I love you, Lord?

When I was a kid, we had this great little praise song in church called "I love you, Lord." It went a little something like this (I sing great on the internet).: "I love you, Lord/and I lift my voice/to worship you/Oh, my soul rejoice!" It had this great slow tempo and simple melody that made it easy to get caught up in and sing twenty times in a row (second verse, same as the first!). Even if you weren't exactly sure that you really did love God in that moment, after a few times through, you'd really wanted it to be true... that you loved Him, I mean.

so where am I going with all of this? It's really easy to say we love God and have no idea what we're talking about. To sing words of declaration in a desperate attempt to find what's missing...

We might be fooled about ourselves - thinking that what we're feeling is love when it's anything. We might someday realize that the concept of God we were pining after was all wrong - wow! I was WAY off. Or perhaps, we might come to the dawning conclusion that our motivations were profoundly more selfish and manipulative than we'd ever want to admit.

God, I love you because you do ________ for me.

God, I'll love you if you'll just become more ___________ to me.

God, I did love you, but then you went and __________.

It reminds me of all those old middle school romantic relationships that were so much more about our own insecurities, need for belonging and worth than the genuine care and well-being of the other person. Okay, not JUST much middle school relationships.

God doesn't want a junior high fling with you. He wants it all, and not for his own needs and inadequacies, but for you and you alone. I used to think that God chose to love us because it was the best option for us - as if in some profound and eternal gesture God was willing to do the nice thing and put up with us because its what we all really needed.

But God chose to love you, not because it suited your best interests (it does but that's not the point). He chose you for you alone, for who you are, for who He made you to be. He really does love you. And its not conditioned on us filling in some blank for Him:

Aaron, I love you because you do ________ for me.
Aaron, I'll love you if you'll just become more ___________ to me.
Aaron, I did love you, but then you went and __________.

Don't miss that, because it's a big deal. Maybe one of the biggest. God calls us to love Him with the same kind of love with which He loves us. Even if it takes an eternity for us to learn that kind of love and perfect it.

"May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ." - 1 Thess. 3:11

face slapping, really?

thanks to Google's Analytics I'm able to keep tabs on traffic to this site. It's a nice way to see which other sites refer people to existemi and what kind of key words people search for that bring them here.

In the past few weeks, I've noticed a disturbing trend. over 60% of people coming to existemi for the first time are coming to look for "face slapping", "faceslapping", "face slapping galleries", "indian face slapping", "female face slapping"... you get the idea.

what's with people and the internet these days? I mean I know you can find pretty much anything you're looking for, but who's really actively seeking out face slapping on the internet? you people are kind of creeping me out.

in anycase, if you've come looking for face slapping, all I can offer is the funny video I embeded last month in a post entitled "slo-mo face slapping goodness". May it satisfy all of your freaky curiosities.

how big is your God?

How big is your God?

Not in reality, of course, that’s a silly question, and we’re all well-versed in the theologically appropriate response. He’s infinite; He’s omnipotent; He’s eternal.

But in your mind, from your perspective, in your day-to-day relating to Him, how big is your God?

It’s a question I’ve been thinking about / convicted about / praying through the past few days. How big is God in my eyes and in my heart? On this spiritual journey has He grown bigger or smaller over the years? Has He become more majestic or more familiar?

I feel this tension between the reverent and the intimate, between love and fear. He is a God not to be trifled with, but He is also a God who longs to embrace. He’s not a God we can get our heads around.

But as I think about it, reflect back over my life, and process through my spiritual journey, it feels as if much of my spiritual walk has been “either… or.” God is EITHER someTHING big, unapproachable, and to be feared OR someONE close, familiar, and sort of small.

He’s King or He’s Abba, but it’s hard to imagine Him as both at the same time. I know they’re not mutually exclusive identities. He can be both. He IS both.

But when it comes to relating to Him, it seems as if I’ve needed to choose one or the other. In this moment… is He almighty God on whom I cannot even set my eyes because of His brilliant splendor or is He Abba, Father longing to embrace me as His beloved son?

