If I owe all I have for being created, what can I add to being remade, and being remade in this way?  It was less easy to remake me than to make me.  It is written not only about me but of every created being, ”He spoke and they were made.”  (Psalm 148:2)  But He who made me by a single word, in remaking me had to speak many words, work miracles, suffer hardships, and not only hardships but even unjust treatment.  “What shall I render to the Lord for all that He has given me?”  (Psalm 115:2)  In the first work He gave me myself; in His second work He gave me Himself; when He gave me Himself, He gave me back myself.  Given and regiven, I owe myself twice over.  What can I give God in return for Himself? …

God certainly deserves a lot from us since He gave Himself to us when we deserved it least.  Besides, what could He give us better than Himself?  Hence when seeking why God should be loved, if one asks what right He has to be loved, the answer is that the main reason for loving Him is “He loved us first” [1 John 4:9-10].  Surely He is worthy of being loved in return when one thinks of Who loves, whom He loves, and how much He loves… This divine love is sincere, for it is the love of One who does not seek His own advantage.

Bernard of Clairvaux – On Loving God

Last night my heart feasted on excerpts from Bernard of Clairvaux’s “On Loving God” (so rich – if you do not know who Bernard is, I recommend researching his life and writings) along with the glorious Gospel of John.  I love John… I have to say.  Packed and overflowing with Love Incarnate and Meekness Divine.  Anyway, I read Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus (John 3) in a new way last night after reading the above.  ”Given and regiven…”  “You must be born again…”  “God so loved the world that He gave…”  “Worthy of being loved…”  

My heart was reeling in light of Love Revealed in the Face of Christ and the grace that pours over His lips with each word from His mouth.  I felt like saying, “Who ARE You?”  Who are You God?   I am undone again, as if we were just meeting for the first time!  How do You do that?  Only one taste, a tiny little morsel of Your goodness, unearths a bottomless abyss of longing within me to love You and be loved by You.  What can I offer in return to Love so transcedent, so absolute?  What can I give to the One that not only HAS but IS everything?  Who I am that You are mindful of me… that You came so near, so close… that You remade me and called me “Yours” when I deserved less than nothing from You… that my “I love You” matters at all to Your infinitely perfect heart?  Who ARE You?  And Lord, who am I?  Tell me again… I will not relent until You bless me.

I have so far to go, yet He is my confidence, the Author and Perfecter of my faith.  He’s faithful.  He’s good.  Loving Jesus today.

Taste and see that the Lord is good…  (Psalm 34:8a)

Your right hand upholds me and Your gentleness makes me great…  (Psalm 18:35b)

You have stolen My heart, my sister, my bride… you have stolen My heart with one glance of your eyes…  (Song of Solomon 4:9)

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 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 him… we love because He first loved us.   (1 John 4:15-16, 19)

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.        (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

There is a cause.  There is a reason… so my heart is on a journey deeper into the waiting room where I knock, I ask, I seek in Mary’s room until the Teacher comes and calls my Name (John 11).  I will journey deeper into faith, for He who is coming will come and not delay… and I want to be called His friend on that day.  The cost of friendship (with God) is of no loss to me – I count not the cost of pain or of shadows, for I know that You do.  I only know that I am gripped by the tyrant of Love and a heart that longs only for Your words, “Friend, come up higher – come nearer…”  No man can ease the desire of my heart and no devil can thwart the force that compels me.  I am but a servant to Love, crushed in its torrents and breakers.  (copied from a 2002 journal entry)