Devotion for Being Apart -
August 9
This summer, I will share new devotions from time to time,
and invite you to browse through devotions that have been posted on this blog.
and invite you to browse through devotions that have been posted on this blog.
Romans 8:38-39
This summer we've worked our way through Romans eager to get to chapter 8 – the pinnacle that the whole first part is building toward, and rightly so because it’s a ridiculous treasure trove of good news, and things kind of go downhill into complicated Paulisms after that. So three weeks ago, when we got to chapter 8, I called Lisa and said, “There’s so much goodness here, I’m taking just the first part and saving the rest for you!” Then, on Sunday, like a true Minnesotan who keeps cutting the last piece of cake in half, Lisa called me and said, “I saved you the end, verses 38-39!”
One of my favorite things to do is to listen to books while I am driving. When Lisa called, I was driving home from Kansas and listening to Jim Finley’s Thomas Merton and the Path to the Palace of Nowhere. Finley is a former monk, a psychologist and contemplative. And it just so happened that he unpacked some things about the love of God in such simple and profound ways, that his illustrations have stuck with me all week. So I am going to be sharing a lot from him today.
So let’s start by reframing the message to hear how good this news is that Paul is sharing: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor a global pandemic, nor the deep-seated, soul degrading institution of racism, nor terrible tragedies of floods and fires and cities exploding, nor terrible sadness in our own hearts, nor melting ice shelves, nor impending election drama, nor distance learning, nor a quarantined winter, nor financial hardship, nor loneliness, nor worry, nor fear, nor the broadest nightmare my imagination can conjur up, nor the most specific, surgical insult or injury, nor anything else in all of existence can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can separate us from God’s love. This is really good news, and we need to hear it. Except that, really, most of the time we doubt this.
Doubt 1 – Does God really love me? We tell ourselves there are things we need to change, or do, or be, or let go of, or stop being, or stop doing in order for God to love us. We tell ourselves God is something we need to pursue, and God’s love is something we need to search for in order to find, and if we do find it, we need to figure out what to do right so we don’t lose it.
We don’t actually trust that we are already in the love of God, that in fact, nothing can separate us from this love that is already holding us.
James Finley says, “Imagine if, sitting in this room, I were told I had 10 minutes to figure out how to get into this room. So I lept up from my chair and raced down the hallway and frantically searched through the books on the shelves for something to help me figure out how to get in this room. No matter what I did, I would never figure out how to get in this room, and I actually can’t get in this room. Because I am already in it.”
Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is here, already, right now, holding us. Nothing.
We are already in this love. We don’t do anything to get here. We just stop and be here. Just be. Be here. In your life, in your skin, in your experience, however that is, however you are. Here is where God is already loving you.
God loves you. Nothing ever can stop that from being true. Seeking God does not mean wandering around searching for an elusive being. It means attuning your attention to the right now, and surrendering to the love that already holds you.
Then, Doubt 2 - Can I really surrender to this love? Can we entrust ourselves to God? Should we? Can we pray, “thy will be done,” trusting that what that means is only love, more love, deeper love?
“We proclaim the good news of God’s love,” Finley says, “but when we get down to the act of surrendering to this love, that is when the doubts rise up.”
He says, imagine you’re in a grocery store and you see someone you know and they say, “Did you hear about so-and-so?”
“No! What happened to her?”
“Well, God’s will, that’s what.”
“Oh no!” you reply. “That’s terrible! “But actually, come to think of it, I did hear her say “’thy will be done.’”
What do we imagine God’s will is? Who do we think this God is and what do we think this God is up to? Deep inside do we think God is secretly trying to rope us into something terrible?
I imagine that my kids are still little, and one of them is on the the top of a monkey bars, and I am down below, and I say to my precious toddler “Jump!” and hold out my arms to my child. If my little one were to jump, it would be inconceivable to imagine that, at the last minute I step out of the way and let them fall to the ground. And yet we think this way about God.
In Matthew 7 Jesus says, “Is there anyone among you who, if
your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? (Luke’s version adds an egg and a scorpion). If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
These are symbols of life and death. In other words, if we ask for life, will God give us death? God is the maker and sustainer of life! Our life is in God, and this life of being loved by God will never end. Even death cannot stop this life, this love, from continuing!
God wants us to have life, and have it abundantly. And yet, we imagine that surrendering to God’s love might somehow be dreadful for us.
We avoid surrendering, we hold back trusting, as though we have the power to hold back from God’s love. What adorable hubris! As though somehow we could stop God from loving us by stopping ourselves from receiving it.
