A 30 minute video that reminded me of this: forgiveness is what we all need. Forgiving love is the MOST powerful, most true, most needed kind of love. This is why the love of Christ touches the human soul like nothing and no one else can. We were made for this love; for His love. We will never know lasting joy or real freedom without it.
God proves His love for us by this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
“We have been going round and round the paths, and suddenly we see that our path goes round a hole, a bottomless black pit. In the middle of all our religious constructs- if we have the honesty to look at it- is an emptiness. It makes nonsense of all religion, conservative or radical, and all piety. People come to an awareness of this emptiness in different ways… But however it is reached, the experience is the same: the breakdown of order, the breakdown of schemes and maps. There are no guiding lines in the darkness; there is no straightforward religious experience we can hold on to…There is only one other possible response to this experience. ‘Let the darkness come upon you,’ wrote Eliot, ‘which shall be the darkness of God.’ The same is said at greater length by John of the Cross, the sixteenth-century saint who analyzes the ‘dark night’ with unparalleled clarity and honesty. The real question, John suggests, is about what you are really after: do you want “spirituality,” mystical experience, inner peace, or do you want God? If you want God, then you must be prepared to let go of all- absolutely all- substitute satisfactions, intellectual and emotional. You must recognize that God is so unlike whatever can be thought or pictured that, when you have got beyond the stage of self-indulgent religiosity, there will be nothing you can securely know or feel. You face a blank, and any attempt to avoid that or shy away from it is a return to playing comfortable religious games.
The dark night is God’s attack on religion. If you genuinely desire union with the unspeakable love of God, then you must be prepared to have your ‘religious’ world shattered. If you think devotional practices, theological insights, even charitable actions give you some sort of a purchase on God, you are still playing games. On the other hand, if you can face and accept and even rejoice in the experience of darkness, if you can accept that God is more than an idea that keeps your religion or philosophy or politics tidy- then you may find a way back to religion, philosophy, or politics, to an engagement with them that is more creative because you are more aware of the oddity, the uncontrollable quality of truth at the heart of all things. This is what ‘detachment’ means- not being ‘above the battle,’ but being involved in such a way that you can honestly confront whatever comes to you without fear of the unknown. It is a kind of readiness for the unexpected, if that is not too much of a paradox.”
Rowan Williams, from A Ray of Darkness
Oswald Chambers on recognizing the ABUNDANCE of life that Jesus is constantly offering us in Himself. “We think it is a sign of true humility to say at the end of the day, ‘Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle.’ And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! “
Having a blast in Paris! Especially because my beautiful sister came yesterday from Grenoble, where she has been studying for the last few months. It is pretty incredible to see building after building that was built longer ago than our country has been our country. Amazing to be in a place so phenomenally rich in history, and awe-inspring to know that the Lord has been present through it all…captivated anew with the reality of His being the Alpha and Omega; the Beginning and End; outside of time; Emmanuel; the Great I Am; my Eternal.
Traveling to Northern Italy tomorrow- let the adventure continue.
(Click on the photos to enlarge them and read the captions).
“The beginning and the end of all Christian leadership is to give your life for others. Thinking about martyrdom can be an escape unless we realize that real martyrdom means a witness that starts with the willingness to cry with those who cry, laugh with those who laugh, and to make one’s own painful and joyful experiences available as sources of clarification and understanding.” Henri J. Nouwen, from The Wounded Healer, Ministry in Contemporary Society
I am a bud- looking so forward to growing.
“I am confident of this: that the One who began a good work in us will bring it to completion by the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6
Suffering does not always translate to lack of joy. On the contrary, if the suffering is in Christ, it so often translates to INCREASED joy.
