Love, Love, Love is Blooming like Spring
Saturday, April 5, 2008
The note said, "Happy 40th Birthday, Cheri. May you continue to grow in the knowledge and security of God's love!"The words were typed, and had been carefully packaged inside a cardboard mailer from Amazon.com. The gift was Wayne Jacobsen's He Loves Me.
My long distance friend Michelle had no idea the serendipty involved in her choice of this particular gift during this season (and even this specific week) of my life. Like the wings of a butterfly, my heart is still fluttering at the mysterious timing of her birthday blessing.
William Young, author of The Shack, endorses He Loves Me with this: "For those of us who are longing to 'live loved', I cannot recommend a better follow-up to The Shack than this book. It is an exploration and adventure into the heart of the God we hoped was truly there, and who loves each of us in particular with an everlasting love."
Read my blog from it's inception, and you'll see how much financial poverty has stirred up new (old?) questions about God and his feelings towards me. In many ways my family and I have been in the boxing ring of life, enduring unmerciful circumstances like repeated brow-beating blows. Bruised, broken, wiped out, I've cried, prayed, and even "hustled" God (see related post Hustling God in the Sept archives) hoping for change. Through it all my theology of Grace (born 26 years ago and still growing) has been severely tested.
Jacobsen's refreshing Word-rooted insights into the heart of God were necessary shifts in perspective. They are wonderfully restorative; salve to a weary soul.
p.94 "When you are absolutely convinced how much God loves you, it will drive out every fear you have. You won't need to fear an uncertain future, the rejection of friends, the lack of desires, or even God himself. Knowing his heart for you will free you to trust him more than ever and that alone will lead you to ever-greater participation in his holiness."
p. 123 "Cover yourself in him. Learn to live under his wings today and every day for the rest of your life. How do you do that? By coming to rest in the security of his love for you, allowing it to hold you in the most brutal of circumstances.
"Of course that is far easier said than done. When difficulties press in around us, we are most likely to doubt God's motives toward us. Could that be the voice of the serpent still whispering in our ears?
"'If God's not going to give you what you think you need, maybe you should go get it yourself.
"Or perhaps he uses Ben Franklin's words,
"'God helps those who help themselves.'"
It's clear Jacobsen has walked the walk, because I have heard those very whispers for the past 5 -7 years. In the beginning, it was easier for me to trust God and wait. But over time, confidence in my Creator's love has waned.
Today, my heart is blooming again with JOY at the unfailing tenderness of God who extends her protective wings. I am gathered in. Resting secure in Abba Mother [Papa's] love-lavishing!
(Thanks Michelle! And thanks Wayne and William!)
Cheri,
Happy Birthday! So blessed you found my book so helpful. Someone sent me the link this morning to read what you had written. I was incredibly blessed and appreciative of your words. May you grow on in his grace and life, more every day! You sound like a delightful person!
Wayne