Good morning! Almost 40° this morning, what season is it again? A few things to think about this morning. Do you find it easier to remind someone else of God's love than it is to apply it to yourself? Have you made the mistake of moving your life from not worthy of God's love to a feeling of worthlessness? Do you, in words more subtle and underhanded, call 'Shame on me!' several times each day? Start fixing this problem of self shaming with the statement, "God loves me!" each morning.
We may display the results of a life of shame in our girth, bad habits, by lashing out at others, or in other ways. I find it easier to take the beam out my eye and beat myself with it than to accept the fact of God's all-consuming love. Accepting salvation seems easy compared to accepting God's love, but the one does not come without the other. If I cannot say that God loves me with meaning, acceptance, the full emotion, and growing trust then what good am I to His kingdom?
How can I spread the good news of God's love if I don't first take it into my heart? In this, as in all things we learn in our Christian life, we must ask God for that strength. Paul reminds us that, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Facing emotions such as the feeling of God's love is difficult for many of us. Real emotions may be distant, buried under mistakes of the past, subsumed by memories of humiliation, or denied for self-protection. Emotions belong to us. Emotions are a gift from God. Emotions may feel a bit like descending into a dark basement for some us. Yikes! I don't want to go down there.
Two very precious times I can remember the emotion, the feeling, of God's love breaking through my resistance. I gotta get some more of that feeling! The basement of emotion seems dark from a distance, but there is a Light.
Bucky
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