just like you cannot 'do' humility. It
either is or is not. Trust is the fruit of a
relationship in which you know you
are loved. Because you do not know
that I love you, you cannot trust me."
- Sarayu or The Holy Spirit in The Shack by William Young
So i've been reading the shack . ... annie read it at the begining of the semester and said it was good but she didnt want to ruin it so i wanted to read it but never picked it up. then before christmas break jeff was reading it and couldnt help but spoil it a little for me which just made me want to read it even more so i stole moms copy over break and ive been reading it ! now , its definitely a book you have to look at with open eyes. Young does decribe God in a very descriptive and certain way that some may think puts God in a box ... but he's not saying that God is a black woman, he's trying to say that the possiblities are endless and no one could ever convey any close decription because once you think you know, He just gets bigger!
So the quote at the begining is the quote that caught my eye. I thought I understood trust until i read this. I have never thought of it this way. Its so true though. When i think back at my moments of learning what trust was and how to trust. Its all about love.
Berlin was the one person that I have seen complete and total trust in God. She love him so much too, and she understood how much he loved her. When I refused to trust him, because he took her, it was because I didn't understand God's love for me. I didn't realize that till just now. That I wasn't able to trust God for so long, because I didn't know that he loved me so. But he does, he loves ME a whole lot :)
He's shown me a lot about his love over the past month. The day of the last encounter he threw it all on me, and I have no clue why. That morning on my way to calculus I had my ipod on How He Loves Us by Kim Walker. Man , these words are amazing !
He is jealous for me
Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of
His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are
for me
Oh, how He loves us so
Oh, how He loves us
How He loves us so.
...
So we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean we're all sinking
So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently
inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the
way
That he loves us,
Woah, how He loves us
Woah, how He loves us
Woah, how He loves
He loves me! And thats what he told me that morning. I was thinking about all of the things that had gone wrong the past few months and all the things that have changed and things friends are going through and in ever one of those instances God didn't remind me of how it stinks. He showed me how he loves me in every one of those situations. I can't really explain it that well. Thats the best I can do.
Then that afternoon after Nicole ended up back in the hospital and mom said Scottie passed away and Uncle Sammy was having having surgery, God showed up and said he loved me.
That night at encounter Matt read his little one's childrens bible to tell the Christmas Story. April picked this book for her children because of its emphasis on how God loves his children. And wow, it was perfect. First Matt read about Abraham being willing to give his son and how heart broken he was. Then he read of God giving his son, he loved his son soo much, but it was because he loved us that he gave him up.
We've heard the story many times. But this time when I read it... I thought of Stew, the last Dive , when we surrounded him, prayed for him, while he weeped thinking he might loose his son that had yet been born. Can you picture God weeping like that? Think of the pain of loosing a child? He loved ME... THAT MUCH. And that's .... it's kind of a big deal.
God loves you. Remember that!
Pocketfull of Rocks has a song that says "I'm God's favorite! He's got eyes only for me!" and they explained this at their concert. When you have kids, you can't pick favorites, you cant say I love you more than the other.... you don't have enough love to go around like that! ... but guess what ! ... God does ! God has enough love so that I can be his favorite , and you can be his favorite , and that guy in the broken down car on Bell Road .. yehh, he's Gods favorite too ! Isn't that just EXCITING !
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