For some reason, this piece by Merton really caused me to pause.
We must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good. His inscrutable love seeks our awakening. True, since this awakening implies a kind of death to our exterior self, we will dread His coming in proportion as we are identified with this exterior self and attached to it. But when we understand the dialectic of life and death we will learn to take the risk implied by faith, to make the choices that deliver us from our routine self and open to us the door of a new being, a new reality.
I was immediately grasped by the comment "the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good." It is like a refreshing drink of water on a hot day. More than that...it is the marvelous announcement that I am never beyond the boundaries of God's love and that this love is the power to turn me around. That make we wonder again about 'repentance' and how it is really God's action that makes repentance a reality. In seeking our good, God steps in and announces a love that is always available and always powerful enough to overcome any situation in any day of our lives. Some days I need to be overwhelmed and uplifted and awakened to this truth that I often refuse to see when I am caught up in this "exterior" self...this superficial life that refuses to take the time to lift up my eyes to see the glory of God all around me.
Connection: We are being pursued by someone whose love is ready to make us whole....and though we can opt to hide away...we are never hidden and never forgotten. That is the shape of this day.
Lord of Love, you never give up do you?!? You watch us run around and run away and yet you follow our every step...not behind us, but with us in each step. It is truly an amazing grace. Amen.
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