I have decided to work through the Spiritual Exercises again during my nine month stint as a Chaplain Resident. I have begun with the pre-Exercise exercises – yep there are exercises even before you get to the exercises proper. I guess it is like warm up exercises and stretching before working out – which examine experiencing God’s love. The term “experience” is important since knowing is not necessarily experiencing. I may know of God’s love, but that does not mean I experience God’s love. Just as I may know the Laws of Physics that keep a plane in the air, but it is only when I have the faith to get on the plane am I experiencing those laws – and I am relying on those laws. I have experienced God’s love in the past while working on these pre-Exercise exercises. The first time it took me well over a week of reading and meditating to begin to move from intellectualizing God’s love to having genuine flashes of experiencing it. This time, I experienced it the first day, and the experience was much different than it had been in the past; although, I had experienced the feeling before – I just did not equate the feeling with God’s love. The experience of God’s love came upon me while driving in my car. I had either just completed my prayer of the examin or was nearing completion – I had a busy day so I had a lot to review – when a feeling of profound and complete peace came upon me. It was a feeling that I could only describe as: “I could die in that moment and it would be okay.” It was a moment of perfect peace and a total absence of fear. It is difficult to see how much fear is a part of life because it is always there for many of us, so unless it is present in extreme quantities we are unaware of it. But when fear is completely removed, you realize how much it is a part of every thought, every action, every breath and beating of the heart. And this was a moment without fear – just a moment. In fact, the feeling of perfect peace tempted me to be afraid in response to it. In the past when I experienced God’s love, I experienced it as acceptance. It was a removal of the fear that I am unacceptable to God. It was the experience of a reality that made it clear that there is nothing I have to do to be acceptable, I already am acceptable – even at my most unlovable moments, I am loved and accepted by God. In the past it was experiencing the reality of “while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). It was an experience of “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). But this time it was an experience of “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18). God is perfect love. Love is not what God does, love is what God is. And experiencing God’s love drives out fear – and the experience of such a freedom of fear is the awareness and knowledge that everything is fine. It is an experience that declares: “It doesn’t matter what happens, it’s all okay.” And even though the actual experience was only a moment – probably less than a minute – the after effects stayed with me, so that I maintained a state of calm and dignity for the rest of the day, able to face difficulties and disappointment with acceptance and love. I am sure that many people have had such an experience at some point, but the mistake that many of us make when that happens is expecting that feeling and that awareness to last. But it does not last. It fades and must be cultivated each day, so that I can remain in God’s love each day. I cannot be nourished today by yesterday’s food. I have to eat each day. I have to eat throughout the day each day. If I do not eat each day, I am not at my best physically, emotionally or spiritually. The longer I go without eating, the more it disrupts my personality and my life and my health. Prayer and spiritual health is the same way – I have to feed my spirit each day just as I feed my body. There are many people in this world who are dissatisfied with life because they are spiritually hungry and do not know it. They are spiritually cranky and lash out at others because they are hungry, just as people get cranky and short with others when they are physically hungry. So again I must assert that it is the nature of love to share itself. It is the nature of love to desire to be known and to grow. And God, who is love, desires to share God’s self with us, to be known by us and in us and through us, and to grow in the world by growing in our hearts and spilling out into our lives. While we were sinners – while we were unacceptable to ourselves and to others – God showed God’s love for us – God desired to share God’s self with us and to be known by us. While we were unacceptable to ourselves, we were acceptable to God and God’s only desire is to love us until we can learn to love ourselves, so that we can remain in that love (John 15:10), living fearlessly with dignity the abundant life of faith, sharing the love within us with those who are “unacceptable” in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. We love because God has first loved us. That love is perfect love and drives out all fear. It is a love that desires to be shared and we share it by courageously expressing that love to the “unlovable” through our words and deeds. We love because we were loved. We were loved while we were unlovable. We love those who are unlovable because if we experience God’s love for us, we cannot help expressing that same love for them.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:30:25 +0000