Oceans Deep: The Call to Love

The wildest call is always to love.

The most dangerous waters He calls us to walk on are these: love your neighbour as yourself, and love your enemy. 

But who among us can walk on water? Who can carry this burden? A heart can break under the weight. The fear will sink us. We have not what we need to follow this strange and narrow path.

But when there is doubt we fix our eyes on the one who has gone before us over these waves. And not only over, but into, beneath, right down to the depths of the ocean of hate and sin and death, and everything that threatens to swallow us whole. He took love to the outer limits, and seemed to succumb . . .

But perfect love cannot be overcome.

He overcame by the power of pure love, pulling our soggy mess out of the sea and breathing new life into collapsed lungs.

He breathes His love into us, and fear evaporates.
He breathes His love into us, and hatred dissipates.
He breathes His love into us, His Spirit of life, and we are filled with a buoyancy that lets us take the first steps.

The call to love is no walk in the park, no pleasure sail on the pond.

It's a walk on the wild, past the point of no return, where our only hope is to follow Him.


~lg

Intercessions: God of tears and dust

O God, most gracious and compassionate, you hold our frailty in your hands. Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, you know our weaknesses. You gather us in your arms, tenderly wash the mingled tears and dust, and fold us in your keeping. You weep with us. You weep for the whole weary world, swollen with the sting of death.

O God, most gracious and compassionate, you take our burdens in your hands. You hold the things we cannot carry, and carry them away this night.


~lg