Our Enduring Confidence

God loves you.

The Twenty-third Psalm is quite possibly the most familiar of all scripture.  It is the quintessential expression of confidence in God and its portrayal of overcoming turmoil of all sorts, shadows and fogs of every depth, is coupled so well with the image of Jesus the shepherd.  The human predicament is presented without any illusion that we are above pain, loneliness, lostness.  Yet, we are given a confident course in a green valley with a God who is protector, corrector and reviver. We are given a Yes to life in the midst of the darkest shadows of No.

Our faith tells us all this is a given.  It’s a gift!  Our challenge throughout our mortal earthly journey is to shape our own identities as children of God within that gift.   I want to ask you to see that your identity is deeply shaped by your confidence in God’s love of you.

You see, before all the other identities we assume, before all the fine competencies and skills we have built in our lives, before all the other gifts we have been given, we are invited to assume our first  identity…that of being the beloved.  It happened in the dark shadows and the green valley in the ancient Psalm.  Centuries later John wrote one of the most uplifting and fulfilling verses of scripture. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” It continues, “Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

John wrote that God has loved us from the beginning.  “Love one another because God has loved you first.”  Our great invitation…our great struggle…is to claim that first love.  Even when…especially when… we are lost in the deepest fog and face pain and rejection and the heartache of disease and the hell of war, it is in that love of God for us that we can put our confidence. 

No matter what shadows cross our path, not matter what fog banks our course, we are the beloved children of God.  It’s so much more than certain; it is our confident and enduring hope.

Gracious God, give us the Grace of confidence in you, confidence in your faithfulness to us, confidence in your unending, bewildering and always-new capacity to love us.