“But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.” –Malachi 4:2a
At the retreat last month, I told a story of how, for years, I believed that because of my sin, God was chronically so disappointed in me that it led God to feel disdain toward me (don’t worry—I’m okay now). I didn’t have egregious sin in my life, but I had internalized the belief that I just wasn’t enough: didn’t have enough faith, didn’t pray enough, wasn’t a good enough mom, etc., etc. I had heard, of course—over and over—that God loved me, and I believed it conceptually, but my felt experience was one of God not liking me much at all.
Then, early in my seminary journey, I learned a new spiritual discipline—visio divina—and practiced it with Rublev’s Trinity icon. Once, while contemplating the never-ending flow of love within the Trinity, all of a sudden it hit me: Just how powerful did I think I was that anything about me could change the very nature of God, which is love? In that moment I knew: it didn’t matter if I ever felt God’s love, because the absolute, unchangeable truth was that God loves me because God wants to and because love is who and what God is, and there’s not a thing in the world I can do about it. Let me put it another way….
My guess is that you’re inside somewhere while reading this, with a roof over your head that is blocking your view of the sun. But do you doubt the sun is out there, 93 million-ish miles away, doing its thing? On the darkest and stormiest of nights, do you fear that the sun has stopped producing the necessary warmth, heat, and light for life on earth? Do you worry that somehow you might do something that extinguishes the sun? My guess is that you don’t. My guess is that we so take for granted that the sun is functioning properly that we never give it even a first thought, much less a second one. We inherently know that the sun is continually fusing hydrogen and helium, sustaining life on Earth, and there’s not a thing we can do about it.
Friends, God’s love for you is more consistent, more dependable, more unrelenting than the rays of the sun, and there’s not a thing you can do about it. The only thing missing is awareness. The next time you walk outside on a sunny day, please take a moment to turn your face toward the sun’s healing rays, and become aware, again, of God’s never-ceasing love for you. Let’s walk in the light of God’s love together.