This most recent season of my journey has been largely contemplative, and it has continually challenged me to deeper levels of intimacy and authenticity with God. At the same time, it has asked me to wrestle with the great cloud of mystery that surrounds Him, to wrestle with it and even embrace it. But in this season, it feels as if in some way, all of that closeness has cost some bigness.

Or maybe, better said… my approach to that closeness, my understanding of that closeness, my ability to embrace that closeness has cost some bigness. And I don’t really like that.



If we broke out some theological language, we might say God is transcendent and unknowable and at the same time He is also imminent and intimate - the God who is out there and the God who is right here.

I think it’s beautiful that these two ideas go hand-in-hand and yet seem to completely contradict. God is so beyond all that we can comprehend and yet He’s chosen to love and know me. What kind of love! God is so generous in His love for me, so approachable, and yet He is the eternal, almighty Creator of the entire universe. What kind of power!

In the long run, one without the other feels unbalanced.
I guess I feel some unbalance, and I'm questioning what the next step should be. Do I run off to make God bigger again, or sit here where I've felt led and accept the tension? Can I somehow do both?

How big is your God? Is bigger always better? Is bigger better than closer?
How close is your God? Is closer always better? Is closer better than bigger?

Transcendent and Imminent
Big and Close

photos from the cabin

My brother-in-law Ben has linked to this site to share some recent photos from the cabin. I thought I'd post a slide show to help give you a taste of the cabin retreat experience.

It's been exciting to see how God's using it in many peoples' lives, and if you're at all interested, I'd definitely recommend taking some time at the cabin - out in nature, silence, and solitude. For more info, you can contact Ben through his blog at http://newsfromarrowhead.blogspot.com/

imitatio (5 of 5)

(a field of ferns surround a babbling brook just behind the cabin)

XXI. Sorrow of Heart

• "No liberty is true and no joy is genuine unless it is founded in the fear of the Lord and a good conscience. ...Fight like a man! Habit is overcome by habit."
• Too often we miss out on the full experience of God because we are quick to comfort ourselves with outward satisfaction. Avoid idleness and silliness and insread live like today is your last.

XXII. Thoughts on the Misery of Man

• "From my necessities, O Lord, deliver me."
• An honest man must be miserable in this fallen world - there is nothing to take lasting comfort in except our transcendent God. We should seek to free ourselves in so much as we can from our wants, desires, and needs. Our fraility - physically, emotionally, and spiritually - must drive us to greater humilty before God.

XXIII. Thoughts on Death

• "In every deed and every thought, act as though you were to die this very day... It is better to avoid sin than to fear death."
• The reality of death is a sobering and often distasteful thought, but it focuses us. It forces us to live honestly, shunning the games we often play to excuse ourselves.The spiritual journeyman should embrace it as a tool for narrowing the focus and filtering his priorities.

XXIV. Judgment and the Punishment of Sin

• "All is vanity, therefore, except to love God and to serve Him alone."
• I have great difficulty with this chapter. Thomas' view of penance, mortification, and purgatory borders on the morbid and seems to diminish the finished atoning work of Christ. It hints of a sanctification based on guilt and control and not God's abiding love and the reality of grace. He is certainly a man far more wise than me, but in this regard, I have trouble embracing his stream of faith.

XXV. Zeal in Amending our Lives

• "Think of why you left the world and came here." Why did I first begin to follow? In different seasons of my faith journey, how would my answer to that question differ?
• Let me end with a great story that Thomas tells: "One day when a certain man who wavered often and anxiously between hope and fear was struck with sadness, he knelt in humble prayer before the altar of a church. While meditation on these things, he said, 'Oh, if I but knew whether I should persevere to the end!' Instantly he heard with the divine answer, 'If you knew this, what would you do? Do now what you would do then and you will be quite secure.'"

imitatio (4 of 5)

(candles and their reflections on a rainy night in the cabin)

XVI. Bearing with the Faults of Others

• "If you cannot make yourself what you would wish to be, how can you bend others to your will? We want them to be perfect, yet we do not correct our own faults. We wish them to be severely corrected, yet we will not correct ourselves."
• Adversity like temptation will reveal our true virtue - who we really are. Think of others first - even those you are asked to suffer and endure. They are likely being asked by God to endure you, too.

