"Learning to Live Loved"

     As some of you may know, I've been reading The Shack... Gosh, I feel like this book is blowing my mind, and to be honest, really helping me think about and develop my own faith. I've been recommending this book to just about everyone, so if you have not had a chance to read it, you really should take the time. It's not a book where I believe everything to a "T," but I do think the author uses actual conversations with the trinity to explain concepts in a much more tangible way.

     I'm about three-fourths of the way in, and in this time, Mackenzie Phillips has learned a lot about what God's love really means and how we, as children of God, can respond to this love. The more I read, the more I'm realizing what a gift this is, to be unconditionally loved by the God powerful enough to create it all! It wasn't until Saturday while reading that I truly realized what this meant. Mack is struggling to find a way to balance work and bills and a family with his growing relationship with God, Mack asks Jesus:

"So what do I do now?"

"What you're already doing, Mack--learning to live loved."

     Upon reading this, tears filled my eyes. What does it mean to live every day knowing that you are loved unconditionally? What does it mean to to walk this life with God, where the only happiness you seek comes from the Creator? The more I reflected on this, I realized that there would be no need to put down others, or judge them in any sense of the word. You would give your whole self to helping others simply because God calls us to love one another. And the best part is, this love isn't something you have to strive for, it is freely given, and in doing so, it frees us love out loud.


After thought:
     I posted all of this yesterday, but again, I see how God works in mysterious ways... As I'm editing the PowerPoint for this Sunday's service, our Prayer of Confession reads as follows:

Made in your image, we are hard wired for relationships, Lord.  And yet, it seems that relationships are where we struggle most arduously to live out the command to love one another.  Instead of living in communion with the mutual respect and grace we witness in the relationships of the Trinity, we prefer to dominate and subject one another to imposed authority. Forgive us. Teach us. Lead us in a better way.

Amen.