Our resistance to the furious love of God may be traced to the church, our parents and pastors, and life itself. They have hidden the face of a compassionate God, we protest, and favored a God of holiness, justice, and wrath… Yet if we were truly men and women of prayer, our faces set like flint and our hearts laid waste by passion, we would discard our excuses. We would be done with blaming others… We must go out into a desert of some kind (your backyard will do) and come into a personal experience of the awesome love of God. Then we will nod in knowing agreement with that gifted English mystic Julian of Norwich, “The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.” We shall understand why, as Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament notes, that in the last years of his life on the island of Patmos, the apostle John wrote, and wrote with magnificent monotony, of the love of Jesus Christ. As if for the first time, we shall grasp what Paul meant when he said, “But however much sin increased, grace was always greater; so that as sin’s reign brought death, so grace was to rule through saving justice that leads to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:20–21).
~ Brennan Manning
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
~ The Beloved Disciple, in 1 John 4
Oh beloved, it is true. We are dreadfully afraid of the Truth. We say that it cannot be what it really is. But anything we come up with in terms of argument, really does not get us away from the mono-theme of His Word.
You reader, and me (this fool of a writer) are loved more deeply and dreadfully than we can even begin imagine. But our fear of this reality drives us to create models and modes that try to dumb down what amounts to a tsunami.
We try to make love
cute instead…
fickle,
fun,
something of a commodity or rub that we apply when needed.
But Love breaks through.
In the depths of our pain, and the drumming disappointment we have in ourselves – and in others – Something breaks through. There comes this profound and powerful concern for our wellbeing. And it keeps flowing in the through the smallest breaches in our defenses.
In fact, it feels like the harder we try to keep it away, the more persistent It becomes. The first sense was just a pure and warm feeling, like the promise of a fireplace on a cool evening. But as our trauma and pain grows, the Love comes to us in the form of armed and fierce warriors rescuing us from a certain death.
It is like the air we breathe. We can hold our breath, but only for so long. Sooner or later, we have to give in to the overwhelming urge for Life.
However, even in taking in those first few breaths of Him (for this Love is the Simple, Omniprescence of Who this Triune One Is), we seem to want to deny what has just happened to us. We deeply recognize our own putridity and wonder how anyone could actually Love it.
In fact, we feel like we might just feel a little better if someone squashed us for our arrogance and rage. Any Love that burns away the dross of who we were is just so powerful, that we are not sure we can endure the pain.
Could it be that we know that His Love is beyond powerful, but it is not out of control; and the only thing we actually fear, is that we will not be able to control It?
Can we see it? Beloved, the Love of G_d is who He is. It is nothing that we can even begin to comprehend – let alone control. In fact, control is the last thing on Love’s mind, so even knowing what to do with the Love we will experience is beyond our grasp.
So perhaps, the first step in getting to know this Love is to simply let It be what It Is. Him. The fearsome incomprehensible One, who has made Himself known; This very same Breather of Stars, has simply declared that He is particularly fond of you.
I am beginning believe, and it wondrous strange. Anything i thought i knew about Him just falls short. i come to Him (now less and less) expecting to find some sort of reasonable boundary to His goodness. But even on the clearest days with the highest of views, the Love and care and provision and goodness and hope pile up in mounds higher and higher beyond the horizon of my ever-growing world in Him.
And now, more and more, i am beginning to just know something… This journey has only begun to begin. The finding of eternal depths, will take just (at least) that long.
So, do you think it reasonable that G_d would give you Himself in portions? It is not reasonable. Let Him be who He is beloved. You cannot stop it anyway. However, tonight is the night you could begin to experience It. Time to stop fighting The Love.
