Thank you for joining us! Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:
On our Hummingbirds devotional, Lily Chili wrote:
“Beautiful. Just beautiful. I can identify with being little, yet tenacious! If God had made me any bigger I would be imposing.”
Thanks for the sweet comment, Lily! It made us smile. Lily Chili has her own provocative newsletter called Truth Love & Swears where she writes about nature, spirituality, metaphysics, and the nitty-gritty. Check it out!
If you want to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!
Now, on with this week’s devotional…
the hour after it rains the treetops are pregnant with it and in the sunshine a strong enough breeze will shake a second rain loose and if you happen to be below you'll laugh surprised to feel a second rain upon your shoulders; to think that Creator-God loves us enough to surprise us with a second rain when we least expect it treetops pregnant with grace for growth; love falling on unsuspecting shoulders.
How does it make you feel to think that God loves you?
If you’re like so many of us—Christian or non-Christian alike—your brain just switched onto the track it follows when we hear something cliche and abstract.
Yes, God loves me in a distant, fond sort of way. Yes, Jesus loved me enough to die for me…2,000 years ago. (Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.) Yes, I am loved by God because God loves all of His children equally.
God is love, yes. God loves me, sure.
Let me ask you: what is the key to your heart? What could you spend hours doing, enjoying, savoring? What makes you smile, soothes your racing mind, and makes you feel fulfilled? What delights you?
The things we love are gateways to the heart of God.
The love of God is anything but abstract. He delights in you when you delight in the loves He gave you. Each thrill of your heart thrills His. Each time you catch your breath with amazement, He catches His. Because you delight Him. The things you love delight Him. He made you that way. He gave you that.
The love of God is like rain. It falls on us all, yes. But sometimes we get a burst, a second rain, something personal. Passing under a tree when she shakes her branches loose and all the droplets from the previous rain-shower fall. God is like that.
And when we laugh in surprise, if we listen, we can hear Him laugh, too.
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I love your poetry...the mystical feel, the awe, the delight, the simplicity and elegance and the invitational quality that is inclusive of wherever one finds themselves on the journey. Radiant! And thank you for the shout out! I don't try to be provocative on purpose - it just comes naturally. Yesterday it felt like the liminal space between storm and sun and I told my husband, "I think we'll get a little rain...if we don't get at least a few drops, I'll be surprised. Hopefully we'll get enough to water the plants but miss the storm entirely." And sure enough, we did. We got a wonderful full-on, yet gentle sprinkle and a whole chain of storms passed us by. That, to me, is the delight of God.
Becoming aware of God’s personal love for me is what has kept me alive.