Believing and Knowing--November 13, 2019
"God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them." [1 John 4:15-16]
Being loved is a funny thing, isn't it? Sometimes it is the surest thing in the world, the kind of thing you know with utter and unflinching certainty deep in your bones, that you are loved by someone else (or Someone else, as the case may be). And sometimes it is an act of faith to trust that you really are beloved. It may not feel like it for a time--or at least the reminders and signs may not feel as clear--and yet you trust, whether you've got butterflies in your stomach over it or not, or have that giddy high of knowing you matter to someone else, that you are indeed loved. So if someone asked us, "Do you know you are loved, or do you believe you are loved, which is it?" we would probably have to say, if were seeking to be honest, "It's both."
There's a well-worn old story/joke about a long-married couple in which the wife asks her husband of many years, "How come you never tell me you love me anymore?" And the husband says back to her, "Honey, I told you back on our wedding day that I loved you. I'll let you know if there are any changes." It's a caricature of what happens in marriages, of course, so it's a bit of an exaggeration, but there it is pretty clear that it can be very much an act of faith to trust that you are still loved if the other person hasn't made it clear to you for a while.
Or, it might not be that the one who loves is at fault, or not doing "enough." Sometimes you just go through a grey period where the routines and frustrations of life just cloud out the feeling of being loved, and you just still rely on trust that you really are loved, even if the other things in the day stifle the warm and fuzzy emotion of it. But whatever the reasons and whatever the complicating factors, it really can be an act of faith to be loved--it is an act of trusting that, even if you don't particularly feel loved or lovely or worthy of it, you really are loved. On the days when the fleeting feeling of it isn't there, we trust the promises made to us. We trust that people mean it when they say it to us that we are loved. We trust that their past actions of care and concern still have force and still carry their weight. Maybe not with quite the extreme of the married couple in the joke, but we really do lean on the words of the past and the track record others have established with us and we trust that it stays the same, even if we haven't heard it or don't feel it on a particular day. Those are just part of the slings and arrows of human connections--with dear friends, with spouses, with children and parents, it is just the way it is that sometimes we know with a certainty reinforced by our emotions that we are loved, and sometimes we take it on faith.
John says the same about us and God as well. We "know" and we "believe" that God loves us. And maybe it is very similar to how we deal with being loved by other people in our lives, too. There are some days when we cannot help but know that we are awash in the deep love of God, days when we find ourselves brimming with a confidence that God is good and God is being faithful to us. They may or may not be the days when things are going well or easily, too. We might be certain of God's love on the day when the kids are well behaved and the sun is shining, but we might also have an overriding peace that assures us of God's love in the midst of crisis, and our ability to keep an even keel when it feels like everything is shifting underneath us can be a way of knowing we are loved by God. So yes, there are some times when we know we are loved, and we can point to a long list of blessings received and hope in our spirits that confirms it. There are times, in other words, where our experience, our feelings, and our situation would all reinforce for us the assurance that we are loved by God.
And then there are days when we take it on faith. There are days when it feels like we pray against a closed sky, like we are uncertain whether we are being heard, like the news of God's love for us even with all our failures, sins, and disappointments sounds too good to be true. There are days when the whole promise of Christianity--of a God who dies on a cross for us and with us and rises from the dead to give us life, all out of divine love--sounds like maybe it is too far-fetched to be anything more than a fable or wishful thinking. There are days, and maybe they often coincide with the days we have trouble knowing we are loved by others, too, when a lot of things seem to cloud out the light we were basking in the day before, and we don't feel very loved by God. People can argue with us until we are blue in the face and insist that we are, but on some of those days, we just don't feel it. And so it is hard to say we know it.
Lord God, let us know you love us. And with such assurance, send us out to be bearers of your love for everyone else who crosses our path today. We pray it in the name of Jesus, who is our living reminder of your love, and whose story anchors us when we cannot trust our own emotions.
"God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them." [1 John 4:15-16]
Being loved is a funny thing, isn't it? Sometimes it is the surest thing in the world, the kind of thing you know with utter and unflinching certainty deep in your bones, that you are loved by someone else (or Someone else, as the case may be). And sometimes it is an act of faith to trust that you really are beloved. It may not feel like it for a time--or at least the reminders and signs may not feel as clear--and yet you trust, whether you've got butterflies in your stomach over it or not, or have that giddy high of knowing you matter to someone else, that you are indeed loved. So if someone asked us, "Do you know you are loved, or do you believe you are loved, which is it?" we would probably have to say, if were seeking to be honest, "It's both."
