fractals of beauty we see across creation – for in Him we live and move and have our being. And all this creation screams the glory back to the One who imparted His beauty upon it.
Then, something happens. We begin to see the Person in this ocean of beauty.
He is so Real, So Good, So True, So Kind, So Noble, So Patient, So Faithful, SO Loving!
In the beginnings of the realization of who He is our words just fail. We begin to see that anything we can scribble about Him is just that – scribble. Shakespeare tried, and began. Some of the apostles touched the edges, but the ability to describe the wonder of our Beloved still dwells in unapproachable Light.
Still He draws us closer to Him. And we begin to burn. Partially, we begin to burn with love for Him – and this is real. But, just like a newly-wedded couple may have moments of awkwardness, we – the bride – do begin to blush. For, in the brightness of His Presence, there is this odd combination of absolute clarity and total acceptance that we cannot yet comprehend. We see our failings, and in His light they are glaringly obvious.
“Oh G_d, i am sorry. Some of these parts of me are still so ugly.”
And He answers in ways we cannot (yet) comprehend, “what parts my friend? You are astoundingly beautiful. And I AM not blind. I see all things clearly.”
Can we see it? Obviously not. Just as it is foolish to allow the creeping awkwardness of an intimate human relationship to get in the way of getting to know someone well, it is utter foolishness for us to believe that any awkwardness should exist when it comes to knowing Him. He already knows us fully. But more than this. He already knows the perfectly-perfected human bride He will welcome to the Wedding Feast for His Son on That Day.
His Word is clear. And perhaps this is the problem. We rarely read it, and even more rarely let it and its Author do its deeper work within us. For this same Word tells us, that for us to truly live in intimacy with Him, we must be conformed to His likeness. And this conforming to Jesus includes dying to any of our own thought or impulses or desires. This same Jesus did nothing (read no thing) apart from that which His Father – through the Holy Spirit – would have Him do or say. And this same Jesus lived in total, Loving, intimate communion with His Dad.
So Jesus – as always – is the Model and Solution for our problem. We have this horrible propensity for seeing ourselves as we see our own selves – ugly and broken and unworthy. But, we do this at the expense of how Jesus modeled life and how His Word tells us the Father now sees us. Jesus just knew His Father knew Him, Loved Him, and heard Him. And Jesus did not even entertain any other possibility. Period.
Oh beloved, what if we lived like Jesus Lived? What if we just knew we were Loved? What if we shared in His sufferings (these utter deaths to His own desires on which cup to drink – and the pouring out of His very self in Love for others). What if we too abandoned our own sense of righteousness and simply believed that it was G_d who was putting us into alignment with Himself? Said simply? What if we believed we were beautiful, because HE says we are?
You are beautiful believer. Live like you are. Live like you are Loved.
