Is it OK if We Do Tuesday Theology, this Week

Psalm 6:8-9, "...the Lord has heard my weeping.  The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer" (NIV).

Sometimes I feel as if one of two things must be true.  Either, I am more broken than most people, or, I am more transparent than most people.  This should not be confused with completely transparent.  That, I am not, although I am trying on a daily basis to become so.

There is something that holds me back, though.  It's not God.  It's people.  God is so much more merciful than people.  Some of the things that have me weeping?  There would be little mercy about these things from humanity.  So as I read from Psalm 6, today, I found myself actually questioning, is it enough?  Is God's mercy enough?  Is it enough that God accepts my prayer?  Because sometimes this is hard to believe when other people make me feel as if my very best is less than adequate.

I continue to be amazed, however, at the ways in which God as mercy and God as love come together. 

I John 4 has been a favorite passage of Scripture for me for decades.  I always laugh a little bit when people refer to "the love chapter", and they're talking about I Corinthians 13.  I mean, it certainly is a love chapter.  But for me, I John 4 is the one.  I could include the whole thing here, but for today how about just:

I John 4:16, "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them" (NIV).

The answer is yes.  This is enough.  This is sufficient.  There really isn't anything else.

I think we make love far more complicated than it has to be.  And, therefore, we make God far more complicated than God has to be.  God and love?  Synonymous.

I recognize that this is too simplistic.  Part of the problem is that we don't have enough words, and part of the problem is that we all define words differently, and part of the problem is that many of us have stopped learning.

And so I love this:

Proverbs 4:7, "The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.  Though it cost all you have, get understanding" (NIV).

And I really get this, because wisdom and understanding are costing me everything, right now.  No kidding.  Everything.

But there's something more:

Proverbs 4:23, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it" (NIV).

I want to love like God.  I want my heart to be so full of God's love that nothing else can flow from it... that it overflows... that love is simply my natural mode of being.

L.