Helpful signage...

My cousin's kid took this picture at a recent family reunion.
Aren't you glad for helpful signs like this?
Don't you wonder how many people did fall (and perhaps even die) before they DID put up this helpful sign?

www.paulagamble.com

Love has no schedule

I am reading a book for my prayer class called, To pray and to Love by Roberta Bondi.
This week I was really delightfully shocked at Bondi’s comment, “Another characteristic of humility is its abandonment of purity as the main goal of the Christian life” (102). How often I have been taught not to dirty the knees of my pants on my way to heaven – rather than entering into the messiness of love vs. mere dutiful obedience. “Love is not about maintaining an ideology.” I’m saddened that the church has strayed so far from love. As I wrote the other day - this past weekend as I spoke to a Sunday school class re: fear and love within the context of my own journey, one woman came up to me and said, “When you spoke of what fear looks like I only saw my own constricted life. But tell me, how do I let God love me?” This woman has been at church most of her life – why has no one taught or modeled love (and letting themselves be loved) to her when it is the first and second greatest commandments? How did we get so messed up? I am getting angry as I write this – and ashamed of our churches and the lesser “goals” we hold as higher than love! And I do not even have a simple answer for her…because love is messy and I’m sure she has a mess of shame and habits and wounds that block her being able to receive.

Leonard Sweet said that his inability to receive is his greatest disability. I concur – I am needy, and oh so stubborn to be less than self-sufficient. I am protective, and oh so longing to be loved. I am hesitant to join community – yet desirous of connection. I am desirous to see my neighbors – the Baha’i gal, the yuppie, cynical couple whose cigarette smoke nightly invades my space and the desperate young woman giving away her soul to sleep with her boyfriend, the lonely divorced folk, the gay couple – (even here I label and am judgmental – Oh Lord have mercy!) I long for them to know this love that is liberating – for it to heal and cast out fears and dissolve hardness of heart.

Lord teach me how to walk in love. I have so much to learn. Thank you that you are in no rush! You are my shepherd, I shall not want – not even want to be more spiritual because love has no schedule. I love you Lord!

Those who are good

NLT of Psalm 125:4 “God is good to those who are good: to those who are in tune with you.” Think of that…those who are good in this passage are those who are in tune with God. (other versions say “upright in heart” or “hearts are right.”) I was thinking of some accountability relationships I’ve shared in the past – the questions were always, “Did you do x, y, or z or abstain from x, y, and z?” How dreadful they seem even in memory! What a kinder, gentler accountability when I don’t measure my or others’ goodness on behavior alone. Instead, there is this “in-sync-ness” of being in tune – of being with – of being near. And it is hard to be in tune with someone you don’t know or love or trust. I am grateful, today, that I sense this being in tune – even though I experienced a strong resistance of will in prayer this morning. I was yet with Him, and it was okay.

How do I let God love me?

This weekend I was speaking and leading worship at a church I was a part of in the early 90s. It was wonderful to reconnect with so many. As I spoke to the Sunday School classes, God had prompted me to talk about fear vs. love in the context of my own journey. As their own congregation looks ahead to the future, I challenged them to be a church that makes decisions out of Love, not fear. "Lean in and let the Perfect Love of God cast out all the fear you have..."

Afterwards several people came up and said, "We're not used to people talking so honestly - you don't talk about God in the same way as others."
I can only surmise this, perhaps, is because He is gifting me with His embrace that is setting me free from legalism and old wineskin tradition. His love is casting out my fears little by little.

I was most saddened, however, when a woman came up to me afterwards. Her face was deeply concerned - her eyes inquisitive, anxious and searching. Her face expressed the deep ache and longing of her heart: "Paula, when you spoke about what fear does, it resounded within me that I am a fearful person. I want God's love to cast out the fear - but how do I let God love me? I've never really even heard anyone talk about letting God love me."

Even now my soul aches for her - there is rich beauty in the longing expressed in her question. There is deep sadness to me that she, a lifetime church goer has NEVER heard anyone talk about letting God love her.

So - the question goes out to all of you - how do you let God love you?