Scripture
“The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy but I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” NIV
Prayer
God, How Do I Abide in Your Love?
Dwelling in love as a place
Will a feeling rise
Waiting
Am I to wait
Are you commanding me to feel loved
In the way you command me to trust in you
God, I met you when I was four. I rejected you even though you flooded me with love and raised my spirit up to life because I thought your love was temporary. How can I go back? You said I can always call on you and you’ll be there, but how do I ask you to love me, still? How do I look at our relationship with joy?
God, you smiled on me. And now I’m grieving because I left. Do you love me that much, still? I’m embarrassed for leaving. I’m intimidated by your love you showed me, it was so much. It changed me. It will change me, again, won’t it?
I’m too scared, simply, to live a life based on the memory relived with fondness, nostalgic about an idea of being loved that’s so steeped in disappointment that I have only have a faint hope in the possibility of your love for other people. My body would continue, so long as I continued to accepted food. But my eyes won’t want to open, weighted down by deep fatigue.
Instead, let your love for me shape my reality.
Scripture
“When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; he brought me into a spacious place. The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”
Thoughts
I will not always feel “hard pressed.” Although I relate to the sentiment today, I am reminded of God’s love for me and his promise of salvation, in this life. I know his promise means I will come and go, freely. And this idea of a “spacious place” makes me feel understood.
I have thought it uncomfortable, maybe constraining, the notion of a Creator directing my interest, wants, and dreams in life. But I also want to be understood. And if Creator God is all knowing then his knowing of me and what he does with that knowledge are different. An evil god would manipulate me. But God who is good speaks about fulfilling the desires of those who love him.
I once thought that loving God was service. Now, I think loving God can start at a distance from his personality and love. I think, loving God can start with loving the nature of God’s desires: all the motivations of good desires. By that I mean, salvation, rest, unconditional love, satisfaction, sustained strength that comes from deep and overflowing joy are all consequences from God being himself like symptoms of goodness, if you will. And I can see each of these as separate although they all come from the same eternal being that is God Almighty. I can examine each and consider my emotional response to each concept, considering if in theory, as separate from my ability to achieve such grandiose perfection, examining it by what I can hold in my mind, which is a dim, cold ray of light compared to the source of light, the truth. But from what I can fathom of this perfection, I judge my preferences for association, for receiving, and for giving out these ideals. For myself, I enjoy these gifts.
I am made to become like God, in his ways and freedom and goodness. It is because he is raising me that his presence testifies of his presence. His presence moves all things into judgement, which is either salvation or condemnation. Because God is love and truth and life his salvation is worthy.
When once I feared possible constraints, now I see freedom through a God who prefers to give to me rather than set me to striving or searching in the dark. And the light of truth is also the light that reveals his love for me, and you. I trust him because he is faithful. I trust him because he is help and my rest, my refuge and my biggest fan.
Making Sangria 