The Difference Love Makes
Recently I was going for my usual Saturday night walk before I preach and finding it especially difficult to see the good news in the message I was about to share with the congregation. There are times when it is easy to find the right words, and other times when all my words sound forced and laboured. And try as I might in those times, I just cannot pull myself up by my bootstraps, and make it better.
As I walked, I prayed, asking God to help me do a good job finishing the sermon. I prayed hard, because it was getting late and I was becoming stressed. But God didn’t respond by dropping the last page of the message out of the sky into my up-stretched arms like I imagined.
Instead, I heard a simple reminder. “I love you,” whispered a small voice. I wanted to say, “I know, but look, there’s this sermon that I’ve got to finish, so if you could just help me get it done, then I can enjoy your love after that.”
Still no sky sermon. I was getting desperate.
But the voice of God kept repeating those simple words: “I love you. You are doing a good job. I am pleased with your life. You are precious to me.”
Gradually I stopped stressing about the sermon and started listening.
I realized that I had been going hard all week, prioritizing, balancing, reaching, strategizing, and that I was tired. I realized that no amount of hard work was going to result in a sermon with more good news in it, since I myself was not experiencing very good news at the moment. So I decided to stop thinking about the sermon and just listen to God’s voice for a while.
“I love you! I love you.”
Say those words to yourself twice, right now.
Now say, “God is pleased with me.”
Did you do it? Actually say it out loud? If you are nervous someone might hear you, go outside for a walk and practice speaking God’s love over yourself. You might feel strange at first (as I did) but trust me, it will make a difference.
By the time I got home to my computer, I had decided not to try and finish the sermon I was working on, but instead, to share the experience of being reminded of God’s love for me. It might have turned out to be a less intellectually satisfying message than the one I set out to write, but it sure had more good news.
What a difference love makes. What a difference it makes to begin in the awareness and reminder that God is pleased with us, that Jesus smiles upon our lives, that the Holy Spirit broods over and cherishes the minutiae of our days.
This is the most important message there is. Sometimes we try to make things so much more complicated than they need to be. Sometimes we try so hard! (I know I do). Sometimes we need to hear the simple invitation of our Lord, “Abide in my love.” (John 15:9) What a difference it makes in everything we do when we begin from that place.
Pastor Curtis
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