loved by God, day 5

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
I feel your love as you hold me to your sacred heart, my beloved Jesus, my God, my Master, but I feel, too, the need I have of your tenderness, and your caress because of my infinite weakness.
                                                                                ~Charles de Foucauld

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 36

Scripture for the Day: Zephaniah 3:14-20

Reading for Reflection:

Lady Julian of Norwich was given a series of revelations into the sufferings of Christ and the glory of the gospel.  She was taken into the heart of God and upon her return she concluded quite simply, “We are his lovers.”  The bridal imagery often fails to capture a man’s heart, but consider:  God is neither man nor female.  Both genders together are needed to reflect his image and he transcends them both.  The question every woman is asking goes something like, “Am I lovely?  Do you want me?”  The question every man is asking is, “Do I have what it takes?  Am I adequate?”  As men and women, we want to be chosen for different reasons, but we both want to be chosen, to be welcomed into the heart of things, invited into the Drama to live from our heart.  We both want love, the adventure of intimacy, and this is what God’s pursuit means for men and for women.

            O Living Flame of Love…

            How Gently and how lovingly

            Thou wakest in my bosom,

            Where alone thou secretly dwellest;

            And in Thy sweet breathing

            Full of grace and glory,

            How tenderly Thou fillest me with Thy love.

These words, penned by St. John of the Cross in his book, Living Flame of Love, capture the heart-cry of every soul for intimacy with God.  For this we were created and for this we were rescued from sin and death.  In Ephesians, Paul lets us in on a little secret:  We’ve been more than noticed.  God has pursued us from farther than space and longer ago than time.  Our romance is far more ancient than the story of Helen of Troy.  God has had us in mind since before the Foundations of the World.  He loved us before the beginning of time, has come for us, and now calls us to journey toward him, with him, for the consummation of our love.
     Who am I really?  The answer to that question is found in the answer to another:  What is God’s heart toward me, or, how do I affect him?  If God is the Pursuer, the Ageless Romancer, the Lover, then there has to be a Beloved, one who is Pursued.  This is our role in the story.

     In the end, all we’ve ever really wanted is to be loved.  “Love comes from God,” writes St. John.  We don’t have to get God to love us by doing something right—even loving him.  “This is love:  not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  Someone has noticed, someone has taken initiative.  There is nothing we need to do to keep it up, because his love for us is not based on what we’ve done, but on who we are:  His beloved.  “I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me” -Song 7:10.  (The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Jesus Lover of My Soul

Jesus, lover of my soul,
let me to thy bosom fly,
while the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high.
Hide me, O my Savior, hide,
till the storm of life is past;
safe into the haven guide;
O receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none,
hangs my helpless soul on thee;
leave, ah! leave me not alone,
still support and comfort me.
All my trust on thee is stayed,
all my help from thee I bring;
cover my defenseless head
with the shadow of thy wing.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
more than all in thee I find;
raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is thy name,
I am all unrighteousness;
false and full of sin I am;
thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with thee is found,
grace to cover all my sin;
let the healing streams abound,
make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art,
freely let me take of thee;
spring thou up within my heart;
rise to all eternity


Closing Prayer:
O Thou who ordered this wondrous world, and who knowest all things in earth and heaven:  So fill our hearts with trust in thee that by night and day, at all times and in all seasons, we may without fear commit all that we have and hope to be to thy never-failing love, for this life and the life to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Worship)