....love is made complete.

"You can't give what you don't have"


Those words echoed in my head as I walked the shoreline. I could feel the water between my toes, coming in and leaving again, in the steady rhythm of the tide. At the same time I could feel the water streaming down my face as I surveyed an empty beach.


What was it I wanted to give? God's Love. What was the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world, but didnt think I had? God's love.


It has always felt like the greatest irony in the world to teach and preach of the Father's compassionate love while my own soul has remained numb to it's reality. But thats what I did. Out of an inability to truly mourn my past hurts, to truly come to God as the broken person I am, I created what Brennan Manning calls in his book "Abba's Child" the impostor. The impostor is a fake self, born of fear and grown by the constant harsh realities of the human condition.


I've told my self my whole life, that I can only be accepted when everything is going well. When I perform well, I please God. When I dont, he is disappointed. I told myself that God loves me in spite of my sin, when the truth is that he loves me with it, because that is full acceptance.


I think what breaks the heart of God more than anything is our fear and self rejection. We fear ourselves and everything and everyone around us, and we project our hatred of ourselves and our fearing of screwing up onto God.


"When I remove my pride....love is made complete"


Thomas Merton says "The reason we never enter into the deepest reality of our relationship with God, is that we so seldom acknowledge our utter nothingness before him."


In 2 Corinthians 12:9 the apostle Paul writes "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."


I guess you could say I am learning to come to terms with my weakness. I believe God loves me in a way I havent believed in a while. 


And I believe this is everything. I have made it my life to do anything humanly possible to give the love of the Father to those around me. I have toiled, studied, worked, done everything in my power to show his love to others.


But. "You can't give what you dont have." So God is showing me now that I do have his love. That I have something to give. That, as Macaulay Culkin put it in Home Alone "I'm not afraid anymore!"


I'm through with self-rejection, and through with fear. Fully recognizing that I am Gods son, and he is my father. Fully recognizing that while this will continue to be a process, God has in fact met me on that beach in Atlantic City. He is transforming me and conforming me to the likeness of his son.


Only when I feel safe with God do I feel safe with myself. And I'm learning to feel safe with God.

When I remove my pride.....

It's really, really hard for me to sit here with nothing to do today. Really, really hard.

Now, obviously, being that I'm sitting in a hotel room in beautiful Atlantic City with this problem, you must be saying to yourself  "Corey, thats a great problem to have! It's not even a problem!" While that sentiment rings true in many ways, in my mind the difficulty with being bugged by having nothing to do hints at a much deeper issue for myself.

I was asked about a month ago what it meant to me to be "fearfully & wonderfully made" as the psalmist put it in Psalm 139. My response? "If thats true, it means I lack purpose."

You see, so much of who I am has become defined by what I do, and not just my career, but my accomplishments, my awards, my applause, my praise, my circle of friends, my calendar. All of that stuff has come to define me.

I wish the answer was as simple as I just need to clear my calendar up and stop being so busy, but even when I stare at an empty task list like I am right now, I try to invent ways to be busy. I cant just....... be.

If I am fearfully & wonderfully made by God, that means he loves me for me! That means that the things I do that others may celebrate or the world may look at as success, ultimately have no bearing on how God feels about me!

That notion upsets me greatly. "But God!" I say, " You cant love me for me! Its not possible! I am as good as what I produce! Everybody knows that. The world affirms that. Why cant you get with the picture?"

This is the message I give myself: To do is to be loved, to be loved is the result of what I produce and how I earn it.

I feel the gentle whisper of the Father giving me a new message this week: "You are my son, nothing changes that. I love you buddy! I love you because you are you! I loved you before you ever did anything!"

Whoa.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in his book "Life Together" that "all sin is rooted in pride." Yes! Because pride doesnt just mean we think more highly of ourselves, it also is prideful when we let our insecurities rule in us as well! Pride is a total and unwavering focus on the self, on me. My rights, my honor, my glory.

Pride has to get out of the way for perfect love to be made complete in us.

Its not instantaneous, but I'm on the journey. I've taken another step on the road to realizing that the God who created our vast universe, who created this ocean I'm currently staring at, loves me.

We are "significantly insignificant" as Louie Giglio put it. Our lives are a breath, our planet but a tiny blue dot in the galaxy. Yet God took our form to die for us, he took our form to be with us. Why? Because that is the very nature of God, to love.

You are loved. Period. It's a fact, a truth. So be loved. It can be harder than I ever realized to accept this truth sometimes, but it's still truth :)

Delaware.

I hug the darkness
wear it like a badge
lock it away inside
fear drives me mad

Scared of the light
of what's underneath
Scared of hoping
I hide under the sheets

Oh Delaware, I'm aware
my confession, needs to be made
Oh Maryland, could you
let love land?
Let it fall right at my feet.

Trees in bloom
make some room
for spring to rise
for love to be true

But this winter ark
built in my heart
two by two, marches every doubt
I have about you

Oh Delaware, I'm aware

my confession, needs to be made

Oh Maryland, could you

let love land?

Let it fall right at my feet.

The dust kicks up

when you touch my heart

a road less traveled

place I've never been

But, life draws nigh

and the summer sky

the dove in the sky

show signs of peace again.