God is Love
I ate a Gigi's cupcake today.
It was a lemon-lime one. When our (former) students bring us the leftovers from their parents' shop, I always want to try a new one. I was tempted by the one just to the right, which was clearly cookies and cream. I'm brining up the cupcake because my dessert fast has ended. I actually ended just over a month ago.
On the first day I shocked myself. I didn't even eat anything sweet; I didn't want to. That's how much my attitude toward dessert changed in a year. When I finally did indulge, I ate a Reese's cup, and it tasted AMAZING! It felt like I was tasting the confectionary equivalent of the Mona Lisa. I also got a colossal sugar rush that lasted for at least thirty minutes.
Since then I've had a few sweet things like the cupcake I ate today, and I still really like sweet things. The difference now is that I've realized I don't need them in order to survive my life.
Part of the reason I didn't write about the end of my fast earlier is because I wanted to wait and see what happened. I didn't want to be overconfident, crowing about my victory over sugar, then collapse after a Lindor truffle overdose a few days later.
The other part of the reason I waited is because I wanted to reflect on the whole experience and figure out what exactly I learned from it. I wanted an honest response to share with you.
Of course, I achieved the obvious. I took something in my life that I firmly believe has stood between God and me and got it out of the way. That, after all, was my stated purpose for the fast from the beginning. I wanted to push aside the things I'd been leaning on so that I could more fully trust in God to meet my needs.
What I found is an unintended side to that purpose. I felt a new desire in myself to know God more, not an image I have of him borrowed from culture or someone else. I realized that if I'm going to trust God enough to make a radical change in my life, It would be helpful if I knew him more. My faith has started to feel like jumping into the deep end of the pool when you can't swim, all the while trusting that God will be there to keep you afloat. Scary as it is, that's exactly how it should be.
Sitting down today to try and share some of the things I've learned about God, and now I'm finding it hard to narrow them down, so I think I'm going to limit it to two things.
First, I have come to appreicate the mysterious place where the body and the soul meet. Always before it seemed that Jesus was separate from my physical experience, which is reallys stupid when I think about it now because the entire purpose of Jesus' earthly life was for God, the divine and holy being, to take up residence in a human body just like ours. The mystery of that is apparent to me in a whole new way, and it's brought a new depth to the physical things we do as Christians that have spiritual significance. When I taste the bread and wine (or grape juice) during communion, it is a physical experience that in an inexplicable way ties me to something spiritual and larger than myself. By tasting those everyday things in company with my Christian brothers and sisters, I'm brought right to the foot of the cross in a way I never could be by just saying, "Okay, let's sit around and think about Jesus." There's a physical dimension to it, and I didn't fully appreciate that before.
Second, since I was I child, I've heard I John 4:8 which says that "God is love." I'm not going to say that I didn't understand it at all, but I think I understand it in a new way now. I've always focused on God as the most loving being in the universe, and that is undoubtedly true. However I never really thought about all the things that means. I've generally considered his sacrifice of Jesus for our redemption being his one act of love for us and that we mirror it when we manage to love other people.
While that's true, I think that it's a very limited view. I have come to see God's love as much more than that. It is apparent to me that God's love and energy is the very fabric of the cosmos. His love and care fixes the length of the day and the seasons. It sees tropical birds of paradise dancing flamboyantly on Papua New Guinea deep in the jungle where no human eye can see. It allows us to hurt so we can heal. It gives us friends, birthdays, and mothers. It energizes every good work we do and continues to bring about the work of perfecting us from the inside out.
What's more -- God's love is available to us. In fact, if we want to know him, we have to participate in it. Remember the deep end of the swimming pool I talked about earlier? What if instead of being filled with water it was filled with God's love? You might as well dive right in and swim around. Drink it in.
In the end, I think both these things I've learned are really just small parts of a larger lesson. We can read all about God and we can talk about him, but if we really want to know him, we have to invite him into our ordinary human lives. When we do, he will fill us up with his love so that we can pour it out on everyone we know. So while you are hugging someone filled with grief or scratching a mosquito bite, you are participating in a holy mystery. I appreciate in a new way that we all live where the spirit meets the flesh.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him." (I John 4:7-9)
It was a lemon-lime one. When our (former) students bring us the leftovers from their parents' shop, I always want to try a new one. I was tempted by the one just to the right, which was clearly cookies and cream. I'm brining up the cupcake because my dessert fast has ended. I actually ended just over a month ago.