This is what actually restricts us. God’s love has already got us. We don’t hold God back. We hold ourselves back from experiencing God’s love from which nothing can separate us. We act like we can’t, or don’t want to, get into the room where we are already sitting, because we aren’t sure we can trust the love inside which we already exist.
We doubt God’s goodness, but trust our own ability to see what is good. This is backwards.
When we say, Your will be done, we are surrendering to the love of God. We are dying to preconceived ideas of God, or of love, or of what a good life is. And we are set free from the false things we cling to, thinking they can somehow get us into the room where we already sit.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. It’s not that obstacles don’t exist, they do. Everywhere we look we can see obstacles to belonging, obstacles to trust, obstacles to goodness, obstacles to life, obstacles to love. And yet, in God, these obstacles are not obstacles at all. Remember what we said two weeks ago and Paul said just a few verses ago? “In all things, God works for the good, together with those who love God.” So in the broken places, in the places of loss and sorrow, in the division, in the sickness, in the death, God is working, bringing love. The cross of Christ reveals that God goes right into the greatest of obstacles, the ones that seem to stop life all together, and uses even those to continue bringing freedom and life, through the the relentless, profoundly good, kind, and never-wavering love of God.
We know this love because we’ve felt it - we are most fully ourselves when we are acting in love for others. We are most fully at home in the world when we recognize that which cannot be broken that holds us all, even for a brief moment – in the face of your beloved on zoom, in the joy of crazy loud birds in the sunrise, in the laughter of your grandchild, in the minute a bunch of strangers come scurrying over in their masks to bend down and pick up groceries that fell out of your cart, blueberries bouncing onto the parking lot, when something snaps in you and the grief and anger finally comes pouring out, in the unexpected conversation with an old classmate where courage, vulnerability and well-placed questions open up the possibility for being seen and heard – in a brief, ordinary moment of living and dying and being, when suddenly the top layer is pulled back, and for that moment we can see the love that is always here, the real underneath the obstacles and illusions, for a moment, we know we are in the room.
And, then, if someone passing by that very moment were to notice our face, and were to stop us and ask, “What do you most know to be true?” we might respond, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
CONNECTING RITUAL:
This summer we've worked our way through Romans eager to get to chapter 8 – the pinnacle that the whole first part is building toward, and rightly so because it’s a ridiculous treasure trove of good news, and things kind of go downhill into complicated Paulisms after that. So three weeks ago, when we got to chapter 8, I called Lisa and said, “There’s so much goodness here, I’m taking just the first part and saving the rest for you!” Then, on Sunday, like a true Minnesotan who keeps cutting the last piece of cake in half, Lisa called me and said, “I saved you the end, verses 38-39!”
One of my favorite things to do is to listen to books while I am driving. When Lisa called, I was driving home from Kansas and listening to Jim Finley’s Thomas Merton and the Path to the Palace of Nowhere. Finley is a former monk, a psychologist and contemplative. And it just so happened that he unpacked some things about the love of God in such simple and profound ways, that his illustrations have stuck with me all week. So I am going to be sharing a lot from him today.
So let’s start by reframing the message to hear how good this news is that Paul is sharing: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor a global pandemic, nor the deep-seated, soul degrading institution of racism, nor terrible tragedies of floods and fires and cities exploding, nor terrible sadness in our own hearts, nor melting ice shelves, nor impending election drama, nor distance learning, nor a quarantined winter, nor financial hardship, nor loneliness, nor worry, nor fear, nor the broadest nightmare my imagination can conjur up, nor the most specific, surgical insult or injury, nor anything else in all of existence can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can separate us from God’s love. This is really good news, and we need to hear it. Except that, really, most of the time we doubt this.
Doubt 1 – Does God really love me? We tell ourselves there are things we need to change, or do, or be, or let go of, or stop being, or stop doing in order for God to love us. We tell ourselves God is something we need to pursue, and God’s love is something we need to search for in order to find, and if we do find it, we need to figure out what to do right so we don’t lose it.
We don’t actually trust that we are already in the love of God, that in fact, nothing can separate us from this love that is already holding us.
James Finley says, “Imagine if, sitting in this room, I were told I had 10 minutes to figure out how to get into this room. So I lept up from my chair and raced down the hallway and frantically searched through the books on the shelves for something to help me figure out how to get in this room. No matter what I did, I would never figure out how to get in this room, and I actually can’t get in this room. Because I am already in it.”
Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is here, already, right now, holding us. Nothing.
