Nothing Else

Nothing else is required in life. He is my love.


I am so grateful for the love of God. I’ve been chosen by him. I’ve been welcomed. I couldn’t make it happen. I had no coercive power to force it. But here it is. Jesus loves me and what a gracious gift that is. It’s humbling. Beautiful. Gentle.

And for our love to be mutual, I must choose him—choose to make him my desire, the love of my life.

Staying in love every day is our goal. The fire of passion must be nurtured. Bible study, prayer with words, prayer without words, reflection, fellowship, times for solitude, silence, and being with the Lord – are all ways to tend the fire within.

I desire to nurture my relationship with the Lord so that I live passionately in love with him every day. I desire that my “work” is produced by my faith in Jesus, labor is prompted by my love for him, and endurance is inspired by hope in his love, and our future together.” (I Thessalonians 1:3).

“I have everything that I need.” (Psalm 23:1b)

Nothing else is required in life when Jesus is my love.

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Passion

Our ability to live out our call to love the Lord and to love others, and to live the teaching of Jesus is directly linked to our ideas and images of who God is, how he relates to us, and how we see our self. True theology actually believed is crucial.


Nurturing our inner life is about spending time letting truth sink down deeply into our belief system, especially the knowledge of how cherished we are by God.

How can I let truth permeate my soul? Spend hours over several months in contemplation and meditation on the love of God specifically for YOU, and the goodness and beauty of his character. He is good. He is trustworthy. These truths are core fundamentals, the bedrock on which to build your life in Christ.

The hours I have spent coming to more richly know the love of God has been in 5-10 minute blocks of time, morning by morning, sunrise after sunrise. Then it has been more fully experienced at The Springs retreat. The love of God is the rain that has to pour down on my heart and seep into the ground water of my soul. It’s the ground water my roots find to sustain me during drought. It’s the spring that never fails.

I’ve taken words of God written in Scripture and personalized them as if he spoke them to me. “You are my beloved – on you my favor rests” “I’ve known you before you were born.” Reflecting on them has made me stop and seriously wonder, can these words really be true? Is it possible? Yes. The Father loves me. Passion begins in knowing I am loved, because once I truly know that I am loved, then, I want to love him back.

I want to experience divine love, God’s passion for me.

Every day.

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The Sweet Spot

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength." That's the goal of our lives and that's once of the fundamental purposes of The Springs. How do we live with passion for the Lord every day?

Passion seems to be about having a strong desire to see something happen. Passion is a feeling-- such a strong feeling that I act on it. Passion leads me to say, "yes," and fuels my days with energy, drive, vitality, growth.

I've never seen so clearly how essential it is to get my passion, my feelings and emotions, all lined up with what I know I want to do. When what my mind wants to do, or thinks I should do, is at odds with what I feel like doing, the chances my mind will win over time is slim. That's when life becomes hard. That's when I'm struggling and feeling the life drained out of me. I'm in a constant battle, feeling tempted, distracted. When I want to read my Bible, but feel like cleaning the house, will I read my Bible? Maybe. But not passionately. If I live for very long not feeling like engaging in spiritual things -- that's when I start having my "obligations" not my "devotions." I can live there -- but it's a tough spot. (I think this experience is more an experience of resistance, than an experience of "the desert" - when we feel like God's Presence has been withdrawn. The dynamics of the "dark night of the soul" are all different from what I'm thinking about in this reflection.)

Getting interested in some aspect of the Christian life (recently for me it has been learning how to share my faith using conversational approaches to evangelism) and exploring with increasing curiosity all aspects of something brings zest to my life.

I love exploring a question (what is the gospel?) or learning a new skill (graphic design). I never have all the time I wish I had to pursue it, which is a good thing, I think. It keeps me hungry for more.

When I believe God has called me to the task, then I am even more passionate to pursue it.

There is a sweet spot of vitality for me when my feelings, my call, and what I know I ought to do all converge. When I have a strong desire to pursue something, I believe that I have been called by God to accomplish it, and I know it's what I ought to do -- wow! I'm energized, passionate, sleeves-rolled-up and running.

How can I live with passion everyday? Getting to the sweet spot is key.

Someone wrote: "You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. You don't have to be tired and bored. Get interested in something. Get absolutely enthralled in something. Throw yourself into it with abandon."

I think for me one of the keys to spiritual vitality is finding the sweet spot where curiosity, call, commitment all converge. It is possible to get our feelings aligned with our call and commitment so that we want to do what we need to do. By paying attention to my passion, and what makes me want to do something, I've discovered ways to approach my spiritual life so that rather than fighting myself and battling a sense of resistance, I'm wanting to do what I know I should.

Living in the sweet spot is just the opposite of ho-hum, business as usual, dull, routine, bored, going through the motions, tired, lukewarm. I love living in the sweet spot. It's worth spending time to figure out what help you to get there.

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Feelings and Desire

What role do our feelings play in our devotional life?

As I've been paying attention to my passion for the Lord every day, I am aware how much my "feelings" play a role in my spiritual life. We are so prone to do what we feel like. Our desires do lead us to the choices we make. There are mornings when I come to my desk for my quiet time and I feel like responding email, working on some work, cleaning my desk. Other days, I easily turn everything off and begin my devotional time.

