"...but whoever keeps [God's] word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked." 1 John 2:5-6
Amidst the routine: work e-mails, laundry, dishes, and gray wintry light, my thoughts glow with wonder. I wonder with all the child-like curiosity I can not shake off and I wonder with all the child-like awe that my wonderings produce. In the very mundane, the dish washing, the laundry folding... heaven reigns.
My thoughts are heavy with suffering today as I check off my mental to-do-list. My heart breaks for dear hearts that are at their lowest. My heart weeps over the hate swelling in Ferguson. I don't need to even look beyond this room after one of the hotel housekeepers shares with me her hurt with her estranged sister.I want to "live unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures."But how to fight the despair of the pain that rocks our world? My world?
I consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer's words on faith. How can living unreservedly produce the faith of falling completely into the arms of God? I think about that word, 'unreservedly.' That means holding nothing back. I am remember a quote that I read from Ann Voskamp yesterday, "tears are not a sign of weakness, they are a sign of an open heart." But being SO in the pain, the reality of this world, MY world, it is too much. Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke these words in a moment in time when Nazi cruelty appeared to overcome. It was in THAT world that he recommended to BE UNRESERVEDLY.
Taking a break from my tasks, I cozied up with a cup of coffee and drank in Scripture. John's words mesmerized me..."walk in the same in which he walked." What is God's response to this world? Love so rich that He gave up His own Son that we might live. LIVE. And how did Jesus walk? He put on our skin, the Holy covered himself in the unholy. And he obediently, joyfully, went to the cross.
My mind can't comprehend it. In a culture laced with materialism and selfie addiction, it is difficult to imagine such a thing.
When I do not turn away from the darkness but look deeply into the pit, I see that even the darkness is light to God. And I can sink into that pit knowing that my God went there first... and He goes with me now. It is not by climbing some spiritual ladder that I find the keys wholeness. It is by unreservedly facing my world, and, when confronted with my own inadequacy, FALLING into the arms of the one who went to the pit and overcame the world and said, "it is finished."
“It is only because he became like us that we can become like him.”
“While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, God becomes human; and we must recognize that God wills that we be human, real human beings. While we distinguish between pious and godless, good and evil, noble and base, God loves real people without distinction. ”
“God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.”
“The Church is the Church only when it exists for others...not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.”
“There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment. Wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of almighty God. Not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.”
I consider the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and tears fall with the impact of his words knowing that he obediently followed in the steps of Jesus to the end of an executioner's noose in the Nazi prison that he was kept. I think about Martin Luther King, Jr. who was inspired but Bonhoeffer and also spoke for Gospel justice in the face of opposition, even death.
We are all called to die. When and how becomes less important when we learn to truly live. And like a city on a hill, a candle in the dark, we invite others to truly live with us.
I begin to put the warm folded shirts and socks and pants away and savor the sacred moment.
Whatever it is, laundry, broken hearts, bruised bodies, winter blues, Thanksgiving dinners and St. Louis riots... I can enter into the moment, holding nothing back, with the confident faith in God who is ALWAYS in the moment, acting with love.
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