So...I
had a dream last night. It was kinda strange, but I woke up wondering what it
meant.
Part of it was someone looking at me and urging me to "be
the scientist" I was meant to be.
There was a bit about trying to tune a radio to find a station
but it never would come in.
Then we were walking through the forest, up a hill. Someone was
asking me if I was a Prophet or an Apostle. I started explaining how I might be
a little one or the other, but I wasn't sure.
There was another bit where a friend and I went into a little
child's playhouse and sat in this balcony overlooking a yard, almost like a
hidden tree house thing. She started doing this little dot-dash pattern
on a writing tablet or book as if she was trying to help me figure out what my gifts
or calling were.
Like I said, weird.
But, then it got weirder. This morning on the train I'm reading
the next chapter of this book, "The Cure", by John Lynch, and I come across this
part:
"Some of the most disingenuous and useless relationships are those where one has an agenda in another's life, seeing ourselves as SCIENTISTS seeking a solution for disease in a twisted lab experiment. These people assume some equation of holiness: Four hours of small group study plus thirty minutes memorizing scriptures, multiplied by challenge, conviction and demand make the subject sin less and become a more productive church member."
"Some of the most disingenuous and useless relationships are those where one has an agenda in another's life, seeing ourselves as SCIENTISTS seeking a solution for disease in a twisted lab experiment. These people assume some equation of holiness: Four hours of small group study plus thirty minutes memorizing scriptures, multiplied by challenge, conviction and demand make the subject sin less and become a more productive church member."
How did I dream about something I hadn't read yet?
But honestly the whole chapter started to make me wonder if what
I’ve been trying to do is to come up with some agenda where I can "fix"
people. And maybe all I really need to do is to just help people understand
that they are loved? That they can really open themselves up to be loved by us
and by God and by others?
Later on this same chapter it says:
"The spiritually immature are not loved well, but it is not because they fail. They are not loved well because they fail to trust the love of another. Because they trust no one, their needs aren't met. Because their needs aren't met, they live out of selfishness. Not only do they not receive love, they don't give it either."
"The spiritually immature are not loved well, but it is not because they fail. They are not loved well because they fail to trust the love of another. Because they trust no one, their needs aren't met. Because their needs aren't met, they live out of selfishness. Not only do they not receive love, they don't give it either."
I wonder if this is really our core issue? Do we fail to respond
to God's love because we don’t really trust that we are lovable?
Do we keep ourselves walled off from others because we don’t
trust that we will be loved if people really knew all about us?
Do we shut ourselves off from God, and from others, because in our
heart of hearts we’re just not convinced we are worth loving, or that if others
knew us deeply that we would still be deeply loved?
Maybe so.
And if so, then maybe the cure is to start learning how to
really receive God’s love. As it says in 1 John: “We love because He first loved
us.” Not simply chronologically. It’s like a catalyst: We only know how to love
because we have first received His love that transcends knowledge.
Once we really begin to believe that we are loved, and that
His love won’t stop or change or go away if we screw up, then we begin to be
changed by His love. It starts to transform us from within. We relax. We
discover the freedom to be who we really are. We suddenly realize our masks are
obsolete. We drop them on the ground, or absently forget them under the chair,
as we start to laugh, and sing, and dance and enjoy being loved!
We finally start to believe it – really, really BELIEVE –
that WE ARE LOVED!
Once we fully accept and trust that we are loved by God –
forever, without fluctuation or conditions – then we experience the glorious
freedom of being His Beloved in the here and now.
That’s when we have the best hope of helping others to break
free of their chains and begin to believe that they, too, are loved beyond
measure.
It’s a process, but we’re all made to be loved, and to love
others, so the more we begin to move in this direction and to trust our Abba,
the easier it all becomes to us. Soon, what sounds strange to our ears is the
idea that we’re unworthy, or broken, or sinful, or that we’re full of darkness.
Our hearts refuse to hear it. Our heads shake back and forth as our lips
whisper: “Not anymore we’re not!”
We reach a point where we fully accept our identity as “the
one the Lord loves” and our lives become re-calibrated to a new rhythm and
pattern of being: We are the children of God. We are the one’s He loves. We are
being transformed daily into His image. Christ is alive in us and He will
never, ever leave.
Halleluiah!
So, I’m giving up on trying to be a “Scientist” who wants to
“fix people”. My calling is to be one who proclaims the Good News that they are
dearly loved of God and that if they put their hope in Jesus, He will show them
how to be loved by God and how to love others out of that glorious relationship.
-kg
2 comments:
Soooooo good. Ha. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. 🤔
Believing we are worthy to accept love is the hardest part. How often do you try to express love to others only to have them ignore, dismiss or reject your love? Have you ever tried to force love on another only to see how angry they get? It can be so frustrating, attempting to love another who is not willing to accept your love.
Understand what it must be like for our loving God, who continually tries to shower us with his love, only to have us ignore, dismiss and reject His love! In His infinite patience and wisdom, He knows never to try to force His love on us, no matter how much we might need it, and instead quietly looks for opportunities to inject love into our lives in a way we either don't notice or do accept.
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