In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only-begotten Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us . . . . (1 Jn 4:9-10)
Search as we will and try as we might, we cannot perfectly love God and find God. John is clear in this passage. God finds us. It is “not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us.” Stop the striving. Stop the searching. We have to let God find us.
This reversal has important implications for our faith. When, like Paul, we do that which we would not do, we still have hope because a merciful God is ever loving us into life. We strive, we fall short, and, as they say in the South, we backslide. In spite of our imperfections and sometimes fruitless striving to measure up, we fall short. It always seems to be three steps forward and two steps back. But, God never falls short. God is faithful to God’s promises. God loves us as we are.
When my oldest son, Gerry, was a teenager, we were riding home from Sunday Mass. He was in the back seat. Father Paul Reynolds was our pastor and he introduced us to the wonderful spirituality of Tony DeMello. He lived and preached what Tony taught. Father Paul got the message and preached it. We knew that because Gerry leaned over the back seat and said, “God loves me without condition.” Wow–out of the mouths of children!
Our old theology leads us to think of God as up there and out there; however, Jesus clearly taught us, “The Kin-dom is within you.” God is within us. God is our deepest reality. The Hound of Heaven is chasing us “down the nights and down the days,” “down the arches of the years,” “down the labyrinthine ways” of our minds, and “in the midst of tears.”
The poet who penned this wonderful poem struggled his entire life. Trained as doctor he never practiced. According to Wikipedia:
A lifetime of extreme poverty, ill-health, and an addiction to opium took a heavy toll on Thompson, even though he found success in his last years. Thompson attempted suicide in his nadir of despair, but was saved from completing the action through a vision which he believed to be that of a youthful poet, Chatterton, who had committed suicide almost a century earlier. Shortly afterwards, a prostitute – whose identity Thompson never revealed – befriended him, gave him lodgings and shared her income with him. Thompson was later to describe her in his poetry as his saviour. She soon disappeared, however, never to return. He would eventually die from tuberculosis, at the age of 48. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Thompson
God found him and rescued him and gave him new life. God rescued the Israelites. Jesus rescued us. Jesus restores our right relationship to Abba God. God rescues us and loves us into new life.
Christian healing ministry teaches us that God wants us to have shalom–health, wellness, wholeness. God wants us to have life and to have everything we need (Jn 10:10) All we have to do is slow down and let God catch us. We have to show up and let God find us.
God, I try and fail.
Love me into life.
God, I fall short.
Love me into life.
God, I want to love.
Love me into life.
God, I want to forgive.
Love me into life.
God, I want You to heal me.
Love me into life.
God, I want Your shalom.
Love me into life.
God, I want to be loved.
Love me into life.
God, I want You to chase me.
Love me into life.
God, I want you to find me.
Love me into life.
God, dwell within me.
Love me into life.
God, breathe new life into me.
Love me into life.
God, be above me.
Love me into life.
God, be beside me.
Love me into life.
God, be at my right.
Love me into life.
God, be at my left.
Love me into life.
God, be beneath me.
Love me into life.
God, be within me.
Love me into life.
God, you are my life.
Love me into life.