Love Lost

It seems like a long time since I heard the Lord speak into my heart, ‘You are my beloved…in you, I am well pleased.’ It seems like a long time because in all honesty, it has been a long time.

I know that God has chosen to dwell within me, his child, and yet, I have almost closed off his voice because I have given him very little quiet
in which I might hear him speak—just little bits here and there. Can we tawk? Maybe my honesty will help someone else.

What happened? Perhaps in a small way, I became the older brother in the prodigal son story. I suppose at different times in my adult life, I have assumed each of the three roles in this powerful Luke 15 story that Jesus told us—the one
who ran away from love, the one who stayed and thought his faithfulness
would be rewarded, and the loving, forgiving father, too—if this one or
that one would only just come back!! The older brother? Yes,
while not jealous of a younger ‘prodigal’ who was unjustly favored, in
spite of his unfaithfulness, I took some things for granted.

You see, for as long as I can remember, for many years now, I got up an hour before the rest of my household to spend time with my Father in
prayer. At first, I needed to set an alarm, but with just a little practice, my body awakened on its own, ready to meet with the Lord. As
I prepared my cup of Peet’s Italian Roast, I would picture the Lord
sitting on a garden bench, awaiting my arrival . . . I wouldst not, I
shouldst not disappoint my Lord! That whole scene called to me—actually, it beckoned me. It also reminded me of a similar emotion I experienced as a very young child. My mother would drop me off at my first school, Landmark Baptist School in Hayward, California;
I felt so bereft as she drove out of the parking lot that I would stand
and watch until I could no longer glimpse the tail end of her long car
round the corner, and head for the freeway. Only then would I realize she was gone, and sense that I must be a big girl and carry on without her.

On these intimate mornings with the Lord, I would picture him waiting on the garden bench for my arrival—that is until he could wait no longer,
in the realization that I was simply not coming that day. But
not wanting to keep my precious Savior watching and waiting, I seldom
failed to bring my cup of coffee to meet with him in the garden. Once there, I would read a little Scripture, and then I would commune with him in prayer. I
would pray, usually writing my prayer in a lined journal, and then I
would listen; so often, I sensed he said that to me—‘you are my beloved;
in you, I am well pleased’.

I have not heard those words in a while . . . ‘the reason? I stopped going to meet the Lord in such a way.

I allowed something good to take the place of my garden time with the Lord -- study of His Word, so that I could write my Morning Briefings. I have set such a strenuous writing schema for myself for two-plus years now, that it requires the utmost discipline in order to accomplish it. ‘Sounds equally important, now doesn’t it—studying God’s Word, so as to be able to share it with others, worldwide? Well,
it was—it is, EXCEPT, I just haven’t been able to eke out an equally
quiet, equally intimate a time of prayer as that first uninterrupted
hour of the day. And so, I find myself fitting in
prayer—you know, fitting in a little here, a little there—of course,
knowing that my Father inhabits the prayer of his child whenever I come
to him.

He wasn’t the problem . . . I was. You see, I have come to realize that while God needs nothing from me in order to be complete, I do need intimacy with him in order to be
complete. In that intimate place, I know, I sense his unequivocal love for me. It is in that love I have lacked—not because it wasn’t there, but because I hadn’t entered into it. Again, I turn to Nouwen’s Prodigal Son: “Over and over again I have left home. I
have fled the hands of blessing and run off to faraway places searching
for love! Why should I leave the place where all I need to hear can be
heard? …I realize that the true voice of love
is a very soft and gentle voice speaking to me in the most hidden
places of my being. And…it is a voice that can only be heard by those
who allow themselves to be touched.”

Now, enter a situation that caused emotional pain and distress—who was my first call, so to speak? To whom did I run? Unfortunately, I did not run to the Lover of my Soul because I had lost the sense of intimate urgency with him. Had he moved? No, Sir—I had. Had I lost the love of God? No, never.

Friends, we can know with our minds that God loves us, but we must know it in our souls. It only gets in our souls through intimate communication with God . . . uninterrupted time spent alone with him.

Christine