The Deep Love of God
N. T. Wright

Here is the mystery, the secret, one might almost say the cunning, of the deep love of God: that it is bound to draw on to itself the hatred and pain and shame and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world, but to draw all those things on to itself is precisely the means, chosen from all eternity by the generous, loving God, by which to rid his world of the evils which have resulted from human abuse of God-given freedom.
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My thought as I read this statement above is, "do I have the kind of love that strives to draw rejection or pain or suffering or discomfort onto myself in order for others to be free?" As I look around me, at the people I love with and work with and worship with, do I see where I've loved like this? Or do I instead see the hurt and junk of life sticking to folks, when this kind of love should be "drawing to itself" all of that?

One of the things I've discovered about my relationship with God is that I can guage how things are going by how the people around me are catching on, too. I hope that I can become someone who loves with this kind of love, and that it's revealed around me in the lives of people as they're healed, comforted, encouraged and amazed by God.
- posted by Rick @ 11:59