"Knowing God's heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely to announce and reveal that God is love and only love, and that every time fear, isolation, or despair begin to invade the human soul this is not something that comes from God. This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without any conditions or limits."
-Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Thursday, March 03, 2005
To be fully known and yet STILL fully loved...
From Don Miller's In Search of God Knows What:
"It must have been wonderful to spend time with Christ, with Somebody who liked you, loved you, believed in you, and sought a closeness foreign to skin-bound man. A person would feel significant in His presence. After all, those who knew Christ personally went on to accomplish amazing feats, proving unwavering devlotion. It must have been thrilling to look into the eyes of God and have Him look back and communicate that human beings, down to the individual, are of immense worth and beauty and worthy of intimacy with each other and the Godhead. Such an understanding fueled a lifetime of joy and emotional health among the disciples that neither crowds of people jeering insults, nor prison, nor torture, nor exclusion could undo. They were faithful to the end, even to their own deaths.
People don't go out and get tortured and arrested for somebody who doesn't love them... I know in my heart that they were not living the lives they lived or dying the deaths they died because they were doing something "right." Sure it was right, but these guys must have been loved by Christ, and their motivation came primarily from this idea. There is no other explanation for their devotion...It is true that it is a powerful occurrence to have somebody look you in the eye and say you are worth something. ...[Jesus] went around looking people in the eye to tell them they were beautiful, that He stood as a rock for them, a Being who, for the rest of their lives, they could look back to and hear in their minds, and envision in their memories, God saying to them the world had been lying, and you are indeed beautiful."
......................
I want to spend time imagining this, letting it become real, God Himself, Jesus Christ, looking back at me, even me, directly, and loving me, even while He knows everything in me; cutting to the core and saying "I LOVE YOU." When I try to follow that thought, even for just a second, I get this twinkle, this briefly overwhelming rush of sensation that says "now THAT is rest. now THAT is motivation." It says "this is HOME."
"It must have been wonderful to spend time with Christ, with Somebody who liked you, loved you, believed in you, and sought a closeness foreign to skin-bound man. A person would feel significant in His presence. After all, those who knew Christ personally went on to accomplish amazing feats, proving unwavering devlotion. It must have been thrilling to look into the eyes of God and have Him look back and communicate that human beings, down to the individual, are of immense worth and beauty and worthy of intimacy with each other and the Godhead. Such an understanding fueled a lifetime of joy and emotional health among the disciples that neither crowds of people jeering insults, nor prison, nor torture, nor exclusion could undo. They were faithful to the end, even to their own deaths.
People don't go out and get tortured and arrested for somebody who doesn't love them... I know in my heart that they were not living the lives they lived or dying the deaths they died because they were doing something "right." Sure it was right, but these guys must have been loved by Christ, and their motivation came primarily from this idea. There is no other explanation for their devotion...It is true that it is a powerful occurrence to have somebody look you in the eye and say you are worth something. ...[Jesus] went around looking people in the eye to tell them they were beautiful, that He stood as a rock for them, a Being who, for the rest of their lives, they could look back to and hear in their minds, and envision in their memories, God saying to them the world had been lying, and you are indeed beautiful."
......................
I want to spend time imagining this, letting it become real, God Himself, Jesus Christ, looking back at me, even me, directly, and loving me, even while He knows everything in me; cutting to the core and saying "I LOVE YOU." When I try to follow that thought, even for just a second, I get this twinkle, this briefly overwhelming rush of sensation that says "now THAT is rest. now THAT is motivation." It says "this is HOME."
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