At times, when the waiting for what I desire stretches endless, I feel like I balance precariously between thoughts of eager anticipation and hopelessness. When I am not careful to check my thoughts, the weight of despair prevails, and I resort to the age-old question of love.
I have been in a season of waiting of late. My mind has been pointing out others around me and taunting me to consider perhaps I did wrong or perhaps I had it all wrong to begin with. There are days when I conclude, If I had gotten it right in the first place, I would not be waiting now. I have even dared to compare: that perhaps, if I had listened then, I would be at peace “like them” now. Worked up and tired out, I have resorted to the age-old question of love.
This time my Lord God’s answer, tucked into the Sunday homily, was so profound I rifled through my purse for anything to write down the words: “Lavished Love.” The deacon offered a question so fundamental; it begged not to be answered but pondered.
“Perhaps,” he offered, “we fail to recognize our Lord’s lavish love because we don’t trust it is offered to us or we don’t recognize ourselves as worthy enough to claim it.”
I sighed heavy, my heart stirred. I know God’s love is unchanging and unending, the Alpha and Omega; it cannot be swayed or deterred. I know it with every fiber of my being. So then, perhaps the age-old question should be: If I know His love is true why, then, the unwillingness to claim it?
Perhaps the question, at least for me, of late, is of trust. My own. Of Him.
When I question His love, am convinced it is reserved for another, that His is a love story for everyone else, I am the one who abandons the Lord. I abandon His promise, make my own way, and deny the victory He intended. This is not a Him matter. This is a me decision.
Because the reality is, I do trust my Lord God. Trusting in His will is at the center of the surrender I offer each dawn.
Palms to heavens, I release it all and plead for eyes to see. Yet for reasons I do not yet understand, in my seasons of waiting, my trust waivers and, at times, I regretfully go my own way, denying the fullness of his Love. So, it is this, a fundamental question of love and trust, that, in this my season of waiting, I will ponder.
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This is part of the series called “The Human Being Fully Alive” found here.
And today we celebrate...