“To say to an Orthodox Jew, “I would like to have dinner with you,” is understood as “I would like to enter into friendship with you.” Even today, members of Orthodox Jewry will share a donut and a cup of coffee with you, but when they extend a dinner invitation, they are saying, “Come to my mikdash me-at, my miniature sanctuary, my dining-room table, and we will celebrate the most beautiful experience that life affords—friendship.” That is what Zacchaeus heard when Jesus called him down from the sycamore tree,”
~Brennan Manning
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
~ David, King of Israel, And Coming Co-Regent of The Kingdom, in Psalm 23
Oh beloved, it is true.
All along the path of our life, we have found ourselves in trouble. And all along the path of our life, we have found that we have been hemmed in by the mercy and goodness of G_d. That we do not see it, is the problem. For, it is there, truer than gravity and light and stars.
The reason we don’t see it? Because we forget His agency: Friends.
In life, many of us learn the secret of being good to people. We don’t set others up. We have learned to live without guile. We have found the secret; the mystery being that life is found in giving one’s self away to others. To be burned up for others, is far better than to burn others – or worse – to burn alone.
And so, in our stumbling, bumbling ways, we start to make a difference in people’s lives around us. Oh, we really don’t feel so good about it at times. We kinda just feel like we are trying to help some people, and to leave the trail behind us just a little bit cleaner than how we found it.
We come to see the incredible worth in people. We see and sense the image of G_d in others. They are incredibly fascinating and worthy of attention. Even the ones who hurt, and especially the ones who hurt us, become the particular focus of our affections. We begin to care deeply for others. It is glorious.
Somehow though, we find that it is actually something different – and immensely deeper.
As our failures to do it right continue, we find that when we do get it right, it is because something or rather SomeOne is helping us from within. We find that He is showing us how to Love, and in many instances is actually channeling His Love through us in ways that we never expected. We have come to care for others, but we find it is because we realize that we have been cared for, by Him, in so many ways.
Then it gets better.
Can we see it?
For so long, it took us so long to learn to Love others, that we had to (honestly, we did) need to forget about ourselves. We had been so attached to our ego, sitting on the dead center of our own lives. And this was never going to work. For, the egomaniacal old me can neither give – nor receive – Love.
But, as we forgot about self, we also forgot about that Which helped us learn to Love in the first place. We had forgotten that it was Love that helped us learn to Love others. We had, quite simply, not moved off center when it came to Loving others. We, in our immaturity, saw Love as something we only did for others.
However, just as our failures to care properly for others are tuned to doing it right by Him, our failures to understand the deeper issue of us learning to lived Loved by others, are made right in Him. Further, we find that G_d has been doing this same work of learning to Love within multitudes of others around us. We are not alone in our quest to Love others. We are, in fact, the target of many other’s Love towards us.
If we allow it.
But, once we do, we find that it has been happening in some pretty amazing ways our entire lives. The very G_d of the universe has been using his favorite agency to pass His favorite thing to us our entire lives. We have been hemmed in, and pressed under the chesedic tsunami of His mercy and Love the whole time – through the caring of people who are also learning to Love and be Loved themselves.
So, are you learning to Love others? Good. This is vital. However, maybe it is your time (and this fool of a writer’s time as well) to learn to receive Love from others. Tonight is your night. Receive.
Often people request prayers for deliverance, inner healing, or physical healing. But more frequently they simply want a man or woman to whom they can turn–not because of what this person is able to do but because of what he or she is: a person who makes them feel wanted, a friend to love them, one who generates an atmosphere of warmth and trust in which they are able to love in return.
~ Brennan Manning
