I almost hesitate to post these thoughts, because I fear seeming superspiritual.
Not because of shame of my faith, necessarily, but because I dislike and fear holier-than-thou-ness, or maybe even some notion that I've got it together or have all the answers. (I wouldn't consider the latter fear, except that I have the tendency to trust too much of what I read, even in blogs...)
But enough of disclaimers.
Part I
This morning, as I was running late on my way to a random day of work, I plugged my iPod into my little cheap tape converter in order to listen to some music by my good buddy, Phil Wickham. (and by 'good buddy,' I mean that he does not have an inkling of my existence, but that I follow him on Twitter and like is music.)
anyways.
As I listened to his song "True Love," a thought from some sermon long past popped into my head.
Christ does not love me as a mere part of an amorphous blob called Humanity.
Until January 2008, I had thought of His love and His sacrifice in this way--that it was a sweeping generalization of perhaps unreachable love that doesn't really make sense or isn't daily present. (And, well, it still really doesn't make 'sense.' You could say that grace is nonsensical...)
But while He does love the masses, he also loves ME, personally. YOU, personally.
I once heard this love explained like this:
"If you were the only person that he could rescue by dying by the gruesomeness and agony of the cross--He still would."
Right now, this seems most mind-boggling. Perhaps it's because of my background or just my particular thought process, but my painful confession is this: especially when I was younger, there were times that such a sacrifice did not seem so remarkable. The ethics here seemed simplistic. If you could save countless lives, would you not give up one, even your own? (The T.V. series Heroes comes to mind here...)
As I have grown, considered the cross, and come to understand more of what He did, this idea has changed some.
But it was not until I understood this love and sacrifice to be so personal, that I was completely blown away by it.
He loves ME. Me??
The thought is difficult for me to express, but in some ways, it almost seems harder to love one person than many.
Again, it just blows me away
that His love is not only big enough to reach the masses,but that it is also big enough to love the individual.
Part II
my fear is that I will not (well, do not) love in this way. Ha, perhaps it's not so much a fear as a reality.
I say that I love people, that I want to care for them, that I want to know their stories, etc. This is the general sentiment.
But what about practically and individually?
I am selfish. So often, I prefer to love in my own way, on my own time, when I feel like it.
But oh, I still 'love' everyone, yes?
Consistency fail.
Part III
My prayer is this (and it seems repetitive because...it is):
that you and I would know this love:personal, rich and deep
and would overflow with it to His glory, because that's all we can do.
Antonia, thank you for this. The reflection about how God's love is so individual is something that I really struggle with... When I was reading "Portrait of the Artist," there was a quote that reminds reminds me of this: "The imagery through which the nature and kinship of the Three Persons of the Trinity were darkly shadowed forth in the books of devotion which he read--the Father contemplating from all eternity as in a mirror His Divine Perfections and thereby begetting eternally the Eternal Son and the Holy Spirit proceeding out of Father and Son from all eternity--were easier of acceptance by his mind by reason of their august incomprehensibility than was the simple fact that God had loved his soul from all eternity, for ages before he had been born into the world, for ages before the world itself had existed." I was rather embarrassed that I could identify with that quote...