(Photo by: Philipp Ludewig, Location: atop Mt. Pemigewasset Trail, White Mountains, New Hampshire)
Brennan Manning writes in, The Furious Longing of God:
If we continue to view ourselves as moral lepers and spiritual failures, if our lives are shadowed by low self-esteem, shame, remorse, unhealthy guilt, and self-hatred, we reject the teaching of Jesus and cling to our negative self-image. In the fifth century, St. Augustine wrote this lyrical line: Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem (In loving me, you made me lovable)I write not for those who are feeling relatively efficient, pleasing, or heroic in their faiths or perhaps simply the projection of their faithfulness. If this is you- simply press the cute little X in the top left of the screen and all will be forgiven.
I write with sheer brokenheartedness for those of us who feel weighed down...heavily.
For all who are feeling how Brennan Manning has so aptly put- downtrodden and bedraggled.
For all who can't stand what they see in themselves, the ones closest to them, their world... perhaps a triple-crown.
For all who waste tears on feeling like waste.
For all who have lost sight of their Abba, their daddy, and the willingness to become that dumbfounded, helpless, little baby whose cheeks may press firmly up to the palm of their not-going-anywhere, never-letting-go, crying-with-contentment, dancing-with-joy, proudest-Abba-our-Abba-could-ever-be, Daddy.
We can be so willing to brace ourselves for the punishment of God's judgment; so inclined to inflict the pain for Him. But when faced with the intimacy of God's love we duck and cover! Our faiths prove to be so frustratingly shallow even in episodes of pleasing pride. How silly is the thought when reminded of our Father's heart in Word and Spirit:
Song of Solomon 7:10 (NASB)=
"I am my beloved's,
And his desire is for me"
Zephaniah 2:17 (New Jerusalem Bible Translation)=
"Yahweh your God is there with you, the warrior-Saviour. He will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you"
Song of Songs 2:10-13 (NJB)=
"My love lifts up his voice, he says to me, 'Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come.'
For see, winter is past, the rains are over and gone.
Flowers are appearing on the earth. The season of glad songs has come, the cooing of the turtledove is heard in our land.
The fig tree is forming its first figs and the blossoming vines give out their fragrance. Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come"
Being present in the tenderness of God's love and longing for us is not easy. Tenderness means intimacy and intimacy with God usually means two things: first, it is life changing and I mean that in a good way, and second, it is not in accordance with our plans and I mean that in an unsettling way. Like the Prodigal Son our worlds churn upside down and the place we once burnt to ashes becomes Home.
It's so hard to believe on the innermost layer of the onion that we are truly lovable, Golden, worthy, radiant. It's so hard to believe that God likes us in moments of uselessness, moments in which we transform aloneness into loneliness instead of solitude, and our passive-aggressive, sprinkled comments of dissatisfaction.
I want to warn/remind you of our ceaseless performance reviews and our habit to nitpick with perfectionism the slightest discouragements of the day. We're blinding ourselves so severely from Jesus that we forget what He looks like and what we look like- all that beauty untouched and unseen! So if you think this might be you just stop and if you can't stop then pause and if you can't pause then SLOW.
What I'm about to say I believe wholeheartedly from the deepest burrows of my human, but redeemed heart: The derivative of God adoring faith is not about what we do or how much we do it, the imitation of the Saints, and all our fancy schmancy discourse. No, it is first the adventure of God's adoration for us. It's about discovering our Abba's insurmountable love and adoration for (fill in this space with your first, middle, and last name) and all the justifiable reasons that He feels so divinely wonderful you breathe this instant.
During this end-of-summer season I trekked up a miniature trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire with a good, new, foreign friend of mine. Fall in Massachusetts is both cold and gorgeous- making it all the more heart warming. In the picture above (click to enlarge) is me; that insignificant spec of a person sitting on Mt. Pemigewasset's summit atop a granite ledge that falls 1,500 feet into the floor of the Franconia Notch.
Staring across a rummage of forest trees crafting a collage of red, yellow, green, and purple leafs, the air was smooth and the sun hid and shined periodically throughout the day. From that view and all the creation involved in making it I was mesmerized with God's beauty. My gratitude extended beyond the thickets of trees in sight.
I thought,"To be apart of this... to sit so deeply high... and to see a view so undeservedly so...I am loved"
What I didn't catch in that moment that I do now is that while I sat mesmerized with Him, eyes frantically pacing to retrieve all the edges of beauty vision could reach, God's eyes were on me... Nothing else but me.
We are His view.
This was but one of many future fragments needed in life that took me from valleys low to mountains high.
If you are wedged in deep below a thought of lovelessness and sorrow, I implore you to hike, to run, to feel, to laugh, to write, to draw, to play, to rest, to read, to sing, to dance...like you never, not ever have once before in your life!
I want for us to rejoice.
I want song.
I want dance.
I want us all to hold our hearts up high even in the midst of our worst worthlessness.
Zephaniah 2:14 =Father, quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem.
"My dove, hiding in the clefts of the rock, in the coverts of the cliff, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely"
From one, broken, inexcusable excuse of a Christian to another.
