Today’s post comes from retreat presenter, Susan Boruff. She shares insight from scripture about focusing on the love of God, even during the darkness of the pandemic. We hope that this will inspire and reassure you today.
Love Wins
“Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.” ~Rumi
If the battle between good and evil has already been won, why don’t we act like winners? Winners for love.
If we can take the words of David in Psalm 27 to heart, we would know the Lord is our Light, Our Salvation and Our Stronghold. The Lord’s light is guiding us and saving us and holding us with strength so we can meet the challenges of our world.
We have no fear. Or as David says, “Whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid?” David is so confident in this God that he says his enemies will stumble and fall and even if a war broke out around him, he would not be shaken. He keeps his focus on the truth of who God says He is. He keeps his focus on God’s promises.
Are you shaken by the world around you? If so, David offers a solution. In the midst of our challenges, David is inviting us to keep our focus on the God of light, the God who rescues us and the God of strength. The God who has already defeated evil.
In this psalm David has one thing he asks of the Lord (actually there are a few more things but they are all related). So, let’s start with the one thing. If you had one thing to ask of the Lord right now, what would it be? Take a few minutes and sit with that question. For those of you that always want to have the “right answer,” please don’t check Psalm 27 or read ahead. It’s not about the “right answer,” it’s about where you are right now in your relationship with God. Write down the one thing you would ask of the Lord.
In this particular psalm, the one thing David asks “is to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” He wants to dwell in the temple of God and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. He wants to be present to God here and now. This is a description of what I would call “contemplation.” This dwelling happens in our hearts; God is already alive in the temple of our hearts. We just need to awaken to it. This awakening happens when we silence our needs and focus on God’s needs for the world.
When we wake up to this reality, we will sing songs of joy!
But we have to continue to ask and seek.
David says that his heart seeks God’s face, “Your face Lord, I will seek.” He wants a face to face relationship with the Ultimate Mystery. He says that if we have this type of relationship with God that we will “see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”
That’s the invitation: to see the goodness of creation around us. Keep our focus on goodness and not evil. Or as St. Paul tells us in Colossians 3:2 “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
When we dwell in the house of the Lord, we begin to experience God’s heart for us and the world that he created. We begin to have confidence in God’s mercy, love, and forgiveness. We are confident that God will not abandon us, that Divine light will continue to rescue us. That God will teach us His ways. This is what our world needs right now.
And how is it that we develop this focus? David explains again the one thing: “Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart. Wait for the Lord.”
When we wait for the Lord in the silence of our hearts, he will become alive again in each of us. And we share that life with the world around us. Our external behavior becomes a reflection of our inner world of love. We act like winners for love.
Isaiah 30:18 “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion, for the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him.”