There's a well-worn old story/joke about a long-married couple in which the wife asks her husband of many years, "How come you never tell me you love me anymore?" And the husband says back to her, "Honey, I told you back on our wedding day that I loved you. I'll let you know if there are any changes." It's a caricature of what happens in marriages, of course, so it's a bit of an exaggeration, but there it is pretty clear that it can be very much an act of faith to trust that you are still loved if the other person hasn't made it clear to you for a while.
Or, it might not be that the one who loves is at fault, or not doing "enough." Sometimes you just go through a grey period where the routines and frustrations of life just cloud out the feeling of being loved, and you just still rely on trust that you really are loved, even if the other things in the day stifle the warm and fuzzy emotion of it. But whatever the reasons and whatever the complicating factors, it really can be an act of faith to be loved--it is an act of trusting that, even if you don't particularly feel loved or lovely or worthy of it, you really are loved. On the days when the fleeting feeling of it isn't there, we trust the promises made to us. We trust that people mean it when they say it to us that we are loved. We trust that their past actions of care and concern still have force and still carry their weight. Maybe not with quite the extreme of the married couple in the joke, but we really do lean on the words of the past and the track record others have established with us and we trust that it stays the same, even if we haven't heard it or don't feel it on a particular day. Those are just part of the slings and arrows of human connections--with dear friends, with spouses, with children and parents, it is just the way it is that sometimes we know with a certainty reinforced by our emotions that we are loved, and sometimes we take it on faith.
John says the same about us and God as well. We "know" and we "believe" that God loves us. And maybe it is very similar to how we deal with being loved by other people in our lives, too. There are some days when we cannot help but know that we are awash in the deep love of God, days when we find ourselves brimming with a confidence that God is good and God is being faithful to us. They may or may not be the days when things are going well or easily, too. We might be certain of God's love on the day when the kids are well behaved and the sun is shining, but we might also have an overriding peace that assures us of God's love in the midst of crisis, and our ability to keep an even keel when it feels like everything is shifting underneath us can be a way of knowing we are loved by God. So yes, there are some times when we know we are loved, and we can point to a long list of blessings received and hope in our spirits that confirms it. There are times, in other words, where our experience, our feelings, and our situation would all reinforce for us the assurance that we are loved by God.
And then there are days when we take it on faith. There are days when it feels like we pray against a closed sky, like we are uncertain whether we are being heard, like the news of God's love for us even with all our failures, sins, and disappointments sounds too good to be true. There are days when the whole promise of Christianity--of a God who dies on a cross for us and with us and rises from the dead to give us life, all out of divine love--sounds like maybe it is too far-fetched to be anything more than a fable or wishful thinking. There are days, and maybe they often coincide with the days we have trouble knowing we are loved by others, too, when a lot of things seem to cloud out the light we were basking in the day before, and we don't feel very loved by God. People can argue with us until we are blue in the face and insist that we are, but on some of those days, we just don't feel it. And so it is hard to say we know it.
John, however, reminds us that on those days, we trust in and have come to believe it anyway. We dare to trust the promise that God abides with us--that Christ is here among us now--even when can't sense it like a warm and fuzzy feeling. We lean on the witness of other people around us who will tell us that the love of God is real and not too good to be true. We lean on the faith of others and trust that God's promises hold water even if our emotions at the moment don't line up with that truth. We trust that we are loved even when we don't feel it, because we have come to know that love and being loved are much more than flighty, fleeting emotions--love is the commitment to give oneself away regardless of how you feel about it at the moment, and indeed precisely when it doesn't feel very good or even downright hurts, to do that kind of giving. And so we trust that even when we don't feel it or want to see the evidence around us, we really are loved by God after all. We believe it and can know it on those days because we look to Jesus, John says. We look to the lengths God has gone through to be with us and to rescue us, and we lean on that story. We let others tell us, "Someone who dies on a cross for you doesn't hate you--you are beloved!" And we dare to believe it, leaning on God's past faithfulness and trusting that it carries us through this day, too.
Lord God, let us know you love us. And with such assurance, send us out to be bearers of your love for everyone else who crosses our path today. We pray it in the name of Jesus, who is our living reminder of your love, and whose story anchors us when we cannot trust our own emotions.
No comments:
Post a Comment