When we come to faith in Christ, we find that we are the ones being carried, cared for, and fed as an infant and a child. As we begin to mature and grow; encountering deeper intimacy with God, when ready, we begin internalizing the depths of the paschal mystery of receiving life through death and internalizing its daily opportunity. It out of love, we freely offer and surrender self-will that we may have more room to carry him wherever we may go, internalizing the depths to the core that we are never alone, and home is where we are aware of his Nearness.
It’s in allowing him to fill the empty places, the longings deep and true, that we begin to learn to be, to become, all that he intended and find abundant life through daily choosing love instead of the temporary surface desires that were reality until love was allowed to envelop the will.
Transformation deep within, takes time, and is a most slow process.
God is never anxious and knows what he is preparing in the grand view and also desires us to live in the present moment with him, without anxious thoughts for what will be. It’s a never fully arriving and also an ever abiding place, but epiphanies of glances back bring enlightenment of change and growth.
It’s holding tension in liminal space, and realizing it’s all right, for the greatest posture in any moment is being aware that he is near… being embraced by his presence when acknowledged. For isn’t that the deepest desire of the soul, to encounter divine love, belong, and be?
In that embrace of the surrendered soul; our will, all else falls dim, except the desire to live in awareness and freely share what has been given, it’s learning to rest in God while living life in the acknowledged fullness of reality, unfulfilled expectations, and joys on the mountaintops. It’s where disappointments are embraced as much as joys, realizing they both are divine teachers awaiting to impart.
May we learn to truly be before we become, realize that belonging isn’t a place, but a resting in and being found in God through the Trinity, and discern the difference in our own seasons of our lives by sitting at his feet and hearing his heart.
May we lay down striving for the gift of being led, and find ourselves enveloped within the promised peace that guides, fills, and overflows to all we may be near.
Warmest regards as we enter into the fullness of his plan for our New Year and daily learn to be, belong, and become full of his love, gradually emptying the portion of our self-will that serves to only to feed a protective ego, to allow room for pure love to fill the empty places and to radiate from within.
Above the noise of selfish strife
We hear Thy voice, 0 Son of Man. – A.W. Tozer
You will show me the way of life,
granting me the joy of your presence
and the pleasures of living with you forever. – Psalm 16:11
