I'm retiring the name of this blog, "Delusions from Suburbia" to better reflect my current situation. While I'll always be a suburban Jersey girl at heart, my state of mind is definitely not in tune to all the SUV's, minivans, and white picket fences of my childhood.
I saw this passage on a friend of mine's site and love what it says:
I saw this passage on a friend of mine's site and love what it says:
Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone, to have a deep soul relationship with another, to be loved thoroughly and exclusively. But God says to a Christian: "No, not until you are satisfied, fulfilled, and content with being loved by Me alone. With giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me, with having an intense personal and living relationship with Me alone. Discovering that only in Me is your satisfaction to be found. Then you will be capable of the perfect human relationship that I have planned for you. You will never be completely united with another until you are united with Me; - exclusive of anyone or anything - exclusive of any other desires or longings. I want you to have the best. PLEASE allow me to give it to you. I want you to stop planning and stop wishing and allow Me, expecting the greatest things and listen and learn the things I tell you. You just wait -- That's all Don't be anxious. Don't worry. Don't look around at things others have received or that I've given them. Don't look at the things you THINK you want. Just keep looking to Me or you'll miss what I am to show you. And then, when you're ready, I'll surprise you with a love far more wonderful than any you could dream of. You see, until you are ready, and until the one I have is ready for you, (and I am working even at this moment to have both of you ready at the same time). Until you are both satisfied exclusively with me and the life that I have prepared for you, you won't be able to experience the love that exemplifies your relationship with me, and this is the PERFECT love. And dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love, I want you to see me in the flesh a picture of your relationship with Me and enjoy materially and concretely the everlasting union of beauty, perfection, and love. Know that I love you. I am God. Know it, and be satisfied.
- author unknown.
2 comments:
I love this passage. I've used it lots during Bible studies. I hope everythings going good for you.
Yeah, that is good stuff. I think a huge problem with Christianity throughout history is that we get it in our heads that we should deny our own happiness. We talk too much about self-sacrifice, when we should be talking about the ecstacy and joy in Christ, and the idea from that post is just one example of that. Here is a good passage from C.S. Lewis's "The Weight of Glory" (yes, this is a long comment, sorry):
"The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
C.S. Lewis - The Weight Of Glory
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