To live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness is to let go of cares and concerns, to stop organizing means to ends and simply be in each moment of awareness as an end in itself… We can embrace our whole life story in the knowledge that we have been graced and made beautiful by the providence of our past history. All the wrong turns in the past, the detours, mistakes, moral lapses, everything that is irrevocably ugly or painful, melts and dissolves in the warm glow of accepted tenderness. As theologian Kevin O’Shea writes, “One rejoices in being unfrightened to be open to the healing presence, no matter what one might be or what one might have done.” ~ A Glimpse of Jesus
~ Brennan Manning
When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the LORD will answer them;
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.
I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together, that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this,
The Holy One of Israel has created it.
~The Oracle, Isaiah, in Chapter 41
Oh beloved, it is true. When we call upon the Name of The L_RD, we are saved. But there is a truth here that we rarely come to understand. We live on this narrow strand of time and cannot conceive that things might be any other way.
There is a simple reality to our relationship with Him. John Wesley says it best: “The best of it all is, God is with us.” And as joyful as this is, we forget Who He is, in Him being with us.
He is the One Who made eternity as His dwelling place.
He is the One Who Was, and Is, and Is to come.
He dwells in the high and lofty place.
He made infinity.
He made time.
He made all things.
And… He is beyond them. They are in Him.
What does this mean? Isn’t this just some sort of theological gobbledegook?
No beloved. It means everything to us.
For the LORD will not forsake His people;
He will not abandon His heritage;
~Psalm 94:14
This same L_RD who has made us His heritage, Who has poured out His Spirit into our hearts, is not constrained by the linearity and tense of language. Surely He is with us now, and He will not forsake us in the future, but can we see what all of this is saying?
He was always with us
He was never not with us
In the place of our deepest pain
In the most brutal abuse
In the moments of our worst failures
In the depth of our despair
In the times of our worst rebellion
In the points where we had given up
Can we see it? He was (is, and will be) there. He was weeping with you (and me). He was protecting us, that the calling He has had on our lives from the depths of eternity might be fulfilled. He was seeing us through, when there was no natural way for us to make it.
Said more simply: Love is not constrained by time in either direction.
Beloved, the presence of G_d is a wonderful thing. But the problem is not that it is a fleeting sensation. The problem is that we are not yet tuned to the reality that it is us who change – and not Him. Ever.
So, are you troubled by something in your past? Do you ache over your failures? Perhaps it is time for you (and this fool of a writer both) to begin to see G_d for Who He Is. He was, is, and always will be there with you (and me) – and He will never (read not ever) leave.
Tonight is your night. Time to believe He is bigger than time.
The presence of God is not just the icing on the cake – it is the cake.
~ Che Anh