I had no desire to do work this morning. I wanted to read and pray. That's what I felt like so that's what I did. A couple of weeks ago I was up against a deadline and I had a strong desire to finish my talk, and that made it nearly impossible for me to focus on my devotion. I tend to follow my desire, do what I feel like, and if I choose to go against my feelings, then it takes a whole lot of discipline and self-control.

So the easiest way to live would be to get my feelings, my desires, to be in line with what my good intentions are. If I intend to read my Bible and pray, and I have the desire to do that, for sure it will happen if it is at all possible. However, if I'm dieing to finish a project, I'm really enjoying working with a new software program, I'm up against a deadline, then I may be more driven to do my work than my devotion. So how do I get my feelings to line up with my good intentions?

Desire really is key to having passion and to determining how easily I'll give myself to do what I actually sit down and do. How do I direct my desires to help me grow in my love for Christ? Can I develop practices or exercises that will help me get my feelings and desires to pull me toward Jesus rather than compel me toward distractions and avoiding Him.

"There is only one big thing--desire. And before it, when it is big, all else is
little." Willa Cather

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Our Hearts need Assistance

"Only the heart knows how to find what is precious."

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Is there a distinction between heart, will, spirit? Maybe philosophers can separate them, but in my experience, I think they are all words that refer to one and the same thing. Heart, will, spirit are all words that seek to express what is fundamental, the core components of all of us.

It is from our core (heart, will, spirit) that love for God arises and living in such a way that expresses our love for God takes shape. It is the formation of the core that will totally transform from the inside how I live and worship. So how do we open the door to our heart, to the core of our being, to the most fundamental aspect of who I am?

Maybe it just begins with a prayer of invitation -- welcoming the God of the universe to come in and form us. We are in desperate need.

For centuries spiritual people have known that we need to pay attention to our heart. It is who we are and leads us to what we will give our lives to pursue.

We tend to think that our heart is what it is. We tend to think that we have no control over it. But if it is our heart that leads us, then I need to pay attention to what my heart is feeling. I need to run to its assistance if it's becoming weary or I'm beginning to doubt. If I'm lacking the energy to initiate, create, pursue what I want, something is wrong. I shouldn't just press on and ignore my inner life. If a waste basket was on fire, I wouldn't shove it into the closet and go about my business. I'd drop everything to take care of that waste basket. It should be the same with my heart. If I'm growing cold, distracted, grumpy, I need to pay attention. Run to my heart's assistance. Talk to somebody. Reflect in my journal about what's going on.

Often, under all of the excuses and resistance, is a disappointment with God.

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Resistance

Why is living with passion for the Lord every day such a challenge?

Certainly having a rule of life that helps me to do what I want to do -- rather than pursue all of the things that call to me -- helps me to stay focused.

Having a prayer chair that is away from my computer helps. But if I get side-tracked and go to my desk -- why do I always need to do something (send an email, file a paper, put away a book, revise my website, prepare a Bible study, read a book, watch a video, write a note to a friend) all important, all "ministry" but none of it is really time with the Lord.

Over and over I find myself wrestling to sit down with the Lord and just be in His Presence and experience His grace and love and enjoy my relationship with Him. Today, cleaning up the bedroom, bathroom, my desk, the hall closet all called me. We have company coming. So what! Why am I so pulled everywhere else but to be with the Lord? Father, please forgive this wandering heart. I even exercised this morning! Why? Why do I resist?

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Passion. Every day

Passion for God. What does that mean? How do I nurture it? That's been the focus of my reflection for the last several weeks. I want to be passionate every day...not just sometimes, but every day.

"I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession." William Danforth

Can the Lord Jesus and advancing his kingdom on earth be my magnificent obsession? Passion for God involves love, desire, an internal motivation, being driven to do something, having an obsession, having something that I want to do, that I'm eager to do. Passion involves wanting to accomplish something, to giving my life to something. How can I have passion, how can I live passionately, every day?

Thirst. Emptiness, unquenched desire, longing -- all of these seem to me to be an invitation to passion. When I'm hungry and thirsty, that's when I get to the place where I realize that nothing I'm trying to do can really satisfy me, and I turn to Jesus. "Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again." (John 4:14a)

The Lord Jesus, when we come to Him thirsty, gives us the Spirit of God Himself. He is the refreshment we are desiring. He alone quenches my soul's restlessness and emptiness. He alone satisfies. I'm freed of emptiness. Freed from the ceaseless need to find something to satisfy me. Quenched. Well-watered. No longer driven to meet unsatisfied needs to be loved. The Holy Spirit is the river flowing from the center of my life and He turns my passion to find something to satisfy my deepest longings into a passion for Himself and a passion for advancing his kingdom on earth. He is to be the focus of my passion, and the source of my passion. Every day.

We know this, but in another sense, we don't know this at all. For me, passion everyday has to do with staying focused on Jesus, and his passion, and learning to have his passion be mine.

In the chapel at St. Anthony's, a craftsman has created the Sierra Nevada mountains and placed the Cross of Christ in the center. Flowing from the Cross is a shimering mosaic - symbolizing the river of life, the Holy Spirit, flowing into the world. The river rushes down the wall and then flows onto the carpet and down the platform, out to where we sit. It's a beautiful visual image of what Jesus said to the thirsty Samaritan woman: "indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:14b). Letting the Spirit of God become a spring of water welling up within my soul and flowing out into the world -- passion. Every day.

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