Last night I began to write something I thought might turn into a blog post. Instead it turned into a love poem in which God seemed to echo back to me. I'm not going to share the poem with you, but I will share one beautiful thought that came from it:
Jesus is the One who was dead and now lives forever, so that He may enter the places of our own death and revive them.
The love that has begun to flow out of my heart for God is not my own. I didn't put it there; I don't understand it; I couldn't sustain it. It came from Him, it comes from Him, and only He can make it flourish. To find it, I had to let go of something inside of me, something that thought it knew who God was and what was enough in our relationship. Something religious, in other words.
Even the letting go was, and ever will be, from Him.
God doesn't meet us very deeply in religion. We might make His acquaintance there, but we'll stay on the "just good friends" level until we let go of our mission to adjust ourselves or the world to match the image we have of Him. Until we let go of our mission to adjust God Himself to match the image we have of Him. Until we just fall on our faces before Him and say, "I surrender."
What ultimately stems from religion is frustration, anger, and dissension. By contrast, what ultimately stems from letting Him take over is love, and more. The overflow of two hearts desperately and eternally committed to one another.
Sure beats religion. :)