Lectio
“The deeper our faith the more keenly is felt the need to give ourselves entirely to God, who gives himself entirely to us in creating us moment by moment in his image and likeness for himself alone. Our faith awakens in us the awareness of God’s self-giving love and thus sets in motion a reciprocity of love in moving us to give ourselves to God with all the loving abandon in which he gives himself to us.”
— James Finley, The Awakening Call
Meditatio
Much of modern life is spent worrying about what others are doing, what they are thinking or saying, and trying to catch up to some unattainable ideal that seems to move farther away the closer we get to it. We are being set up to be dissatisfied — conned into chasing and consuming one another’s lives, while never being content with our own. This is nothing new, but it has been amplified and commodified in recent times, and the result is a deep, restless dissatisfaction rooted in greed, lust, envy, and every other type of covetousness our souls can come up with in their never-ending quest for the fulfillment only God can give — sought in all the ways and places He never will.
The Lord’s call to Sabbath invites us to let all of this go, even if only for a day, and to abandon ourselves to the love that is abandoning itself to us constantly. Sabbath asks us to stop fearing what we are missing out on in the world, to let go of our worry about what others have, do, or say, and what this says about us by comparison, and to allow our covetous souls to rest, to cease their ravenous striving long enough to see that all that we want or need is already present in this moment that is being poured out in and for us by the God who, alone, can satisfy our deepest longing.
And perhaps the reason God only asks us for one day is not because that is all He wants from us, but because He knows, in the utter intoxication of self and our obsession with our own self-centered fear, asking for more than that would get Him nothing. Perhaps He knows that, even though He gives us everything in love, the only way we would love Him in return would be, at first, in piecemeal, before we are captivated by the very love we give that was first given to us, and want to give Him all of our heart, mind, and soul, always and in all ways, now and forever. Perhaps this giving so much and asking so little is what love is after all.
Oratio
Give Myself Away
I long for so much, Lord
more than You can give
but that which You cannot give
will never give me
that for which I truly long
which is You
who give Yourself to me
so that I will give myself to You
but I give myself to everything
I give myself to everyone
that is not You
for a pittance
a penny
the worthless treasure
of empty promises
and unrequited love
the Whore of Babylon I am
save me from my wayward ways
I Am
Contemplatio
When the noise of your own longing quiets, listen. Beneath the pittance and the promises, there is only Him, saying quietly what He has always said: I Am. Let that be all you need to hear today.
Related Scripture
“The lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with gain. This also is vanity.”
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Draw Me Out: Standing at the Shore of God’s Endlessness, which sits with the same ache of longing for God but turns toward His apophatic Endlessness rather than the counterfeits we chase in His place.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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