This summer while visiting my favorite online devotional spot, www.pray-as-you-go.org, I heard a meditation that continues to stir my thinking.
The St. Thomas Music Group was singing a text by John Lane. The words are, "The meaning of life is the mystery of love. Just as the roots of trees hold firm in the soil, so it is the roots of love that hold the ground of our being together."
The imagery immediately grabbed me. I meditated on this question: "What happens inside when I am consciously aware that the roots of my life are held together by God's love; when I live from that foundational center?"
I thought about how I don't seem to get as overwhelmed, I am more trusting, gracious and patient with others. I'm not defensive and am less inclined to hide my insecurities. I have more capacity to listen and give. For sure, I am more peaceful and joyful. As the Psalmist said, "If He is for us, who can be against us?"
Then why does it commonly and consistently seem so difficult to accept and appropriate God's love?
My meditation turned to MANY conversations from the last few years. I saw pictures of my life and others' lives that didn't reflect the image of lives consciously held together by God's love. Instead, I was struck by other types of "roots" that unfortunately seem to hold our lives: fears, addictions, anger, a deep lack of trust; to name a few.
These roots are like weeds that confuse and drive our motives and actions. They convince us we need to control, deny, put up a façade, overachieve, perform, be perfect…the list goes on and on. And, they usually hinder our ability to actually see, feel or even believe that God's love is the true ground that holds our being together.
I'm sure the above meditation grabbed me because believing in and accepting God's love has been the most common theme I've experienced in my spiritual direction practice the last two and a half years. In brief, spiritual direction is walking and praying with others to help them discern where God is moving in their life, what He might be saying to them, or how they can move closer to Him.
As I sit with followers of Jesus, many of them leaders in the church, the idea that God truly loves them, beyond the words on the pages of their Bible, seems to be a reality that is reserved for others. "Could He actually love ME?" is the often unspoken question – accompanied by a deep longing. The concept seems just a little too good to be true, or just out of reach.
I'm finding that our confusion occurs because of what we know in our heads to be true, but can be disconnected from what is experienced as real.
God's love is reflected and taught from Genesis to Revelation. We know the Father's love motivated Him to send Jesus. We know how much His love cost Him, but He loved us anyway. We owe Him a debt of gratitude for our forgiveness and eternal life. We know we love, because He first loved us. God is love and the author of love.
Yet, we still struggle to let His love be the powerful source within us that conquers our fears, guides our decisions, centers our relationships and informs our motivations. It is just easier to believe that God loves others, that His grace can reach far, wide and deep to cover over, lift up and forgive others, but not me.
What barriers tend to keep our head knowledge from traveling down to our heart, or become a deeper sense of knowing and living? Sometimes I find I'm trying to have a relationship with a concept and not a person. We have been taught and taught; and so it would seem we're trying to relate to a belief system or have intimacy with an idea and not with the living Lord Jesus. We strive to know more and do more, and it is wearing us out and it leaves some with the sense they must be doing something wrong, or that God's love isn't really meant for them.
Which leads to another barrier: As long as the evil one can convince you and me that God's love is only for others, then trusting and appropriating the foundational roots of God's love will elude us.
This is a brilliant strategy of the enemy of our souls…convincing a follower that she isn't good enough or that God is too busy for him; that His love is just enough out of reach to be experienced on a daily basis.
Recently, I asked a Christian leader, "I know you know God loves you, but have you ever felt loved by Him?" After he sharply looked my way and stopped to think, he said, "I don't let myself think about that because I honestly wonder, 'Why would He actually love me?'"
Have you ever asked a haunting question like that? Do you find yourself working hard not to disappoint God, in hopes that you will win His love?
I know, for me, I want the concept and the words on the pages of my Bible to sink in deeply. I want to consciously and confidently let His roots of love hold my being together. I know when His love saturates my life, my character, my motives, my relationships, my service, the more He will transform me from the inside out. I will be less pre-occupied with self, and free to obey and serve Him and hopefully reflect His love to others.
I'm sure that is what we all want as we reach out to young people and love them into God's kingdom – and into a loving relationship with the King Himself!