XVII. Monastic Life

• "You have come to serve, not to rule. You must understand, too, that you have been called to suffer and to work, not to idel and gossip away your time... Here no man can remain unless he desires with all his heart to humble himself before God."
• To persevere on the spiritual journey, we must indentify ourselves with God's Kingdom and not our own or someone elses; we must be willing to be considered a fool for Christ; we must seek to put aside anything that tempts or allures us away from God. It requires humility - willingness to serve and not rule, to suffer, and to work.

XVIII. The Example Set Us by the Holy Fathers

• "They were poor in earthly things but rich in grace and virtue... They lived in true humility and simple obedience; they walked in charity and patience, making progress daily on the pathway of spiritual life and obtaining great favor with God."
• Thomas recalls a great cloud of witnesses who were passionate about their one goal - to know and serve God - willign to live radical lives in pursuit of His holiness. He praises their lives "rich in grace and virtue," and yet I wonder how much grace was available and lived out in his Rule? What are they rythyms of grace in strict asceticism?

XIX. The Practices of a Good Religious

• "In the morning make a resolution and in the evening ecamien yourself on what you have said this day, what you have done and thought..."
• We should live lives of authenticity and transparency within our spiritual communities - tending to both our inward and outward lives. Spend some everyday not only in examen but also resolution. Live and practice the disciplines as if death was going to great you right around the corner. Let it focus you in your daily walk.

XX. The Love of Solitude and Silence

• "Read such matters as bring sorrow to the heart rather than occupation to the mind. ...the security of the saints was always enveloped in the fear of God... the security of the wicked, on the contrary, springs from pride and presumption."
• Even as we face the temptation to be draw into the crowd, the revelry of the night, we must draw away with Jesus into solitude and silence, and take comfort in His faithful provision.

imitatio (3 of 5)

(a narrow point in the stream which winds its way behind the cabin)

XI. Acquiring Peace and Zeal for Perfection

• "We are too occupied with our own whims and fancies, too taken up with passing things... when we encounter some slight difficulty, we are too easily dejected and turn to human consolations. ... It is hard to break old habits, but harder still to go against the will. Resist temptations in the beginning, and unlearn the evil habit."
• Thomas emphasizes the act of mortification - an exercise of the will to conquer vice and temptation, but I wonder where he would see the role of the Holy Spirit in directing and prompting our transformation?

XII. The Value of Adversity

• "It is good for us to have trials and troubles... to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged... these things help us to be humble and shield us from vain glory."
• Adversity, trial, and sufferings compel us to draw closer to God and recognize our full dependence on Him. Better to experience consolation from God for the wounds caused by men

XIII. Resisting Temptation

• "Fire tempers iron and temptation steels the just. Often we do not know what we can stand, but temptation shows us what we are."
• We will always face temptation of one degree or another - it has a valuable role in our spiritual growth - it shows us what we are. We can't overcome it by fleeing or outward action alone, but in faithfully and quickly submitting ourselves to God in times of trial. Sin is most easily resisted at its beginning, before it has had opportunity to take root.

XIV. Avoiding Rash Judgment

• "If God were the sole object of our desire, we should not be disturbed so easily by opposition to our opinions. ... An old habit is hard to break, and no one is willing to be led farther than they can see."
• Don't waste your time judging others - you often end up completely wrong and worse than the one you're judging. Judge yourself alone as you seek to bring yourself into greater submission to God.

XV. Works Done in Charity

• "He does much who loves much. ... That which seems to be charity is oftentimes really sensuality, for man's own inclinations, how own will, his hope of reward, and his self-interest, are motives seldom absent."
• Doing good for others - acting out of love - is an act of true worship and devotion when our motive is not selfish (hoping for reward or recognition) but rather the glory of God and the love of others.