We are already in this love. We don’t do anything to get here. We just stop and be here. Just be. Be here. In your life, in your skin, in your experience, however that is, however you are. Here is where God is already loving you.
God loves you. Nothing ever can stop that from being true. Seeking God does not mean wandering around searching for an elusive being. It means attuning your attention to the right now, and surrendering to the love that already holds you.
Then, Doubt 2 - Can I really surrender to this love? Can we entrust ourselves to God? Should we? Can we pray, “thy will be done,” trusting that what that means is only love, more love, deeper love?
“We proclaim the good news of God’s love,” Finley says, “but when we get down to the act of surrendering to this love, that is when the doubts rise up.”
He says, imagine you’re in a grocery store and you see someone you know and they say, “Did you hear about so-and-so?”
“No! What happened to her?”
“Well, God’s will, that’s what.”
“Oh no!” you reply. “That’s terrible! “But actually, come to think of it, I did hear her say “’thy will be done.’”
What do we imagine God’s will is? Who do we think this God is and what do we think this God is up to? Deep inside do we think God is secretly trying to rope us into something terrible?
I imagine that my kids are still little, and one of them is on the the top of a monkey bars, and I am down below, and I say to my precious toddler “Jump!” and hold out my arms to my child. If my little one were to jump, it would be inconceivable to imagine that, at the last minute I step out of the way and let them fall to the ground. And yet we think this way about God.
In Matthew 7 Jesus says, “Is there anyone among you who, if
your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? (Luke’s version adds an egg and a scorpion). If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
These are symbols of life and death. In other words, if we ask for life, will God give us death? God is the maker and sustainer of life! Our life is in God, and this life of being loved by God will never end. Even death cannot stop this life, this love, from continuing!
God wants us to have life, and have it abundantly. And yet, we imagine that surrendering to God’s love might somehow be dreadful for us.
We avoid surrendering, we hold back trusting, as though we have the power to hold back from God’s love. What adorable hubris! As though somehow we could stop God from loving us by stopping ourselves from receiving it.
This is what actually restricts us. God’s love has already got us. We don’t hold God back. We hold ourselves back from experiencing God’s love from which nothing can separate us. We act like we can’t, or don’t want to, get into the room where we are already sitting, because we aren’t sure we can trust the love inside which we already exist.
We doubt God’s goodness, but trust our own ability to see what is good. This is backwards.
When we say, Your will be done, we are surrendering to the love of God. We are dying to preconceived ideas of God, or of love, or of what a good life is. And we are set free from the false things we cling to, thinking they can somehow get us into the room where we already sit.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. It’s not that obstacles don’t exist, they do. Everywhere we look we can see obstacles to belonging, obstacles to trust, obstacles to goodness, obstacles to life, obstacles to love. And yet, in God, these obstacles are not obstacles at all. Remember what we said two weeks ago and Paul said just a few verses ago? “In all things, God works for the good, together with those who love God.” So in the broken places, in the places of loss and sorrow, in the division, in the sickness, in the death, God is working, bringing love. The cross of Christ reveals that God goes right into the greatest of obstacles, the ones that seem to stop life all together, and uses even those to continue bringing freedom and life, through the the relentless, profoundly good, kind, and never-wavering love of God.
We know this love because we’ve felt it - we are most fully ourselves when we are acting in love for others. We are most fully at home in the world when we recognize that which cannot be broken that holds us all, even for a brief moment – in the face of your beloved on zoom, in the joy of crazy loud birds in the sunrise, in the laughter of your grandchild, in the minute a bunch of strangers come scurrying over in their masks to bend down and pick up groceries that fell out of your cart, blueberries bouncing onto the parking lot, when something snaps in you and the grief and anger finally comes pouring out, in the unexpected conversation with an old classmate where courage, vulnerability and well-placed questions open up the possibility for being seen and heard – in a brief, ordinary moment of living and dying and being, when suddenly the top layer is pulled back, and for that moment we can see the love that is always here, the real underneath the obstacles and illusions, for a moment, we know we are in the room.
And, then, if someone passing by that very moment were to notice our face, and were to stop us and ask, “What do you most know to be true?” we might respond, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
CONNECTING RITUAL:
Perhaps tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we can pray in this way, and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:
Tonight, let's pray like we did in worship.
Here is the need God... your will be done.
Here is my thanks, God... your will be done.
God your will be done in all things.
I surrender my life to you.
Amen.
Tonight, let's pray like we did in worship.
Here is the need God... your will be done.
Here is my thanks, God... your will be done.
God your will be done in all things.
I surrender my life to you.
Amen.
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