This morning in Church, we digested Matthew 6:24-34 --
24“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Do Not Worry
25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his lifeb?
28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
--and the speaker (I don't yet know what all the different positions are in the Anglican church) made a point of reminding us that God considers each of us as his treasure, his most cherished piece of creation, and that we could never fathom how much love he has for us. If we did know, we would never get the impulse to worry, because we would know that we were completely safe in his love. She pointed to several individuals in the audience, saying, "You are his treasured creation, more loved and important to him than you could know. And you. And you."
I think it's a struggle for many, if not most people to remember this day to day. We know we're not perfect, we know the worst parts of ourselves, and we see ourselves in a constantly revolving state of failure. Sometimes it's hard enough for us to believe that the people in our lives who say they love us really do; we wonder if our parents would rather they hadn't had children, if our spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends are quietly growing more and more distant because they're not really in it anymore and just don't know how to say it, if our friends, roommates, siblings, cousins, would, at any given moment, rather be with someone else than with us. And these people aren't in touch with a whole world made up of billions of people who are easily more interesting, hard working, beautiful, smart, and just better than us. God is. How could he love us this much?
But the point is he does.
However, he doesn't just love us. He loves everyone. He loves each person in the world (and throughout the universe, I feel safe in presuming) as much as he loves us. He loves Mahatma Ghandi as much as he loves me, and he loves Mother Theresa as much as he loves me, but he also loves Paris Hilton as much as he loves me, he loves haters on YouTube as much as he loves me. He even loves Hitler as much as he loves me.
That's something that I have troubles with, far more than with the "he loves me" bit. Because even though I can't get to the 100% knowledge of his love, there are moments when I feel it, and aspects of my life that affirm it's truth. But the knowledge of his love for everyone is less reflexive and self-evident, and more of a muscles that must be continuously flexed.
I'm putting this post here so that, some day, when the need arises, I can return to it and remember.
<3 spadeALLcross
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