I Love You Forever......

Days 153 and 154 reading asignment:
2 Samuel 19:11-21:22
John 21:1-Acts 1:26
Psalm 120:1-121:8
Proverbs16:16-18

My grandson Crew is just thirteen months old but already he knows how to work me.  He is a master at doling out his love and then withholding it for just the right effects.  He will ignore me just until I'm bordering on really taking his rejection personally and then with an enormous smile and flickering eyes he stretches his arms wide and will run the full length of the room toward me and wrap himself completely around me.  This one action is worth the previous rejections.  Our love is secure and reinstated once again.

When Crew's mommy was little, we would play a game where she would use her hand to smash her nose upwards and catch the side of her mouth with her pinky finger causing it to droop abnormally downward and do anything else she could to distort herself and then would ask me "mommy if I looked like this would you still love me?"  This game and its many variations could go on for a very long time, much like the numerous children's books on the topic of unconditional love.  Like "Mama Do You Love Me?", "I Love You Stinky Face", and one of my favorites "I Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch.  I was standing in Clas E Professor in the mall many years ago reading this book about a mother reinforcing to her child her unconditional love for him.  The story begins when the little boy is just a baby and follows him through boyhood  with a line that repeats: "I love you forever, I like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be."  At the end of the story the boy has grown into a man and the mama has grown into a little old lady.  The man cradles the old lady in his arms and he is now saying to her : "I love you forever, I like you for always as long as I'm living my mommy you'll be."  At this point in the story, standing there in that store, I cried so hard the lady who worked there came over to offer me a kleenex.  It was incredibly embarrassing.

It is easy for me, as a mother, to get the unconditional concept.  I try to keep this perspective when relating myself to God.  To get in relationship with Him as my Father it is a comfort to know this is His love for me.  At the end of John when the resurrected Jesus appears again to the disciples by the Sea of Galilee, it made me wonder how Peter was feeling.  This was the third time Jesus had appeared to them after his death.  Peter had denied Christ three times before the crucifixion.  Now Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved Him.  The application says: The first time Jesus said, "Do you love (Greek agape: volitional, self-sacrificial love) me more than these?"  The second time, Jesus focused on Peter alone and still used the word translated into Greek,  agape.  The third time Jesus used the word translated into Greek, phileo (signifying affection, affinity, or brotherly love) and asked, in effect, "Are you even my friend?"  When Peter answered yes, Jesus told him to feed His sheep.  It is one thing to say you love Jesus, but the real test is willingness to serve Him.  Peter had repented and here was Jesus asking him to  commit his life.  Peter's life changed when he finally realized who Jesus was.  He finally understood the significance of Jesus' words about his death and resurrection.  

There is another really great children's book by Sam McBratney called, "Guess How Much I Love You?"  It is about a bedtime conversation between a Father (Big Nutbrown Hare) and his son (Little Nutbrown Hare).  This story is a precious example of God's love for His children. As Big Nutbrown Hare prepares Little Nutbrown Hare for bed, "Little' initiates a contest of one-upmanship.  Father and son each come up with similes to express their love for the other.  Little Nutbrown Hare falls asleep thinking he has won with, "I love you as far as the moon!"  But Big Nutbrown Hare gently cradles him and lays him in his bed, whispering, "I love you as far as the moon....and back!"

Jesus doesn't settle for easy answers.  He has a way of getting to the heart of the matter.  Peter had to face his true feelings and motives when Jesus confronted him.  This made me wonder how I would respond if Jesus asked me, "Do you love me?  Do you really love me?  Are you even my friend?

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Day 152 reading assignment:
2 Samuel 18:1-19:10
John 20:1-31
Psalm 119:153-176
Proverbs 16:14-15
It's hard to know how to restart.  There is a lot of story between Deuteronomy and 2 Samuel as well as Luke, John, Proverbs and the Psalms.
There's been a lot of good reading between then and now but I think the best way forward is forward.  So I will start today with today's reading assignment and try to do a 'between posts recaps' of the last two months.  Otherwise I'm afraid I'll never catch up and I don't need one more thing to veer me off of this course........So for whatever it is worth, I'm back doing what I can to catch some glimpse of this message that I am forever seeking.

Like Thomas in John 20, I question if I will always struggle with my habitual weak faith.  I wonder if my hot, cold, tepid spiritual temperature is chronic.  At what point do I get membership in the solid, faithful, believers club?

This isn't as serious as an all out crisis of faith.  But more like that Judy Blume book, "Are You There God?  It's Me Margaret."  It helped a lot to read John 20 today. I've always known about Doubting Thomas, but just the Sunday school version.  I have never spent any time considering Thomas' affliction. If I spent any time forming an opinion of him I would think he was disloyal bordering on disrespectful.  This quick judgement is probably why we are always cautioned not to judge...never assume anything.  The bio on Thomas in my Bible says just the opposite.  In fact it says some of his strengths were loyalty and honesty.  And in his defense, I will try to stand in his sandals for just 5 minutes.  I imagine Thomas, gripped with the sorrow of Jesus' death.  Now all at once ten of his good friends are telling him of their encounter with Jesus- alive and well.  I see myself right there with him wondering incredulously why my friends would expect me to believe their insane story, and maybe feeling a little left out of this loop.

Sometimes life is just disappointing.  You try to keep an optimistic outlook, you think you are jumping through all the right hoops and still it dumps on you.  The what-ifs creep in quietly and work their voo-doo magic and the wavering begins and before you know it you realize you are really ticked off at God.  But really isn't anger at God a reinforcement of honest belief?  You can't be mad at something you don't believe in right?

What I really loved about today's reading was what the application had to say about doubt; 'We can doubt without having to live a doubting way of life.  Doubt encourages rethinking.  Its purpose is more to sharpen the mind than to change it.  Doubt can be used to pose the question, get an answer, and push for a decision.  But doubt was never meant to be a permanent condition.  Doubt is one foot lifted, poised to step forward or backward.  There is no motion til the foot comes down.  When I experience doubt (for a moment or even a season) I will take encouragement from Thomas.  He didn't stay in his doubt but allowed Jesus to bring him to belief.  Silent doubts rarely find answers.  I know I cannot settle into doubt but must move on from it to decision and belief.'  I will also take encouragement from the fact that countless other followers of Christ have struggled with doubts as well.....maybe even some from that solid, faithful, believers club I so badly want to join.

                              -Better to doubt out loud than to disbelieve in silence-