They are steady and constant, held and fixed by God. They know how to just be.
Oh that we were like stars in that way, that we would know how to just be and how to rest in God’s embrace, that we would know that’s enough.
I know that often, in my own faith journey, I get caught up in a task oriented mindset. I will find myself thinking, “I need to say this prayer this many times,” or “I need to do less of this bad thing and more of this honorable thing.” “I need to be better at this job,” or “I need to be more loving towards this person”… and my prayer becomes an all-out business meeting, with strategies and quotas and procedures… which isn’t really prayer at all.
How much that must make the heart of God ache, because He comes to prayer with only us in mind. No what He wants us to do, or what tasks He wants us to carry out.
No. He shows up and says:
“My love, how are you? I’m here for you, just you. I simply want to love you.”
It’s not a contract. It’s a covenant, a communion.
We get so bogged down with all the things we think we’re supposed to be doing for God, that we forget we are God’s. We lose sight of just how much He loves us, of how desperately He wants that love to move in the depths of who we are, and to draw us deeper into His heart, where we were always made to be, to rest, to come alive.
We forget to look up. We forget about the One for whom we were made, the One who gives everything for the chance that we would receive Him. We forget about the One who fixes the stars and, with them, reminds us that just to be little and to be His is beautiful. It is a witness and it speaks, it shines in the darkness.
We forget about why our actions even matter at all in the first place. They matter because they are an expression of who we are. Our deeds make visible the nature of our hearts, they attest to the state of our souls. They are the living reality of our love… or our lack of love. Everything we do is rooted in who we are.
And who are we?
We are God’s. And we forget that so easily.
Our faith, our life in God, is not about productivity. It’s not centered on what we do. It’s about receptivity. It’s centered on Christ, the image of the Father’s love for us, and how we know Him and love Him, how we receive Him and give ourselves to Him, and how we let that exchange of love spill out with joy into every breath we take, into every person we meet, into everything we do.
It’s not a transaction, it’s a transformation, into the face of Love Himself.
Instead of just looking around, we need to look up, to see and receive the One for whom our hearts beat. And that encounter becomes the source of life through which we do all else. By looking up, when we next look around, our gaze is true and our perspective is right, because we look with the love of God which we have received into our hearts.
This day, how are we receiving love from Him? How are we opening up our souls to make room for Him to dwell within all that we are?
“All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Let us look upon our Lord of love with open hearts, that we might always be His, and live in His love with all that we are.
How much that must make the heart of God ache, because He comes to prayer with only us in mind. No what He wants us to do, or what tasks He wants us to carry out.
No. He shows up and says:
“My love, how are you? I’m here for you, just you. I simply want to love you.”
It’s not a contract. It’s a covenant, a communion.
We get so bogged down with all the things we think we’re supposed to be doing for God, that we forget we are God’s. We lose sight of just how much He loves us, of how desperately He wants that love to move in the depths of who we are, and to draw us deeper into His heart, where we were always made to be, to rest, to come alive.
We forget to look up. We forget about the One for whom we were made, the One who gives everything for the chance that we would receive Him. We forget about the One who fixes the stars and, with them, reminds us that just to be little and to be His is beautiful. It is a witness and it speaks, it shines in the darkness.
We forget about why our actions even matter at all in the first place. They matter because they are an expression of who we are. Our deeds make visible the nature of our hearts, they attest to the state of our souls. They are the living reality of our love… or our lack of love. Everything we do is rooted in who we are.
And who are we?
We are God’s. And we forget that so easily.
Our faith, our life in God, is not about productivity. It’s not centered on what we do. It’s about receptivity. It’s centered on Christ, the image of the Father’s love for us, and how we know Him and love Him, how we receive Him and give ourselves to Him, and how we let that exchange of love spill out with joy into every breath we take, into every person we meet, into everything we do.
It’s not a transaction, it’s a transformation, into the face of Love Himself.
Instead of just looking around, we need to look up, to see and receive the One for whom our hearts beat. And that encounter becomes the source of life through which we do all else. By looking up, when we next look around, our gaze is true and our perspective is right, because we look with the love of God which we have received into our hearts.
This day, how are we receiving love from Him? How are we opening up our souls to make room for Him to dwell within all that we are?
“All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Let us look upon our Lord of love with open hearts, that we might always be His, and live in His love with all that we are.