Over the years I have grown to enjoy Broadway shows. I don’t really know when or how my fondness arose. I can remember a time when I would have equated watching the song and dance of a musical with sitting for a root canal. Maybe I am growing soft in my middle years, but I really do enjoy the pageantry, the performance, the wonder of the show. I think what I like best about musicals is the way in which they portray the realness and rawness of life. If you want to know what is going on in the world, what questions people are wrestling with, head down to the nearest and newest Broadway show and you will get a crash course.

One of my all-time favorite shows is the musical Rent. I enjoy it because it wrestles with real life issues, portraying the sticky tensions in which everyday people find themselves. The highpoint for me is in the middle of the performance when the characters gather on stage and sing the song Seasons of Love. The basic gist of the song is that life is really about and should be measured in terms of love, period.   Every time I listen to that song I am struck by the deep heart cry of our culture for a life that is marked by love. What is so moving, for me, is the recognition that our culture is thirsting for the very thing that God is, for God is love (1 John 4.7-8). With that recognition always comes a twinge of pain, for I also recognize that our culture can only come to know God’s love through people like you and me. We are God’s instruments of love. If our culture’s thirst for love is ever to be slaked, people like you and me must learn to measure and mark our lives with love, God’s love.

So, let me ask the obvious question. Are our lives marked by love? Maybe that isn’t the right question. We probably know the answer to that one. Let’s consider this one. What keeps our lives from being marked by love? I have been wrestling with this question over the past several days. It started as I was reviewing my day with God and He brought to mind that I hadn’t been very loving in a meeting earlier in the day. In fact, I was downright ungracious and rude. As I sat with what God was revealing to me, I asked, “So what was that about God?”  “Why was I unloving?” God provided a host of answers. They ranged from tacitly assenting to our culture’s performance-based life to deep woundedness in my own life. I am still working with God on several of the areas He revealed to me, opening my life up to Him through the disciplines. Really, all of the answers boiled down to a single point. For me, life with God is not really about love.

Sure, I know that God loves me. I know that God loves the world. But love always seems to be somewhat tangential to life with God. The more I have contemplated over the past few days, the more I am recognizing that love is actually central to a relationship with God. The idea is wrapped up in that word “relationship.” To know God is more than simply knowing about God. It is more than knowing God loves me. To know God is to know His love in an experiential way, and to love in return. To know God as His child is to come to the point that God is enough. His presence, His face, His love is enough. The funny thing is that no one ever taught me that this was the essence of life, a love relationship with God. Life with God was about going to church, reading my Bible, and trying to do the right things. While these are important things in life, they are not the essence of a life with God. Life with God is quite simply a love relationship with God. In knowing and experiencing God’s love as the essence of life, I learn how to live from love. I learn how to lead a life that showers love on a culture that is thirsting for it.

So, how do we move to a place where life with God is more about a love relationship with Him than anything else? I am finding that it is not an easy journey, but it is one that can be traveled. I think that the first step is learning to be content with God. For me, this means opening my life up to Him in contemplation, simply being still in His presence. I am taking a few days a week now and starting my day by simply sitting in God’s presence. I use a verse of Scripture to help me enter God’s presence and when I am still and before God, I sit there in silence for an extended period of time. Some people might find that breath prayer is a means of opening their life. Simply offering the prayer, “Christ have mercy.” Or, “Remain in me as I remain in you,” as you breath throughout the day can strip away all things except God alone. Others might find meditating on 1 Corinthians 13.1-7 for the next few weeks helpful. As we open up our lives, God will begin to move. He will begin to do an inner work that over time draws us closer to Himself, closer to a love relationship with Him. Perhaps over time as God’s people seek Him the world won’t need to cry out any longer for love.

A fellow traveler,

Blake
Spiritual Formation Pastor