On the first day I shocked myself. I didn't even eat anything sweet; I didn't want to. That's how much my attitude toward dessert changed in a year. When I finally did indulge, I ate a Reese's cup, and it tasted AMAZING! It felt like I was tasting the confectionary equivalent of the Mona Lisa. I also got a colossal sugar rush that lasted for at least thirty minutes.
Since then I've had a few sweet things like the cupcake I ate today, and I still really like sweet things. The difference now is that I've realized I don't need them in order to survive my life.
Part of the reason I didn't write about the end of my fast earlier is because I wanted to wait and see what happened. I didn't want to be overconfident, crowing about my victory over sugar, then collapse after a Lindor truffle overdose a few days later.
The other part of the reason I waited is because I wanted to reflect on the whole experience and figure out what exactly I learned from it. I wanted an honest response to share with you.
Of course, I achieved the obvious. I took something in my life that I firmly believe has stood between God and me and got it out of the way. That, after all, was my stated purpose for the fast from the beginning. I wanted to push aside the things I'd been leaning on so that I could more fully trust in God to meet my needs.
What I found is an unintended side to that purpose. I felt a new desire in myself to know God more, not an image I have of him borrowed from culture or someone else. I realized that if I'm going to trust God enough to make a radical change in my life, It would be helpful if I knew him more. My faith has started to feel like jumping into the deep end of the pool when you can't swim, all the while trusting that God will be there to keep you afloat. Scary as it is, that's exactly how it should be.
Sitting down today to try and share some of the things I've learned about God, and now I'm finding it hard to narrow them down, so I think I'm going to limit it to two things.
First, I have come to appreicate the mysterious place where the body and the soul meet. Always before it seemed that Jesus was separate from my physical experience, which is reallys stupid when I think about it now because the entire purpose of Jesus' earthly life was for God, the divine and holy being, to take up residence in a human body just like ours. The mystery of that is apparent to me in a whole new way, and it's brought a new depth to the physical things we do as Christians that have spiritual significance. When I taste the bread and wine (or grape juice) during communion, it is a physical experience that in an inexplicable way ties me to something spiritual and larger than myself. By tasting those everyday things in company with my Christian brothers and sisters, I'm brought right to the foot of the cross in a way I never could be by just saying, "Okay, let's sit around and think about Jesus." There's a physical dimension to it, and I didn't fully appreciate that before.
Second, since I was I child, I've heard I John 4:8 which says that "God is love." I'm not going to say that I didn't understand it at all, but I think I understand it in a new way now. I've always focused on God as the most loving being in the universe, and that is undoubtedly true. However I never really thought about all the things that means. I've generally considered his sacrifice of Jesus for our redemption being his one act of love for us and that we mirror it when we manage to love other people.
While that's true, I think that it's a very limited view. I have come to see God's love as much more than that. It is apparent to me that God's love and energy is the very fabric of the cosmos. His love and care fixes the length of the day and the seasons. It sees tropical birds of paradise dancing flamboyantly on Papua New Guinea deep in the jungle where no human eye can see. It allows us to hurt so we can heal. It gives us friends, birthdays, and mothers. It energizes every good work we do and continues to bring about the work of perfecting us from the inside out.
What's more -- God's love is available to us. In fact, if we want to know him, we have to participate in it. Remember the deep end of the swimming pool I talked about earlier? What if instead of being filled with water it was filled with God's love? You might as well dive right in and swim around. Drink it in.
In the end, I think both these things I've learned are really just small parts of a larger lesson. We can read all about God and we can talk about him, but if we really want to know him, we have to invite him into our ordinary human lives. When we do, he will fill us up with his love so that we can pour it out on everyone we know. So while you are hugging someone filled with grief or scratching a mosquito bite, you are participating in a holy mystery. I appreciate in a new way that we all live where the spirit meets the flesh.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him." (I John 4:7-9)
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