Receiving His Love

I'm not someone who receives love very well and of course this plays out in my relationship with God. After yesterday, I spent some more time this morning reflecting on Bernard of Clairvaux's writings on the four degrees of love. I find myself wondering what opens me up to receive more love from God. I tend to think that God always loves us a ton but that it is our own inhibitions that prevents us from receiving that love, whether it's our sin, our hard-hearts, or just our plain humanity. Is our experience of God's love limited to the level of our own love for God? I don't know if I can experience more of God's love than I can expect and I really only expect as much as I'm giving to God.

However, there are beautiful moments where the love of God pierces through my humanity (like yesterday) and I am washed over and over again in the overwhelming love of our Father. Those are the moments when I am brought to my knees in repentance for not loving God as much as He deserves. I am a slobbering mess of Joel crying out my love to God as He lavishes His love on me. I always walk away from those (rare) times of prayer with my experience and expectation of God's love broadened. But those moments are few and far between.

So in the day to day, how can we receive more of God's love? It's always there. It is only God's love that enables me to love in the first place.

It's good to cry

I cried today. A lot. It's been a long time since tears came out of these eyes and kind of like a car that's been sitting for a while, it was a start/stop/start kind of thing until the floodgates of my heart finally creaked their way open and let all the hurt, the pain, the question flood out in a torrent.

It's good to cry. I read something Augustine said that caught my attention: I let the tears flow as freely as I could, making of them a pillow for my heart; on them it rested. Crying in the presence of God is a litmus test for me of the softness of my heart - did I mention it's been a LONG time since I've cried? I honestly don't remember crying since coming to Eugene. What caused it today? I don't really know. I was reading about God's love and I just got filled up with this longing to know His love and to tell Him that I love Him - no fancy words, no fancy music, just me with my Daddy. I want to start more days sitting with Him like this. As I experience His love and mercy, I find that all I want is what He wants for me. It's good to cry.